Extra Credit Opportunity

I decided to watch the Myriam Gurba event. This event took place on May 4th, 2021 over a zoom call. This event had Myriam Gurba herself come on the zoom call to talk about her most popular book, Mean. During this zoom call Professor Savonick started off with an opening speech that included saying her gratitude for everyone who helped with the event, introducing Gurba, and giving a brief summary of Gurba’s book Mean. Gurba started off her time by thanking everyone and explaining who she is again. In the first half of the event Gurba read the chapter “GooglePlex”  from Mean. After she finished the chapter, Gurba was explaining that next she was going to read some words from her essay that’s a work in progress. This was very interesting to hear because one, it was one of Gurba’s works in progress which means it’s her raw writing (such as her rough draft) and two because it was a new writing from her that I’ve never heard before. After the readings the audience started to ask questions which began some conversations which were directed towards either Gurba herself or the book.

When listening and watching the zoom call I was very excited to see how she reads her own book and her own words. While she was reading I realized that she read it differently than how I have been reading it. This caused a lot more interest in listening to her read because it was the author herself reading the book that you just read in class. While Gurba is reading her chapter, she still has that snarkiness and passive aggressive tone while she’s talking like she does when you read her statements in the book. Hearing her work in progress essay, her writing tones and strategies sounded the same as if you were reading the book Mean. From class we read a transcript of an interview with Gurba, Gurba explains that she likes the “short and directed titles” but with her work in progress the essay that she read had a very long title to it. Is there a reason why she chose a long title?

 In her essay Gurba explains that she had a club when she was 12 or 13 years old but called it a “gang” and they all had gang member names for each other. In class we explained that Gurba possibly grew up too fast. Gurba is at a very young age and calling her club a “gang” shows that she has had a mindset like an adult for most of her childhood. As well as youthful innocence was brought up in the event.

This event was very enjoyable to watch/listen to especially when the reader herself is there to answer questions and read directly from her book. I learned many little things about the book such as it took 6 or 7 years from start to finish to complete the book, she wanted to bring horror into the book and not just humor, and the book itself was a lot of experimental fragments. All of the questions asked during the event were very good and enjoyable as well.