Tom Lynch

It's all Allen Ginsberg's fault.

When Randy Albers was an undergrad at Tulane University, he saw Ginsberg perform during the school's Poetry Week, when the Beats would travel to New Orleans to showcase their work. He was inspired. Decades later, in 1997, after Albers hit Chicago and became chair of the Fiction Writing Department at Columbia College, he started his own festival in Story Week. "It really had a number of different purposes," he says. "First was to be in line with Columbia and the diversity of voice in American fiction. We were trying to make sure we were including voices from various backgrounds and different times. There's a great deal of fiction these days that's very clean, but I wanted to see people taking chances and risks...that was a good deal of it."

This year, Story Week boasts a lineup that includes Dave Eggers, Jamie O'Neill, Joe Meno and Kaylie Jones and a political theme, "The Politics of Story." "We usually start out with a long list of people we'd like to have," says Patty McNair, now in her sixth year as artistic director for the festival. "The list evolves and grows. We look for people who are strong storytellers with a strong sense of voice. We look for people doing that on the page, and when we bring them in our students can learn from them when they hear them read and talk. We also look for people--though this is a clichéd phrase--who are sort of on the cutting edge, not in the traditional canon, and combine that with people who are not so well known yet." Once the theme is chosen for the festival, the aim is narrowed. "We looked for people who were either being political in writing--Dave Eggers does a lot of independent work, Kaylie Jones has intentionally decided to work with a small press--or use things that are circling around political content, people making a political statement by the way they pursue publishing and getting other people published."

Some writers Columbia's invited over the years need special pampering, McNair says, but she declines to mention names. "I'd love to," she says, "but I'd get in too much trouble." Some authors cause grief, like "Trainspotting" author Irvine Welsh, who appeared at the festival a few years back. "Welsh was tremendous, so generous with his time" she says, "but one night he was supposed to be on a panel and we couldn't find him for a while. Turns out he was just out riding on the El around town, stopping at pubs along the way. He just lost track of time. He eventually showed up, though."

Story Week begins March 21. See listings for details.

(2005-03-15)

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