Black Mountain Institute offers food for thought during lunchtime chats
Writing a novel is an unavoidably solitary endeavor, and maybe that’s why so many novelists seem to enjoy talking with readers once their books have been published.
And when the authors in question are as engaging as Yelena Akhtiorskaya and Gabriel Urza, literary discussion can be downright entertaining.
Recently, Akhtiorskaya and Urza — who are fall semester fellows at the Black Mountain Institute at UNLV — met about two dozen readers during this semester’s kickoff session of The Delectable Intellectual, BMI’s lunchtime series.
The programs take place in the Black Mountain Institute Library on the first floor of the Rogers Literature and Law Building on campus. Each session begins with a reception from noon to 12:30 p.m., followed by the author’s program and a question-and-answer session from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. To check out the fall schedule, reserve a seat or sign up for the institute’s email list, visit www.blackmountaininstitute.org.
Joshua Wolf Shenk, BMI’s executive director, says a primary goal of the institute is to connect Southern Nevadans with literature and ideas, in part by bringing world-class writers to Las Vegas for residencies during which they can “engage with the community in various ways that we leave very open-ended.”
The Delectable Intellectual program continues that mission as a way for the general public to become acquainted with BMI’s visiting authors and their works.
“Last year when I came aboard as executive director, one of the things I heard from people was they wanted to see more of these people and wanted to be formally introduced to them,” Shenk says. “So, we began this tradition of lunchtime talks.”
Akhtiorskaya and Urza both have published their first novels to critical acclaim and are working on their second. While both read from their works at the Delectable Intellectual session, the the vibe of the event was less that of a reading and more of having stumbled into a great party conversation.
Urza, for example, talked about the challenges of beginning the follow-up to his debut novel, “All that Followed,” which revolves around the ripple effects a murder in the Basque country of Spain has on a Nevada public defender. Urza, himself, is of Basque heritage and spent five years as a public defender in Reno.
Urza is writing his second novel, about a college student’s disappearance and murder. In framing the story, Urza tried and discarded several approaches that were too insidery, too laden with detail or simply ineffective. Another tack that failed — one that, he jokes, prompted Akhtiorskaya to tell him to “step away from the manuscript” — was telling the story in second-person, including the second-person perspective of a murder victim.
While his new novel also will involve a Reno public defender, Urza says that, rather than a whodunit or a flat-out mystery, he hopes the novel will serve as a way to give readers a sense of the emotional and personal toll the legal system can take on those who work in it.
Akhtiorskaya’s debut novel, “Panic in a Suitcase,” is about a family of Ukrainian immigrants who move to the United States after the fall of Communism. Akhtiorskaya was born in the Ukraine and moved to Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, as a child. While — and maybe because — her first novel has such autobiographical elements, Akhtiorskaya says she wanted her second to be nothing like the first.
She is working on a novel about “a horrible relationship” that will explore independence and relationships — what makes them good or bad and the costs and benefits of being in one.
During a freewheeling Q-and-A session, Akhtiorskaya notes that the idea that there is a difference between fiction and nonfiction “doesn’t make any sense at all to me.”
Writing is placing one word after another, she says, and there’s only good and bad writing. “The only thing I think exists is tone,” she says, while Urza agrees that tone, and the way in which a writer approaches a topic, may be “part of your personality.”
The discussion bore no resemblance to whatever stuffy stereotype someone might hold of a literary gathering.
“I really enjoyed it,” says Laurie Kalnin, who has attended several BMI events on and off during the past few years but was attending her first Delectable Intellectual gathering.
“It was really interesting, the different perceptions, (and) to see the authors in readings and hear about the process they are going through on their current work” she says.
“You don’t have to know the authors. You don’t have to read the book or want to read the book,” Kalnin says. “What made this fun is, if you’re creative at all, it’s a way to be able to listen to people talk about their creative process.”
The events are meant to be welcoming, Shenk says. “It’s a very intimate room and it’s a time of day when people are welcome to bring lunch and chat. And, afterward, people often linger to get to know each other and exchange information (in) conversations. We’ve had fellows invited all over the community following these.”
That, too, is a goal of the program, he says: introducing authors to people outside of the valley’s academic or literary communities.
“We are bringing (authors) here for a very short visit and part of literary culture, too, is readings and festivals,” Shenk says.
“But we also need to have people on the ground long enough to develop a relationship with (residents) and for them to develop a relationship with the city.”
Read more from John Przybys at reviewjournal.com. Contact him at jprzybys@reviewjournal.com and follow @JJPrzybys on Twitter