Follow your passions – kill your TV! Jessica Slater

Last week I attended the Tin House Writers Workshop in Portland, OR. It involved morning workshops (every participant submits a piece of writing and the rest of the group critiques), afternoon seminars, and faculty readings in the evenings. So it was intense, and as a co-worker pointed out I basically elected to spend my vacation going to school… But as well as being hard work, it was extremely rewarding – after writing in various forms for years, it was great to be able to spend a week really focused on the craft of writing.

The faculty included some oustanding writers – Denis Johnson, Dorothy Allison, Aimee Bender, Peter Rock and others – so the teaching was of an impressively high standard, and the faculty readings were a real treat. Tin House publishes a quarterly literary magazine that I think is one of the best out there (that’s why I went to their workshop!) so check it out at your local bookstore.

Incidentally, someone asked me the other day how I make time for all these extra-curricular activities, with the writing, and the online literary journal (www.wazeejournal.org), and the music (www.alltunators.com)… I think it’s actually pretty simple: I don’t watch TV.

The average American watches 4 hours of TV a day. That’s 2 months of nonstop TV watching every year. That’s a lot of time, people!

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