The problem with books, and literature in general, is that the author can only try to do so much with their writing to evoke an emotion that the rest is left to the reader. However, at a reading, the author is able to take full control of the situation by really putting the plot into perspective. Such was the case at Katherine Vaz’s reading of Our Lady of the Artichokes. We were on campus all day and were told to arrive sharply at 6:30. We decided it would be best to arrive ten minutes early and went on our way. We turn into the hall, facing the auditorium and the room was packed. It became harder to pay attention from the benches outside the room, yet we managed to get a good vantage point.

The first portion of the reading wasn’t actually a reading, as much as an introduction to the topic and some background information on Katherine Vaz. She came on stage and briefly advertised her new book Below the Salt, which focuses on the impact of the Civil War on a young man’s life.

What I liked about this portion was that she described her methods and techniques, which is similar to a behind the scenes peek. She explained how ideas don’t just manifest themselves in her mind, but she actually has to dig for them. It is incredibly painstaking for her to even get started but just as difficult to keep the fluidity going. It made her seem less of a figure and more human.

She went into detail into what really inspires her. Her spark comes from actually feeling something, a feeling that should take you back and appreciate where you have traveled. It was a trend that seemed to appear frequently in her works such as Our Lady of Artichokes and her coming book, Below the Salt.

Credits to Baruch

Unfortunately, I was only able to listen to her reading for a brief amount of time before I had to leave. The reading overlapped with a religious holiday for me. However, while ending this piece, I wanted to focus on the strength of her voice in helping the text have a stronger effect on the reader.

As the 29^th Harman writer, Katherine Vaz, stepped on to the stage, she was greeted with polite applause. She began with an introduction of herself, what brought her to Baruch on that rainy evening, and a short description of her works. It could be clearly seen that she was very comfortable in this type of a situation, and was rather enjoying herself. The audience, now full of food, was ready to hear this reading.

This was the first reading I have attended, and I felt intrigued by the anticipation in the room, as it seemed that everyone else knew what was to be expected.

It looked as if a spotlight had been placed on Ms, Vaz, with her yellow dress illuminating her surroundings. She spoke clearly yet casually about her newest work, Below the Salt to be released in January. This is her fifth work in her collection of publications, which also includes Our Lady of the Artichokes, a collection of short stories.

Her most recent work has some striking similarities with the ones that preceded it. For example, there is religious aspect that is prevalent in many of her short stories in Our Lady of the Artichokes as well. Below the Salt, in which she read excerpts from important sections, tells the story of a mother and a child during the time of the Civil War, banished from their homeland due to the fact that they did not wish to convert to Presbyterianism.  The main character is the child, John Olves, and the story tracks his progression through life’s stages.

Ms. Vaz used her powerful voice to provide the audience with images of what was happening in the story.  As I looked around, I saw many people with eyes closed and brows furrowed, trying to picture the beautiful words she spoke. Describing the mother and John’s time in captivity, she read the phrase “He ate nothing but the music of birds” before explaining that his mom taught him how to sing. She also went on to speak about the religious significance. The guards in the prison were using John to “break her”. The mother’s response to this behavior was “I’ll go hungry but feed my baby”. This speaks to the religious backdrop of the story and the moral lessons that most religions provide, such as respecting other human beings and taking care of children.

Katherine Vaz was able to seamlessly transition between reading her story and anecdotes from the time she wrote the novel. As she read about John going to fight in the Civil War, there was a very powerful line which caught my attention. “’We are all condemned to this world,’ John said.” She continued on to describe some of the horrors at which point she started to explain how she acquired the knowledge to some for the details she used, such as the starving at Vicksburg. She studied letters of soldiers from the Library of Congress. After sharing a quirky story about Lincoln and a librarian, she continued to read her story as if she had never stopped. This allowed the reading to be smooth, and easy to follow.

Overall, I was not only impressed by Katherine Vaz’s ability to read to an audience, but also with her writing technique. Her description of a love scene involving spoke to me greatly. The setting was described as “The sun flattens on to the river. Red meets blue”. The sun and water converging is not only symbolic of the two lovers meeting, but is, simply put, beautiful. As she said herself, she believed that she should not “hang a tassel off every sentence”  but let the words speak to the reader.  Both her words and personality were a joy to be around, and I look forward to the release of Below the Salt.

Credit: Christopher Cerf

I wish stories just came to me. I, normally, have do some serious thinking before I can write long essays or even shorter ones. Coming up with a good idea can sometimes take me ages…

This is not always the case with the author Katherine Vaz. She described the story of her new book at the Fall 2012 Harman In-Residence. Her book is titled Below the Salt, and it follows a young man whose life surrounds the Civil War. If you want anymore of the plot, then read the book. All that I am going to say is: you won’t be disappointed, its great. 

The book didn’t start out that way though.

“I wrote for about a year, stuff that was so terrible that I threw it in a box.” We all have those moments, don’t we? I know that I may be writing an essay and decided to scrap everything that I’ve done because it sucks. But hey, it happens. Move on. Keep writing. Which is exactly what Katherine Vaz did and if she didn’t, then we wouldn’t be able to read her great work. And her work is great.

Vaz’s writing is very immersive. When she sets a scene, the setting comes to life.

“I am a big believer of going to the place and feeling it on your skin … And that’s important.” First, she goes to the setting of the book and experiences the setting. She feels it on her skin. But then—and here’s where the magic happens—she writes about it, and the reader can feel it on his/her skin. Many writers strive for that skill and few succeed, Katherine Vaz being one of them.

She is an extraordinary writer and an interesting speaker; Vaz has forever influenced my writing.

I have never been to a public reading before. I didn’t know what to expect. But Katherine Vaz, 29^th Harman Writer-In-Residence, did a stellar job!

Vaz read excerpts of her work in progress, Below The Salt. The story revolves around John Olves before, during, and after the Civil War.

In the prologue, the audience learns that John as a three year old was in prison with his mother in a different country. The prison guards were holding the son as “collateral” and they tried to starve them. But the mom appealed to the guards by telling them “I’ll go hungry, but feed my son.” In addition, the parent and the son sang with the birds. As Vaz describes, “They eat with songs.”

In my opinion, the most powerful scene had to be when John was in the Civil War. After the Union victory at Shiloh, the battlefield is described as gruesome with the “sameness of death.”

During the question-and-answer session, Vaz revealed that she did extensive research at the Library of Congress (LOC) on the Civil War. This transitioned to one of her anecdotes about LOC when she asked if she could look at specific documents on John Olves. The librarian was relived because she looking at research and “not checking if they are somehow related to Abraham Lincoln.”

As stated before, the main character was a real person. Vaz took the historical evidence, but spinned it to create the story. In addition, it was interesting to know that she “needed to feel the setting.” She spent six months living in Jacksonville, Mississippi. It just shows me how difficult it is to write a book. It took Vaz eight years to compose this masterpiece.

Her voice was clear and powerful. When I closed my eyes and heard her, I could picture myself standing there with John as he is surveying the dead bodies or as he is drinking his first hot chocolate. It was magical and surreal to visualize all this.

I do have one regret though. It is that I should have given her a question. It was my first book reading so I didn’t know what kind of question was appropriate to ask. I am hoping that next time, I will be braver to go up to the microphone!

Katherine Vaz

Katherine Vaz, the 29^th Harman writer-in-residence was thrilled to be at Baruch to give readings from her new work, Below the Salt. After eight years of work, this would be her 5^th book, based on a true story about the Civil War. Similar to Our Lady of the Artichokes (which she also discussed during the questioning portion of her visit), her new work has some abstract ideas and family ties, and it sounds like a very interesting read.

Photo Credit to Christopher Cerf

The prologue to her story begins with John, and his mother who is sentenced to death. To avoid hunger in jail, they sing and eat their music, surviving off their voices, and the music around them. They feed off the chattering of the birds, and the songs of other villagers who sing for John and his mother. The prologue shows strong family ties and love as John’s mother protects him and cares for him while in prison, refusing cake so that John may have it. She says, “I’ll go hungry but feed my baby.” At the end of their struggle, John’s mother is spared and fined, rather than executed.

The story progresses and John goes off to fight in the Civil War. Vaz did extensive research on the war to find stories that she could incorporate in her book. The details she finds are chilling, such as killing off horses and burying them, but they provide a very clear image of the horrors that happened during this time. She uses many similes, metaphors and personification that add to the power of her writing. She even used her own personal experiences, which provide great details, such as using a wheelchair orchestra to close the love scene in her book. It was easy to follow her writing because her voice and reading were so well done. Her pace, volume and phrasing allowed any listener to visualize the stories of the Civil War she was portraying.

After the reading, she was very receptive to questions. She discussed her process, and writing, but mainly focused on her research. Traveling to places like the Library of Congress, she spent a lot of time searching for and reading first hand documents. Taking stories from these transcripts and using them in her writing for accurate history gave it a very authentic feel. “I’m a big believer in going to the place, feeling it on your skin,” Vaz said. All of her efforts and searching for that feeling paid off in her writing, as the reader gets a very realistic depiction of the feeling of the Civil War.

When asked about Our Lady of the Artichokes and where some of the odd religious rituals came from, she replied that her family had influenced those stories. She grew up hearing the stories of the saints and those superstitions so she was able to write about them in detail. And to aspiring writers, she says, “no one knows where to start.” But she emphasizes finding the heart of the material and going from there. I think using personal stories and history to enhance writing like she did is a successful way to get writing flowing. Her enthusiasm and detailed/abstract writing made for a very entertaining presentation.

On the evening of October 23^rd, Katherine Vaz came to speak on behalf of her experience as the 29^th Harmen writer and her upcoming publication of her 5^th literary work.  Her book, entitled Below the Salt, is a novel that is placed in the mid 19^th century.  The main character, John Olives, is imprisoned with his mother, who was arrested for heresy.  Her novel explores the interdependence of a mother and her son as they journey to America, and eventually wind up in the state of Illinois.

In her piece, Vaz expresses her fascination with New York through the thoughts of the mother.  To quote John’s mother, “In the beginning, there was New York.”  The mother marvels at the various skyscrapers and wonders what it was like to be a part of the construction of New York City.  Throughout the rest of the novel, they travel to Illinois, where they encounter a group of life changing missionaries.  However, Vaz’s work would not be complete without the thematic twists of love and war scattered throughout.

When the mother and son become closer with the missionaries, they run into the Catholic sacrament that is the Eucharist.  The mother does not believe that the “communion bread” is truly the body of Christ, himself.  Here outpours the internal conflict of reality and religion, with which many people of society struggle.  As a young child, Vaz grew up a devout Catholic, but was deeply scarred later on in her life.  “People get tired of the magic and want the real,” Vaz commented after her reading.  She enjoys delving into the ideas of reality and dreams, which she frequently transitions back and forth from in her writing.

At the conclusion of her reading, the floor was opened up for a question and answer.  One of the initial questions asked by a member of the audience was how Katherine comes up with the thought provoking ideas for her writing.  To answer that question, she compared the way ideas come to her to the way that songs come to the everyday person.  Then, an aspiring writer from the audience claimed she had an idea on a future writing piece.  She was having difficulty finding a starting point, so she asked the Harmen writer for some advice.  “Less is better than more when starting to write,” Katherine gently told the student.  It allows the writer to key in on one focal point, rather experience an array of confusion with countless ideas.

Since her first publication as a writer, Vaz’s career has taken off.  She has given talks to the Library of Congress, and she even spent six months in Jacksonville to conduct research.  “Research is mostly about how it might apply to my characters, not what they do, but who they are,” she noted.  When carrying out studies, Katherine Vaz looks for signals that will give her a better understanding of both her characters and herself.

Photo Credit: Baruch.cuny.edu