Zeitoun (Dave Eggers)

New Orleans conjures up mouth-watering Cajun fare paired with jazz and late-night revelry. That is, until 2005.  Now, New Orleans can’t be talked about without mention of the devastation post-Hurricane Katrina.  In fact, most assume that it can never be the same.  Dave Eggers, author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and What is the What?, has most recently written Zeitoun, a compelling story of a family in New Orleans, who lived through the havoc wreaked by the hurricane and the storm of confusion that followed and created an even greater disaster for the surviving residents.

Yet, New Orleans, for all the lingering repercussions of the disaster, still attracts visitors and wanna-be visitors who explore the city and tradition through its food. Last night my boyfriend and I celebrated his recent success on a graduate-school placement test at Coastal Kitchen on Capitol Hill.  This month, the restaurant  is “touring” New Orleans cuisine. We devoured a cast iron pan-delivered jalapeño-peppered cornbread. Then, oohed and ahhed over blackened redfish atop a creamy crawfish remoulade and a smoked pork butt rubbed with brown sugar and cayenne pepper, served over bacon-roasted turnips and pork juice and garnished with potato skins.  This is the New Orleans in my mind.

Not the unimaginable one that forever changed Abdulrahman Zeitoun, husband, father, and owner of Zeitoun A. Painting Contractor, LLC, in the days after Hurricane Katrina. He stayed behind to care for the house and the rentals while Kathy, his wife of 11 years, and his four children evacuated the city with other New Orleans residents. Before emigrating to New Orleans, Zeitoun was a seaman.  He was born and raised in Jableh, a fishing town on the coast of Syria.  But he left with his brother, Ahmad, to explore the world by ship. 

New Orleans was inundated with a tide of water from the collapsed levees, destroying homes left behind by evacuating residents. Zeitoun was able to move valuables upstairs to the second floor. And a second-hand canoe he had purchased on a whim years before became his mode of transportation in the water-logged city. Day after day, he set off, rowing his canoe along submerged streets, rescuing trapped residents and bringing them to safety. Day after day, he fed pairs of dogs that lived in neighboring houses with his stores of frozen steaks.  Fiercely religious, Zeitoun refused Kathy’s plea to join her first in Baton Rouge and later in Houston. He felt it was Allah’s calling, to stay and help.

KatrinaNewOrleansFlooded edit2.jpg New Orleans, Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (2005:08:29 17:24:22), showing Interstate 10 at West End Boulevard, looking towards Lake Pontchartrain. Photo credit

But the confusion after so many were evacuated and others were stranded brought out the worst in some people, too. The news broadcast reports of widespread looting of abandoned houses and stores.  Of gangs who killed without second thought to protect their stolen goods.  And then there was the armies of police and military flown in to create a semblance of order. 

Electricity was gone, cell phone service useless.  Food refrigerated and frozen soon to be inedible.  Certainly not creamed corn, bacony collard greens, red beans and rice, Southern coleslaw or white cheddar cheese grits--the food I enjoyed last night at Coastal Kitchen was far different than the leftovers and canned foods Zeitoun was eating.

And then the awful turned to nightmarish.  Zeitoun disappears for weeks without word, and Kathy fears he’s been murdered. Zeitoun’s family in Syria and his brother Ahmad call daily, worried sick.

His family found out later that Zeitoun had been taken at gunpoint, arrested, locked in one of the open cages at a hastily erected prison in the bus station.  He was never charged with a crime, never received a phone call, and was called Taliban.  His foot was swollen from a metal splinter and his side gave him splitting pain, but he received no medical attention. He lost weight quickly, served food he could not eat as a devout Muslim. 

How could such ignorance, such overt racism, such injustice, clearly a violation of civil rights, happen within the borders of the U.S.?  At the hands of law enforcement brought in to protect and bring order to the destroyed city?  Instead, Zeitoun is taken to a high security prison outside of New Orleans, where he remains for weeks.  Zeitoun's situation evokes similar atrocities at Guantánamo Bay.

I think about Zeitoun’s treatment post-Katrina as I sip bourbon after the meal last night.  Aged twelve years, the oiliness tickles my tongue and just after the heat slides down my throat,   I raise the glass, look at the golden color.  What does it say about our country when in a destroyed city, we could have allowed such things to happen to an innocent man? Was Zeitoun stigmatized by his religion, by his accent, by his dark hair or skin?  Would it have been better if he had left when his wife left?  Perhaps. But at least three people he saved might have died. 

Zeitoun and his wife, Kathy’s story, is one needed to be told.  It’s a story of a man with a rich history, who like so many of us hope to lead a happy life, raise a family, work hard, and succeed, get ahead.  Zeitoun is a story that peels the layers away and exposes a side of “what can happen” that is most terrifying. 

“I felt cracked open,” Kathy says in the book. “It broke me.”

And shattered my illusions as well, that all in New Orleans will be well and be taken care of, given time.  The impact of these incidents have changed Kathy and Zeitoun forever, and in telling the story, Eggers has affected his readers, too. 

Is knowing the truth for the better or for the worse? I wonder, placing my linen napkin back on the table at Coastal Kitchen. A hurricane won’t happen so far north in Seattle.  But disasters can happen, and I’m not at all prepared to face a city shattered and shaken. It scares me, too, that the people within this country’s borders have so much we share, and yet, it’s the differences that are brought to the surface and focused upon, especially in times of crisis. 

Perhaps it takes a man like Zeitoun to show us that our relationships with each other are vitally important, that they cross language, culture, religion, and you-name-it-differences.   That we need each other. And that’s gives power to hope.


"An in-depth interview between Abdul Rahman and with Ambassador Akbar Ahmed in New Orleans. Abdulrahman's heroic story of saving lives turned tragic and shocking after he was arrested and held for three weeks in a prison, fed only pork, sleep deprived, strip-searched, and then questioned for being terrorist. Dave Eggers' new book Zeitoun centers around this man's experience." journeyintoamerica — March 10, 2009 — http://journeyintoamerica.wordpress.com/

How to write like Stephanie Kallos (May 11 at 826 Seattle)

(http://www.stephaniekallos.com)

Stephanie Kallos, author of Broken for You and Sing Them Home,  compares writers to actors. Both must imagine other lives, embroider them in the fullest way possible.  Whether it be a play by Tennessee Williams, who gives detailed description of what his characters are like, or a more cryptic allusions by Harold Pinter, actors, like writers, must read between the lines, understand what happens to a character before, after, and between each scene.

Kallos says characters start with a person, a real person. "I hope you're all people watchers."  By which she means observing real people is valuable fodder for imaginative characters.  Sometimes, the character is "downloadable from a dream.."  A line someone says, that is so compelling you write it down.  "Be open to business," Kallos explains, at all times, as the most unlikely person or situation can give you ideas.

Then in order to develop a full character, first assemble all the givens, the facts, says Kallos, the common ground.  As in, what do you share with the character?  Kallos gives an example. Take Juliet, the famous one from Romeo and Juliet.  What do you have in common with Juliet?  A mom who wants to tell you how to dress and who to meet and what to say?  A dad who doesn't like your boyfriend. Falling for a bad boy.

But the writer, Kallos cautions, has to elevate the character, make the leap to something else, or you will only write "thinly veiled versions" of yourself. 

How do you do this?  How do you foster a connection with someone you develop different from yourself?  She explains that you must pull yourself into the life of someone else with what she calls "assists:"

• do research
• watch a movie
• observe
• interview people
• wear different clothes
• find a sensory connection, the smell, the sound, the taste
• shadow a professional

Then, you must find an emotional connection with your character.  So for example, even if 99% of the time, given a situation, you wouldn't possibly respond in the way Romeo does by killing a person.  But if you could locate one moment in time you were mad enough to kill someone, and you can imagine what that feeling and that moment was like, you have found the emotional connection you need to understand your character.

Finally, there is the "What if?" Kallos explains this question will take you to places to imagine what the character would do if something unimaginable happens.  "You dive off the cliff," Kallos explains, "you take the leap" needed to create a character.

So, in order to reinforce these points, Kallos says you have to know who you are so you know what attributes to cast off  in your characters. She extolled the virtue of laundry lists for this purpose:

1. List stats, like the kind of information you would find on your driver's license or an application form
2. List distinguishing marks, like a close friend might identify you to a police officer or how a mortician would look dispassionately at your body
3. List words describing your demographic group, such as the marketing ads on Facebook
4. List relationships, specific ones like father, daughter, sibling, wife, and more specific ones, too, that delve deeper into relationships such as garbage-taker-outer, dish washer, counselor, sugar mama
5. List adjectives that describe you, how your mother or a best friend would describe you
6. Then write the opposite of these adjectives, take each adjective and write its antonym

Then she led an exercise called "Never Say Never," which she keeps and adds to on her own desktop at home.

1.  Three magazines you would never buy
2. Three things you would never wear
3. Three professions you would never have (not because you can't but because you wouldn't)
4. Three groups or organizations or affiliations you would never have or take on
5. Three things you would never eat
6. Three things you would never say
7. Three things you would never do

Notice in these lists that  there are some related to moral framework, others that are less personal.  But in writing, hopefully, she said, you will find what's "juicy."  And in writing these, you also discover where you need to push yourself more as you develop characters.

The next exercise cultivates compassion.   She gave the example of Malcolm McDowell, who is often cast in the role of a villain. He says never think of your character as a villain.  Because if you did, Kallos explains, you will otherwise stand outside of your character and judge them. You must learn to "stand in their shoes. Writing character is a form of cultivating compassion."

The exercise: First write a short character sketch of a person you strongly dislike in a specific situation, told from your point of view.

Then take that person's point of view in the same situation and tell the story from his or her lens.

Finally, look at the "never" list and write a character sketch of someone that is completely unlike you.  This sketch will stretch your self into places that are uncomfortable. The character sketches must be "rich, evocative," with details and lots of possibility. She says, we as writers "have to learn to lie with authenticity, step outside our own boundaries." We can't always write from our default selves.

A woman she met at a conference puts together a scrapbook for each character.  Kallos writes letters to her characters. In essence, Kallos says you have to know "way more" about your character than will ever go on a page.  But what you do know will enhance the sense of the character as a real person. She recommended Elizabeth George's Write Away: One Novelist's Approach to Fiction and the Writing Life as an example of what one writer does to develop character.

Tuesday, May 11, 7-9 PM How to do what Actors Do--But on the page, not on the stage, with Stephanie Kallos

From the 826 Seattle How to Write Like I Do Webpage: The only thing that qualifies Stephanie Kallos to teach this class is the fact that she spent 20 years in the theatre as an actress. In this one-night workshop, learn how much novelists have in common with actors and how some of the most basic tools of the actor’s trade will help you write better fiction.

ABOUT STEPHANIE: Stephanie Kallos spent 20 years in the theatre as an actress and a teacher of voice, speech, and dialects. Her first novel, Broken for You, was chosen by Sue Monk Kidd as a Today Show book club selection; a national best seller, it was translated into ten languages and adapted for the stage. Her second novel, Sing Them Home, was an Indie Next selection, a Shelf Awareness Pick of the Year, and a PNBA best seller. Stephanie lives in a North Seattle neighborhood where sightings of men in kilts are common. Her website: www.stephaniekallos.com

Wednesday, May 19, 6:30–8:30 p.m. NSWA presents: Freelance science writers: The Few. The Proud. The Underpaid.

Wednesday, May 19, 6:30–8:30 p.m. (starting with a social half hour). NSWA presents: Freelance science writers: The Few. The Proud. The Underpaid. From children's books on geology, to news reports for science journals, members of the Northwest Science Writers Association have carved out niches in the competitive world of freelance science writing.
Three writers and an editor will share their stories and tips for success in today's tight market:

* Bryn Nelson, former newspaper reporter and PhD microbiologist. Bryn writes for a variety of publications on topics as diverse as snake-like robots, clean coal, and DNA bar coding.
* Melissa Lee Phillips, also a recovering scientist, focuses on neuroscience, genetics, and infectious disease in her writings for journals like The Lancet and popular publications like New Scientist: www.nasw.org/users/mlp/
* Beth Geiger, a former geologist who now writes about science for children. She has written books for kids, and her work has appeared in Weekly Reader, Current Science and many other publications: www.beth-geiger.com/
* Kathryn Kohm, editor of Conservation magazine, published in Seattle by the Society for Conservation Biology: www.conservationmagazine.org/
* Moderated by David Williams, freelance writer and author of Stories in Stone and several other natural history books: www.storiesinstone.info/

Writing Prompts

Writing prompts are the equivalent of warm-up exercises for writers. In the gym, the first ten minutes are stretches and a small bit of cardio to wake up the muscles, get them in gear for something more strenuous.

In the same way, writing doesn't come out in golden nuggets from the get-go. The creative brain needs to wake up and start moving, too. So, a ten-minute freewrite does the brain good.

Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing Down the Bones, may be one of the most famous advocates of the timed writing practice. In an interview with Genie Zeiger for The Sun, Goldberg describes the method:

"A writing practice is simply picking up a pen — a fast-writing pen, preferably, since the mind is faster than the hand — and doing timed writing exercises.

The idea is to keep your hand moving for, say, ten minutes, and don’t cross anything out, because that makes space for your inner editor to come in. You are free to write the worst junk in America. After all, when we get on the tennis courts, we don’t expect to be a champion the first day. But somehow with writing, if we don’t write the opening paragraph of War and Peace the first time we sit down with our notebook, we feel we’ve failed.

You can use a computer, but I always say you should be able to write with a pen, because someday your computer might break, or you might not have access to electricity. It’s sort of like driving: you still have to know how to walk."



Writing prompts can be a question or a statement. A prompt can give a situation that sparks the imaginative process for what happens to a character in a particular dilemma or crisis. I have used a photo to tell a story. A song or lyrics can do the same. Anything that sparks the imagination can be a cure to writer's block and a kick-start to fueling new writing ideas.

Searching online for creative writing prompts returned a heaping goldmine of resources. These are just a few:

Creative Writing Prompts
Writer's Digest Writing Prompts
Writing Fix: Writing Prompts, Daily Writing & Journal Prompts
About.com Creative Writing Prompts
Pictures to use as Writing Prompts
Writing.com Fiction Prompts
Five Fiction Writing Prompts for Plot
Six Fiction Writing Prompts for Character
FictionAddiction.net Song Lyric Prompts