WestConn MFA in Creative and Professional Writing
For more program information, visit http://www.wcsu.edu/writing/mfa.
Monday, April 09, 2012
We Have Moved!
Blog members: Please post here no more... see instructions for the new blog below.
Other guests: Please join us at the new blog, visit the program web page at http://www.wcsu.edu/writing/mfa, and look out for the upcoming profile of the program in Writer magazine.
Moving to a New Blog Site
We are moving the Blog from the current Blogger site to a Wordpress site. The new site allows more flexibility with users posting, but keeps the same general features as the Blogger site. All of the content from the Blogger site will be available on the new site. The new MFA blog will be located here: http://westconnmfa.wordpress.com/
I will send you each an email inviting you to become a user on the new blog. Please respond to the email and create an account. Post to the new blog site only. The current Blogger site will be shut down shortly and you will no longer be able to post to it.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Thanks,
Kristin
Thursday, April 05, 2012
Uconn looking for a Communications Writer
For full position details please go to: http://communications.uconn.edu/jobs/.
A Note to New Students
If you are planning to enroll part time for the fall, I need to know which courses you want to register. Please let me know no later than April 16.
Fall Internships/Practica
Enrichment Presentations
Wednesday, April 04, 2012
Walking for Grad Commencement?
Mentor Requests for Fall
Please copy and paste the lines below into an email message to me with your mentor requests. Do not submit requests for OMG instructors.
First semester students need not submit requests--I assign mentor for all first semester students.
Please be sure to indicate more than one choice for each course. If you only list one choice and you don't get the first choice, then I will assign a mentor to you.
If you are a thesis student for the fall (I believe there are only two of you), please talk to your thesis advisors of choice BEFORE submitting a request to them to make sure they are available and willing to advise your thesis.
DEADLINE: Beginning of day, April 16. If I don't have your requests by the time I come to the office on the 16th, I will assign your mentors.
Student Name: ________________________
Primary/Secondary Genres: _______________________
Course Title:__________________________
1st choice mentor:
2nd choice mentor:
3rd choice mentor:
Course Title:__________________________
1st choice mentor:
2nd choice mentor:
3rd choice mentor:
Course Title:__________________________
1st choice mentor:
2nd choice mentor:
3rd choice mentor:
Monday, April 02, 2012
AWP 2013 in Boston
They are currently accepting proposals for panels. Jane's panel was accepted in 2012, and I understand it went swimmingly. If you'd like to propose a panel (at the 2012 conference there were 1600 presententers), I strongly encourage you to review the proposal handbook at the link below, review the catalogue of events at a past conference or two, and run your proposal by someone who has had proposals accepted before (Jane or me, for example).
An AWP panel is a great item to have on your c.v. for teaching jobs. Deadline is May 1.
http://www.awpwriter.org/conference/2013proposal.php
Meet Authors and Agents Easily
Saturday, March 31, 2012
For the Chuck Fans
Number One:
Two years ago, when I wrote the first of these essays it was about my “egg timer method” of writing. You never saw that essay, but here’s the method: When you don’t want to write, set an egg timer for one hour (or half hour) and sit down to write until the timer rings. If you still hate writing, you’re free in an hour. But usually, by the time that alarm rings, you’ll be so involved in your work, enjoying it so much, you’ll keep going. Instead of an egg timer, you can put a load of clothes in the washer or dryer and use them to time your work. Alternating the thoughtful task of writing with the mindless work of laundry or dish washing will give you the breaks you need for new ideas and insights to occur. If you don’t know what comes next in the story… clean your toilet. Change the bed sheets. For Christ sakes, dust the computer. A better idea will come.
Number Two:
Your audience is smarter than you imagine. Don’t be afraid to experiment with story forms and time shifts. My personal theory is that younger readers distain most books – not because those readers are dumber than past readers, but because today’s reader is smarter. Movies have made us very sophisticated about storytelling. And your audience is much harder to shock than you can ever imagine.
Number Three:
Before you sit down to write a scene, mull it over in your mind and know the purpose of that scene. What earlier set-ups will this scene pay off? What will it set up for later scenes? How will this scene further your plot? As you work, drive, exercise, hold only this question in your mind. Take a few notes as you have ideas. And only when you’ve decided on the bones of the scene – then, sit and write it. Don’t go to that boring, dusty computer without something in mind. And don’t make your reader slog through a scene in which little or nothing happens.
Number Four:
Surprise yourself. If you can bring the story – or let it bring you – to a place that amazes you, then you can surprise your reader. The moment you can see any well-planned surprise, chances are, so will your sophisticated reader.
Number Five:
When you get stuck, go back and read your earlier scenes, looking for dropped characters or details that you can resurrect as “buried guns.” At the end of writing Fight Club, I had no idea what to do with the office building. But re-reading the first scene, I found the throw-away comment about mixing nitro with paraffin and how it was an iffy method for making plastic explosives. That silly aside (… paraffin has never worked for me…) made the perfect “buried gun” to resurrect at the end and save my storytelling ass.
Number Six:
Use writing as your excuse to throw a party each week – even if you call that party a “workshop.” Any time you can spend time among other people who value and support writing, that will balance those hours you spend alone, writing. Even if someday you sell your work, no amount of money will compensate you for your time spent alone. So, take your “paycheck” up front, make writing an excuse to be around people. When you reach the end of your life – trust me, you won’t look back and savor the moments you spent alone.
Write the book you want to read.
Number Seven:
Let yourself be with Not Knowing. This bit of advice comes through a hundred famous people, through Tom Spanbauer to me and now, you. The longer you can allow a story to take shape, the better that final shape will be. Don’t rush or force the ending of a story or book. All you have to know is the next scene, or the next few scenes. You don’t have to know every moment up to the end, in fact, if you do it’ll be boring as hell to execute.
Number Eight:
If you need more freedom around the story, draft to draft, change the character names. Characters aren’t real, and they aren’t you. By arbitrarily changing their names, you get the distance you need to really torture a character. Or worse, delete a character, if that’s what the story really needs.
Number Nine:
There are three types of speech – I don’t know if this is TRUE, but I heard it in a seminar and it made sense. The three types are: Descriptive, Instructive, and Expressive. Descriptive: “The sun rose high…” Instructive: “Walk, don’t run…” Expressive: “Ouch!” Most fiction writers will only use one – at most, two – of these forms. So use all three. Mix them up. It’s how people talk.
Number Ten:
Write the book you want to read.
Number Eleven:
Get author book jacket photos taken now, while you’re young. And get the negatives and copyright on those photos.
Number Twelve:
Write about the issues that really upset you. Those are the only things worth writing about. In his course, called “Dangerous Writing,” Tom Spanbauer stresses that life is too precious to spend it writing tame, conventional stories to which you have no personal attachment. There are so many things that Tom talked about but that I only half remember: the art of “manumission,” which I can’t spell, but I understood to mean the care you use in moving a reader through the moments of a story. And “sous conversation,” which I took to mean the hidden, buried message within the obvious story. Because I’m not comfortable describing topics I only half-understand, Tom’s agreed to write a book about his workshop and the ideas he teaches. The working title is “A Hole In The Heart,” and he plans to have a draft ready by June 2006, with a publishing date set in early 2007.
Number Thirteen:
Another Christmas window story. Almost every morning, I eat breakfast in the same diner, and this morning a man was painting the windows with Christmas designs. Snowmen. Snowflakes. Bells. Santa Claus. He stood outside on the sidewalk, painting in the freezing cold, his breath steaming, alternating brushes and rollers with different colors of paint. Inside the diner, the customers and servers watched as he layered red and white and blue paint on the outside of the big windows. Behind him the rain changed to snow, falling sideways in the wind.
The painter’s hair was all different colors of gray, and his face was slack and wrinkled as the empty ass of his jeans. Between colors, he’d stop to drink something out of a paper cup.
Watching him from inside, eating eggs and toast, somebody said it was sad. This customer said the man was probably a failed artist. It was probably whiskey in the cup. He probably had a studio full of failed paintings and now made his living decorating cheesy restaurant and grocery store windows. Just sad, sad, sad.
This painter guy kept putting up the colors. All the white “snow,” first. Then some fields of red and green. Then some black outlines that made the color shapes into Xmas stockings and trees.
A server walked around, pouring coffee for people, and said, “That’s so neat. I wish I could do that…”
And whether we envied or pitied this guy in the cold, he kept painting. Adding details and layers of color. And I’m not sure when it happened, but at some moment he wasn’t there. The pictures themselves were so rich, they filled the windows so well, the colors so bright, that the painter had left. Whether he was a failure or a hero. He’d disappeared, gone off to wherever, and all we were seeing was his work.
For homework, ask your family and friends what you were like as a child. Better yet, ask them what they were like as children. Then, just listen.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
RIP Adrienne Rich, 1929-2012
Monday, March 26, 2012
New Students: Registration
MFA registration is handled separately from all other registrations. You do not need to do anything about registration right now--please ignore any calls to register that you may receive from the university. I will let you know via the blog when we are ready to move on registration.
bc
Friday, March 23, 2012
Hooray for Sundeen
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Character Development Workshop
Hi All,
Professor Louisa Burns-Bisogna will be offering a workshop on Saturday, March 31 from 10 am to 12 pm in HI206. Let me know if you would like to attend, my email is santamaria005@connect.wcsu.edu.
Thanks,
Kristin SM
Workshop: Character Development
Whatever your genre...this workshop will help you flesh out your characters. Building on the basic skeleton ( a bit like the forensic detectives in "Bones" or "CSI") you will create the complex physiological, sociological, historical and psychological identity that defines him or her. This will bring authenticity to your character's motivation, movement and "voice", enrich interaction with other characters and increase opportunities for story.
Book Launch party March 29 in NYC
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Best Travel Writing Solas Awards
If you are interested in going to Cuba and want some travel advice, please feel free to contact me. It's an exciting time to go, as things are in the process of opening up.
Tim
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
More Good News
Monday, March 19, 2012
Thesis Proposals
I have sent responses from the Thesis Committee to all of you. If you have not read your response yet, check your wcsu email. Let me know if you have any questions.
bc
Staged Reading of Quarter Year Dilemmas
Sunday, March 18, 2012
The Perfect Writing Place
My cottage is in the Ellisville section of South Plymouth...I have some times this spring and summer still available for rental. It is a perfect writing retreat for a solo venture or for a few writing friends to gather, write, relax and enjoy a getaway.
If interested, e-mail me at AnneWitkavitch@comcast.net.
Friday, March 16, 2012
Res Fee
bc
A snack before the poetry smack.
I'll be there around 5. Ciao, Andy