- Have you had any interactions with writers during your internship experience? How does the writer fit into the publishing setting where you work?
Of course I’ve had interactions with writers, of all genres including screenwriting, I’m interning at a literary magazine! All of these writers are published many times over, but they are acting in editorial positions related to getting said magazine, The Maine Review, published bi-annually. Then, there’s the thousands of writers who submit their work.
I’d mentioned screenwriting – Of all weeks to visit Los Angeles, we arrived the Friday before the Oscar’s in Tinseltown, and we’re staying at a lovely Airbnb a bit over a mile from the Dolby Theater! On the flight here I learned that MeR’s managing editor, A.J. Bermudez co-wrote the screenplay to a dramedy titled,My Dead Friend Zoe with writer/director Kyle Hausmann-Stokes. The film’s cast includes Ed Harris, Morgan Freeman, and Natalie Morales as Zoe, and premiered March 9th at the 2024 SXSW Film & TV Festival, receiving great reviews from The Hollywood Outsider (linked above), 9.2/10 on IMDB, along with a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 100% from eight of their pro critics
This wasn’t A.J.’s first film, she’s written and directed a few of her own.
- Has your internship experience affected the way you think about your own work or your writing identity
Yes and No.
In MFA680 and 681 Kate has been great to remind me to be aware of my propensity to revert to journalistic writing. I’ve been able to see how I gravitate to writing “just the facts,” – telling – instead of showing. I’ve used this knowledge when examining/studying the work of others, not just my own writing, and it’s revealed quite a bit about style, along with what I want and don’t want my writing to be.
For a while now I’ve been interested in dipping my pen into fiction. Getting to know David Grubb, MeR’s fiction editor, reading his book, A Trip From God, and being in the center of Hollywood have broaden my interest in the genre even more. Yesterday, I learned about Autofiction, expanding on the possibilities of my fictionalizing another portion of my life, aside from what I’m writing about now – I felt stupid to have not known it had a name, let alone that it’s a genre!
As synchronicity would have it, last night my son, who we’re visiting, asked my mother and I a ton of questions about my father’s family, questions which led to our recounting some very wild, very true stories, stories that I lived, stories that made Dynasty’s villainous Alexis’s (played by the deliciously wicked Joan Collins) schemes seem tame by comparison.
So, on our fourth night in the Hollywood Land, where Stories are brought to Life, I lulled myself to sleep imagining how my long unremembered stories would be woven into an autofictional tale…