Spring Break
Naked is best for Writing Sems' Jessica Blau
Issue date: 9/25/08
Writing Seminars professor Jessica Blau takes a Nike approach to writing: "Just do it," she said. "You have to do it in spite of what anybody thinks, or what they say, or how you think they might criticize you, or whether you think they'll hate it, whether you feel like you're humiliating yourself and your family. You have to do it in spite of everything."
Following her own advice, Blau just did it this summer, as her first novel, The Summer of Naked Swim Parties was published by Harper Collins (a heavy hitter that has published works by authors such as Michael Crichton, Lemony Snicket and Janet Evanovich). After an extensive book tour this summer, Jessica Blau is back on campus to read, write and teach.
The Summer of Naked Swim Parties begins in California during the summer of 1976. "1976 was a great year because it was the American bicentennial," Blau explained. "It was this gung ho, Jell-O mold, American flags and stars-and-stripes cakes. Everything changed for the bicentennial." She took a nontraditional family that did some eccentric (and slightly un-American) things and created a story where everything changed for them. Fourteen-year-old Jamie, who "imagined death first and humiliation second," is struggling to find out who she is while her parents are constantly setting a bad example.
This is the summer of self-discovery for Jamie, who struggles with friendship, love, and life - and of course, dealing with her parents throwing naked swim parties. "After all, it was the seventies," Blau said.
Blau classifies her debut novel as semi-autobiographical. "I took all these things that happened over many years and put them all into one summer, and some things didn't even happen to me," she explained. "Things happened that didn't necessarily happen to everyone in real life, but they were all things I knew intimately and a lot of it is just exactly how it happened." Some say that to write is to put oneself out for the entire world to see, and Blau certainly was not afraid to do just that. "Even though maybe everybody else's parents didn't swim naked, everybody knows what it's like to have your parents doing something that made you feel uncomfortable. I just assume that everyone is as strange and bizarre as I am. I forgive everybody for all their eccentricities. I assume they'll forgive me for mine."
Following her own advice, Blau just did it this summer, as her first novel, The Summer of Naked Swim Parties was published by Harper Collins (a heavy hitter that has published works by authors such as Michael Crichton, Lemony Snicket and Janet Evanovich). After an extensive book tour this summer, Jessica Blau is back on campus to read, write and teach.
The Summer of Naked Swim Parties begins in California during the summer of 1976. "1976 was a great year because it was the American bicentennial," Blau explained. "It was this gung ho, Jell-O mold, American flags and stars-and-stripes cakes. Everything changed for the bicentennial." She took a nontraditional family that did some eccentric (and slightly un-American) things and created a story where everything changed for them. Fourteen-year-old Jamie, who "imagined death first and humiliation second," is struggling to find out who she is while her parents are constantly setting a bad example.
This is the summer of self-discovery for Jamie, who struggles with friendship, love, and life - and of course, dealing with her parents throwing naked swim parties. "After all, it was the seventies," Blau said.
Blau classifies her debut novel as semi-autobiographical. "I took all these things that happened over many years and put them all into one summer, and some things didn't even happen to me," she explained. "Things happened that didn't necessarily happen to everyone in real life, but they were all things I knew intimately and a lot of it is just exactly how it happened." Some say that to write is to put oneself out for the entire world to see, and Blau certainly was not afraid to do just that. "Even though maybe everybody else's parents didn't swim naked, everybody knows what it's like to have your parents doing something that made you feel uncomfortable. I just assume that everyone is as strange and bizarre as I am. I forgive everybody for all their eccentricities. I assume they'll forgive me for mine."
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