Join the Idaho Writers Guild for a Literary Lunch on Tuesday, March 20 with  Guest Author Stacy Dymalski.

Smoky Mountain Pizza, 415 E. Parkcenter Blvd., Boise

11:30 – 1:30, free and open to the public

Stacy Dymalski is a writer, producer and stand-up comic.  Her most recent book is Confessions of a Band Geek Mom. After 36 years of lavish childless living spoiled stand-up comic Stacy Dymalski into believing happy hour was just a normal part of one’s daily commute, she  moved to Utah (to ski everyday, of course) and within a year got pregnant. (Isn’t that what happens to any woman who moves to Utah?) Before she knew it Stacy had two young sons and suddenly sleep won out over midnight comedy shows. Juicy Juice replaced Grey Goose vodka (although they are good mixed). Prada bags gave way to diaper bags. Showers couldn’t last longer than a “Bob the Builder” video. Vacations took a backseat to music lessons, and school band instruments littered the house like empty beer bottles in a college dorm. And for the first 10 years of her sons’ lives Stacy felt compelled to clean up her language (sort of). In between carpools and doing crazy stuff like lobbying for sex education in public schools (so our kids don’t grow up thinking the missionary position involves a bicycle and a doorbell) Stacy has documented her parenting journey in this delightful collection of (sometimes politically incorrect) laugh-out-loud stories that her children are sure to contest once they’re old enough to understand the art of irony and exaggeration.

Feel free to bring along business cards, flyers, or anything else you’d like to share with your fellow writers. Also, we’ll be drawing 3 names to participate in a 3 minute open mic, so get writing! All styles and genres are welcome, as long as the work is original and can be read in under 3 minutes.

Hope to see you on March 20!

Remember, the IWG has a luncheon on the THIRD TUESDAY of each month at Smoky Mountain Pizza on Parkcenter. It’s an opportunity to network with other writers and find out what’s happening in your literary community.

John Rember writes from inside his skin. He captures the essence of Idaho and even more: the man who lives there. His MFA in a Box inspires writers from a personal point of view. It is not a “how to”, but a “why to” write a book. He encourages writers to tap the stories that belong to them. MFA in a Box won the 2011 Silver Award from Nautilus Books, the Grand Prize Short List and Finalist 2011 Eric Hoffer Book Award, and was a Finalist for the 2011 Midwest Book Awards. The Idaho Library Association recognized his book Traplines: Coming Home to Sawtooth Valley as the 2004 Book of the Year. He has written numerous articles for publications such as Travel and Leisure, High Desert Journal and Wildlife Conservation. He has taught at The College of Idaho and, for many years, in the Pacific University MFA program in Forest Grove, Oregon. After his presentation, he will be available to sign books. www.johnrember.com

For more information: Judy Ware, 208-853-5198, warejudy@aol.com

Join us for a stimulating January edition of Backtalk on Saturday, January 14, 11:30 – 1:30 at the Sun Ray Café, our usual Hyde Park haunt.  We’ve done a last-minute switch of topics to make sure we cover contests before the deadline for the Idaho Writers and Readers Rendezvous contests (details coming soon).  We’ll give tips on entering writing contests and discuss how to better your chances.

Join us at the Sun Ray Café in Hyde Park from 11:30 – 1:30 on Saturday, January 14th.  Food and drink will be available as always.

Here on our blog we post information on upcoming events and occasional guest blogs from IWG members.  Our events include a Literary Lunch on the 3rd Tuesday of every month (resuming in January), Backtalk (a panel discussion with Q&A) on a Saturday every other month, and Random Readings featuring two authors of a particular genre.  Details on all of these events will be posted here as they are scheduled.  We’re also in the midst of planning our 2012 Writers & Readers Rendezvous, a conference that will include authors, publishers, editors, literary agents, screenwriters, songwriters and more.  The conference is scheduled for May 3-6, 2012.

So stay tuned for more information.  In the meantime, you can also connect with us on Facebook (Idaho Writers Guild) and Twitter (@IDWritersGuild).

Happy Holidays!

IWG

Our next Backtalk will focus on eBooks.  Join the discussion on when and how to publish an ebook and what to expect from the process.  Joanne Pence, who just returned from an ebook conference in Florida, will lead the discussion.  All are welcome to attend, so please  join us at the Sun Ray Café in Hyde Park from 11:30 – 1:30 on Saturday, November 12th.  Food and drink will be available as always.

When people think of irreverence the words witty, satiric, disrespectful, edgy, or humorous may come to mind. Yet if we consider irreverence to be something which nudges unexplored beliefs or practices then a broader range of writing can be considered irreverent.  One role writers play is to press against the status quo – to question the unquestionable, to discuss the undiscussable, and to experiment with the unthinkable so that society can do the same. The result is that something considered irreverent at the time it is written often becomes acceptable.

Irreverence depends upon the context of the situation.  In one era a treatise proposing that women be allowed to partake of the local saloon would have been considered irreverent; today, an editorial proposing that women be banned from local pubs would be viewed as offensive or simply laughable. Both would be irreverent writing. Martin Luther was excommunicated from the Catholic Church for writing his Ninety-Five Theses. Today, an essay calling for a ban on Protestantism would be considered outrageous. Both would be irreverent writing.

Irreverence takes no particular religious, political, ideological, philosophical, scientific, artistic, or moral position. Rather, it asks us to question the validity of all such positions, sometimes proposing alternative views or practices. It can be as trivial as Billy Bean taking on the hallowed traditions of baseball (sacrilege!), or as consequential as questioning beliefs about whether there really are weapons of mass destruction residing in a country before the decision is made to go to war.

While physical behavior (civil disobedience, for example) might be irreverent action in other arenas, words are the vehicle for the irreverent writer. 

Although irreverence can be used for various purposes – to shock, to get attention, to have or to make fun, to be rude, to hurt – here we are looking at what I’m calling “transformational irreverence”,  which confronts current beliefs or practices. At least two arenas exist for the irreverent writer – one has to do with form, the other with content.  For either, the irreverent writer might ask “What is considered blasphemous?”  Or, “What can’t be discussed?” Or, “What are the rules, and are there reasons to break them?”

Form

Here the writer challenges the revered and sanctioned rules or expectations about the craft of writing. It has to do with the way we write. Writers like e.e. cummings or James Joyce might author something so unconventional, so shocking, that the way we think about writing is turned upside down. The accepted form is contested or simply ignored and new ways of writing are then made possible. I am sure you have many more examples of this than I.

Content

Irreverence is often associated only with religion but it relates to any arena, including science, the arts, culture, commerce, and yes, to religion, wherein one might encounter beliefs or practices which go unquestioned. This has to do with the subject matter about which we write. Examples are abundant of writers who confronted belief systems or practices and consequently changed the world. Upton Sinclair, Betty Friedan, and Rachel Carson come quickly to mind.  Re-read Martin Luther King’s 1963, “Letter from Birmingham Jail” to see how a reverend can be irreverent as he discusses his thinking about just and unjust laws; his disappointment with the church; “the appalling silence of the good people”; and his belief that it is just as wrong to “use moral means to preserve immoral ends” as it is to ”use immoral means to attain moral ends”.  (http://bit.ly/ohdWt7)

An inexhaustible range of topics is available for would be irreverent writers.  Just look for what would be considered heretical and you are likely to have a topic that lends itself to irreverent treatment.  But beware. While irreverence often takes the form of humor or satire – note the work of Jonathan Swift and Jon Stewart for example – it can be a serious and a risky business. Just ask Salman Rushdie.

Some authors are irreverent in both form and content. My favorite book is Catch-22 by Joseph Heller which, in satirizing war, does both.  It was described in a 1986 New York Times 25 year retrospective  as “a work of consummate zaniness populated by squadrons of madly eccentric, cartoonographic characters whose antics were far loonier than anything ever seen before in war fiction – or, for that matter, in any fiction.”

Great writing doesn’t have to be irreverent, but many great works are.  Here’s to more irreverence in all our writing.

References:

http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/02/15/home/heller-loony.html

Michael Kroth, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor at the University of Idaho. He has written or co-authored four books including Transforming Work: The Five Keys to Achieving Trust, Commitment, and Passion in the Workplace; The Manager as Motivator; and, Career Development Basics. Managing the Mobile Workforce: Leading, Building, and Sustaining Virtual Teams, co-authored with David Clemons, is his latest book. He is a past board member of The Cabin and is a member of the National Speakers Association. You can follow him @michaelkroth, LinkedIn, www.michaelkroth.com, or at http://managingthemobileworkforce.com/blog/. You can contact him at mkroth@uidaho.edu.