The Secret to a Great Ass
/By Nicki Post, Writing Class Radio student
Mother Cut
/By Misha Mehrel, a student in Writing Class Radio. He shares a story he wrote in class.
My mother was one of the original video pirates. She’d rent VHS tapes from Blockbuster and copy them onto her own blank tapes. She made hundreds of duplicates, the titles scribbled on little white tags. It became a compulsion. Even if she didn’t like the movie, she’d copy it, and neatly stack it with all the other hoarded tapes in the white wooden cabinets below the television. Eventually, Blockbuster caught on and the tapes came with a lock on them, so she started renting from a local video store called, New Concept. Besides them not locking their tapes, they also had a more independent collection of movies. I remember running my finger along eclectic titles like, “Ichi The Killer”, “Knife in the Water”, and “The Piano Teacher”.
There was a special section, behind these thick velvet curtains, where I’d poke my head while my mom had hers buried in the Iranian Film section. Behind the curtains was a sea of flesh colored VHS sleeves, pornos stacked on aisle upon aisle. I was probably nine or ten and sex was already a big mystery. My mother has always given off this impression that she’s very open-minded and kind of la-di-da, and she kind of is – I’ve always seen her as a real life Annie Hall: beautiful, nonchalant, warm yet neurotic, and always throwing on mismatched outfits that somehow look incredible on her – but unlike Annie Hall, my mom is Kurdish, and Iranian, and Muslim. That’s the thing, along with the Kurdish Iranian Muslim-ness, comes all this embedded repression about sex. There’s this story I like to tell people about my Grandmother, her mother, Salime, whom we called her Maman Joon. When I was 7 or 8 she came to visit us in Florida, it was during hurricane George, which turned out to be pretty tepid. Every so often Maman Joon would try pulling my pants down to check if I was circumcised. My mom sat down with her and assured her I was, but Maman Joon needed to see it with her own eyes. She wound up catching a glimpse of it, but since her memory was going, she’d forget whether saw it, and then try again. I enjoy telling this story because I feel like it confuses people the same way I’ve been confused in regards to my mother, my grandmother, and all things penis related. That old world Kurdish Iranian Muslim-ness, in combination with my father’s ‘Jewish German never trust a German or an-anyone-else-ness’, have been integrated into their new life here, in America. Cut to video pirating days.
My mom didn’t only copy the films, she also edited them, censoring out all the scenes she saw as inappropriate for us kids. She’d cut out entire portions of the movies: any bits with kissing, or boobs, or explosions, she’d just fast forward through them on her copies. I don’t think there was even one movie from my childhood that didn’t suddenly freeze over the image of two people, clearly about to kiss, and then speed up with those gray squiggly bands across the screen, all the action hidden by the chaos of fast-forwarding. For years I thought the movie Grease, with my then idol, John Travolta, was this avant-garde experiment of structure, with odd holes in the story, and characters would pop up and then disappear for the rest of the movie, until years later when I realized that my mother had fast forwarded through maybe a third of the film. Then there was the Wizard of Oz; the flying monkeys scared the shit out of my sister, so my mom made a new version without flying monkeys in it, which I have to say, didn’t affect the story that much.
I understand why she did it. She didn’t want us exposed to those violating images of debauchery and violence. She wanted to protect us. And there’s something endearing about the panicked, urgent ways my mother used to scramble, somehow tying together these severed movies. The mother’s cut to all these movies, which in the end resembled something like my life: scattered and confusing with very little sex.
the season is over….the work continues
/by allison langer
it took a year, but we did it! the first full season of writing class radio is done!
when andrea and i got the idea to do a podcast of our writing class, i said, “we have to show the world how great our students are. it’ll be fun!”
she said, “yeaaah! their stories are sad and deep and crazy. people need to hear this stuff!”
we thought we’d throw together a few stories, follow the students through their lives and possibly learn a little about writing. boom...a show. i’m a photographer. andrea is a writer. notice, neither of us is a producer, audio technician, or radio person. we had no experience at all. what idiots, right?
thanks to our consultant and wlrn wiz, wilson sayre, we devised a plan. we hired an audio producer, diego, rented a recording room for our class, and signed up 10 brave writing students.
we began recording a year ago. the sound was mixed and the stories placed into scripts. the first four episodes appeared on our podcast in late october. people emailed to tell us how much they loved the show. friends stopped me at the gym and at parties to say they wanted more. we were winging it!
gregory shepherd, dean of the university of miami school of communication, listened to our podcast and waived the fee for the recording room. they became our sponsor. my friend, catherine, loved the podcast so much, that she funded our first year. we hired someone very part time to help us with social media. we sponsored a few writing students who could not afford the class. we bought insurance and finally paid diego.
thanks to the feedback we received, the episodes evolved from a bunch of stories thrown together to a real show with music and meaning and a real writing lesson. we love the way season one came together. we continue to speak with our advisors to improve and grow. season 2 will be packed with great stories, and original vocals by the mann sisters, ari herstand, chloe delandis, kevin myles wilson and our favs, astromaps.
please help us move into the second season buy sharing our episodes with your friends and family and by making a donation to writing class radio on our website. diego deserves a raise for putting up with two crazy perfectionists with conflicting great ideas. and you deserve more writing class radio!
here come the newbies
/
hey this is allison. although, we still have two more episodes left to air from the first semester, a new semester of writing class will begin next week. we will bring you their stories after episode 10.
we have a few new students enrolled this semester. i used to hate the new semester because i felt like i’d have to hold back until i trusted the newbies with my dear and personal stories. i also hated waiting for them to warm up. andrea teased me in the pilot episode that i wrote stories about my dog, molly, the entire first semester i took with her, when she could tell there was something bigger i needed to be writing about. she was right. in the last class, i wrote the story of my daughter’s death and shared it with the class. everyone cried, but they didn’t feel sorry for me. nothing changed. I was still me. but a less burdened me. it felt liberating.
over the years, i have discovered that some of the students are like me. they need weeks to warm up. but many of the new students are nothing like me. wendi came to class, and on her first night, she told the story of her ex husband’s murder. I thought, “I like this newbie.”
today, we received the following email from a newbie. her email was in response to my question, “are you prepared to be vulnerable, write without shame, and air without guilt?”
Vulnerability, shame and guilt are a big, big deal to me. I know this because since I started listening to the podcast, I've been having nightmares where scenarios of vulnerability leave me a complete horrific mess. That's why I think it's so important for me to dive into this process. I think I will be a better writer for it but also a better person for it.
This journey that I'm on with my writing, it's personal and emotional and I'm protecting it like if it was my kid. It has to be private with respect to sharing it with the people in my life. My husband is incredibly supportive and so is my family. But putting myself out there on my personal social media pages is an invitation for judgment, shame and ridicule that would crush me. Remember in Cinderella when the stepmother and stepsisters rip Cinderella's dress off her and she goes from bliss to despair in a matter of seconds? I'd be setting myself up for that if I opened my mouth about what I'm doing. I'm protecting myself from them because I want to stick with this.
All that said and done, I may feel different when I come out of the other end of these next 10 weeks. You might rock my world so hard that I might have no regard for the vultures in my life and promote the shit out of this experience and I may not. I honestly can't make any promises and I feel like you should know that going in.
i thought, “i like this newbie.”
BLAH BLAH BLOG
/Written by Jahn Dope, student in season one and two
It all started with Andrea's creative writing class and that led to Lip Service, a night of true stories out loud. I told two of my stories from the Lip Service stage and the experience of making 600 people laugh was awesome! Now it's Writing Class Radio! I always wanted to do radio. Years ago, I had a chance to be on the air as a host and DJ. You could say, I got discovered. I was on stage at The Bottom Line, a club in Ft. Myers, Florida. I was free-styling some poetry and telling jokes. I had the crowd’s full attention. I was killing it. When I stepped down from the stage, a man came up and asked if I wanted to be on radio. He handed me his business card, which said B103.9, which is a legit radio station. I followed up and scheduled an interview.
But I messed up. The night before the interview I went out and got dosed with 15 hits of acid. I thought going out would help me with my creativity. I see now, that was a dumb idea.
I never made it to the interview, so when Andrea gave me another opportunity to be part of Writing Class Radio, I said, “Hell yeah!” The classmates are interesting individuals with juicy, hilarious and sad stories from the depth of their souls. I love class even when they dissect my stories, which sometimes feels demoralizing. But that’s all part of the artistic process. And who knows, maybe I’ll be discovered again.
oh yay....it's the holiday
/hey, this is allison. it’s the day after christmas and i cannot wait until this whole holiday thing is over. i really don’t understand those people with holiday cheer. for me, it’s one more thing. and that one more thing sends me over the edge. my photo clients are going crazy. they all want their pictures yesterday. i get it, they want to send out their holiday cards. and then last week, my external backup drive crashed and i lost so many photos. i called seagate, the company that makes my external hard drive. after two hours on the phone trying to recover lost files, the man said he couldn’t help me. he asked if I had a backup of my backup. really? what is a backup if not a backup?
our last class for our second semester was last wednesday. we all arrived at 7pm at the university of miami and the doors were locked. no one thought to call to see if the university was opened christmas week. also, diego, our audio guy, was nowhere . when I called, he said, “oh shit, we have class tonight!” i get it, class during the holidays it’s one more thing.
we caravanned to my house and held class at my kitchen table. my five-year-old was asleep in the back bedroom, but my eight and ten-year-old were playing in their rooms. i didn’t want them to hear my story so, i passed on the piece i wrote in response to the prompt, “a bad decision.”
that got me thinking. if i didn’t want my kids to hear my story about wondering if having three children was a good decision or a bad one, i should probably not be writing about such things. but is not writing about it good for me? i love my children, but i need to understand why three children feels like too much sometimes.
recently, a guy i started dating wanted to hang out with my children and me. great thing, right? well, i wanted time alone with him. but we stayed home and hung out with the kids. they loved it, loved him. afterward, i told him that i would have preferred time away from the kids. that it was too much to be here with everyone. he made the comment i’ve heard many times before, “YOU CHOSE THAT LIFE.”
true, i chose to have the kids on my own. true i chose three rounds of fertility treatment. true, i wanted three kids more than anything in the world. but i never imagined how hard motherhood could be every hour of every day.
sometimes, i look at my kids and i wonder wtf i was thinking. then a second later, they do something cute, like make their own lunches, or make their beds or color a picture for me with hearts and stars and i think, ok, i’ve got this.
i wasn’t saying i don’t want this life. i was saying, sometimes i need a break.
i listened to dear sugar radio yesterday. the episode on motherhood. two moms wrote in about how much they hate motherhood. i felt for those women. i wanted to call and invite them out for a drink or ten . i was sure i could talk them down. i wanted to tell them that they were normal and great and that we’re all going to be fine. i wanted to invite them to our writing class, so they could hear my story, tell their own stories and not feel judged.
i should write them, but i won’t. i have photos to edit and friends coming in next week for new year’s eve. writing those women is one more thing….
The effect of writing class.....
/by allison langer, student and co-producer of writing class radio
i heard something last night in writing class that sent my mind spinning!
it was after a comment inessa made while looking for the meaning in jahn’s story. jahn wrote about a good friend who vanished recently. this friend was also a roommate and someone with whom jahn had a close connection and history. we, as listeners, wanted the story to explain why jahn was not more upset by his friend’s disappearance and why he was writing this story now.
inessa said, “i would like this narrator to ask himself to really look at his coping mechanisms for dealing with unreliable people in his life.”
i felt my throat tighten and my eyes well up. i thought, holy shit, what are my coping skills for dealing with the unreliable people in my life? are they healthy coping skills? by my reaction, i was pretty sure they were not.
i drove home wondering if my relationship with my mom has caused me to push men away; choose men i thought i could save; or retreat from love entirely.
inessa’s feedback to jahn kept me up late last night. writing class is like that. listening to other people’s stories, editing them and writing stories of my own brings up stuff. buried stuff. i know class also helps me grow and change and evolve. i hope that’s what’s happening now.
Why Did Inessa Enroll in Andrea's Writing Class?
/By Inessa Freylekhman, a Writing Class Radio student
About 12 years ago, I saw Andrea Askowitz perform stories from her book, My Miserable, Lonely, Lesbian Pregnancy on a stage in Hollywood, CA. I couldn’t stop laughing. How could anyone be so blunt publicly!? I thought: I want to do that!
Years later, I got engaged and moved from Seattle to Miami.
I attended my first Lip Service event (where eight storytellers tell their true stories in front of an audience) and saw Andrea on stage again: all hair and charm and awkwardness. She asked the audience to submit stories for the next Lip Service, and I did. My story was rejected, but with an encouraging note. Andrea said she didn’t really know what I was trying to say, but that I should definitely submit again. I’d never thought about what I was trying to say. So, I enrolled in her memoir writing class. In class, I collaborate with like-minded individuals, process my emotions, and make sense of my life through writing and sharing stories. This class has helped me become a better observer and take things far less seriously. That makes life more bearable and funny.
When my relationship hit a roadblock, I wrote about it in class. Then I submitted my story to Lip Service and it got accepted!
I performed on stage to a room of 600 people. I was terrified to talk about the most private part of my life in public, but afterward, I felt connected to the audience. I felt understood.
Click here to buy My Miserable, Lonely, Lesbian Pregnancy
Click here for more information about Lip Service
We found Missy
/About two months ago, even before we launched, two friends told me there was a woman named Missy out here in South Florida searching for a writing community. My friends had independently listened to Elizabeth Gilbert’s podcast, Magic Lessons. It took me a few weeks to listen myself, but when I did, I did a little dance.
Elizabeth Gilbert spoke to Missy, who I loved immediately. She is smart and open and adorable. They spoke about Missy’s boring job and her desire to write. Missy works as a phone saleswoman. She works from a script and is not even allowed to improvise. She feels like a trapped artist. Don’t we all?
At the end of the show, Elizabeth gave Missy two assignments: to start writing and to find her tribe.
I knew we could be Missy’s tribe. But how would we find her?
We tweeted, “Looking for #Missy from podcast #MagicLessons @GilbertLiz. We are your community.”
Nothing.
We contacted Elizabeth Gilbert’s agent. We posted a few times on Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook page. We tweeted again, “The thing that you are seeking is also seeking you.” Seeking #Missy from #MagicLessons @GilbertLiz.
Still nothing.
Then a woman named Missy sent me a direct message on my personal twitter account that said she was crazy about Writing Class Radio and that it inspired her to write all weekend. I wrote back that she was my favorite person.
A week later a woman named Missy commented on our blog. And liked a bunch of things on our FB page.
Could it be THE Missy?
Yes! But we didn’t figure it out until Missy wrote me an email. Here’s what she said:
My name is Missy and I think we've been looking for each other?? I first heard about the Writing Class Radio a couple of weeks ago when Elizabeth Gilbert retweeted something from the page. Then Friday I found your personal Twitter page and DM'd you and you said I was your favorite person so I mean really I don't even know what happened this weekend because I'm your favorite person lol And today I got a couple of emails from Elizabeth Gilbert's team letting me know that you &/or your team know about me and want to find me? I mean whaaaaaaat? Is this really my life?
As you may recall, Lizzy Gilbert (you know because we spoke twice for 20 minutes so she's obviously my best friend forever) gave me homework to find my tribe and start my story. And as a diehard absolute lover of all things school & homework related, I set out on a fiery quest to get it done. I've been writing but I haven't found 'my tribe' yet.
Well, here we are!
How a porno novella started Bo's writing career
/A couple of years ago a good friend of mine was taking Andrea’s writing class and suggested I join. I asked, “Writing? What could I possibly write about?”
“You’re always telling stories," he said. “Why not write them down?”
I thought the extent of my writing had been college research papers and e-mails for work until I remembered Faye’s Fantasies, the porno novella I wrote in junior high.
I was a scared, very closeted gay kid growing up in the Bible belt. Faye’s Fantasies featured my social studies teacher, Faye, and her gym teacher husband, Jerry.
At the public library I had recently come across the classic sex manual from the late 60’s, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* But Were Afraid to Ask. I appropriated the more bizarre sexual behaviors for Faye and Jerry, who, in my book, engaged in those behaviors with the janitors and the cafeteria workers.
People laughed their asses off when they read it—it even brought me some new-found respect from a couple of school bullies. But I soon realized that my book could fall into the wrong hands, and that I could get into BIG, BIG trouble, so one day I took it to the woods and burned it. Not a trace was left, except its memory, which is brought up at my high school reunions.
Faye’s Fantasies helped me express and cope with anger and frustration in a way that put me in the driver’s seat. So I signed up for Andrea’s class, which turned into "Writing Class Radio."
I know I’m no William Faulkner or Ernest Hemingway, but I realize that I don’t have to be. I just have to tell my stories. Writing gives me a chance to step out of the everyday grind and tune into my own mind—my memories, my subconscious—and that’s valuable and therapeutic to me, and that's why I continue to do it. It is also a lot of fun!
How did you get started?
why do you write?
/so, i’ve been bugging andrea, “come on….write a little blog. readers and listeners want to know you.” she’s been at the sanibel writers conference since wednesday, teaching and learning with steve almond and leslie jamison. i called to check in, “hey, if you have time, pump out a little blog.”
she said, “i’m too busy to write a blog. you do it.”
i emailed bo, a student in class, and asked him to write the blog. he hasn’t responded. i’m sure he doesn’t check his email on thursday or friday or saturday. maybe he’s writing a masterpiece and i’ll receive it after this blog posts…..
i texted jake, a student in season 2, and asked him why he’s in this writing class. he said, “I need an escape from my own life.” he works in real estate, a job he doesn’t love. “This class reminds me that not too long ago, I was a teacher, a tour guide, a friend, a human being.” jake said that he was overworked and tired and not motivated to write. he responded to my text because, “The founder chick keeps hounding me.”
maybe we all need the founder chick or someone hounding us. for three hours once a week in class, i am forced to write. for homework, andrea asks us, her students, to write for 15 minutes a day. i’ve started drinking a second cup of coffee after the kids leave for school. i check the daily prompt on our website and start writing.
the last line of jake’s text said, “I am in this class to escape, grow, learn and be around people that seem to be open. I like that.”
so, this founder chick wants to know…….why do you write?
everyone needs an editor
/after witnessing my best friend, galia, find love on match.com, i decided to give it a "re" try. i emailed my friend, augusto, to edit my match.com profile and within minutes, he came back with magic. when i told andrea, she said, "post that on our blog immediately! people need to see what editing can do. everyone needs an editor!"
augusto:
First, this is awesome. Second, any comments I make feel free to ignore (I “edited” Galia’s Match profile and while she took some of my suggestions she also dismissed others--How fucking dare she edit my edits?!?-- so you post whatever feels right to you). And finally, my read of your profile is heavily influenced by the fact that I know you, know where you’re coming from, and know what you mean (i.e., I have a personal bias that works in your favor). So the comments below are after attempting to read the profile through the eyes of a guy who doesn’t know you at all, and is seeing this cold for the first time on Match. So with that in mind, see my comments below (I am only going to point out the things I think need tweaking, you can assume everything else is hilarious/cool/perfect because it is):
allison:
it's 9:15 in the morning and i am editing my match profile, waiting for instacart to arrive with my groceries, so i can leave for the gym. I had planned to work from home...but here i am $#%@ing around with my match profile. my kids get home from school at 3:15, so i have 6 hours to create the perfect persona.....which is no small feat.
i have been told i come across as one person but am completely different than i appear. wtf does that mean? (I use profanity, far more often than I would like, it’s a crutch and I hate it, but waddaya gonna do, so fuck it…that said, I think even innocuous “profane” acronyms such as WTF should be avoided in a profile, lest the reader misjudge you as anything less than Donald Trump-level “classy”…that said, given the ubiquitous use of “WTF” these days, maybe I’m just being a prig…feel free to ignore this suggestion…yeah, definitely ignore it). maybe i walk into a date with a huge wall up....instead of the happy, joking person i am. maybe i want to appear like i have it all together (who does, really?). like everyone else, i sometimes lose my temper with my fantastic/adorable/button-pushing kids more often than i would like (and just about as often as my friends will admit to and as my mom used to back in the day when me and my own hellion brother/sister were raising holy Hell around our house). sorry mom, i understand now!
i am a single mom....had the kids on my own, so i knew exactly what i wanted and I went for it. But I admit that every once in a while i do miss my “me” time, time to play and work and be spontaneous. Of course, when the kids are all being sweet and calm and we're all cuddled up on the couch watching jeopardy, i think, "ok, this is awesome." (choose your own adjective but jack it up a few notches beyond mere “good”)
i have been on match a few times before with not much success. i like the familiar, so meeting new people feels uncomfortable. i like to chat a little, get to know you before we meet. looks are important (i love rugged and natural), and i am a huge believer in chemistry, but i need to know that your soul is beautiful, and strong, and nourished as well. (this is a great line). sounds goofy, maybe, but i am looking for someone who compliments my life, whose life i compliment. i want to love and inspire you. i want to laugh with you and have fun...fun on the couch, cooking, bike riding, getting naked! I really want to devour (are you missing a noun here? devour what? coming after “getting naked” as it does, the male mind goes to one specific place) and love being together as a family and alone!
Other than when I’m with my children, (true or not, you’ve GOTTA preface it this way, trust me) my favorite moment in the day is when i put in my earbuds, click on a podcast and take a long walk or workout in the gym. instacart just arrived....off to enjoy my day!
the final draft:
it's 9:15 in the morning and i am editing my match profile, waiting for instacart to arrive with my groceries, so i can leave for the gym. I had planned to work from home...but here i am $#%@ing around with my match profile. my kids get home from school at 3:15, so i have 6 hours to create the perfect persona.....which is no small feat.
i have been told i come across as one person but am completely different than i appear. what does that mean? maybe i walk into a date with a huge wall up....instead of the happy, joking person i am. maybe i want to appear like i have it all together (who does, really?). like everyone else, i sometimes lose my temper with my really sweet-but-sometimes-extremely-demanding kids more often than i would like (and just about as often as my friends will admit to and as my mom used to back in the day when me and my own hellion brother were raising holy HELL around our house). sorry mom, i understand now!
i am a single mom....had the kids on my own, so i knew exactly what i wanted and i went for it. but i admit that every once in a while i do miss my "me" time to play and work and be spontaneous. of course, when the kids are being sweet and calm and we're all cuddled up on the couch watching jeopardy, i think, "ok, this is pretty awesome."
i have been on match a few times before with not much success. i like the familiar, so meeting new people feels uncomfortable. i like to chat a little, get to know you before we meet. looks are important (i love rugged and natural), and i am a huge believer in chemistry, but i need to know that your soul is beautiful, and strong, and nourished as well. sounds goofy, maybe, but i am looking for someone who compliments my life, whose life i compliment. I want to love and inspire you. i want to laugh with you and have fun...fun on the couch, cooking, bike riding, getting naked! I really want to love being together as a family and alone with you!
other than when i'm with my children, my favorite moment in the day is when i put in my earbuds, click on a podcast and take a long walk or workout in the gym. instacart just arrived....off to enjoy my day!
the big launch: live at last on itunes and stitcher
/so, now that we’re live, i’ve sent emails to all my friends, clients and acquaintances asking them to listen to our podcast. with each click, I asked myself, “will they feel sorry for me? will people care? will they want to listen to more?” i’ve said things about my mom that were not meant for her ears. they were meant for my class…for me, really, so i could understand how two people who love each other so much can infuriate each other so easily. i’ve made comments about motherhood. how draining and unfulfilling it can be. how most days i just want to run off and play tennis, windsurf, read, work! will people think i’m a shitty mom?
…so my mom is going to hear me say things like camel toe, braless, angry and they all refer to her. will she stop speaking to me? will the people we write about abandon us? i guess i’ll find out.
andrea, my co-producer and writing teacher, says that the job of a writer is to write without concern for what other people think. “write first and apologize later.”
so far, i have gotten some really positive feedback. my friend wendi said, “write a book. i think you are powerful and unique and many people could benefit from learning about you and your journey.” my friend michael said, “i’ve always admired you – smart, strong, fearless.” maybe my friends who wonder why i air my grief to the world are not commenting. to those people, I would say, (and I stole this from brene brown) “because the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we live.”
