Read, read, read.
This is the first (and second and third) rule of being a good writer, according to fiction writer James Magruder. Magruder will be visiting Goucher’s campus on Monday, November 3, for a reading and talk at 7 p.m. in the Soper Room of the Julia Rogers Building.
“Turn off the television and start reading. You have to read everybody, especially if you’re young,” he said. “You can get into the habit if you want.”
Magruder is a Baltimore-based playwright, novelist, and translator who teaches fiction at the University of Baltimore and dramaturgy at Swarthmore College. At Goucher, he will be talking about his most recent work, Let Me See It, a linked collection of short stories set from 1970 to 1991 that follows two gay first cousins who almost never meet. In the summer of 1985, his characters both find themselves in Manhattan with differing approaches to the AIDS crisis.
“One of them doesn’t survive the plague; the other learns from his cousin how to live,” said Magruder, who has lived with HIV for 29 years. He said many students today probably don’t know much about the history and misunderstanding of HIV and AIDs in the 1980s. “It took them a while before they discovered [AIDS] was a virus; people didn’t know how you got it,” he said. “If you coughed, if you’re gay … no one knew.”
Magruder’s observations about how the virus has affected his life helped inform the stories. Publishers Weekly has given the collection a starred review for his use of varying perspectives of narration, from the humorous to the serious.
Kathy Flann, associate professor of English, is bringing Magruder to campus, and said she tries to introduce a guest writer every semester. She said it’s beneficial for students to meet active, successful writers outside of their own professors, especially because writing can be such a solitary experience.
Students read the author beforehand and formulate questions for the interactive session. “People can ask anything they want about the writing process or request what he reads,” Flann said. “It reinforces the craft that we’re studying in class.”
The visiting authors often give perspective as well. “The thing that probably surprises [students] is how much struggle the writers express,” Flann said. And it’s exciting for students to hear the processes of people they’ve already met through words on a page.
Magruder said he often tells his students to think of the most humiliating things they’ve experienced, and then write about it. “Instant sympathy!” he said.
Sponsored by the Isabelle Kellogg Thomas English Lectureship Fund, the talk and reading are open to all members of the Goucher community.