Creative Nonfiction

Marguerite Celestino teaches Creative Nonfiction. It's a popular class and Margie is a popular professor, and it gets offered every semester -- sometimes even two sections if there's enough interest.

Today they're reading what they've been working on and discussing it, getting feedback and suggestions. They've been doing this all week; final portfolios are due at the end of the month so profs have time to grades get grades in, so this is the last round of in-class feedback for the semester. Eleanor Bly is the last to go. El stands up and holds her paper out in front of her. She clears her throat, smooths the crinkled pages, and begins:

"I dreamed that I was lying in bed masturbating. At first I just thought it was my own bed, or didn't think about it at all; but gradually, as it went on, there were too many pillows, and the blankets were too thick and tucked in too neatly, so maybe it was a bed in a hotel room somewhere. At some point I realized I was in the middle of a stage in a theater in the round. There were people all around in the audience, but they weren't paying attention to me and I wasn't embarrassed, even though I was still naked and masturbating.

"I was getting pretty hot by this point. It seemed a little weird to be in bed, on stage, in the middle of a crowded theater, but not as weird as it would have if I'd stopped to think about. I think if I'd have stopped to think about it, I would have realized it was a dream and maybe woken up, but I didn't."

El glances up, eyes scan the room, she adjusts her glasses. Her classmates -- her fellow writers -- are, for the most part, looking back at her, some bored but politely simulating attention, some looking uncomfortable and trying not to show it, and a couple actually thoughtful, interested. Margie is impassive, maybe a slightly raised eyebrow. This is not what is usually meant or read in Creative Nonfiction. El continues:

"At some point I saw my best friend from junior high in the audience. I waved at her with my other hand to try to get her attention. Eventually she noticed me and waved back, and I think she smiled a bit. Then she turned back to the conversation she'd been having.

"That's where I lose the thread of the dream. When I woke up it was 3:30 and I felt really sweaty so I got up and got a drink and went to the bathroom before I went back to bed. I don't remember any other dreams I had that night.

"I hadn't talked to my friend since junior year of high school, or really even thought of her in the last couple of years. Not because we had a falling out or anything like that, we just didn't hang out anymore. A couple days after the dream I sent her an email, just asking how things were going. I didn't mention the dream. I'm not sure if that was just because you don't tell people that you randomly had a dream about them, or because I was afraid she'd ask about the context and I wasn't sure how to get around what I'd been doing, or what.  I don't know if this makes a difference, but I kind of had a half-crush on her back in eighth grade. I guess that was the first time I felt that way about another girl.

"Before I emailed her I looked her up on Facebook to get an idea of what she'd been up to these last couple years, whether she was still the same person I'd been best friends with at all. It looks like she's doing some kind of social science major, sociology maybe, and going to school on the other side of the country. It was unsettling to realize that somebody with whom I'd been so close growing up, at what felt at the time like the most important period of my life, could be almost a complete stranger. Like nostalgia, but disorienting. Kafkaesque, almost." She pauses ever so briefly to gauge what reaction that got, if any. "I haven't heard back from her yet, but I'm still hoping."

She stops, lowers the pages. "There's more, but it kind of changes topic after that." She looks to Margie. "Is that okay to go on?" Margie looks steadily back at her. Professor Celestino looks steadily at everyone.

"Why don't we start with that." She nods to the classroom at large. "What did you think?" Normally they'd be hesitant, glancing around to see if someone else had something to say, or else a few of the more outgoing students would jump in with their opinions. But it's the last day of in-class peer review, and by now there are only ten or fifteen minutes left, and they've already broken into the discussion atmosphere , so maybe more people speak up than otherwise would have.

"It was an interesting choice to have so much focus on the dream sequence part before transitioning to the bit about your childhood friendship. I'm kind of curious how you decided to pair those two things together." There are a few hands up now, and Margie gestures for them to go clockwise around the table. El, about to answer, closes her mouth, nods slightly, and sits down, waiting for the next comment. This is how it usually goes.

"I liked it. But the part about your crush seemed sort of thrown in. Like you're hinting at a possible queer angle or subtext, but you never really develop it. Or maybe that's part of what the focus switches to later?" She had been talking to the room at large; this last part is said directly to Eleanor, and this time before the next student can speak up she responds.

"Yeah, I thought about that. And I go into it a little more in some other stuff I've been working on, but that's not really where I wanted to go with this." She pauses, thinks how she wants to word this. "It's a relevant detail, definitely, but it's not what I wanted to focus on. It's not what this story is about." She's answered the question, but the expression on Haley's face is saying she wants, unsurprisingly, to continue on this course of discussion, to expand on the queer theory interpretation she's picked up.

Tough.

El looks away pointedly and fixes on the next commenter, effectively cutting short the previous line of questioning. She does not wish to discuss her sexuality with the whole goddamn Creative Nonfiction class. That was not her intent. It was a mistake to read this story, it was a mistake to include the bit about Jess, it was a TERRIBLE idea to start with the bit about masturbating in a crowded theater. Goddamn it. She hopes she isn't blushing.

"...wondering about the symbolism of the hotel bed and the theater setting and all? Like, what does that imply about your attitude toward..." Oh god. Five minutes to go. Okay. Let's do this.

Eleanor Bly puts on a smile and talks about symbolism and attitude and multiple levels of meaning. Her fellow nonfiction creators talk and question and comment and argue, and after another not five but eight or ten minutes because they're getting really involved in the conversation, Professor Marguerite Celestino cuts the discussion, finally winding down, short and reminds them to drop off their final portfolios in her mailbox or email them in by Monday. Class dismissed.