Teaching the spices of life—today—and celebrating Lise Funderburg's remarkable PIG CANDY

In just a few hours, I'll be conducting my final Handling the Truth workshop of the year. This one is called The Spices of Life, and it is being done in conjunction with First Person Arts.

The facts:

First Person Arts DATE Saturday, November 16 TIME 11AM-1PM LOCATION Christ Church Neighborhood House (20 N. American St., Philadelphia) ENROLLMENT $65, $52 for First Person Arts members Space is limited to 12 participants.
ONLINE SALES FOR THIS WORKSHOP WILL END AT 9AM BUT YOU CAN STILL ENROLL IN PERSON AT THE VENUE STARTING AT 10AM.

Whet your appetite in this food-inspired memoir workshop with author Beth Kephart, a National Book Award finalist. Bring a provocative symbol of a well-remembered meal: a spice jar, a mother’s potholder, a stained apron, a recipe card, a photograph, a restaurant review, etc. Through a series of guided exercises in the elements of storytelling, background and foreground imagery, and use of dialogue in memoir, you will recreate scenes of gastronomic bliss.

Of course, I never do teach the exact same thing twice, and so I am elated today to be bringing into the classroom Lise Funderburg's truly outstanding memoir, PIG CANDY: Taking My Father South, Taking My Father Home. Lise teaches at the University of Pennsylvania. She writes astonishing prose. She is a true memoirist—a writer who makes the very best of the very best, which is to say memory, research, cohering idea, narrative tension, language, and love.

I'm going to be focused on the pig at the center of the book's early pages—the big pig that becomes pig candy as a family gathers in the south. I'm going to be looking at how Lise evokes this pig and its transformation into a transformational meal. I'll be reading from scenes like this:

John retrieves a knife from the kitchen and carves off tastes. Mack accepts a piece, puts it in his mouth, and contemplates it, saying nothing. Behind his big square plastic eyeglass frames, his look is impenetrable. There is a general silence after each person tries the pork. It is salty. Horribly, wretchedly salt. Apparently this is a case of over enthusiastic overinoculation with overly briney brine.

It's is a little salty, Mack Tillman concedes, once everyone else has said so.

And then, relying on the tangible evidence of the past that we've brought with us, we will settle down with our own memories.

Join us.