Beginning ANXIOUS ATTACHMENTS, by Beth Alvarado

Essay # 1: A Town Ringed by Missiles

Imagine turning your head and holding your arm out, as if for a blood test. You feel a slight prick, you loosen the tie, and then suddenly this warmth floods up; you feel a rush that begins at the base of your spine and surges up until it explodes in your head, like light. Then, for hours, you float in a bubble of warmth and well-being, dreams as vivid as movies drift before your eyes. This is why people like heroin.

Imagine you no longer feel like an ordinary girl, bland and vulnerable, but like a girl who is daring, an outsider, one of the guys.

This is why I tried it in the first place.

Beth, is this you, Beth?

I knew you when I was a shy Filipina in the Stanford Creative Writing Program, 23 years old and tongue-tied. And possibly the most naive person ever to enter a Creative Writing Program. And you were kind to me. Why didn’t you just stick me in a trash can and say, You’re hopeless! You convent-bred wuss! I mean, I would have understood if you burst out laughing at every single thing I said in workshop. I even attempted to be more “American” by choosing to spend my first month in the program reading — guess what? No, not Raymond Carver. Not Grace Paley. Moby Dick! Lame! Now I hate Herman Melville!

But, let’s turn back to the essay I’ve just started reading:

Janis was still alive, I think, maybe even Morrison and Hendrix. The Civil Rights Bill was six years old.

Stay tuned.

Dear Memory, p. 58

Self is really enjoying Dear Memory, the bursts of elliptical writing.

From the letter “Dear Teacher”:

• I stumbled into your poetry workshop even though I wasn’t studying poetry. I was one of the few graduate students there. I remember you at the head of a long, wooden table, presiding, as if your chair were a throne. The room was brown with wood everywhere. We were knights of poetry. Our plates were white sheets of paper filled with our own flesh. Your words were infinite. They were an entire country.

Banff Centre for the Arts: Introducing the Program in Literary Journalism

This summer, from July 4 to July 16, Banff is offering a new program, Literary Journalism. Meetings are in-person on the Banff campus. Self knows one of the instructors, Charlotte Gill.

Self was at Banff Writers Studio, seven years ago, when she was just starting her novel, and the feedback she got from her mentors was invaluable. She wishes she could enroll for this program, as she’d do anything to get back to Banff again, but she’s not a journalist. (The only caveat was that she got fat. They give you a food allowance at the start, and there are five eateries to choose from. By the end of the five weeks, everyone in her program was complaining how much weight they’d gained. Then we had to pose for group pictures, which was really embarrassing.)

At the MacLab, she once sat one table over from k. d. lang — exciting, except she didn’t find out until after k.d. lang left. Part of the Writer’s Studio is giving a public reading, and self signed up for the very last day. She was so nervous, she had to drink a glass of wine beforehand. The story she read from was “Sand,” and had — profanity! There was some restless movement from the audience when she uttered the first word. After that, only laughter. So great.

btw, it took a while, but “Sand” finally found a home last year, in Pembroke Magazine:

Banff Centre’s Literary Journalism 2022 program encourages the exploration of new ideas in journalism and experimentation in writing. Designed to challenge and stimulate, the program aims to inspire creative pieces of nonfiction and to assist the writers in their completion. A preeminent space for long-form journalism, this residency emphasizes the strengths of thorough and articulate reporting, distinctive storytelling, and literary devices.

Application Deadline: March 9, 2022

Complete information can be found here.

LIWANAG Online Workshops

Ah, San Francisco. A city of neighborhoods. Never has she needed your help more than at this moment.

Liwanag is a cultural organization with deep roots in a section of the city historically populated by Filipino residents (not so anymore, but the traces are there).

They’re putting together an anthology (Deadline: Aug. 23, 2020)

Information on submission guidelines, and on two upcoming workshops, are on the website

.