Writing Place

I still think of summer as inherently Jamaican – or at least, how summer should be: running through the prickly zoysia grass of my childhood home, dodging sprinklers, Devon Stout Ice Cream melting through my fingers. Those first moments before the air-conditioning kicks on in a car that has been left baking in the sun for hours. But I’m too old for that rubbish now, I guess.

Instead, for my internship at a high-end interior design magazine, I spent my summer in a cubicle, in an air-conditioned office – albeit a beautiful one: an office lined with glass doors and post-postmod paintings fresh from Art Basel Miami. An adult summer. But in that cubicle, summer is season-less, placeless. 

Which is ironic, because all I wrote about was place. My writing responsibilities focused on producing shop/destination guides for the magazine’s regional markets. The voice of each piece took on the speech of some upscale Indiana Jones; a woman who spent her summer days wandering through charming neighborhoods and compiling little lux retreats – the perfect place to have Vietnamese coffee in Austin or the absolutely best spot for handmade stationary in D.C. 

This was imaginary, of course. I never had Vietnamese coffee in Austin. I buy my generic stationary in bulk from the Target off Hillsboro. But for these blurbs I pretended. The visuals weren’t hard to capture with the help of accompanying hi-res pictures. But there was something else – some essence expressed in the way these little shop owners and barkeeps spoke to me about their work. There’s the sense that, if they get a chance, they will always be there – in Austin, in Colorado Springs, running their bespoke shop, making things, doing the daily work that’s needed to make a place that will last, that will be a hallmark for their communities. That if, when a customer does move, perhaps for a job in an air-conditioned cubicle far away, they will remember their store – their Vietnamese coffee, their handmade stationary – and feel sick to their stomach, but in a good way. In a way that makes them want to go back home.

This is, of course, what I have always wanted my fiction to do. To make you sick to your stomach. Make you want to go to these fictionalized homelands that, if done right, feel more final that your own.

Sometimes, when I’m back home in Jamaica, lying on my childhood bed, the fan cranked up on high, for some reason I find myself muttering “I want to go home.” This doesn’t make sense, except of course that sometimes the stories we tell about home are better than the real thing.

And sometimes, when I was done for the day, after turning in another copy about a place – detailed and shimmering in its polished fantasy (as much as 300 words can be) – I sat in my parked car and just let the hot air steam around me until I become pleasantly lightheaded. When you close your eyes in the summer heat, sometimes you forget where the hell you are.

Monique McIntosh is a third year MFA student at FAU. She is a fiction short story writer from Jamaica.

The Perks of Being a Corporate Sellout

            “I might be dumber by the end of summer, but at least it’s a good resume builder.” Or that’s what I told my mom when I accepted an internship with a beauty magazine. Spending three months writing blurbs about makeup that are as much advertisements as they are “reviews” sounded about as stimulating as, well, spending three months writing blurbs about makeup. So imagine my surprise when I found myself enjoying it. Yes, I was writing about beauty products, but it was still writing. And I like writing.

            The great thing about the beauty industry is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s completely frivolous, and the people inside the industry are just as aware of this as the people outside. My boss was educated, well-traveled and the first person to admit she never expected to wind up at a beauty magazine. She’s also one of the first people to admit: writing about beauty is fun. And I agree.

            I spent my days coming up with the cheesiest puns imaginable: “Inglot Cosmetics introduces a ‘scent-sational’ new fragrance line;” “Caffeine infused skincare, see what the buzz is all about;” “Worried about extra fat on your pooch? No, not your stomach, your dog.” (Did you know there’s liposuction for dogs now?! But don’t worry it’s purely for health reasons.)

            Aside from being fun, the perks didn’t suck. It was an unpaid internship, but there was a gym across the hall from me, an on site Starbucks where everything was free, a manicurist every other week (also free), and the occasional free beauty products. But corporate perks are never really free. Some part of your soul has to be sold. So what’s the trade off? What gets lost along the way?

            Artistic integrity. Coming from an MFA program where everyone seems to be aiming for different, where everyone wants to break through boundaries and do something surprising, and where I sometimes feel too mainstream (not that I’m complaining), writing about makeup is a big step in the opposite direction. It’s a world where facts sometimes go unpublished in favor of advertising revenue, and I know a lot of good writers who have moral qualms about that sort of thing. Luckily for me, I’ve never been one with an overdeveloped sense of righteous indignation. And chai tea lattes have a way of soothing my conscience

            Sure, maybe there’s something to be said for standards, for artistic integrity, for locking yourself away in a remote cabin in the woods to write a great American novel that no one will read until after your dead. At which point, moody high schoolers will rent the movie and glance through the CliffNotes. But there’s also something to be said for a building full of people sipping Americanos and getting paid to put words on paper. There’s something to be said for paying off student loans and not spending the last week of every month eating ramen noodles. There’s something to be said for making your art into your living. So don’t be afraid to trade in ten-dollar words for two-bit puns. It’s still writing. And as for artistic integrity, that’s what weekends are for.   
 

Shari Lefler is an MFA student and recipient of the President’s Award at Florida Atlantic University. Her focus is on non-fiction, especially travel and family memoir. Since entering the program, she has served as a non-fiction editor for Coastlines Literary Magazine, and Vice President of Graduate Teaching Assistants for the English Graduate Student Society. She has also worked as an editorial intern for digital content at New Beauty Magazine. She is currently organizing an underground group of rebel grammarians to join her fight against overuse of the exclamation point. To become a soldier for the cause, draw a semi-colon on a piece of masking tape and leave it outside your nearest Barnes and Noble. She will find you.