In August, Bushra Rehman celebrated the launch of her first novel Corona (Sibling Rivalry Press). Corona was featured in Poets & Writers Best Debut Fiction issue. The Readings /Workshops Program co-funded the book event An Ode to Corona with the South Asian Women’s Creative Collective and Rehman’s writing workshop Two Truths and a Lie: Writing Autobiographical Fiction.

The first question people always ask me about my novel Corona is if it’s true. Yes, like me the character is a Pakistani who grew up in Corona, Queens, worked as a Puritan in a living history museum, and hitchhiked up and down the East Coast in her twenties, but to say Razia’s life is my life is somehow still not true. Razia is Bushra 2.0: stronger, faster, smarter, quicker. She says all the things I wish I’d said. She doesn’t take as much bull crap. She’s me without the endless hours of agonizing, worrying, and being depressed. Also, most of the events in the book didn’t really happen.

Corona is a work of autobiographical fiction. It lives in that slippery place between memoir and fantasy. Autobiographical fiction skims the fat off the truth and then uses it to create rich buttery deserts for the reader’s pleasure. It recognizes that our lives are too fascinating not to write about and our imaginations too strong to ignore. Autobiographical fiction is an endless source of confusion for readers who want to know what really happened.

I’ll never forget the moment on Fresh Air, when Adrienne Rich schooled Terry Gross for asking the “biography question.” I sympathized with Gross because Rich had scolded me once, also with good reason, and it was scary. Rich, as always, was eloquent on the matter. She explained why the question upset her. Much of current literary criticism, she said, has devolved into a strange case of connect-the-dots between the writer’s life and work. The understanding of craft, of the writer’s use of language, is lost in these conversations.

I understood what Rich was saying. There’s an implication that autobiographical work is simply an advanced form of journaling. This couldn’t be further from the truth. When sharing a hilarious, creepy, or life-altering story, which might have really happened, the writer can’t stop halfway and say, “You just had to be there.” She must use all her skills to make readers feel they were there. Even more difficult, the writer must live the life first, a life of imagination, a life worthy of fiction.

As a Pakistani-American, the question of autobiography becomes more loaded. There are so few narratives available that readers grasp for straws. All too often, I’ve had people tell me that they just read a novel about a Pakistani woman who was forced into an arranged marriage or kidnapped by bandits and they think this is how all of our lives pan out. So I always add in my interviews that Corona is a work of fiction and not meant to represent the lives of all Pakistani women. All of us don’t dress up in Puritan costumes and work in recreated seventeenth century villages in Salem, Massachusetts.

This burden of representation, plus the fear of hurting our friends and family and adding to the racism in this country by airing our community’s dirty laundry, scares many writers of color away from writing their stories. For this reason, I developed the workshop "Two Truths and a Lie: Writing Memoir and Autobiographical Fiction." Last winter, the Readings/Workshop Program co-sponsored this class with the Asian American Writers’ Workshop. Tune in next week to read some of the tips I shared with my students to help them overcome their fears and write inspired by both the truth and lies of their lives.

Photo: Bushra Rehman. Credit: Jaishri Abichandani

Support for Readings/Workshops in New York City is provided, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, with additional support from the Louis & Anne Abrons Foundation, the Axe-Houghton Foundation, The Cowles Charitable Trust, the Abbey K. Starr Charitable Trust, and the Friends of Poets & Writers.

Windows, like frames for photos and paintings, provide a context to the vast world around us. Sit by your favorite window and write a poem about life beyond the glass: diaphanous oak leaves spangled in sunlight, fatigued workers hanging from a garbage truck, chirping songbirds flitting through summer rain, a hunched elderly neighbor who feels forgotten. Remember: This is your window as defined by your life. Give yourself thirty minutes. 

In August 2013, P&W-funded writer Bushra Rehman released--eleven weeks after the birth of her daughter--Corona (Sibling Rivalry Press), a dark comedy about being South Asian in the United States. Rehman has been supported by the Readings/Workshops Program for her writing workshop "Two Truths and a Lie: Writing Autobiographical Fiction." Her novel, Corona, was featured in Poets & Writers Best Debut Summer Fiction.

I just gave birth to a book and a baby. It turns out that in the time it took from the acceptance of my manuscript to the moment of its publication, I could create a small human being in my body. I’d never thought I’d give birth, but I’d dreamed of my book launch like other women (at least according to bad television) dream of their wedding days. I used to think motherhood would make it impossible to write. I didn’t know my daughter would change my entire approach to the writing life.

To Become a Better Writer, Become a Marathon Runner or Get Knocked Up

In What I Talk About When I Talk about Running, Haruki Murakami makes a case for staying in optimum health. He says the body needs to be cared for like any essential in a writer’s toolbox. I finally understood what he meant. Although I’d spent almost a decade working on my novel, in the light of my vitamin-pumped, fruit-and-vegetable-filled, caffeine-alcohol-and-smoke-free body, I suddenly saw structural flaws I was able to fix in the knick of time. It was as if my daughter was the messenger carrying the results of the soil test in Pisa, reaching the architects before the first piece of marble was laid.

Like Babies Through the Hourglass, So Are the Days of Our Lives

A newborn will show the passage of time like nobody’s business. Did she just have a growth spurt and burst out of that onesie while I was changing her diaper? Yes, she did! I know if I want to finish my next book, I better get to it before I’m attending her graduation wearing Depends. (This last detail might only apply to older parents like me.) I no longer make excuses or wait for long stretches of time to work. Whether it is at 4 a.m. or 10 p.m., if I have five minutes, I write.

Take the Red Pill and Leave the Matrix

The first time I heard Hanif Kureishi speak, an audience member asked him how he found the discipline to sit in a room every day and work. His answer was: “How do you leave the room?” I know what he meant. I too had become chained to my laptop. With my daughter, I had to unplug. At first I was resistant… Must check Facebook... But then I began to wonder: What is she looking at? Oh, wow, it’s a... cloud… it’s a geometrically surreal pattern on my pillowcase that’s pretty trippy. Following her line of vision, I was amazed by each tiny miracle strewn throughout my world and was reminded it was this poetic eye that had brought me to writing in the first place.

I have a body. My baby has a body, and guess what, everyone in the world has a body, including my characters.

Giving birth forced me to realize I wasn’t just a floating head in space. Not only did I experience a form of pain that burned away a layer of my soul, I suddenly saw the world of my characters as a world filled with fleshy beings. I could see their bodies like I could see my baby’s goofy-sweet smile and light-filled eyes.

Yes, my baby is the best audience in the world. She laughs at everything I read, but before you run out and get pregnant, you should know taking care of a newborn is hard, harder than you would ever believe! You don’t have to be pregnant or give birth to benefit from these thoughts. Try it for nine months: Live as if you were growing a human being inside you, unplug, re-enter your physical body and world. See what it does for your writing. If you do it without a newborn, you might even get some sleep.

Photo: Bushra Rehman. Credit: Jaishri Abichandani

Support for Readings/Workshops in New York City is provided, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, with additional support from the Louis & Anne Abrons Foundation, the Axe-Houghton Foundation, The Cowles Charitable Trust, the Abbey K. Starr Charitable Trust, and the Friends of Poets & Writers.

PEN American Center, the New York City–based branch of the world’s leading literary and human rights organization, has announced the winners of the 2013 PEN literary awards. 

First-time novelist Sergio De La Pava received the organization’s most lucrative award, the $25,000 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, given annually for a debut work of fiction. A Naked Singularity, De La Pava’s novel about the son of Columbian immigrants, was originally self-published in 2008 before being picked up by the University of Chicago Press.

Katherine Boo won the $10,000 PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction for Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity (Random House), which won the National Book Award in nonfiction last year. Robert Hass received the $10,000 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay for his collection What Light Can Do (Ecco). The awards are given to writers of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, as well as translators, playwrights, young adult authors, and editors.

“Every year PEN’s literary awards recognize the brightest lights in literary fiction and nonfiction and honor the sustained careers of writers who are distinguished in their fields, raising awareness for a diverse array of outstanding books,” said PEN President Peter Godwin. “These awards represent the best of PEN’s work in defense of free expression throughout the world—fighting censorship, promoting translations into English, and honoring both the new and well-known authors who make up the core of PEN as an organization. Their voices amplify our advocacy work.”

The winners and finalists will be honored at a ceremony at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City on October 21. Visit the PEN American website for more information on the annual awards program.

Jenny Sadre-Orafai is the author of four chapbooks. Recent poetry has appeared in Rhino, [PANK], The Bakery, Sixth Finch, ILK, iO: A Journal of New American Poetry, and Poemeleon. Recent prose has appeared in The Rumpus, Delirious Hem, the Los Angeles Review, and South Loop Review. She is co-founding editor of Josephine Quarterly and an Assistant Professor of English at Kennesaw State University. This past spring, she participated in a P&W–supported reading with poet Heather Tosteson at the Dekalb Public Library in Atlanta.

What opportunities are there for younger writers such as yourself to build a literary life/livelihood?
The internet and social networking sites are wonderful resources for those who, like me, might be shier than others. They serve as great tools to be in conversation with other writers.

There is also much to be said for writers’ conferences and being in that kind of environment. There’s a sense of camaraderie and mentorship that is difficult to find once you leave college (if you attend college).

It’s really important that younger writers are proactive and seek out living the literary life if that’s what they truly want. Being passive isn’t really an option when it comes to being a writer, not for me at least.

Does your bicultural background (Mexican and Iranian) play a significant role in your writing?
So much of what I write about is who I am and who I came from. What Her Hair Says About Her, my second chapbook, is largely about having dark hair and wanting blonde hair, and then wanting my dark hair back. I associate my hair color with where I come from.

My fourth chapbook, Avoid Disaster, is based on my research of different superstitions from around the world. Those poems were written because I am an extremely superstitious human and because of the superstitions that were a part of my life growing up.

Can you describe a memorable moment from an event you’ve been part of?
After a recent reading, some people came up to tell me that they really enjoyed my poems about my grandmother and how she read coffee cups. That compliment led to a discussion about superstitions—which animals come for the dead in different cultures (a fox in Iran and a hummingbird in Mexico). By the end of the exchange, the group had almost tripled in size.

I always assumed that people would be leery of superstitions, but I’ve learned that most people are not only intrigued by them, they also don’t find them terribly difficult to believe. The conversations that happen after readings—and the listening I get to practice—are what makes them even more rewarding.

What are your reading dos?
I try to always be prepared with poems I think work well together and have a nice momentum, but I’m also ready to change things up depending on how the reading is going. I'm more aware of breathing and grateful for the opportunity to be heard. Perhaps what’s most important is that I take my time when I read, so I’m there in that moment with everyone else.

…and your reading don’ts?
I avoid long-winded explanations. A little background information here and there allows the reading to be more of a conversation, but I try to limit how much I talk between or about poems since I think the audience is there to hear the poems.

What do you consider to be the value of literary programs for your community?
It’s such an extraordinary thing to be able to meet other people who write or love to read and listen to literature. These programs serve as important reminders that even though writing and reading are mostly solitary acts, we are not so alone.

Photo: Jenny Sadre-Orafai. Credit: Stephanie Sadre-Orafai.
Support for Readings/Workshops events in Atlanta is provided by an endowment established with generous contribution from the Poets & Writers Board of Directors, and others. Additional support comes from the Friends of Poets & Writers.