At the end of September, I received an email—one of many that arrive daily—from Yenny – El Ateneo, promoting a series of talks that caught my attention. The series consists of three sessions. A different writer participates in each one. It's called Writing Tips. The Improvisation of a Decalogue, moderated by Maximiliano Tomas. Three prominent writers will discuss how a work of fiction is constructed. The writer who gave the opening talk to inaugurate the series was Inés Fernández Moreno. Location: El Ateneo Grand Splendid. Free admission, subject to room capacity.
I decided to attend. So I headed there a bit early, arriving at the bookstore an hour before it started. I really had no idea what "the room" was like, its capacity, or how many people might show up. To avoid arriving late and missing out on a spot, I chose to get there quite early, knowing I could always browse books in the bookstore while waiting.
I don’t have much to add about this particular bookstore, other than several links with plenty of information. I’ve known it for a long time and visit it sporadically. The first time I visited was at the Florida Street branch, upon the suggestion of my father—perhaps the first great bookstore he recommended I check out. But due to personal tastes and preferences, I don't frequent it very often. When it comes to buying books at a large bookstore from a well-known chain, I prefer another one that has a loyalty card which accumulates points that can later be exchanged for books. El Ateneo also has a points card, but the benefits are different. I also like looking for books in other bookstores clustered along a "bookstore corridor," which are much more affordable and don't differ in quality. However, every now and then I drop by El Ateneo. It has a huge quantity and variety, and just visiting it is a pleasure. It has two floors, a basement, and offers movies, music, games, puzzles, and many book categories, in addition to the cafe if you go with someone and want to grab a drink and chat for a while after buying one or more books. Not to mention the architecture of the place, which is beautiful in its own right, even if it had no books.
I started walking around, went up to the first floor, and then reached the second floor. There was the room: a small space where they had set up a desk, speakers, and 47 chairs. Beyond the 3 chairs available at the desk, they left two and added another for the audience. That's when I understood the meaning of the phrase "subject to room capacity." It was early, and there was still nobody there—at least not sitting down. Maybe other people were killing time browsing the bookstore, or maybe not.
Like in many large bookstores, they leave spaces for visitors to grab a book and read it right there. Some incorporate a cafe, while others add chairs or armchairs, as in this case. But there aren't many armchairs, and they fill up quickly. The upper floors are carpeted, and it's common to see various visitors reading comfortably while sitting on the carpeted floor—mostly young people, perhaps influenced by the genres found up there: sports, computer science, self-help, psychology, education, crafts, diet and nutrition, mathematics, etc. On the second floor, right in one of the corners behind a bookshelf, a mother chose to breastfeed her baby, also sitting on the carpeted floor like the readers I mentioned earlier.
Photograph - Bookstore
As for me, I paced back and forth, looking at the titles on the book spines, occasionally pulling one out to flip through it or check the table of contents, until I went back to the second floor and the chairs were still empty. Around this section of the floor, there was a photographic exhibition titled "Urban Geometry. Buenos Aires," which opened on August 19. I took some photos of it, which I have attached below.
First, the promotional image
The exhibition had an introductory sign that read:
"Urban Geometry. Straight lines leading to the infinite, folding perspectives, and vanishing vectors that invite us to tour the city through its architecture. What hides behind symmetries? What lies beyond incursions into the sky? The city has a lot to tell us, and Urban Geometry seems to explore every corner in search of answers and burning stories. Behind those quasi-minimalist and seemingly stripped-down images, we recognize a city that lives, beats, and expresses itself in every one of its lines and textures. Just as behind every lens, a trained and curious eye invites us to travel and discover with a newly acquired gaze what we once believed was everyday. Photography, like all art, is capable of turning the ordinary into the strange, offering us a completely new image of what we nevertheless see every day, inviting us to become somewhat other ourselves. That is what this exhibition seems to remind us: that we only need to look closer to lose ourselves in the magic of the city and turn the detail into infinity."
Centered photographs
With 45 minutes left before the start, the first audience member arrived and sat down. Why wait any longer? I did the same: I went and sat at the opposite end, and waited there. With 30 minutes to go, more people had arrived—about 14 of us were seated. Fifteen minutes before start time, only about 17 chairs remained free. At 7:00 PM sharp, a woman arrived—I suppose she was part of the talk's organization—brought water for the speakers, and announced that it would begin in 10 minutes. And so, 10 minutes past the hour, the writer and the moderator arrived.
The moderator was Maximiliano Tomas, an Argentine journalist, writer, and critic. Here we can see a brief biography: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximiliano_Tomas, and here is a link to his work as a columnist in a media outlet: http://www.lanacion.com.ar/autor/maximiliano-tomas-2282. He had a cold, or at least was somewhat congested, and perhaps that prevented him from elaborating a bit more. He wasn't the only one; you could tell that about half of the attendees had come accompanied by a cold or what was left of it. He began by introducing the guest writer, just in case there was "any clueless person" who didn't know what the talk was about or who the writer was. In my particular case, I was a parachutist who had no prior knowledge of her or her works, but I had taken the time to search the internet for the necessary information to get an idea. I had come because of the series' title, not because of the names of the speakers.
Next, what Maximiliano Tomas did was outline a brief conceptualization of the series' title—or rather, the series' titles. That was where the core issue lay: it could be viewed as a single title unit or as two different titles, and each attendee could go with whatever seemed best to them. I went with the idea of unity. The title was Writing Tips. The Improvisation of a Decalogue. Here it should be noted that, in my opinion, several tricks were indeed pointed out, but ultimately they were generalities. For those of us who had ever read anything about the subject, they were simply being reminded to us. On the other hand, the moderator literally improvised a decalogue using the points he took notes on from the guest writer's presentation. He enumerated the points from his notes and then questioned whether a decalogue strictly comprised ten points or if more could be added, given that he had noted down thirteen. Here I will resort to dictionaries.
The first definition of a decalogue comes from the Oxford Dictionary, which in its second meaning tells us: "A set of rules considered basic for a given activity." The second definition of a decalogue comes from the Real Academia Española dictionary, which in its second meaning tells us: "A set of rules or advice that, even if they are not ten, are basic for the development of any activity."
Whether there were ten or thirteen items, both fit the definition of a decalogue.
After introducing the guest writer, the moderator gave her the floor, and she began to speak: Inés Fernández Moreno, an Argentine writer and publicist. She doesn't have a Wikipedia entry (as of October 2015)—someone really should add her as a writer. However, she has her own webpage: http://www.inesfernandezmoreno.com.ar/, and to get to know her a bit better, here are two interviews she gave at the following links: http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/suplementos/espectaculos/4-1346-2005-12-21.html and http://www.lavoz.com.ar/ciudad-equis/ines-fernandez-moreno-para-escribir-hay-que-chapotear-embarrarse-y-salir-como-se-pueda. Although I haven't read anything by her in particular, I am familiar with her—just from seeing it on bookstore tables—perhaps her most well-known book, called La última vez que maté a mi madre (The Last Time I Killed My Mother). As of 2015, she is the most recent winner of the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz literary prize: http://www.revistaenie.clarin.com/literatura/FIL-Guadalajara-Ines-Fernandez-Moreno_0_1259874379.html and http://www.lanacion.com.ar/1748329-ines-fernandez-moreno-premiar-literatura-hecha-por-mujeres-es-valioso.
Fernández Moreno began speaking by first drawing a dividing line between two moments: one when a person has an idea and begins working on the task of writing, and another prior moment when a person wants to write but doesn't know how to start, the idea hasn't hit them, and they know they want to write but don't know about what. Thus, she proposed talking about that prior moment—where to get ideas, how to find that path that leads us to writing when we are motivated but lack the initial word. However, upon mentioning the topic of the decalogue, she told us that she had read several and re-read some to prepare for the talk, mentioning a few of them. The first one, and perhaps the most important of all, was Horacio Quiroga’s titled Decalogue of the Perfect Short Story Writer, which can be read here: http://www.ciudadseva.com/textos/teoria/opin/decalogo_del_perfecto_cuentista.htm; then Augusto Monterroso’s decalogue titled Decalogue of the Writer, which can be read here: http://www.ciudadseva.com/textos/teoria/opin/decalogo_del_escritor.htm; and finally, she also mentioned Edgar Allan Poe. Although the latter did not leave a formal decalogue, he did write some guidelines to follow, which can be explored via these links: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_principio_po%C3%A9tico and https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filosof%C3%ADa_de_la_composici%C3%B3n.
As can be seen, the writer outlined guidelines related to the short story (including short narrative forms), which is the format she handles most comfortably.
Next, she shared some personal anecdotes that she later worked into text and even included in some of her works. For instance, there was the story of a couple of strangers experiencing a somewhat strange situation in a subway, united by their haircuts—an adventure of two "hair-lovers" that got all the attendees laughing when we heard the punchline.
On several occasions she mentioned workshops; she teaches writing workshops. Some people find them useful, and others don't. Some ideas to work on included: reading a lot as a necessity for anyone who wants to write; knowing how to listen to people who tell a compelling verbal story; asking ourselves why and how they do it so well; knowing how to observe everything from the smallest to the largest things; trying to describe common things; reading aloud what we write; knowing how to lie—using lies as a narrative medium for writing; and thinking about what we write and how we write it.
Over the course of the talk—even though at the very beginning both the moderator and the writer told us they would try to turn it into a "dialogue" while expecting audience interaction—that interaction didn't really happen, aside from four or five questions and not much more. In my particular case, rather than listening to the rest of the attendees, I had come eager to listen to the guest speaker. Apparently, not everyone thought the same way; two women sitting behind me were whispering to each other. But nothing more—there were no interruptions, not even from ubiquitous cell phones. Not a single one rang during the entire talk. It's not that people weren't looking at them, but they were on silent mode because during the hour and a half, not a single ring was heard.
Audience participation was limited to just a few questions, as practically no more than three or four people asked them. At one point, an attendee shared an anecdote as an example of how a great idea for a text came to her: it happened during a dream, featuring oneiric images that she couldn't write down because she was asleep, but which she remembered upon waking up. The dream was about how "her head was liquefying." Immediately after, another attendee took the floor and, continuing the theme but "without referring to any particular case," asked about the effects of narcotics (legal or otherwise) on people's "inspiration."
A well-perfumed lady sat right in front of me. It was warm inside the room. This perfume lady brought a fan, and every time she fanned herself, a breeze carrying her fragrance drifted strongly back toward those of us in the rear. Next to me sat two women who had been chatting among themselves before the talk started. One of them offered me a candy; I said no and thanked her. She insisted, using the argument "they're honey and lemon," so I said yes and ate it. Once again, the lady in front fanned her perfume backward during another round of her fan usage. And right then, a dialogue took place that I don't know whether it was sincere or a metaphor, and I will never know. This dialogue was spoken aloud, and my two neighbors participated in it:
· "I ate onion today."
· "Yeah, you can tell."
· "Do you like onion?"
· "No, I don't like it."
· "I haaaaave such a scent..."
· "French perfume."
Every now and then, Maximiliano Tomas would chime in with an intervention, and Inés Fernández Moreno would continue her presentation. She went on to recommend a book called Grammar of Fantasy: An Introduction to the Art of Inventing Stories by Gianni Rodari—a book published several years ago that can be found used, or otherwise accessed online for study.
Photograph - Handrail
At one point, she mentioned that it is convenient for us to have several available endings for our writing, and furthermore, that a writer always knows much more about the story than what ultimately reaches the reader. This led her to touch upon the question of whether it is necessary to have an idea from beginning to end, or to have an ending for the story we are writing. She contrasted this with the stance of authors who maintain that an ending isn't necessary, and that it can develop organically as the story progresses. She mentioned Cortázar, and suddenly looked up front and mentioned "Any Shu"—at least that was what I understood; I had misheard, but she said something sounding like that—followed by, "Ah, but if I'm not mistaken, she's right back there," and she waved to one of the people in the room. She was actually referring to Ana María Shua, a writer, novelist, and short-story author, among other works, winner of several awards who was present there. Her webpage is http://www.anamariashua.com.ar/ and you can also visit her link at https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ana_Mar%C3%ADa_Shua.
Continuing the trend of attending writers, a woman asked a question, introducing herself beforehand with, "Hi Inés, I'm Macarena"—they clearly knew each other. Later, she asked another question preceded by, "It's me again, Macarena." It occurred to me that she was a writer given that she herself hinted at it in her questions; she mentioned short-story writing several times and then talked about the practice of trying to physically represent what one pictures in the text, so that a correspondence exists and it doesn't just turn into an impossible delusion. It popped into my head to search Google, and by simply typing "Macarena writer Argentina" into the search box, she popped right up. Indeed, it was another writer present in the audience: Macarena Moraña, who published her first novel this very year and whose webpage is http://maquimora.wix.com/.
I wonder if there were more writers among the rest of the attendees.
I have nothing more to comment as a chronicle of this first event in the series. It was good, it was worth attending. With at least three award-winning writers in that small room (confirmed—who knows if there weren't more), something good has to come out of it. Now, it's time to wait for the next session.
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