To properly jumpstart this year’s School of Night reading series, the Creative Writing Department invited bestselling author Donald Antrim to read his most recent publication, “The Emerald Light in the Air Stories.” Intended to introduce students, especially creative writing and English majors, to the work of a multitude of exceptional writers, past guests have included the likes of Poet Laureate Louise Gluck, Li Young Lee, Tony Hoagland, Lorrie Moore and Kimiko Hahn.
Held on Tuesday, Oct. 6 in Pearlman Lounge, the event began with a short introduction of Antrim’s wide-ranging achievements over the course of his decades-long career. He graduated from Brown University in 1981 and has taught prose fiction at the graduate school of New York University. He currently teaches in the MFA program at Columbia University and was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2013. He HAS published a number of novels and short stories, most notably of which are “The Verificationist,” “The Hundred Brothers” and “The Afterlife.”
Following years of commendation and praise for his past work, Antrim’s most recent novel has been lauded by the Minneapolis Star Tribune as “Plain and simple: Antrim has no equals in contemporary letters.” Another review by Publisher’s Weekly described it as a “collection of great depth to read, reread and above all, relish.” His earlier novels are similarly critically acclaimed.
The critics’ words ring true. As soon as Antrim began to read his work aloud, the words came alive, as if they were dancing across the page before becoming an enchanting movie clip projected onto a screen, each frame unfocused at the edges. Most of the plot centered on one man’s venture to move his car down a particularly treacherous creek. Following the main action, the story described the life of the protagonist in specific moments, illuminating his impressions and feelings in terms of his most intimate and important relationships.
Antrim’s mastery of storytelling—through the intonation of his voice, the deliberate pauses and the quality of his voice, which was both harsh and soft simultaneously—made his short story, which critics have already exalted for its originality and unique voice, mesmerizing to all listeners.
After he finished reading his work, he opened up the session to hear student input, discuss the crux of the short story and respond to any audience inquiries about his writing process. One audience member in particular wanted to know more about imagery within his short story, or more specifically about his various descriptions of clouds throughout and the purpose behind this recurrence. Spoken like a true novelist, he spoke about his craft with care and grace, choosing each word as if it were being written down in some imaginary record: “I’m not trying to make clouds do anything .. .whatever they are for you … that’s a door into something … the story becomes you and you are inside the story.”
Antrim reflected on his own experience with writing and his greatest piece of advice was to “live inside” your work and allow it to come as it will “even if none of it is planned.” Antrim said he spent a good portion of his career trying to write like other authors but came to the realization later that replicating other writers not only left him feeling empty inside, but also deprived him from adding his own voice and his own literary inventions to the genre. Though it may be hard to believe, there’s no reason not to develop your own writing style and put forth your own creative ideas. In Antrim’s words, despite that he’s “arriving at a similar place” through most of his work and that he might even be writing the same story over and over again, it’s necessary that writers explore their craft, no matter where this takes them.
