From the December 14 Writer's Almanac: Amy Hempel

December 14's the birthday of short-story writer Amy Hempel, born in Chicago (1951). She graduated from high school when she was 15 and drove out to San Francisco. She said, "Such terrible things were happening in this beautiful place" — she was in San Francisco during the assassinations of Harvey Milk and George Moscone, a bomb in the Iranian consulate, Jim Jones' cult, and serial murders. And then her mother committed suicide, she got in two bad accidents (one on a motorcycle and one in a car), and her best friend died of leukemia. She decided to get hold of her life and settle down somewhere. She was a good writer, and she had studied journalism, so she went to New York. She took a fiction-writing course with Gordon Lish, and on the first day of class he made them all write down their very worst secret, the secret they would never get over. Hempel wrote about failing her best friend while she was dying. And that exercise turned into her first short story, "In The Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried."

Gordon Lish thought Hempel was a great writer, and he helped her publish her first collection, Reasons to Live (1985). She has published three more books of stories since then, At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom (1990), Tumble Home (1997), and The Dog of the Marriage (2005). She starts each story with the last line, and writes until she gets there.

She said: "It turned out that one of the most helpful things I did without knowing it would be helpful later was hang out with stand-up comics in San Francisco. I went to their shows night after night after night. I watched them performing, working through the same material. I saw some nights it killed and other nights it bombed. All that time I was observing nuance, inflection, timing, how the slightest difference mattered. How the littlest leaning on a word — or leaning away from it — would get the laugh, and this lesson was so valuable. And the improv work — they called it 'being human on purpose,' this falling back on the language in your mouth — was hugely important. Just listening to what you're saying. I learned this when my late friend Morgan Upton, an actor and member of the Committee, took me to a Steve Martin show at the Boarding House in San Francisco. Back in the green room, Steve Martin was sick, but preparing to do his show anyway. I told him I admired that, I said I couldn't go out there and make people laugh if I were sick. And he said, Don't be silly — you couldn't do it if you were well. A brilliant reply on any number of levels."

And she said: "It comes back to the question, whom are you writing for? Who are the readers you want? Who are the people you want to engage with the things that matter most to you? And for me, it's people who don't need it all spelled out because they know it, they understand it. That's why there's so much I can't read because I get so exasperated. Someone starts describing the character boarding the plane and pulling the seat back. And I just want to say, Babe, I have been downtown. I have been up in a plane. Give me some credit."
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Here are things that I will take with me to the writing of fiction, which I have never done seriously and resolve to start in 2011:

(1) What's my worst secret? Can I make art of it? Since the PostSecret founder is coming to Murray, this seems particularly germane.

(2) "In my end is my beginning." I have the end for my fictional piece already. How do I write toward that end?

(3) Why are gesture and nuance so intertwined with dialogue? How does this show up in my work? Do I listen to what I say mindfully and mindlessly--Am I "falling into the human"?

(4) This is not a bee--it's a short story; stop spelling everything out.
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Strange fact: Amy Hempel is one of the favorite writers of--wait for it--Chuck Palahniuk, of Fight Club and Choke fame. Here's a quote from his web site, where she was interviewed by Rob Hart. Hempel discusses lyricism in prose:

RH: In a recent interview with The Believer, you spoke about the lyrical, poetic quality of your work. Can you tell us what importance poetry has played in your writing career, and what can be taken from it? I get the sense a lot of younger writers don't spend a lot of time with poetry. Is that to their detriment?

AH: Poetry is the biggest help in writing stories that I know. You learn so much about rhythm and acoustics and compression and selectivity. No wasted words, no "furniture moving." I read and re-read certain contemporary poets all the time. Look at John Rybicki out in Michigan, someone I quote often. The passion is palpable, the heartbreak--you have to read his new book, WE BED DOWN INTO WATER, to see what a strong man does with soul-shattering grief. I find I bring more poetry into my writing classes than fiction.

(http://chuckpalahniuk.net/interviews/authors/amy-hempel-interview)
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Aha! Point number 5! I made this same argument in the 12:30 class of English 214 when I read the end of "Goodbye, My Brother" and excoriated the class for their comments that poetry won't help them be better fiction writers. Sound, rhythm, compression--exactly the points I tried to make--don't come without understanding poetry. Take this back to 214! Since this will probably be my last semester to teach creative writing, I should pull out all the stops.