The Collegian

Issue date: 5/12/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Thomas Vo Mary Volmer (left) and Lysley Tenorio (right) discuss their works.

The final Creative Writing Reading Series featured names that are far from unknown on campus. English professors Mary Volmer and Lysley Tenorio were invited to share their works for the final Reading Series event of the year. Volmer, who is also the director of the Honors Program, attended Saint Mary's for her undergraduate work, earned her Master's at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and earned her Master of Fine Arts (MFA) from Saint Mary's. Tenorio got his MFA at the University of Oregon.

The first to read was Volmer. She began with a historical piece called "Canyon," written from the perspective of a young girl in Arizona. After reading a short poem, she finished with a piece she wrote to help the libraries in her native Nevada County.

Volmer writes a lot of historical fiction, and Rosemary Graham, director of the composition program, said in the introduction, "Mary clearly does a lot of work, a lot of research." Volmer spoke about her research as well, saying that she has to use her imagination to figure out what she does not know about the past. "The research end is so big you can't possibly know it all before you begin writing," she said. "I'm really getting an education that way that I wouldn't have gotten in a more deliberate manner."

Her upcoming novel was also a topic of discussion. Volmer described the setting as 10 years after the Civil War, when the world was a "messed up place." Some of the issues the book tackles are mother-daughter relationships, beauty and ugliness.

The next reader, Tenorio, got laughs right from the start when he compared Volmer to J.Lo for crossing genres. His reading, an excerpt from his story "Monstrous," kept that comic feeling alive, although it had some more serious moments as well. He was inspired to write the story, which is about a low-budget has-been filmmaker in the Philippines, by a real occurrence. "I was on a B movie website years and years ago, and the movie that these critics voted as the worst movie of all time was in fact…an American sci-fi movie and a Filipino horror movie spliced together," he described.

Tenorio said that he often uses reality to help him come up with story ideas. "I might not be very creative," he said. "I really do rely on historical facts or weird moments in history."

He also briefly discussed his upcoming novel, which is still in its early stages. He said it is about "these DVD pirates who are trying to assassinate some dogs."

Both authors spoke of finding balance between teaching and writing. Tenorio explained that he writes a lot during summers and on weekends, while Volmer said that her best time is the morning.

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