By Jessica Davis, JTNews Correspondent
Lee Gutkind, editor and founder of the journal Creative Nonfiction, will visit Seattle this December to discuss his new memoir Forever Fat: Essays by the Godfather, a book that reconnected him to the Jewish culture he was raised in on the East Coast.
“It was a very odd experience to see how Jewish I was,” says Gutkind. “I found it really enlightening.”
Writing about his own experiences is a trend Gutkind hopes to continue. His current book is a collection of personal essays that took him a total of six years to write. He tells of battles with his weight, his ex-wives, his father, his rabbi, his psychiatrist and his critics. He also recalls his own Bar Mitzvah. Writing a personal memoir, he says, is very much like therapy.
Gutkind has a rich history to write about, however. Soon after earning his undergraduate degree at the University of Pittsburgh, and successfully selling his first book Bike Fever, Gutkind was immediately hired as a full-time faculty member at the university’s creative writing program 25 years ago. Currently professor of English at the university, Gutkind has pioneered the teaching of creative nonfiction, conducting workshops and presenting readings throughout the United States, which earned him notoriety as “the godfather behind creative nonfiction” in a Vanity Fair article written six years ago by James Wolcott.
Gutkind says many of his students want to write their own memoirs in their early 20s, but advises them to wait until they are older. In his late 50s, after his second divorce and currently raising a son as a single dad, Gutkind says he was finally ready to write his memoir.
“You kind of wait until the lightbulb of clarity goes off,” he says.
Gutkind has written a number of other books in which he immersed himself in the environment of others and wrote about their lives. He has performed as a clown for Ringling Brothers, scrubbed in with heart and liver transplant surgeons, wandered the country on a motorcycle and experienced psychotherapy with a distressed family — all as research for eight books and numerous profiles and essays.
“I experienced things that people will never ever experience,” he says.
Gutkind started touring with Forever Fat in August and plans to end the tour in July 2004. He is excited about his first-ever visit to Seattle, which he has been planning for about five months.
“Everyone seems so nice and supportive,” he says.
Gutkind lives with his 12-year-old son Sam in Pittsburgh. In addition to Seattle, Gutkind has been invited to visit Ireland, England and Switzerland, but is most excited about his upcoming trip to Alaska. He plans to take his son cross-country in a pick-up truck along the Al-Can Highway.
In Seattle, Gutkind will conduct two introductory workshops to creative non-fiction at Hugo House, in which he teaches “the 5 R’s of creative non-fiction — ‘Riting, Reading, Research, Real Life, Reflection.” He will also teach a master class. All classes will take place Dec. 4–6, but were sold out in early November.
Gutkind will also read from Forever Fat and be interviewed by Kathleen Alcalá at 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 5 at the Hugo House, 1634 11th Ave., Seattle. Former Hugo House Writer-in-Residence Alcalá is a Bainbridge Island novelist and contributor to Creative Nonfiction.
Tickets are $5 general admission or $3 for Hugo House members. Call 206-322-7030 or visit www.hugohouse.org. Also, Gutkind and Alcalá will read on Dec. 6 at 7:30 p.m. at The Elliott Bay Book Company, 101 S. Main St., Seattle. Admission is free. Call 206-624-6600 or visit www.elliottbaybook.com.