One Word

Issue 1

Fall 2017

One Word a literary endeavor

per·cep·tion

(per-sep-shun) noun

(1) THE ABILITY TO SEE, HEAR, OR BECOME AWARE THROUGH THE SENSES (2) THE STATE OF BEING OR PROCESS OF BECOMING AWARE OF SOMETHING THROUGH THE SENSES (3) A WAY OF REGARDING, UNDERSTANDING, OR INTERPRETING SOMETHING; A MENTAL IMPRESSION

Looking beyond the dictionary...

Created by

Jacob Maren Contributors Margot Lee Shetterly Jennifer Egan Karen Shepard Andre Dubus III Anthony Doerr Richard Russo Jim Shepard Ben Fountain Hannah Tinti Scott Cheshire Karen Russell Said Sayrafiezadeh

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Introduction

W

e all come of age in something that is retrospectively defined as an era. An era is known by its advancements and setbacks, its milestones and its fiascos, its blessings and curses.

An era is entirely cultural. As a culture and society, we have decided to group people who have come of age together: silent generation, baby boomers, millennials, and so forth. As an eighteen year old coming of age in the early 21st century, I’ve grown up in a world (or era) with many blessings and curses, though two of these stand out in my life: growing up in the literary world and in the technological world. At first glance, these two worlds seem entirely separate from one another, but they are truly intertwined in their own unique way.

Growing up with two writer parents —one a novelist and memoirist, and the other a director and screenwriter—I have spent my life surrounded by physical books. In our “library,” which is the center of our house, I have grown up with Jack Kerouac and Ken Kesey, with Kazuo Ishiguro and E.L Doctorow, far-off legendary figures, intimidating and unknown. But then there are the writers who are more than familiar to me: Anthony Doerr, Jennifer Egan, Richard Russo, Andre Dubus III, and the list goes on. I have grown up spending time with these writers “off the page.” It can be annoying being a high school friend of mine in a bookstore: “I know him!”

“She’s a great writer!” “We’ve played football together on the beach!” These are not just names on book jackets to me. I can hear their voices, their laughs. I know that they struggle to write. I have truly gotten to know them and am lucky to call them my friends. This has, in turn, helped me look deeper into their writing. I have developed curiosity about the worlds they create, and also the lives they live. This has been a blessing.

I was surrounded by thousands of books but didn’t have any inclination to open their covers.

B

ut blessings aren’t always blessings until you find them to be blessings yourself. I wasn’t born with curiosity about books or the people who spend their lives writing them. I used to actually find it a curse. I would ask my parents: “Why do we only take work vacations?”

“Why do I always hang out with grown-ups?” I never found the motivation to read. The words would blow right by me, like a gust of wind. I didn’t absorb what I was reading. I never really got it — so it was easy to just give up. When I was asked by writers what my favorite book was, I would stand blank-faced and mute. Because of my parents, I felt Iike I was supposed to be a reader, but I just wasn’t. I was surrounded by thousands of books, but didn’t have any inclination to open their covers. But as I entered high school, something began to change. It turned out that all those years of not being a reader – and not being forced to become a reader – had suddenly made me…well… a reader. The characters from those thousands of books started to seep into my everyday conversations. We read Jack Kerouac’s On the Road in school, and I found that conversations about Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty continued outside the

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classroom. My friends and I argued and laughed, and imagined ourselves on a road trip some day. Kerouac’s characters had come alive for me, and for the first time I understood the way a fictional world could be as real as the world I live in. They – along with so many other characters – now sit in my library at home as we speak, waiting to be discovered or re-discovered.

E

ven as I was finding my passion for reading, my library created another dilemma as I grew older. A fifty inch flat screen television dominated the room, containing more words and information than the thousands of books sitting on all the shelves. Using one remote or another, I could watch the beginning of a movie, change my mind, turn on the news. I could be watching a YouTube video, or online shopping. The writer Ron Carlson, a family friend, once said that reading or writing on a screen is like trying to read or write in the middle of an amusement park. This is the technological world that my peers and I have come to regard as second nature. And here is where the idea of an era comes back into play. I am technically considered “Generation Z” which is the “screen age” according to the Washington Post. Instead of being defined by something culturally rich and rewarding, my generation, my era, is being defined by our screens which are, in many ways, tearing apart the fabric of culture.

The electronics that Gen Z has grown up with were originally designed to foster better communication and to achieve the goal of a globalized and interconnected world. But instead, we are less and less connected.

My generation has never experienced a moment that couldn’t be filled by reaching for a device. I’m totally guilty of this myself. Our short term memory has been taken over. Picture this scenario: you are sitting in your comfy chair in your house. You must have a comfy chair in your house. You only have five minutes before you need to leave to get to your next meeting. There are lots of things you could do in those minutes. But somehow it seems that the only option is to pick up your phone and look at the constant stream of content until it is time to leave. For so many of us, this has become the only option.

This is my motivation for creating One Word, my literary magazine, or literary endeavor, which is how I think of it. For those of you reading this online, I would prefer for you to to print it out.

It is not conceived to read on a device, so by pressing command-p, you are doing what this magazine is designed to do. There is such beauty in what is physical. What you can hold in your hands. It is there, like the library filled with thousands of books, waiting to be made alive simply by opening them.

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A Brief Interview with

Margot Lee Shetterly

I

n order to clarify the mission of One Word, I decided to interview someone who grew up surrounded by influential people and explore the ways her perception of them changed over time.

I met Margot Lee Shetterly at a writers’ conference in June and read Hidden Figures weeks later.

In the first few pages of the book, Shetterly talks about growing up in a world surrounded by “hidden figures,” four African-American women whose important contributions to American military technology and the space program were ignored in history textbooks. This made me curious about how she came to understand their stories and how it was she decided to write about them – which was, essentially, what I was attempting to do with One Word.

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J

acob: When did you first encounter Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughn, Mary Jackson and Christine Darden? Had you heard about them before you met them? I’ve heard that when a writer comes across material that she’ll one day write about, she can feel it, almost like a physical, psychological, even spiritual sense. Did you feel any of that? Over time, did your interest in them develop? I’d love to know about what sense you had of them within your community.

M

argot: I met Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson and Christine Darden, when I was a child, because they were part of my parents’ social and professional world. At the time, I saw them as part of the community I lived in, but never thought to write about them until decades later, when time and distance gave me some perspective on their lives and work and what they meant. It took an outsider-- my husband-- remarking on how extraordinary their narratives were for me to see them, and by extension the community I grew up in, as a story that I wanted to tell.

Jacob: Were you always conscious that you wanted to become a writer? Do you think growing up in such an interesting environment — surrounded by amazing stories — had an impact?

Margot: Interestingly, it never occurred to me when I was growing up that I would be a writer.

The choice, as I saw it, was “scientist/engineer” or “something else”. For me, that something else was finance: after graduating from college, I moved to New York and worked on Wall Street. Writing was always an important part of every job I’d ever had, and over time it became more important (working as an online producer at an HBO website, then starting a magazine with my husband). But it’s still pretty amazing to me that now, when people ask me what I do, I get to say “I’m a writer”.

Jacob: At the center of this project, I am approaching a number of writers with one single word — in fact, I am calling the magazine One Word — and asking them to explore how many different personal thoughts, moments, phrases and ideas that come to mind when given that word. How do writers think of language, beyond what is written in the dictionary? What is your perception of perception?

Margot: Perception has as much to do with what we don’t see as what we do see. ____________________

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A

fter getting Margot Lee Shettery’s response, I decided to email over fifteen writers asking if they would come up with their own definition of “perception.” I told them that they could use the word as it relates to their work, the lives they live, or by creating their own story.

The responses I recieved were astonishing. If I had to come up with a hypothesis for how many defintions could there possibly be for this one word, I’d have said five at the most. Maybe six.

But as notes from these writers came rolling in, I realized that every single person had gone in a different direction.

You’ll find their responses throughout the magazine.

The idea of perception is everywhere in their daily work. Perception isn’t just about seeing things, as I had previously thought. It is about all of the senses: smelling, hearing, touching, tasting, and it even goes beyond the basic senses. It turns out to be about “habits of mind,” Jennifer Egan’s phrase. Jim Shepard describes it as the way we analyze what’s been observed. It’s about how we interact with our surroundings and the world around us. In terms of writing, the development of point-of-view, which really is the way a character inhabits his own body and consciousness, is a major part of the writing craft, which I later learnded, makes or breaks a story.

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Jennifer Egan: To me, perception is the essence of what distinguishes one person from another.

Each of us organizes reality in a somewhat different way, and perception is the feature of another human that I think can be the hardest to understand. As a non-autobiographical fiction writer, my job is to try to render up the perceptions of people I’ve invented. The term I use for myself is “habits of mind,” but really it’s the same thing: how does a person organize the world around him-or-herself?

What aspect of that organization is unique and specific to that person, separating him or her from others? In other words, how do they perceive?

Karen Shepard: Perception is the horse’s ear angling to the world, the shark’s Ampullae of Lorenzini, the elephant’s trunk, the bee’s palps, the beagle’s nose, the only child’s antennae to the temperature of her home, the mood of her parents, the path to survival.

Andre Dubus III: The poet, Mary Oliver, says this: “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”

Amen to that. But I believe the key part of this wise advice is the first part: pay attention. Which is the main reason I don’t own a “Smart” phone. Our task, certainly as creative writers, is to be here now. Or as the late, great writer Jim Harrison once put it: “Be now, here.” If we’re fortunate enough to have all five of our senses, we must use them. Only then can we begin to perceive. Because only then will we begin to be curious about what is just out of our reach. And it is this curiosity for what we do not yet know that ultimately leads to that nearly sacred gift of perceiving something for the first time.

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“Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”

-Mary Oliver

Canopy walkway at the Millbrook School in Millbrook, NY. 8 | One Word

Interview with Anthony Doerr I recently read Anthony Doerr’s masterpiece. I got to know Tony as a friend before I was at all interested in reading his (or anybody else’s) work. To me, he was just a great guy, a great dad. But then I read this novel and thought: Oh my! That man! The precision, the detail, the emotional attachment I felt as a reader -- I couldn’t believe I knew the person who wrote it. As I thought about perception, I kept thinking about what it must have been like for Tony to enter the mind of a young, blind girl in wartime France. He was kind enough to answer some of my questions, which he fit in just before leaving for a backpacking trip. To me this was also the coolest thing -- on the outside Tony is a regular guy. On the inside, he’s kind of a genius. Again, perception.

J

acob: The idea of perception and all that it means seems to tie Marie-Laure and her father together in All the Light We Cannot See. In the chapter titled “Light,” Marie-Laure attempts (using her knowledge based on the model of Paris her father has created) to make her way home. From the novel: Tuesday after Tuesday she fails. She leads her father on six-block detours that leave her angry and frustrated and farther from home than when they started. But in the winter of her eighth year, to Marie-Laure’s surprise, she begins to get it right. She runs her fingers over the model in their kitchen, counting miniature benches, trees, lampposts, doorways. Every day some new detail emerges— each storm drain, park bench, and hydrant in the model has its counterpart in the real world.”

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And after what seems like years of trial and error, Marie-Laure gets it right, “In another half second her father’s hands are in her armpits, swinging her up, and Marie-Laure smiles, and he laughs a pure, contagious laugh, one she will try to remember all her life, father and daughter turning in circles on the sidewalk in front of their apartment house, laughing together while snow sifts through the branches above.”

This is such a beautiful, evocative passage. It seems to me that Marie-Laure’s father is teaching her about perception in every way he can, out of his tremendous love for her. Can you say more about this, and what you were exploring about different ways of seeing or not seeing?

T

ony: My goal as a storyteller, no matter the project, is to transport a reader into another human being’s life, and the most important tool we writers have to transport readers is sensory detail. The American writer John Gardner called it “the moment-by-moment authenticating accumulation of detail.” How do you keep your reader in the dream of the fiction--how do you make her forget that she is reading sentences on a page? It’s through the physical senses: the smells of mango trees, the feel of sand beneath your heels, the clacking of scorpions as they skitter up out of the drain in the bathtub.

As I wrote All the Light, I kept reminding myself of the old humanist dictum: that the path to the universal runs through the individual. If you want to understand the larger movements of history, you read the diaries of (socalled) ordinary children like Anne Frank or Petr Ginz. The genius of Anne Frank’s diary is in the ordinary, quotidian day-to-day detailing of her writing: the things they ate, the jokes they told. The horror comes through because of the mundanity.

How do you keep your reader in the dream of the fiction-how do you make her forget that she is reading sentences on a page?

It’s only through the smallest details, through the sights and smells and sounds of one person’s moment-by-moment experience, that a writer can convey the big, complicated thing that is a human life. So what I was trying to do in that scene, and throughout the novel, was build a system of perception through which a reader gets transported. At the risk of playing a metaphor out too far, the reader is Marie-Laure, and the writer is her father.

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Jacob: In an opinion piece written by a member of The National Federation of the Blind, an author for the website named Randy Cox states that “our perceptions come from what we think about what we have experienced.” Was there an experience you had that gave you the idea of creating a blind character? At what point did you know that this would be such an important part of your novel?

Tony: I’m not sure there was a specific experience in my own life, but even before I wrote a single sentence, I knew I wanted to write a novel that braided together two coming-of-age stories, and that one of the characters would be visually impaired. I wanted to see if I could subvert expectations about disabilities by making the so-called disabled character the more capable character. (Because, in so many ways, of course, is it Werner who is blind—willfully blind to the extermination of so many of his neighbors. And it is Marie-Laure who, morally at least, is the more perceptive one.)

Jacob: I’d love to know more about the title. It seems that the title is specifically about perception, and continued to play through my mind as I read. The title itself never appears on the page, and yet seems to haunt the reader. Did you know the title from the beginning, or discover it as you wrote? It has so much to do with so many different aspects of the book, and the way characters see or don’t see the world around them.

Tony: Titles usually come late to me, but I had this one before I had anything else. I was riding a train into Manhattan, and the man in the seat in front of me was talking on his cell phone when his call dropped. He got ludicrously angry, swearing and whacking his phone against the seatback in frustration. And I remember thinking: we’re underground; we’re traveling 50 miles per hour; how did we get to the point where we assume our mobile phones should work.

That very afternoon, on the train, I wrote “All the Light We Cannot See” into my little notebook. Visible light, as you probably know, the light we can see, is an infinitesimal fraction of all the light that’s streaming through our atmosphere. But there is so much light we cannot see; X-rays and cosmic rays and microwaves and radio waves and ultraviolet rays--all that light is passing through our bodies right now, and we’re not able to see it, or sense it in any other way.

Indeed the light we can see comprises less than one-ten-trillionth of the light that’s out there.

As I started mucking around with drafts of the novel, I at first aimed only to tell a story that would help us feel the power of radio again, to feel the strangeness and sorcery of hearing the voice of a stranger, or a distant loved one—carried by invisible light--in our heads. But soon I started to use the novel—and hopefully its title--as a way to suggest how limited our windows of perception really are: not just in terms of our physical senses, but also politically, culturally, and scientifically.

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As Tony says in his response, there is so much that we cannot see, or percieve. In this photo, this just looks like a shadow on a pile of bricks, but there is so much more to it than that.

This is my graduating class that I am not a part of at Proctor Academy, a school I left after my freshman year. This is the first time I have come back to the place I left years ago. It could be easily percieved as a shadow, but there is always a story, something deeper, behind the initial perception of a photo or words. I connect with this photo because I have lived it. Through this, I have learned that it is the writers job to push us to find that deeper empathy and meaning in their work.

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Richard Richard Russo: Russo: One of the best books I read last year was Michael Kinsley’s Old Age: A Beginner’s One of the best books I read last year was Michael Kinsley’s Old Age: A Beginner’s Guide. In it he talks about what happens when our brains begin to malfunction Guide. In it he talks about what happens when our brains begin to malfunction due to age. For one thing other people begin to notice the deterioration before due to age. For one thing other people begin to notice the deterioration before we do. It’s a problem, then, of perception, one for which there is no real solution. we do. It’s a problem, then, of perception, one for which there is no real solution.

As Kinsley puts it, how do you fix a hammer when the only tool in your tool box is As Kinsley puts it, how do you fix a hammer when the only tool in your tool box is the be convinced convinced that thatwe’re we’renot notperceivperceivthehammer hammerthat’s that’sbroken. broken. Even Even if if we we could could be ing to do do about aboutit? it? The Thebrain braindoesn’t doesn’t ingthe theworld worldcorrectly, correctly, what what are are we we supposed supposed to just it, makes makes sense sense of of our ourexperience, experience,offerofferjustreceive receiveand andstore storedata, data, it it interprets interprets it, ing we have have to to navigate navigatethe theworld worldand andit’s it’s ingus useducated educatedguesses. guesses. It’s It’s the the only only tool tool we inadequate why, in in word word association associationgames, games,itit inadequatefrom fromthe thestart, start, which which is is probably probably why, pops but not not synonymous) synonymous)to tothe theword word popsup upin inapposition apposition(that (that is, is, often often paired paired but “reality. ”” “reality.

Jim JimShepard: Shepard: As creative attempts attemptsto torender renderour our Asfor forperception, perception,IIsuppose suppose it it seems seems so crucial to creative world — because becauseit’s it’snot notonly onlyabout about world— —and/or and/orour ourengagement engagement with our world — the what’s been beenobserved. observed. So SoI Ithink think thecapacity capacityto toobserve observe but but also also to then analyze what’s of the best best combinations, combinations,then, then,of of ofthose thoseacts actsof ofperception perception that that I most admire as the intelligenceand andgenerosity. generosity. As As the philosopher Simone intelligence Simone Weil Weilformulated formulatedit, it,that that kindof ofattention attentionisisthe the rarest rarest and and purest form of kind of generosity. generosity.

BenFountain: Fountain: Ben “Perception”--it’sonly, only,well, well, everything. everything. Everything “Perception”--it’s Everything as as it it relates relatesto tothis thisproject project wecall call“civilization, “civilization,””and and the the ethics, ethics, morals, morals, and we and laws laws that thatat atcertain certaintimes timesand and in certain places make us more “civilized” than savage; those ethics, morals, laws in certain places make us more “civilized” than savage; those ethics, morals, laws thatmight mightbe besummed summedup up in in the the simple simple phrase: phrase: Love that Love your your neighbor neighboras asyourself. yourself. Or, Or, Do to others as you would have them do to you.

To love and do in this manner Do to others as you would have them do to you. To love and do in this manner requireus usto tostep stepoutside outside of of ourselves, ourselves, our our own require own reality--require reality--requireof ofus usthe theabiliability to enter into the experience of another person, to recognize that this other ty to enter into the experience of another person, to recognize that this other person’shumanity humanityisisjust just as as vital vital and and rich rich and person’s and precious precious as as our ourown. own. One Onemight mightsay say that all morality, all “civilization, ” is based on this profound act of imagination, that all morality, all “civilization,” is based on this profound act of imagination, thisnecessary necessaryextension extension of of perception perception beyond beyond our this our own own experience. experience. And Andit’s it’sthis this failure of imagination--one might call it a criminal failure of imagination--that failure of imagination--one might call it a criminal failure of imagination--that devolves us into savagery. Into immorality, both individual and collective. Eichdevolves us into savagery. Into immorality, both individual and collective. Eichmann in Jersualem proves the point; Eichmann, Arendt tells us, had an “almost mann in Jersualem proves the point; Eichmann, Arendt tells us, had an “almost total inability ever to look at anything from the other fellow’s point of view.” total inability ever to look at anything from the other fellow’s point of view.”

Call it narcissism, or megalomania, psychopathy, whatever you will, this deadly Call it narcissism, or megalomania, psychopathy, whatever you will, this deadly narrowing of perspective to the self: it will be the death of the human species. narrowing of perspective to the self: it will be the death of the human species.

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One day in Brooklyn...

I sat down with Hannah Tinti in the Gowanus offices of One Story, the literary magazine she founded and has edited for the past fifteen years. I had read and loved her latest novel, The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley, and was really interested in talking with Hannah about the role perception plays in her book. Because she is an editor who is also a writer, it seemed to me that Hannah has a very strong sense of her own persona, which is a huge part of the idea of perception. From the special whale stamps she designed herself, the images and scenes she incorporated from her “real life” in the novel, and even the design of the book and book jacket itself, I wanted to talk with Hannah about how she develops her ideas, how she discovered the story, and finally, how she shaped the story into a book that has so much power.

Also, I wanted to thank Hannah for the inspiration. She created a literary magazine out of nothing when she was just a few years out of graduate school, and turned an idea and a dream into a reality. Although One Word and One Story are very different literary endeavors, I wanted to let her know I wasn’t stealing her idea. Not that she was worried.

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Perception in The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley A Conversation with author Hannah Tinti

J

acob: My first question is about Loo’s relationship with her father. Throughout the book, Loo and her father move around a lot. As she moves from town to town, she often loses track of her life, which is why she ends up using a planisphere to find her place in the world.

I thought about perception when I read that, because it really made me wonder: How do you perceive the world when you’re moving around so much and don’t have any physical or emotional grounding? How do you think Loo does that throughout the novel?

H

annah: I like the word perception, that’s a cool word that you chose for the magazine, because I think that perception is not just about perceiving things. It’s about feeling things, and intuiting things. There’s something about perception that involves seeing something and maybe not understanding it completely on a mental level but understanding it on a gut level. Between Loo and her father, Samuel Hawley, that’s always going on. She is understanding things on an emotional level but she does not understand them on an intellectual level. So she’s like, “my dad’s this way, I don’t know why he’s like that.” She knows her dad has these dark secrets but when she is really little, she doesn’t think about them. I think it’s the same when you’re a kid. You just take your parents the way they are and you usually don’t have a lot of curiosity about your parents when you’re really young… unless they’re missing. If they’re around you’re like, “ah, that’s my dad and that’s my mom.” I think as we get older and our relationship with our parents change and we start seeing them more as complete human beings and maybe learn a little bit about their past and how they ended up where they ended up, and understand that they actually have lives before we existed. That’s hard to grasp. But as you get older you start understanding that and seeing parallels between parts of your life and parts of their life.

I think that’s how you find your place in the world, and that’s what happens with Loo in the book because she has, for example, these violent tendencies when she’s younger. She just feels this natural inclination to move towards violence, and that’s something her father has too. He’s given in too completely, in a way that she never quite does. He’s trying to teach her another way to make her way through the world. I think partly understanding her father and how he ended up the way he ended up helps her to be able to tamp down some of those feelings and have a better path for her life.

It’s not just about perceiving things. It’s about feeling things, and intuiting things

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Jacob: There’s a scene I’m thinking about, towards the beginning... I can’t find it. This is good.

Hannah: You can just describe it and I can tell you where it is, probably. I know this book so well back and forward.

Jacob: That makes sense, I guess. I mean you wrote it. (laughter) Jacob: It was the Greasy Pole! So the scene is a competition in which grown men, mostly fisherman, slide down a pole covered with grease as far as they can, attempting to get a flag, which Samuel Hawley participates in. He takes off his shirt and crowd sees the scars on his back. Can you describe the scene and what it was like writing about a scene that you grew up around?

Did you know you we’re going to write about the greasy pole before you started your novel?

Hannah: I’ve seen it every year. I was there this year. I have some hilarious videos.

Yeah, it’s something I grew up around and it’s this crazy contest (it’s been going on for about 100 years). Most of the fisherman in that part of Massachusetts are from Sicily and Portugal and brought these traditions over from there. These celebrations all take place during a celebration of Saint Peter who is the patron Saint of fisherman. The idea is that they have this festival to bless all of the fishing boats with the hope that they won’t sink and drown over the season. So this is one of the crazy things they do at the beginning of the year. And it has turned into one of these crazy cultural traditions.

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As for the question of if I had gone into writing my novel thinking I was going to write about the greasy pole, it was actually something from my childhood that I wasn’t thinking too much about. But what happened was I was working on another book that wasn’t going so well. And it just happened, because I try to go every year, that I was home visiting my family. I live in New York now but whenever I’m in Salem, Massachusetts, I try to go to the greasy pole. And right after that I went on a writing retreat and it was still stuck in my head. I think it was one of those things that we talked about earlier, in which we understand something on a sensory or gut level before you’re breaking it down. Our brains are processing things so much faster than we can take in.

I think there’s this thing between your conscious and your sub-conscious mind. When I teach, I describe it to my students as like when you’re writing, there’s this burst of writing and it’s like “Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s it! That’s it,” and you suddenly know the answer to something or you feel this sudden flow. I describe it as a wall that you’re walking along, plotting, plotting, plotting and then suddenly you find a door. That door flies open and suddenly your conscious and sub-conscious mind are in communication and that’s where the flow happens and then suddenly BAM! The door slams shut and you don’t know what you’re doing again and you’re just plotting, plotting, plotting and looking for another door.

So I had one of those door opening moments when I was at this writing retreat where I suddenly felt like “oh, I’m just going to write about the greasy pole because I like the greasy pole.”

It’s just very simple. And as I wrote the scene it just sparkled in a way and whenever that happens, I try to pay attention because usually I know it’s a door opening between my conscious and sub-conscious mind.

That door flies open and suddenly your conscious and sub-conscious mind are in communication

As soon as I got that scene down, I had this vision of what this story could potentially be. And I think for me it had to do with the violence of that contest and the history of it. These guys are like gladiators, covered with grease and knocking their teeth out and breaking their arms.

It is very macho and raw. This contest doesn’t involve money. They just participate to win this historic thing. The spots on the pole they go on are passed down among families. And just the fact that the whole purpose of the festival is just to guard against these men going out to sea and drowning and disappearing. All of that felt very rich and something that I wanted to explore. So when I first went to the event I perceived it on one level, and when I started to write about it, I was suddenly understanding it on a different level. So it all just started flowing and coming together.

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Jacob: I have one more question about the book. When we remove the book jacket we find this amazing constellation map, which is partially visible through the bullet holes on the jacket. I think that a unique aspect of your writing and craft is that how important the image on the jacket is to the book. Was there a specific way that you wanted the book design to be perceived by the reader?

Hannah: The book deals with larger issues about what it means to be alive and what it means to find your place in the universe. The design metaphorically represents these bullet wounds that Hawley carries with him, which are the holes in the outer cover of the book. Then having the star map underneath shows how there’s another story hidden in this story, and that’s the story of his daughter. The star map relates to her because she is looking at the stars and using her planisphere to find her way. And it relates to him too because each time he gets shot is a moment of transcendence for him.

That’s what I’m interested in. Those moments where you have this awakening or opening to some connection of the divine or meaning of life. I think that’s why I write. That’s why people read, too.

I think that might just get back to your word again, perception. How do you communicate what it feels like to be on the edge of understanding the meaning of something. Something so much larger than yourself and your day to day. Paying bills. Getting through class. I always feel like I’m on the edge of a moment like that, and then it just goes away and disappears.

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Karen Russell: When I was working on my first novel, Swamplandia!, I taped up this quote from Lewis Carroll’s Through The Looking Glass, a book that is all about perception: I see nobody on the road,’ said Alice.

‘I only wish I had such eyes,’ the King remarked in a fretful tone.

‘To be able to see Nobody! And at that distance, too!

Why, it’s as much as I can do to see real people, by this light!’

That excerpt is seared into my brain now - whenever I felt lost during the drafting process, I’d return to it. I love it because it gets right to the heart of the difficulty: how can we find one another, how can we truly “see” one another, when so much of our lives are spent straining after phantoms? It’s a challenge to see people as they really are, and not as we’d wish them to be. And to see around our own blindspots, our biases, our self-serving delusions. The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves can spin around us like a blindfold; we are often unreliable narrators of our own motives and fears and desires, and that’s one reason why I’ve always loved reading. It’s a kind of imaginary sight. Books are mirrors that reveal the complexities we miss, when we are sunk in everydayness (say, buying a clearance rack tankini at Target).

Also: the truths we avoid. The dangerous ones, that challenge the givens of our perceptions, that disrupt our fantasy of who we *think* we are.

how can we find one another, how can we truly “see” one another, when so much of our lives are spent straining after phantoms?

To me, this bit of dialogue between Alice and the King is hilarious and sad, and hope-filled, too, in its wry way; it acknowledges the extreme difficulty of seeing real people - seeing yourself, seeing anybody clearly. Fiction like “Through the Looking Glass,” thank goodness, estranges us from the everyday so that we can perceive its true absurdity and mystery. I think that many readers come to books for that slant perspective on life. And with novels and stories and poems, a certain kind of stakes are reduced (“it’s not real, it’s just fiction”), so that you can really look at some painful or weird or scary or not easily reducible truths, without shutting your eyes against them in self-protection. Knowing how foggy and narrow my own uncorrected vision can be, I am always eager to be taken through the looking glass.

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Scott Scott Cheshire: My spotted beagle beagle named named Brook.

Brook. Brook Brook My upstairs upstairs neighbor neighbor Robert Robert has has an an oblong oblong spotted is and has has a a propensity propensity to to shuffle shuffle in in is going going gray gray around around the the snout snout and and the the eyes eyes and half-circles. and swims swims five five days days aa week week at at the the half-circles. Robert Robert is is aa retired retired finance finance lawyer lawyer and Jewish that might might be be aa bit bit youthful youthful for for Jewish Civic Civic Center; Center; he he wears wears sporty sporty clothing clothing that another them with with aplomb aplomb and and effortless effortless another man man his his age age (he (he is is 79), 79), and and yet yet wears wears them success. hand with with both both success. He He tends tends toward toward the color blue and likes to shake my hand of the street street from from of his. his. Robert Robert attends attends a liberal Anglican church, right across the our describes as as “fuck“fuckour building building (rainbow (rainbow flags hang from the roof), which he describes ing friend from from down down ing crazy, crazy, it’s it’s so so cool. cool.” Robert introduced me to John, his old friend the townhouse with with an an abutabutthe street. street. John John owns owns the corner apartment, a grand townhouse ting Eddie and and Freddie, Freddie, ting face face of of tall, tall, wide wide windows where his twin Jack Russells, Eddie hold nerve condition condition in in his his hold court court on on thin thin beige cushions. Freddie has a shivering nerve back know not not what, what, but but back two two legs. legs. John John has a condition as well, in his right leg, I know it favors khaki khaki shorts, shorts, it gives gives him him trouble trouble walking. That said John, who squints, favors and himself. John John is is an an avid avid and wears wears enormous enormous straw hats, must be close to eighty, himself. reader squat brick brick wall wall reader and and generously generously stacks the books he’s finished on the squat surrounding as there there is is always always surrounding his his building building for taking. I suspect he likes scotch as aa thick once used used the the word word thick bottle bottle of of J&B J&B visible through his kitchen window. He once “Hijrah, happily looked looked it it up. up. On On “Hijrah,”” referring referring to an especially lengthy dog stroll. I happily hot days days his his pale pale face face sweats; he carries a towel. We never touch. hot touch. have met met both both men men only a handful of times.

II have My wife wife no no longer longer asks asks me how I know so much about these people My people that that flit flit in in and and out of of our our lives, lives, as as we flit in and out of theirs. out As aa writer, writer, II am am hungry hungry for sensual detail. My senses are starving.

As starving.

Perception is is my my god-given god-given spoon.

Perception

Said Sayrafiezadeh: Said enjoy writing writing from from the pov of characters who are white and all-American, II enjoy all-American, i.e., i.e., unlike me, who is Middle Eastern and un-American.

Among other pleasures, this unlike me, who is Middle Eastern and un-American. Among other pleasures, this allows me me the the opportunity opportunity to to play play the the role role of allows of someone someone I’ve I’ve always always wished wished II could could be, beginning in early childhood when I became acutely aware of the advantages be, beginning in early childhood when I became acutely aware of the advantages of whiteness. whiteness. So So how how do do my my white, white, all-American all-American characters of characters navigate navigate the the world? world?

They might have some racist, misogynistic, homophobic tendencies, sure, but They might have some racist, misogynistic, homophobic tendencies, sure, but mostmostly they feel so at home in their skin, that they are not even aware of having any. ly they feel so at home in their skin, that they are not even aware of having any.

20||One One Word Word 20

Jacob Maren (What is myNotes perception of perception?) on Contributors After thinking all of these amazing thecollection. word perception byrecent a group of is Jennifer Egan about is the author of several novelsdefinitions and a shortof story Her most book phenomenal writers, I am blown away by the uniqueness of every single response. prisms Manhattan Beach.

Her previous book, A Visit From the Goon Squad, won the 2011 PulitzerLike Prize. in a lens, each definition sheds a different light on the word – a visible light, to quote Anthony

Ben Fountain has won including adirectly PEN/Hemingway award for Brief Encounters with Doerr.

So I’ve come to many think awards that perception means uniqueness.

Perception differentiChe Guevara: Stories and the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction for his debut novel Billy ates one human being from another. None of us perceives any given moment in the same way.

Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.

If we allRussell perceived the same way, itMagazine would mean that subconscious weren’t at Karen wonin the 2012 National Award forour fiction, and her firstminds novel, Swamplandia!, was a finalist for the Pulitzerminds Prize in 2011.have She to wasbealso the recipient a MacArthur Foundation work.

Our subconscious would locked in someofcompletely hidden place “Genius Grant” in 2013. where we weren’t influenced by that mysterious process by which we come to see what we see, and believe what we believe.

Richard Russo is the author of eight novels, two short story collections, and the memoir Elsewhere. In 2002 he received the Pulitzer Prize for Empire Falls, which like Nobody’s Fool was adapted to film, in a We will never know what another color looks like to someone else. How do we describe the multiple-award-winning HBO miniseries.

color purple? We say that it is purple, a mix of red and blue. Wait, then how do we know ex-

Jim is the author andnever five story collections.

He teaches at Williams actlyShepard what is red and whatofisseven blue?novels We will know what reality looks like throughCollege. someHis novels include Nosferatu, Project X, and The Book of Aron. His short story collection, Like You’d one else’s eyes, and this is what makes us unique. These questions can haunt us. We wonder Understand, Anyway, was nominated for the National Book Award and won the Story Prize.

how the world works. We care about how we perceive the world. We care about how others perceive the world.

We care of how others perceive us. of Women, The Bad Boy’s Wife, Don’t I Know Karen Shepard is the author three novels, An Empire You?, The Celestials, a collection of stories, Kiss Me Someone. She teaches writing and literature at Williams College.

This is the writer’s job. The writer’s job is to put readers in a world in which we perceive a character Doerr and, inisturn, the character perceives the world himself or herself. ficAnthony the author of the story collections The Shellaround Collector and Memory Wall.In His most tion--and even in nonfiction--a writer has to create characters.

What are their habits? recent novel, All the Light We Cannot See, which was awarded the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. What do they think about when they walk down the street? Do they fall asleep easily at night, or do Margot is theobsesses author ofthem?

Hidden Figures: The American Dream and Story of they tossLee andShetterly turn? What These questions of perception arethe anUntold attempt to try the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race which was also turned into a major to make unique characters, and their very uniqueness is what the reader will connect to. As motion picture of the same title.

Hannah Tinti said in our interview, these moments of perception come from inside the writing itself, and once have way including of exponentially multiplying.

Just asHouse one single word Andre Dubus III isperceived, the author of six abooks New York Times bestsellers, of Sand and Fog, and The Gardenmultiply, of Last Days, can exponentially rippling outward into so many definitions.

Scott Cheshire is the author of the novel High as the Horses’ Bridles, a Best Book of 2014 pick at The This is whatPost, The makes usWall special this is what gives us meaning. Perception isLiterature. life.

Washington Streetand Journal, New York Magazine, Salon, and Electric Said Sayrafiezadeh is a memoirist, fiction writer and playwright. He is the author of the story collection, Brief Encounters With the Enemy, and the critically acclaimed memoir, When Skateboards Will Be Free.

Hannah Tinti is the author of the short story collection, Animal Crackers. Her best-selling novel, The Good Thief was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year Her latest novel, The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley, was published in March 2017. Hannah is the editor of One Story for which she received the PEN/Nora Magid Award for Excellence in Editing in 2014.

22 | One Word

One Word | 21

Jacob Maren (What is myNotes perception of perception?) on Contributors After thinking all of these amazing thecollection. word perception byrecent a group of is Jennifer Egan about is the author of several novelsdefinitions and a shortof story Her most book phenomenal writers, I am blown away by the uniqueness of every single response. prisms Manhattan Beach.

Her previous book, A Visit From the Goon Squad, won the 2011 PulitzerLike Prize. in a lens, each definition sheds a different light on the word – a visible light, to quote Anthony

Ben Fountain has won including adirectly PEN/Hemingway award for Brief Encounters with Doerr.

So I’ve come to many think awards that perception means uniqueness.

Perception differentiChe Guevara: Stories and the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction for his debut novel Billy ates one human being from another. None of us perceives any given moment in the same way.

Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.

If we allRussell perceived the same way, itMagazine would mean that subconscious weren’t at Karen wonin the 2012 National Award forour fiction, and her firstminds novel, Swamplandia!, was a finalist for the Pulitzerminds Prize in 2011.have She to wasbealso the recipient a MacArthur Foundation work.

Our subconscious would locked in someofcompletely hidden place “Genius Grant” in 2013. where we weren’t influenced by that mysterious process by which we come to see what we see, and believe what we believe.

Richard Russo is the author of eight novels, two short story collections, and the memoir Elsewhere. In 2002 he received the Pulitzer Prize for Empire Falls, which like Nobody’s Fool was adapted to film, in a We will never know what another color looks like to someone else. How do we describe the multiple-award-winning HBO miniseries.

color purple? We say that it is purple, a mix of red and blue. Wait, then how do we know ex-

Jim is the author andnever five story collections.

He teaches at Williams actlyShepard what is red and whatofisseven blue?novels We will know what reality looks like throughCollege. someHis novels include Nosferatu, Project X, and The Book of Aron. His short story collection, Like You’d one else’s eyes, and this is what makes us unique. These questions can haunt us. We wonder Understand, Anyway, was nominated for the National Book Award and won the Story Prize.

how the world works. We care about how we perceive the world. We care about how others perceive the world.

We care of how others perceive us. of Women, The Bad Boy’s Wife, Don’t I Know Karen Shepard is the author three novels, An Empire You?, The Celestials, a collection of stories, Kiss Me Someone. She teaches writing and literature at Williams College.

This is the writer’s job. The writer’s job is to put readers in a world in which we perceive a character Doerr and, inisturn, the character perceives the world himself or herself. ficAnthony the author of the story collections The Shellaround Collector and Memory Wall.In His most tion--and even in nonfiction--a writer has to create characters.

What are their habits? recent novel, All the Light We Cannot See, which was awarded the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. What do they think about when they walk down the street? Do they fall asleep easily at night, or do Margot is theobsesses author ofthem?

Hidden Figures: The American Dream and Story of they tossLee andShetterly turn? What These questions of perception arethe anUntold attempt to try the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race which was also turned into a major to make unique characters, and their very uniqueness is what the reader will connect to. As motion picture of the same title.

Hannah Tinti said in our interview, these moments of perception come from inside the writing itself, and once have way including of exponentially multiplying.

Just asHouse one single word Andre Dubus III isperceived, the author of six abooks New York Times bestsellers, of Sand and Fog, and The Gardenmultiply, of Last Days, can exponentially rippling outward into so many definitions.

Scott Cheshire is the author of the novel High as the Horses’ Bridles, a Best Book of 2014 pick at The This is whatPost, The makes usWall special this is what gives us meaning. Perception isLiterature. life.

Washington Streetand Journal, New York Magazine, Salon, and Electric Said Sayrafiezadeh is a memoirist, fiction writer and playwright. He is the author of the story collection, Brief Encounters With the Enemy, and the critically acclaimed memoir, When Skateboards Will Be Free.

Hannah Tinti is the author of the short story collection, Animal Crackers. Her best-selling novel, The Good Thief was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year Her latest novel, The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley, was published in March 2017. Hannah is the editor of One Story for which she received the PEN/Nora Magid Award for Excellence in Editing in 2014.

22 | One Word

One Word | 21

Notes

Jacob Maren is a senior at The Millbrook School in Millbrook, New York. He is from Bethlehem, Connecticut. He has not yet published a book.

One Word | 23

Notes Notes on Contributors Jennifer Egan is the author of several novels and a short story collection. Her most recent book is Manhattan Beach. Her previous book, A Visit From the Goon Squad, won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize.

Ben Fountain has won many awards including a PEN/Hemingway award for Brief Encounters with Che Guevara: Stories and the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction for his debut novel Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.

Karen Russell won the 2012 National Magazine Award for fiction, and her first novel, Swamplandia!, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2011. She was also the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “Genius Grant” in 2013.

Richard Russo is the author of eight novels, two short story collections, and the memoir Elsewhere. In 2002 he received the Pulitzer Prize for Empire Falls, which like Nobody’s Fool was adapted to film, in a multiple-award-winning HBO miniseries.

Jim Shepard is the author of seven novels and five story collections. He teaches at Williams College.

His novels include Nosferatu, Project X, and The Book of Aron. His short story collection, Like You’d Understand, Anyway, was nominated for the National Book Award and won the Story Prize.

Karen Shepard is the author of three novels, An Empire of Women, The Bad Boy’s Wife, Don’t I Know You?, The Celestials, a collection of stories, Kiss Me Someone. She teaches writing and literature at Williams College.

Anthony Doerr is the author of the story collections The Shell Collector and Memory Wall. His most recent novel, All the Light We Cannot See, which was awarded the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

Margot Lee Shetterly is the author of Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race which was also turned into a major motion picture of the same title.

Andre Dubus III is the author of six books including New York Times bestsellers, House of Sand and Fog, and The Garden of Last Days, Scott Cheshire is the author of the novel High as the Horses’ Bridles, a Best Book of 2014 pick at The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, New York Magazine, Salon, and Electric Literature.

Said Sayrafiezadeh is a memoirist, fiction writer and playwright. He is the author of the story collection, Brief Encounters With the Enemy, and the critically acclaimed memoir, When Skateboards Will Be Free.

Hannah Tinti is the author of the short story collection, Animal Crackers. Her best-selling novel, The Good Thief was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year Her latest novel, The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley, was published in March 2017. Hannah is the editor of One Story for which she received the PEN/Nora Magid Award for Excellence in Editing in 2014.

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Jacob Maren is a senior at The Millbrook School in Millbrook, New York. He is from Bethlehem, Connecticut. He has not yet published a book.

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From this Issue

Perception has as much to do with what we don’t see as what we do see.

Margot Lee Shetterly

Perception is the feature of another human that I think can be the hardest to understand.

Jennifer Egan

Our task, certainly as creative writers, is to be here now. Or as the late, great writer Jim Harrison once put it: “Be now, here.”

Andre Dubus III It’s a challenge to see people as they really are, and not as we’d wish them to be.

Karen Russell

I’m interested in those moments where you have this awakening or opening to some connection to the divine or meaning of life. I think that’s why I write. That’s why people read, too.

Hannah Tinti Those acts of perception that I most admire as the best combinations … of intelligence and generosity.

Jim Shepard

One might say that all morality, all “civilization,” is based on this profound act of imagination, this necessary extension of perception beyond our own experience.

Ben Fountain