WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.050 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.050 --> 00:00:02.940 align:middle line:90% Now please welcome Timothy Dyke. 00:00:02.940 --> 00:00:10.180 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:00:10.180 --> 00:00:10.990 align:middle line:90% Thank you, Gail. 00:00:10.990 --> 00:00:13.210 align:middle line:90% Thank you all. 00:00:13.210 --> 00:00:15.550 align:middle line:84% Maybe all students of good writing 00:00:15.550 --> 00:00:17.770 align:middle line:84% ask themselves at least on occasion, 00:00:17.770 --> 00:00:19.990 align:middle line:84% why do I aspire to the writing life? 00:00:19.990 --> 00:00:21.170 align:middle line:90% What are my goals? 00:00:21.170 --> 00:00:23.330 align:middle line:90% What am I trying to achieve? 00:00:23.330 --> 00:00:25.000 align:middle line:84% Sometimes, people who read a lot may 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:28.390 align:middle line:84% stop to consider what is writing good for. 00:00:28.390 --> 00:00:31.450 align:middle line:84% If I ask too many of these kinds of reflective questions, 00:00:31.450 --> 00:00:34.420 align:middle line:84% I can drive myself crazy, but inquiry 00:00:34.420 --> 00:00:37.450 align:middle line:84% about intent and purpose, and possibility 00:00:37.450 --> 00:00:39.670 align:middle line:84% is part of my writing consciousness. 00:00:39.670 --> 00:00:42.700 align:middle line:84% And I have found that one of the best ways to seek answers 00:00:42.700 --> 00:00:45.580 align:middle line:84% is to read good fiction to acquaint myself 00:00:45.580 --> 00:00:48.640 align:middle line:84% with writers who tell stories with purpose and power 00:00:48.640 --> 00:00:50.290 align:middle line:90% and originality. 00:00:50.290 --> 00:00:52.480 align:middle line:84% I'm glad that over the past few months, 00:00:52.480 --> 00:00:56.710 align:middle line:84% I have put myself in the company of fiction by Ann Cummins. 00:00:56.710 --> 00:00:59.140 align:middle line:84% A graduate of the writing programs at Johns Hopkins 00:00:59.140 --> 00:01:01.420 align:middle line:84% University and the University of Arizona, 00:01:01.420 --> 00:01:03.610 align:middle line:84% Ann Cummins is the author of "Red Ant 00:01:03.610 --> 00:01:07.180 align:middle line:84% House," a story collection, and "Yellowcake: A Novel." 00:01:07.180 --> 00:01:10.240 align:middle line:84% Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, McSweeney's, Best 00:01:10.240 --> 00:01:13.880 align:middle line:84% American Short Stories, and many other publications. 00:01:13.880 --> 00:01:16.420 align:middle line:84% Ann Cummins has received a fellowship from the Lannan 00:01:16.420 --> 00:01:18.430 align:middle line:84% Foundation, and she teaches creative writing 00:01:18.430 --> 00:01:21.940 align:middle line:84% at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. 00:01:21.940 --> 00:01:24.010 align:middle line:84% As the novel "Yellowcake" opens, we 00:01:24.010 --> 00:01:27.670 align:middle line:84% meet Ryland, a man who has spent his life working at a uranium 00:01:27.670 --> 00:01:28.360 align:middle line:90% mill. 00:01:28.360 --> 00:01:31.580 align:middle line:84% He has to wheel an oxygen tank with him wherever he goes, 00:01:31.580 --> 00:01:33.310 align:middle line:84% and yet he has difficulty admitting 00:01:33.310 --> 00:01:35.920 align:middle line:84% that the company he worked for should be held accountable 00:01:35.920 --> 00:01:38.740 align:middle line:84% for the condition of his flimsy lungs. 00:01:38.740 --> 00:01:42.580 align:middle line:84% Ryland's wife is less hesitant to fight corporate power. 00:01:42.580 --> 00:01:45.790 align:middle line:84% "Yellowcake" is a novel as I read it about families 00:01:45.790 --> 00:01:48.550 align:middle line:84% and what it means to stand by people we love. 00:01:48.550 --> 00:01:51.610 align:middle line:84% "Yellowcake" is a story about industrial culture and Navajo 00:01:51.610 --> 00:01:55.150 align:middle line:84% culture, about land as resource to be managed, and land 00:01:55.150 --> 00:01:57.610 align:middle line:90% as partner to be loved. 00:01:57.610 --> 00:02:00.610 align:middle line:84% "Yellowcake" is about friendship, time flies, 00:02:00.610 --> 00:02:03.040 align:middle line:84% toxic rock, owning up to the reality 00:02:03.040 --> 00:02:05.680 align:middle line:84% that things may not have worked out as planned. 00:02:05.680 --> 00:02:08.050 align:middle line:84% In the "Red Ant House" stories, we 00:02:08.050 --> 00:02:11.050 align:middle line:84% meet young women who live on the edges of Indian reservations 00:02:11.050 --> 00:02:12.130 align:middle line:90% in New Mexico. 00:02:12.130 --> 00:02:14.920 align:middle line:84% We meet Six Slim, who rumor has it, 00:02:14.920 --> 00:02:17.620 align:middle line:84% will pay good money to see girls naked. 00:02:17.620 --> 00:02:20.600 align:middle line:84% We meet a hypnotist of questionable intention-- 00:02:20.600 --> 00:02:24.160 align:middle line:84% the second most handsome man on the entire reservation. 00:02:24.160 --> 00:02:26.110 align:middle line:84% Maybe in a certain mood, a reader 00:02:26.110 --> 00:02:28.480 align:middle line:84% would describe the lives of many of these characters as 00:02:28.480 --> 00:02:31.360 align:middle line:84% hopeless, but the people who populate these stories 00:02:31.360 --> 00:02:32.770 align:middle line:90% never give up hope. 00:02:32.770 --> 00:02:35.590 align:middle line:84% Ann Cummins shows us what characters choose when 00:02:35.590 --> 00:02:37.930 align:middle line:90% there seem to be few choices. 00:02:37.930 --> 00:02:40.720 align:middle line:84% Listen to the language used to render these narratives. 00:02:40.720 --> 00:02:43.480 align:middle line:84% This is from the story "Red Ant House." 00:02:43.480 --> 00:02:46.000 align:middle line:84% We hid in the little cave under Jesus Rock 00:02:46.000 --> 00:02:47.800 align:middle line:90% up there on Smelter Mountain. 00:02:47.800 --> 00:02:50.050 align:middle line:84% Theresa Mooney moaned, "I'm dead." 00:02:50.050 --> 00:02:52.930 align:middle line:84% She scrunched in the dirt, shivering up against the rock, 00:02:52.930 --> 00:02:56.440 align:middle line:84% and I didn't tell her there were ants there in the shadows. 00:02:56.440 --> 00:02:58.210 align:middle line:84% Ann Cummins helps us to see what's 00:02:58.210 --> 00:03:00.700 align:middle line:84% there in the shadows, what's hiding under rocks. 00:03:00.700 --> 00:03:04.120 align:middle line:84% The writing is artful, funny at times, respectful always, 00:03:04.120 --> 00:03:06.080 align:middle line:90% and brimming with care. 00:03:06.080 --> 00:03:08.800 align:middle line:84% I read and I fall into the lives of the people on her pages, 00:03:08.800 --> 00:03:11.770 align:middle line:84% but I also ask myself questions about the way her stories are 00:03:11.770 --> 00:03:12.790 align:middle line:90% composed. 00:03:12.790 --> 00:03:14.230 align:middle line:90% How does she do that? 00:03:14.230 --> 00:03:16.330 align:middle line:84% How does she inhabit the minds and bodies, 00:03:16.330 --> 00:03:19.570 align:middle line:84% and spirits of people who are so different from one another? 00:03:19.570 --> 00:03:21.880 align:middle line:84% How does she generate universal concern out 00:03:21.880 --> 00:03:25.210 align:middle line:84% of such specific description, of such specific people? 00:03:25.210 --> 00:03:27.760 align:middle line:84% How does she make me think of my life over here, 00:03:27.760 --> 00:03:30.850 align:middle line:84% when she's talking about those girls who live way over there? 00:03:30.850 --> 00:03:33.130 align:middle line:84% How can this book be about sand and alcohol, 00:03:33.130 --> 00:03:35.530 align:middle line:84% and yellow cake, and love, and home, and disability, 00:03:35.530 --> 00:03:38.320 align:middle line:84% and celebration, and mourning all at once? 00:03:38.320 --> 00:03:40.360 align:middle line:84% I ask these questions not because I 00:03:40.360 --> 00:03:43.060 align:middle line:84% expect specific answers, but because I'm 00:03:43.060 --> 00:03:46.330 align:middle line:84% trying to show how the fiction of Ann Cummins works on me. 00:03:46.330 --> 00:03:47.740 align:middle line:90% It gets me thinking. 00:03:47.740 --> 00:03:49.300 align:middle line:90% It causes me to wonder. 00:03:49.300 --> 00:03:51.280 align:middle line:90% It taps into my reflective side. 00:03:51.280 --> 00:03:54.670 align:middle line:90% 00:03:54.670 --> 00:03:58.540 align:middle line:84% I watch the way her author's eye gazes inside her characters, 00:03:58.540 --> 00:04:02.770 align:middle line:84% and I listen for how this gaze is translated into language. 00:04:02.770 --> 00:04:05.230 align:middle line:84% I guess that's what I'm trying to get at here. 00:04:05.230 --> 00:04:08.320 align:middle line:84% This fiction makes me want to listen more carefully and more 00:04:08.320 --> 00:04:10.300 align:middle line:90% closely to language. 00:04:10.300 --> 00:04:13.450 align:middle line:84% I want to listen to my friends, to my parents, to children. 00:04:13.450 --> 00:04:15.400 align:middle line:84% I want to listen to the language of the wind 00:04:15.400 --> 00:04:18.550 align:middle line:84% that blows from desert to city to desert again. 00:04:18.550 --> 00:04:20.350 align:middle line:84% The fiction of Ann Cummins makes me 00:04:20.350 --> 00:04:23.050 align:middle line:84% eager to listen to Ann Cummins, and right now, it 00:04:23.050 --> 00:04:26.050 align:middle line:84% makes me happy to say we are all going to get that chance. 00:04:26.050 --> 00:04:28.800 align:middle line:84% Please help me welcome Ann Cummins.