ALTA 2013 Review - The Little Things

And for more specifics, here follows a link-list of things I heard about (for the first or umpteenth time) at this year's ALTA conference: 

 Residencies, Fellowships, and Scholarships

Free Word Centre (UK) 
Banff International Literary Translation Centre (Canada)
HALMA Network (Europe)
RECIT Network (Europe)
Fulbright program
more exhaustive list on the ALTA website

 Translation-specific Journals, Magazines, and Presses

Words Without Borders 
Asymptote
A Public Space
Two Lines
World Literature Today
InTranslation (Brooklyn Rail)
Autumn Hill Books

Other Translation-friendly Journals and Magazines 

Anomalous Press
LA Review of Books: Quarterly Journal
Tupelo Quarterly
Michigan Quarterly Review
Massachusetts Review
Indiana Review
FIELD (Oberlin)
Subtropics (Florida)
Notre Dame Review
Cincinnati Review

 Support/Advocacy for Translators/Translations

PEN Translation Committee 
Authors and Translators blog
Three Percent blog

Miscellaneous Stuff 

Another awesome conference: ACLA 2014 
My new favorite poem: "Twigs"

ALTA 2013 Review - The Big Things

ALTA members, it's official. Because of this month's conference, I have fallen madly and thoroughly in love with each and every one of you.  Let me count the ways in which we are awesome together:

• We like comics. Graphic novels. BDs. There's a small niche group of us who are doggedly pushing this wonderful form of storytelling in front of mainstream American readers. And it's all beautiful.
• We are poets. Even those of us who don't think so. We care about semantics, how words sound, how they look on the page, how they feel in our mouth, what they mean and how they mean it. I always say that I envy poets, but in reality, I am one. Just like the rest of you. 
• We give each other leads. There's none of the backstabbing that tends to plague so many creative and competitive professions. Instead, we share information about residencies and programs, about grants and awards, about other conferences, about publishers and magazines, about what works and what doesn't. 
• We laugh together about the strangest things. E.g. Cole Swensen: "I don't have a solution for that. Well, that's not true, I do have a solution, but it's not nearly as interesting as the problem, so we'll skip over it."
• We have big ideas. "Translation is writing, not decoding." "Exaggerate the quirks of your characters." "Focus on how you can help." "These are my words, but not my thoughts." 
• We have an idea, then we git 'er done. ELTNA didn't exist at 8am on Friday the 18th. By 5pm, it was officially founded, and launched eleven days later.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I can't wait to be an ALTAn (Altinian? Altese? Altite?) for many years to come.

You're not alone!

Ever get that sinking feeling that you're the only one out there with your problems? Sitting in your tiny apartment, staring at your laptop screen for hours on end, struggling with dictionaries and magazine submissions and not knowing a single soul who's been through what you're trying to do.

Yes, you. All you beginning and emerging translators out there.  Anyone who's tried to mine the depths of the Internet for anything that might help you find someone, read a contract, find reputable magazines to submit to, even figure out if graduate degrees or certification is necessary to start working freelance in this country, this network is for you.

It's here: ELTNA.org. 

And we're waiting for you. 

Something's coming...

Something good! 

Something very good, as a matter of fact. 

Something that will help emerging translators in the US find their bearings, and find fellow compatriots.  

Something that will organize resources for beginning literary translators all in one place. 

Something that will lead to webinars, events, and even mentorships.  

It's called the Emerging Literary Translators' Network in America, and it's coming soon.  

Next week, in fact. 

Watch this space for more information! 

I made this for you.

Much more hands-on than my normal work.

I learned MIG welding on Saturday at the Rochester Arc and Flame Center . And what did I do with my new-found skills?

Nothing so practical as a table.

Nothing so cute as a wire garden bug.

No, I thought of you, dear readers, and made us all a sign. Just in case you get lost while you're here. 

Greeks in France

Ancient Greeks, that is.  In French.

France loves its classics, its Antiquity, its Greek and Roman history.  Latin and Greek are still part of the basic curriculum in many high schools. But this isn't a recent love affair. Turns out, it's been going on for so long that it's affected the very language they speak.

I've talked about méduser before (here). Medusa was a Gorgon, a monster in Greek mythology whose gaze turns people to stone. Pretty badass, if you ask me. But the French word isn't even a direct reference to her anymore--it just means "to astound, astonish, or stupefy."

The verb s'adoniser  is similar. Look who's in there: Adonis, the Greek god of beauty and desire. He's considered an archetype of young, handsome men. But the French don't say that a guy is "making himself as beautiful as Adonis." They say il s'adonise : primping. "Preparing himself with almost too much attention," according to Littré.

The French don't mess around with their mythology. No one's going to "Medusa-ize" their enemy or "make like Adonis and beautify themselves." They're too refined for that.

I'm starting to feel pretty vulgar and base in comparison. Time to make like a tree and get out of here. 

Profitless Printing Through the Ages

The Genesee Country Village and Museum is awesome. 

Just putting that out there. 

I finally got to go see the historic village yesterday for the Smithsonian Magazine Museum Day , and I learned so much in three hours about life in the 18th and 19th centuries in Western NY. The most interesting bit to many people (including Mr. C) was the Civil-War-era replica of the Intrepid, a helium balloon used by the army.

The most interesting bit to me was the printing press.

Courtesy of the Genesee Country Village and Museum

Of course it was fascinating: the history of an industry that led to my own career, the typeset itself, kerning...everything. (On a side note: search Google for "kerning" and enjoy. You won't be disappointed.) 

But something the printer said surprised me...and then again, it didn't. He explained that being a printer was a white-collar job, much like a doctor or lawyer of the day. But unlike those other white-collar jobs, there was no profit in printing. A printer did his work out of a sense of duty to his neighbors and fellow townsfolk, to bring them the local, national, and even international news that they would never otherwise receive.

Huh. Sounds a bit like today's publishing and journalism, doesn't it?

Something really cool happened last night.

I showed up to Open Letter's first fall event in their Reading the World Conversation Series (more info about the next free event on Oct. 1 here, if you're in or near Rochester) . Chad Post, Open Letter's director and soccer aficionado, had warned me that his guest, the French author Jean-Marie Blas de Roblès, spoke English fine, but might need a little help.

I hadn't realized that was code for "Allison, you should grab a mic and sit on stage with us to interpret as necessary." 

It's no secret that I will never be a professional interpreter. I'm too much of a perfectionist, and I don't think quickly enough on my feet. Both well-known facts. At least to me. The world at large must have missed that memo. 

Because there I was, sitting on a little elevated platform with a warm, funny, and world-renowned French author, trying to keep up with Chad's rapid-fire English and catch any sudden switches of Jean-Marie's speech from halting English to fluid French, fielding questions from the audience. And none of it was perfect.

But it was good enough. 

It didn't matter that I gave two or three English choices for the one French word Jean-Marie queried me on. It didn't matter that I didn't have more context than "La preuve est...?" because the odds of "preuve" being "proof" were heavily in my favor.  It didn't even matter that I couldn't perform as a professional interpreter would, because in the end, he didn't really need me. I was there as a crutch, a cushion, a smiling safety net. And if that provided enough comfort for him to tell his wonderful stories of falsified biographies, hypocritical publishers, and thinly-veiled dick jokes, then I did my job right.

Still, I'm not ever going to add "interpreting" to my list of professional skills. I have too much respect and awe-filled admiration for interpreters to do that.

Change of Scenery

One common tip for freelancers, translators included, is to get involved in your local community. Nothing beats meeting people in person, putting your name and face out there, whether through business organizations, volunteering, social committees, whatever floats your boat. 

Moving, then, is a blessing and a curse. You have to start again from scratch, but there are so many new opportunities. And as it happens, moving out of a huge city to a more modest one actually works out in your favor. Highly.

In New York City, I got lost in the crowd. Even within the professional translator's association, I was just another face. And so was everyone else. People moved away, got busy, and fell off the face of the earth so often that no real community was ever built. There are too many groups, too many organizations, with thousands of people flowing freely between them.

But now, I have flowed definitively up to Rochester. Out of the big bad metropolis to a smaller city, full of small-town feel and village charm. There are lots of things for a translator to do, but each organization is the only game in town. The Rochester Young Professionals. The New England Translators Association. A strange being called Plüb that has spawned a matching Book Clüb. A university with an MA program in Literary Translation.

And because of these singular organizations, I've practically doubled the number of people and agencies that I work for. Already. I live out in the countryside, for goodness' sakes, and I've met more people -- more of the right people -- in three months here than I did in three years in NYC. This has been a most productive change of scenery.

An apology, an excuse, and a plug

Apology: I'm very sorry the entries have been few and far between recently.

Excuse: I've started grad school. 

Plug: Three Percent.  I've said before that it's quite possibly the best blog in the literary translation industry, and that's still true. Now I have even more of a reason to spread the word. As an MA candidate in Literary Translation Studies at the University of Rochester, I'm a de facto intern at Open Letter.

*swoon*

One of my wildest dreams is coming true.