Levinthal Reading (Event 2/3)

Response to a Creative Writing Event at Stanford

Levinthal Reading

Friday, April 17th

I attended a Levinthal reading on Friday, April 17th, not knowing anything about the program beforehand, which is actually quite a feat because the English Department spams me at least four times a day, so you would have expected me to recognize “Levinthal” or something. In any case, if you don’t know what the Levinthal Program is, it is a way for undergrads to pair up with a one-on-one mentor in the Creative Writing department, and work on anything - a novel, collected poems, an autobiography - for the duration of Winter Quarter. It has maybe 20 participants, all of whom presented some of their work to us at the reading.

What struck me as so interesting, besides the incredible work these kids did in just 10 weeks with the help of their mentors, is the vast differences between their works. The Levinthal kids aren’t all Creative Writing minors/emphasises, or even English majors at that; some come from as far as Biomedical Engineering, Comparative Literature, or Computer Science. They use their interests to their advantage, tapping into bizarre but workable subject matter that is new and refreshing. One young woman didn’t write at all, but held a radio show in which she discussed the theory and concept of “Modern Love” with several guests. She played a clip for us and it was absolutely hilarious. Others opted for the more orthodox route, compiling whole books of poetry or starting a novel that they hope to continue after the tutorial.

Segments of stories were the most interesting for me, since I work a lot with Creative Nonfiction, mostly in the form of shorter stories. Content for these ranged anywhere from the romantic to the surreal, but they were all fantastic. One guy wrote a short story about Death working in an office and described the systematic process of killing someone (the paperwork, computer programming etc.) and the story of one man, Carl, who sets the computer on the fritz and somehow, by a glitch, escapes his own death. Other stories talked about the writer’s father’s journey to America from his home country. Another, a day in the life of a schizophrenic psychologist. The stories were one part bizarre, one part beautiful, and one part captivating because they were worked out in the matter of weeks, with intense guidance by renowned writers, and it was a great experience to hear from fellow peers, and be able to peer into the Levinthal tutorial experience, and see if it’s not something I’d like to look into for the future.