The last Writers@Drew event for the semester was hosted by one of Drew’s very own professors Wednesday, Nov. 13. Kannan Mahadevan, an English professor best known for his Short Fiction workshop class, took a new turn on the event.
Writers@Drew is normally a space where established authors read a chapter, or selection of poems, from their published work and then answer questions the student body may have. This time around, Professor Mahadevan hosted a workshop. The purpose was to show students how to take an idea and turn it into a larger piece of work with shape and substance.
He started with his own example of a “scrap.” He told the audience a story of when he went to a jazz club. With everything that was happening around him, he noticed that every saxophone player wore a wedding ring on their finger. This was an interesting idea that he knew he wanted to implement into his writing because it seemed to mean so much more.
The first exercise he gave the audience involved having them list “I remember…” statements. These were to get the ideas onto the page about an experience. After all, artists draw from real life.
After the audience shared, he showed excerpts of “But Beautiful” by Geoff Dyer (1991), a published work that touches upon different jazz musicians who have been labeled as legends in the genre. This is a unique work because it implements both fiction and nonfiction. The stories Geoff Dyer tells are about real people and real events; however, they are fictionalized to fit a narrative structure.
Before reading an excerpt of Dyer’s take on an incident involving the jazz artist Thelonious Monk, Mahadevan had the audience read a more factual piece on the events that occurred. This, in contrast with the more fictional work, demonstrated how there is a difference between saying what happened versus telling a story. Dyer’s piece involved literary techniques and description as if the author were there. Nothing in the work is an accurate transcription of real events. He used this to give examples of dynamic writing that students should strive to produce.
In closing remarks, Mahadevan said the purpose of this exercise was to “embellish the scrap,” “make a scene out of it,” and “bring it to vivid life.” Before ending the event he said that the license to invent something is “within your power.”
Samantha DeFalco is a junior majoring in English, minoring in Italian.
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