Margaret Luongo:<\/strong> I\u2019ve been writing a long while and am fortunate to have had so much support it\u2019s overwhelming to think about. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I credit my siblings for turning me toward storytelling, and my parents for giving us the dinner-table forum. My sibs are much older than I am and their stories gave me a window into the adult world I never would have had otherwise. They read to me and even wrote in my diary for me before I could do it myself. Our house was filled with their books and magazines, and my reading was completely unrestricted. I read things as a child that were totally and thrillingly unsuitable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Before I went to graduate school Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer, my bosses at Community Music, supported me by giving me time off and a flexible schedule to suit my writing needs\u2014by taking seriously my desire to write. I\u2019ll always be grateful for that. In fact, they hired me because I could write; I\u2019d never worked in the music business and knew nothing about bluegrass and folk, but I certainly learned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LM:<\/strong> What other creative artists have inspired the style of your work? <\/p>\n\n\n\n ML:<\/strong> I read Harold Pinter as an undergraduate my sophomore year (and then for comprehensive exams my senior year) and that experience blew apart the way I think of story. It was one of the happiest moments of my college experience. For a while I wrote terrible one-acts in the style of Pinter. I don\u2019t recommend it! But I like this idea that a story needn\u2019t give the reader a beginning, middle, and end\u2014at least not in the way readers typically expect to be fed stories. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Studying visual\nart helps me think about form in a very associative way\u2014more like immersion,\ndefinitely non-rational. Music and dance operate similarly for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I admire Robert\nRauschenberg\u2019s work ethic and views on aesthetics. He worked every day without\njudgment\u2014just made things\u2014and said \u201cAnything you do is bound to be an abuse of\nsomeone else\u2019s aesthetic.\u201d That\u2019s so important to remember. You can\u2019t please\neveryone; don\u2019t waste your time trying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LM: <\/strong>What are you reading currently? <\/p>\n\n\n\n ML:<\/strong> Reading: <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/em>That We May Live: Chinese Speculative Fiction<\/em><\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/em>How Buildings Learn<\/em><\/a>, Stewart Brand<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/em>The Book of Jane<\/em><\/a>, Jennifer Habel<\/p>\n\n\n\n Listening to: <\/em>The Fun Stuff<\/em><\/a>, James Wood (Here\u2019s a link<\/a> to the essay of the title.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n LM: <\/strong>For prospective students: how would describe your teaching style? <\/p>\n\n\n\n ML:<\/strong> I\u2019m open to student interests and aesthetics. I want to help you be the best kind of writer you want to be, while showing you a lot of different styles and aesthetics. At the upper levels, I will push you to question and defend what you\u2019re doing, while still respecting your choices, as long as you\u2019re thinking about what you\u2019re doing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n LM:<\/strong> What is the no. 1 thing you want Miami Creative Writing students to take with them or have learned by the time they graduate? <\/p>\n\n\n\n ML:<\/strong> Writing is a process, and creativity is a reward in itself. Sorry, that\u2019s two things, both equally important for different reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LM:<\/strong> And my favorite question: what is your least favorite book that you have read and how has it influenced your creative work (or perhaps your approach to teaching)?<\/p>\n\n\n\n ML:<\/strong> I\u2019m not sure my least favorite book has influenced my writing, but it regularly provokes conversations with people I respect and whose work I admire. One dear writer friend says, \u201cOh, Margaret, Margaret\u2014NO,\u201d when I tell him his favorite book failed in its mission. We talk about this every few years. I tell him that I like his (my friend\u2019s) first book better, that it does what Author X DID NOT COULD NOT do. Because Author X\u2019s book has no heart. I\u2019m not going to name it; I don\u2019t want hate mail. The book is much loved and revered. I\u2019ve tried to read it twice and both times threw it across the room at page 200. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\nlike to teach books that are formally\/stylistically challenging, critical of\nsociety, yet sympathetic to humans and beautifully written (The Vegetarian<\/em>, NW<\/em>, Portrait of the Mother as\na Young Woman, HELL<\/em>). <\/p>\n\n\n\n To finish out this series, I interviewed Margaret Luongo, Director of Creative Writing, Associate Professor of English, and advisor for my apprenticeship with the CW program. Since my first (and regrettably, only) class with her, I have experienced just how wise and kind she is and I am very glad I got to work more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2819,"featured_media":802,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[202,210,1],"tags":[172,4,22,25,197,182],"class_list":["post-799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-spotlights","category-interviews","category-uncategorized","tag-art","tag-creative-writing","tag-fiction","tag-interview","tag-margaret-luongo","tag-meet-your-professors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/creativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/creativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/creativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/creativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2819"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/creativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=799"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/creativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":804,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/creativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799\/revisions\/804"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/creativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/creativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/creativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/creativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/creativewriting\/files\/2020\/05\/LuongoHISTORY_covfrontHR-194x300.jpg\")
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