Saturday, September 15th, 2012 11:00 AM-1:00 PM, Tokyo Buffet, 7217 Greenback Ln, Citrus Heights, CA. DETAILS
Speaker: Fred Setterberg
Topic: Writing the “True-Life Novel”
It’s 1950, and the great suburban experiment has begun. A new house with three small bedrooms, a garage where you can spend all Saturday tuning up the Chevy or Ford, the promise of a sycamore blooming someday out front by the edge of the postage-stamp, golf-course green lawn. Working people never had it so good. At least, for now. But over the next twenty years, life will change for the narrator’s blue-collar family as tract homes proliferate, wages soar and then collapse, the inner cities burn, and another war begins in a faraway place called Viet Nam.
This is the world I grew up in, and I’ve long wanted to write about it. My “true-life novel,” Lunch Bucket Paradise, published by Heyday (and recently shortlisted for the Saroyan Prize) is the result. I’ll talk about writing the book, while exploring the dotted line between fiction and memoir, and the hybrid forms that can emerge from their meeting. During my talk, I plan to cover:
- the use of research, interviewing, and other journalistic tools in building a base for fiction
- the limitations of memory in writing about personal events in a fictional form; and how to overcome them
- how, when, and why I clung to the facts in portions of my novel — and allowed myself to invent in others
- If there’s time, I’d also like to engage people in a discussion of my use of social media in promoting the book, sharing what’s worked and what has not.
Monthly luncheon is open to the public. Cost is $12 for members, $14 for nonmembers, includes buffet lunch and beverage.
