2008 Woodie Awards
Julianna Baggott Shares Her Works
Jocelyn Heath
Issue date: 4/21/04 Section: Features
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Meet Julianna Baggott, Goucher's Writer in Residence.
Baggott, author of several novels and countless poems, is a visiting faculty member in the Kratz Center for Creative Writing. This semester, she teaches English 300, a special topics class on creative writing.
A 1994 MFA graduate of University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Baggott steadily worked her way into the literary world. Her poetry was published in Ms. Magazine, The Southern Review, and Best American Poetry 2000. Her first novel, Girl Talk, published in 2001. A second novel, The Miss America Family, followed in 2002.
Her third novel, The Madam, is quite different from The Miss America Family. The Miss America Family tracks the story of an aging beauty queen, Pixie Kitchy of New Jersey, and her confused adolescent son, Ezra. Every character in the book suffers the neuroses of modern life - even Ezra's bubbly, baton-twirling little sister Mitzie.
The Madam, on the other hand, is based on the story of Baggott's own grandmother, who grew up in a bordello. This book is set in the 1920's and 30's, a far cry from the chaos of Miss America Family's late 1980's.
A review by Christine Wiltz, author of The Last Madam: A Life in the New Orleans Underworld, quoted on Baggott's website, sums it up eloquently: "In writing a detailed and astonishing portrait of the making of a madam, Julianna Baggott has created a story about the strength of women, the way women love, the power of friendship, and how women survive the often brutal circumstances of their lives."
On April 7, Baggott's talents were shared with the entire Goucher community at a reading in the Alumni House.
In his introduction of Baggott, Kratz Center director Madison Smartt Bell echoed the praises of Wiltz. Beyond his own respect for Baggott's work, he quoted Eleanor Kratz Denoon '36, founder of the Kratz Center, who was unable to put down The Madam out of concern for "these characters . . . now my friends."
At the reading, Baggott chose to share two poems and a chapter of a yet-unpublished work of fiction. She joked about the poems - having come up with good ideas but asking her husband, poet David G.W. Scott, to actually write them. Judging by the audience's reaction, it was wise of Baggott to write them herself.
Her first poem, based on the gospel of Paul, looked at a different side of Jesus' encounter with the fishermen he asked to "fish for the souls of men." Her fishermen sing the eloquent praises of their trade, and the beauty of the fish, altogether reluctant to leave their boat. Far from sacrilegious, the poem offers a gentle, human questioning.
Her second poem considered images of the Madonna and child, traditionally serene and beautiful, in contrast to the visceral struggle of childbirth. The power of the experience, she suggests, makes parent-child love even stronger.
Baggott described her work of fiction as the experience of two people who meet at a wedding, overcome their urge to "have sex in the coat closet, which is what they really want to do," and compare failed love affairs. The woman, Jane, narrates her encounter with her quirky college boyfriend Elton.
Any love affair that begins with a trip to a dive bar and ends with one lover parading around the library with an armload of ice cream is well worth hearing about. In Miss America Family fashion, Baggot creates truly original characters with an incredible and eccentric sense of voice. Such characterization came through in the piece shared on April 7th - perhaps the most memorable line from Baggott's reading was Jane's metaphor of her male classmates as "emotional box turtles."
Stacy Smith '06 enjoyed the reading, and said "Julianna Baggott writes with a thoughtful, often humorous, emotional candor. I was inspired to do the same."
In the words of Robert Frost, "nothing gold can stay." Baggott moves on to teach at the University of Florida at Tallahassee next year.