'Ice Storm' author storms campus
Rick Moody drew a big crowd to Kelly Writers House last night.
The Daily Pennsylvanian
September 29, 2000
After Rick Moody finished his reading at the Kelly Writers House last night, he was asked by an audience member if he is ever unsuccessful when he experiments in his writing.
The answer is almost irrelevant because his career speaks for itself. Moody's work has appeared in publications like The New Yorker, Harper's and Esquire, and he's accumulated enough awards during his life to be considered an eminent contemporary writer.
So to make a long answer short, Rick Moody's not exactly accustomed to failure.
Moody spoke before a standing-room-only crowd of more than 60 students, professors and fellow writers. Others listened to Moody through a live Webcast.
"It's fun to go to campuses, and it's an opportunity to test new material that I read on bookstore tours," Moody said of his visit.
Moody is best known for his novel The Ice Storm, which was made into a critically acclaimed film directed by Ang Lee and starring Kevin Kline, Tobey Maguire, Christina Ricci and Sigourney Weaver in 1997.
The novel takes place during a Thanksgiving weekend in the 1970s and chronicles the disintegrating relationships of two middle-upper class families in suburban Connecticut.
For an hour, Moody read selections from several of his novels -- including his 1998 work Purple America -- and offered advice to prospective writers in the audience.
Yesterday, Moody sat in on three English classes, came to the Writers House for a reading and a dinner and joined the Penn Philosophy Circle later in the evening.
Three students were especially eager for Moody's visit because they have spent the semester studying his work. College senior Tahneer Oksman is part of a three-student independent study course that studies visiting authors to the Writers House.
The course was developed by College senior Aaron Couch, who said he was inspired to start the class because he "thought it [was] a shame that I don't really know that much about the writers" who visit the Locust Walk house.
Couch designed the course along with Writers House Director Kerry Sherin, who described the course's development as a "ground-on-up kind of thing."
The students in the class will, as a final project, either interview or write a book review of one of the three authors they are studying.
The audience remained attentive throughout the presentation last night, as they listened to the author describe his political biases -- he's voting for Ralph Nader for president -- his feelings on teaching and his opinions on writing.
"If it's part of your personality and you feel you can't stop, don't stop," Moody said of the writing process.
Contrasting writing to sit-ups, he advised the students not to push themselves to write when they're not in the mood to do so.
Audience members uniformly found the author's words encouraging.
"It's amazing," Oksman said, following the reading. "I'm very inspired, ready to go home and write."
Added Sherin: "I think he's a virtuoso. He's so gifted with language and rhythms of language."