My UCLA novel-writing class is in workshop at present, which really slows down my intake of fiction, so instead I’ve recently read Katherine Dunn’s One Ring Circus: Dispatches from the World of Boxing
Katherine was one of my instructors at Clarion West 1995; she is a generous teacher, honest and full of enthusiasm and passion for writing. She brings that same fierce love to boxing, and what I loved most about this series of boxing articles tended to be her physical descriptions of fighters–there’s a painterly sensuality to the way she talks about these men and women that differentiates them from each other so clearly. It’s a nifty trick, the more so because, as someone who’s not a fan, it would be easy to just have a generic picture of some ‘fight guy’ in one’s mind while reading.
