Category: mfa

  • Residency day 6

    The seminar slots today were the conclusion of Heather Sellers’s three-part pedagogy workshop dealing this time with syllabus planning and interviewing for academic jobs. There were a number of good ideas offered up. Overall I found Heather’s seminars far more helpful than her books. Also on the docket today was the “wildcard workshop.” The idea…

  • Residency day 5

    The mid-point of the residency and the traditional morning-time reading and writing period. I got a bunch of work done including some work on the novel. After lunch we had first synthesis (it was interesting to see someone else’s take on the time). Interestingly, it seemed that most of the synthesis groups finished up early.…

  • Residency day 4

    The morning seminar was John Capouya talking about ways that as writers of fiction or narrative non-fiction we can employ some of the techniques of screenwriting. There’s a lot to be said for the highly formalized structures that screenwriters apply from the “save the cat” approach to making the protagonist sympathetic to the audience to…

  • Residency day 3

    Today started with a conversation with agent Chris Parris-Lamb.  It was a fairly well conceived presentation, although most of this was things that I already knew. A few choice quotes: Most important thing is to make the book as good as possible. Wait and take your time. Your query letter needs to be as well-written…

  • Residency day 2

    Don Morill’s seminar was “Sentences & Paragraphs as Aesthetic Performance.” There were some interesting thoughts on linguistic structure and how it can be enhanced, although perhaps the most interesting part of the seminar came early when he produced Su Hui’s “Star Gauge” Courtesy of some aspects of Chinese linguistic structure the above can be read…

  • Residency day 1

    And I’m back. Today I inaugurated a new tradition for the first day of the residency. Unlike past residencies, I managed to make it to the meet and greet not only on time, but a bit early. There was the usual mix of greeting the old and familiar and meeting the new and the strange.…

  • Residency day 9

    Courtesy of MFA scheduling and my own travel plans I had a short last day of the residency. The afternoon workshop was optional for all but first term students, I’d already taken care of my contract consultation and flying out Friday night meant that I would miss the closing reception. The morning workshop was Amy…

  • Residency day 8

    Our day began with Jason Ockert teaching about writing the Short Short Story. Notably, I thought I got something actually usable out of a writing prompt. Then morning workshop. In the afternoon, we had synthesis. A diagram that we drew to draw connections between seminars and common reading was well-received by the synthesis group. I…

  • Residency day 7

    And now it’s really flown by. Only two more days on campus. The opening seminar of the day came from Jessica Anthony who talked about articulation in fiction. She had us look at a collection of twenty first lines and pick first our top five, then our favorite from those. The obvious choice to me…