“If you stop writing, I’ll die.”
Author Ron Carlson, a professor of English at Arizona State University, said writers love to hear this phrase but never do.
Carlson, the most recent author to speak at VCU as part of the Department of English’s Visiting Writers Series, read from his works to a crowd of more than 40 people at the 1708 Gallery, a nonprofit art space on West Broad Street.
Carlson discussed his experiences as an author as well as offered advice to aspiring writers, focusing his main point on taking time to write rather than becoming frustrated.
“A lot of work is, of course, writing and rewriting,” Carlson told those who gathered to hear him at the Hibbs Building. “If I don’t know where I’m going (with a story), why should I hurry?”
While Carlson spoke for more than an hour and answered the students’ questions, he concluded by encouraging writers not to get deterred.
“It’s such a personal decision to write,” Carlson said. “Survive the draft.”
Jeff Lodge, graduate programs coordinator for the department, said VCU has invited writers to give readings since 1980.
“All creative writing programs need to have a visiting writers series,” he said.
The department seeks a mixture of fiction writers, playwrights and poets. Regardless of the writing style an author employs, Lodge said the most important factor concerns the experience between author and students, which should be a positive one.
Still, Lodge said the department faced problems finding a place for Carlson’s presentation.
Previous authors have lectured in the Business Building auditorium, but Lodge said that auditorium seems rather large for such an event, while many classrooms seem too small.
“Competing with classes and other events, it is unnecessarily hard to get space on campus,” Lodge said.
Therefore, since the department’s relationship with 1708 Gallery remains an amicable one, the downtown gallery once again opened its doors to the readings.
Although Victoria Pitrelli, an English major, could not attend Carlson’s reading at the gallery, she has attended other past readings. Nonetheless, Pitrelli and 10 others, including graduate students and faculty, attended Carlson’s talk the following day in the Hibbs Building.
“It’s a completely different experience to hear a writer read his own work,” she said.