Last night I saw Sam Lipsyte read at Powell’s. Lipsyte is actually the reason I started writing, or kept writing. I read his story “I’m Slavering” in a night class I took in 2008. It was completely captivating; it was gritty, strange, and mysterious. The sentences were sharp and I wanted to write like that. I mean, “everybody was from everywhere, had gathered here to hide from the daylight.” To me that was poetry. Save me, nobody in the class liked the story and we barely talked about it. It was a bit disheartening. The story I submitted for the class was met with mixed results, most people didn’t dig it. And, actually, I took that as a good sign and kept writing. Anyway, I actually didn’t read the entirety of Lipsyte’s collection, Venus Drive, until I was mostly done with my MA in Creative Writing. I was worried that the rest of the stories would pale in comparison to “I’m Slavering.” They didn’t. However, I haven’t found his novels as enjoyable. They mostly focus on 40 year old losers that I’ll probably become. When I heard he had a new collection of stories coming out I was excited.
He read the story “Deniers” in its entirety and was funny during the Q&A. When asked about deviating from his normal male voice and writing from a woman’s perspective he told us he been married for ten years, knew women, had feelings and had heard of these other feelings. I should mention his writing is often humorous.
After the reading I got a book signed and said, “You’re the reason I wasted two years in grad school writing.” (Though, anybody who knew me then knows that I wasn’t writing during those two years.) But he laughed and told me it wasn’t a complete waste. Let’s see what this new collection inspires me to do.