Blog
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The Faith of the Desert In January, I studied at the Eckerd College Writers Conference, ECWC, also known as Writers in Paradise, and as part of my workshop I submitted three chapters from my novel The Faith of the Desert. Our instructor, Stewart O'Nan
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Creative Conformity: I will read this nonfiction essay as part of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) 2010 Conference in Denver, Colorado. From the essay: When Missouri State’s English Department decided to go ahead with a standardized curriculum for teaching undergraduate creative writing classes, everyone who taught creative writing would meet and have these roundtable discussions in the faculty lounge. We were planning out the shared curriculum, the shared syllabus. Attendees included full professors, associate professors, and graduate instructors, people like me, who were teaching creative writing but probably had no business doing so. I remember, a couple of times, these conversations got kind of heated, and one of these times had to do with stories about dinosaurs. Rollerblading dinosaurs, I think, or dinosaurs who solve mysteries. |
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The Memory of Liars: Andrew Paul Jackson's debut opera, on which I served as librettist, will premiere at the Boston Conservatory in April 2009. The music and concept were dreamed up by Jackson, a talented composer and student at the conservatory. The story is based loosely on To Kill Rasputin, a scholarly examination by Andrew Cook, and chronicles the mysterious death of the infamous Siberian monk (at the hands of Felix Yusupov and his bumbling band of traitors). I know Andrew has been working very, very hard on this project, which means a lot to him. I'm excited to hear the final score and see the work come together. Erica Spyres will provide the stage direction for the production.
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The Lexicon of the Sword This story is based on my (very) brief time fencing under Nicholas Evangelista. I took two lessons. The short story has nothing to do with this maestro, of course, but it does detail the rise and fall of a fencing academy in Los Angeles, California. And of course I owe Mr. Evangelista for all the research I did reading his bestselling book on fencing, The Encyclopedia of the Sword. All relations to characters living and dead are, I must say, entirely coincidental. In Fall 2008, I was invited to read the story as part of Missouri State's Moon City Invitational Reading. I'll put up a podcast of the text someday for anyone who is interested. The story has also been nominated for an Associated Writing Program (AWP) Intro Journal Award. The story will be published in the Moon City Review, in the Spring 2009 Issue, so if you'd like a copy of the story, send me a note: ben [at] benpfeiffer [dot] net
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Below I have posted some samples of my writing from the award-winning 417 Magazine. |
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Girls of Steele Click here to read the full article in .PDF. People who have no practice telling twins apart may experience confusion in the company of Amber and Britney Steele. The fourteen year-olds have clear, blue eyes, straight, dark blond hair, round faces, and charming smiles... If telling them apart is tricky, then it is nearly impossible to know, unless you’re familiar with the girls and their family, which one suffers from type 1 diabetes. |
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Saved By the Dinner Bell Click here to read the full article in .PDF. Steven Roberts is dressed in a worn white chef's coat with tattered white buttons and patches sewn on the left breast with gold and black thread. The coat is from his days as a cook and student at the Victory Trade School... |
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Authors of the Table Round, or How to Start a Workshop Click here to read the full article in .PDF. On the first day of the fall semester I passed out the Storyteller assignment sheet to my Writing I class at Missouri State: expectant, sleepy faces. I had to remind myself that my students, while mostly eager to learn, wouldn’t be as fanatical about writing as I am. I’ve been writing for thirteen years; this summer I organized what has now become the Creamery Writing Workshop run by the Springfield Arts Council... |
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Wayne Morelock Profile Click here to read the full article in .PDF. The walls in Wayne Morelock's office are painted a bright, comforting, smiley-face yellow. They almost glow. His desk is wide, with a computer monitor, and there's a flat-screen TV in one corner. Large nature photographs decorate the west wall... |
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417 Home Projects of the Year Click here to read the full article in .PDF This is a feature article for 417 Home. The cover story I wrote consisted of an introduction plus 4 winners (1 overall winner and the winner in 3 subcatagories: basement, kitchen, and addition). Photos taken by Edward Biamonte. “Rules of architecture are calculated, I presume, to give symmetry and just proportion to all the Orders and parts of a building in order to please the eye. Small departures from strict rules are discoverable only by the skillful Architects, or by the eye of criticism.” |
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What It Feels Like... Click here to read the full article on my blog. One of my specialties is Oral History. This is an interview—transcribed and edited—with Daniel Woodrell, bestselling author of Winter's Bone and The Death of Sweet Mister, whose novel Woe to Live On was made into the major motion picture Ride with the Devil by Ang Lee. From the interview: The novel came out in 1987 and disappeared with scarcely a trace. I thought that was the end of it. It’s the lowest-selling book I’ve ever written, even though a lot of people love it. |
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The Sony Reader Click here to read the full article in .PDF Last Thursday I found myself sitting in coach class on an American Airlines McDonnell Douglas MD-80 to San Francisco, seat 16E, between my girlfriend and an 80 year-old woman doing a crossword puzzle... But as the plane taxied out to the runway, I encountered a predicament I never expected when I agreed to write this review: until we reached cruising altitude, I was told, I had to turn off my book. |
, selected my manuscript for a "Best of ECWC 2010" Honorable Mention. His writeup about the chapters will appear in the upcoming issue of Eckerd's 
