Strange Reactions

by Jonterri Gadson
I've begun bracing myself a little bit when people ask me what I do or what I'm studying. I can't believe how shocked people are to find out that I'm in grad school studying creative writing. I get a lot of "Wow! I never heard of doing that before"'s or they like to tell me what they expected me to study, "I thought maybe you were in the sciences," or "I thought they only give fellowships out for research." It's really weird! lol

Do you all get weird reactions from people? Maybe it's the way I'm explaining it. How do you explain what you're doing?

Has It Really Been Six Weeks?

by Emily May Anderson

On one hand, it feels like time has flown by, like just a few days ago I was moving into this apartment and meeting my peers for the first time. On the other hand, it also feels like I’ve been here forever, like I can’t remember being anywhere else and not knowing these people that I’ve come to know so intimately.

I just got back from an MFA party at a professor’s house. Her home was lovely, and all the MFAs, and their assorted hangers-on, are so nice! There were kids at the party, and cats, and husbands and sisters and boyfriends. And there was rather a lot of food, all of it very good. Those creative types can cook! I made an apple crisp and brought a bottle of Spanish Quarter red. It was actually rather funny – I stopped at the wine shop on the way to the party, got my bottle and got in line and noticed one of my professors in line a couple people ahead of me. As I was chatting with her, a guy from workshop came in, all of us buying wine for the party.

It was a nice time, and now I am home, and planning to do some work. Tomorrow I need to go for a long run, do some work, clean my apartment, and I’m trying to organize some of the first years into meeting for a few drinks tomorrow night.

I have been through six weeks of classes and am rapidly approaching the halfway point on this first semester. Each week is so busy that it seems to fly by. I know it will be November before I realize it, then Thanksgiving, then the end of the semester and Christmas. I can hardly believe my first semester is going so fast.

September-October Updates from the Low-Res Front

by Marita Siddal

Hello everyone! Just stopping by with a few links to relevant posts. In chronological order:

Since I'm a dual-genre student, I've been prepping some pieces for a fiction workshop submission while I work on my poetry semester. (I am a thin thread indeed!) So here's My Latest Story Idea! Feedback very much appreciated.

I've also been wondering somewhat about the . . . soul . . . of a writer. As in, how "real" are the experiences of people who pivot those experiences directly into writing.

Aaand a more general update on my semester progress as well.

Cheers and Happy Friday!

Published!

by Whitney Gray

Hey everyone--

Hope the semester is going well for you. While I'm wrapping up my sixth week, I am amazed that some of you are starting your first week. Crazy. Well, in the midst of all this homework and reading and y'know, attending class, I had almost forgotten that I am one of the featured poets over at Contemporary American Voices, an online publication.

At the request of my beloved professor and mentor, Judson Mitcham, I submitted three poems, all of which were included in my writing sample. My best friend, Dot, is also featured on the site. We went to the same undergrad, and now she is enjoying her time as a low-res student at Pacific. My heart jumped when I saw she had new poems. (Does anyone else get like this? You see a new poem by someone you love/admire/work with and you get so totally excited?)

So, yes, this is a post to brag, but mostly to gush, and to say I hope you all share your publication news with us. It's a small victory for me, but I'm proud to have it and to share it with you. I've only been published in one other journal, and I'm 99% sure they lost funding and fizzled out after only one issue. (Bummer!) Anyway, you can check out the poems here. Enjoy! I can't wait to read your reactions!

(Blank)

By Casey Tolfree

I did it. I led a 90-minute in class discussion. I mean the professor would break in and add to our discussion but my questions were valid. I read the novel the way I was supposed (with a few discrepancies). It's a great feeling because my limited English Lit background was always a source of tension for me. I feared I would be behind my classmates but I feel like I'm fitting in.

At the moment though I have writer's block. I have to write a hero's journey 10-minute play and I can't think of anything worth while. I can't really think of anything at all. My mind is a blank. My tragedy came so easily. With this I am stuck and I only have until Tuesday.

Sigh.

If you want to check out Act 1 of my tragedy (VERONICA) it's on my page.

First Week at OSU

By Tory Adkisson

Hey friends,

I can now stand among you (well, sit and blog anyway) as one of the few, the proud, the first workshopped! I have finished my first week at the Ohio State MFA and I am so pleased with the way everything went I could dip myself in butterscotch! Let me just breakdown what happened.

First off, we started school this week on Wednesday, so I have not yet had a full week yet--I doubt, though, that that will have any appreciable effect on my experience next week, and anyway, I need to tell you about what happened this week since it was, for me, the first foot dipping into this whole grad school enterprise. *Phew* anyway...

The first thing I did was teach my English 110 class. My lovely roommates made breakfast that morning, so I had a bite of something before running off to Denney Hall. I showed my friend how to make double-sided copies, printed off the most updated version of my syllabus then rushed off to the computer classroom I teach in on Wednesdays. This Monday I will be in a normal classroom. Our program is really invested in teaching new media and using technology in the classroom. Anyway, I was fine but became very frazzled when I had problems getting the technology to work. Luckily that fright subsided and the class and I began to sync as I found a comfortable footing as their teacher. They were enthusiastic about the topic I chose for the class ("Writing about Reality Television) and very receptive to discussion. Not all of them talked, but it was the first day, so I am not too concerned. I am very happy with my class so far and look forward to working with these kids and watching them grow!

My first class is a graduate level English class which is an introduction to film and film theory. The professor, Ryan Freidman, is a very nice and very cool guy, and the bevy of readings and films we will be discussing in class had got me percolating with glee. I love film theory and the idea of becoming more cultured though film is fantastic (right now we are watching Umberto D.) and exactly the kind of thing I hoped to take as a grad student. The class is themed around the notion of the decline of film and subsequent rise of digital cinema, and the implications that has for study of film as a discipline. Pretty cool, right? I love talking about the decline of things...it makes me feel so "in the know."

As far as workshop is concerned (remember why were here friends?) it was great. Kathy Fagan teaches the fall workshop, while Andrew Hudgins teaches it in the winter and Henri Cole (!!!) teaches it in the spring. Kathy assigned us the dubious task of writing a poem about finality (essentially a kind of death poem) after reading Frost's "Directive" and Yeats' "The Circus Animals' Desertion". It ended up being her birthday on our first day of workshop, so we got her a cake and sang the celebratory song to her as she blushed and thanked us for being so sweet. After that Kathy workshopped us in alphabetical order and, being gifted with a last name starting with "A," I was the first one up on the chopping block. I have to say it was great and an eye-opening experience--sure there was some requisite praise (about my sounds, use of meter, my ending lines) but the class addressed issues I hadn't considered such as the nature of the speaker's relationship to the you, and whether some of the imagery in the poem was useful considering its ultimate trajectory. It reminded me, after several weeks of TA training, that I came to OSU for my writing, and if the first workshop is indicative of what experience at OSU will be, then I am glad to be along for the wild ride.

Additionally, I have been reading slush for The Journal and will soon be reading poetry manuscripts for the The Journal's Wheeler Prize (judged this year by Andrew Hudgins!); I can hardly believe the way my life is going. I am really pleased with everything I have been exposed to so far! Here's to a wonderful year, and a great MFA program (my program) at OSU!

MFA Readings

by Emily May Anderson

(Apologies in advance for any spelling and grammar errors, or a general lack of sense. I only slept for three hours.)

I’m wondering if anyone else has had an MFA reading yet. Here at Penn State, the first one of the school year was last night. For some (probably sadistic) reason, the readers for the first two readings of the year are always the first-year students, and I got to read last night along with a first year fiction writer and a first year CNF writer. It was a lot of fun! I was nervous, but in a good way, and everyone was very supportive. There was a surprisingly good turnout considering that the weather was disgusting – cold and rainy – and the reading was held at the same time as the big Iowa game. A few of the 2nd and 3rd year MFAs went to the game instead of the reading, and the general consensus among the rest of us was that it was really not okay for them to do that, but there are no “rules” about it; it’s more just a social convention. However, a lot of MA/PhD students came out, especially our fellow first years, and I really appreciated that. I kept hugging people later and saying I was so glad they were there.

An explanation of the hugging, and a corollary to the lack of rules, has to do with the very informal nature of the readings here. They are organized by MFA students, held in a really cool campus building,
in this crazy basement room with red carpeted walls (couldn't find a good picture of the room, sorry), and there is beer. Rather a lot of beer actually. No faculty members attend, only students. The introductions are very funny. The beginning of the intro my friend Daniel, a 2nd year MFA, wrote: “Various theories have been offered regarding the origins of Emily May Anderson. One story states that Dylan Thomas, king of the gods, awoke one morning with a splitting headache, and asked William Carlos Williams to strike him with a hammer. Williams did so, and Emily emerged from Thomas’s head, fully formed and carrying the notebook of wisdom and the pen of truth.” And it goes on in that vein.

So, yeah, the MFA reading series is surprisingly informal (at BG, where I did my undergrad, they’re very different) and intoxication is encouraged. Most of us went to a bar after the reading and then there was more socializing after that, hence my three hours of sleep, and my probable lack of sense here. It was a great experience though, and I look forward to the next reading.

Questions to the other MFAs: have you read yet? how do you feel about reading? and how formal or informal are MFA readings in your program?