Open Mic at Residency

In addition to the Flash Fiction Slam on Monday night, you will have another (entirely optional!) opportunity to share some of your work with your peers in the program. There will be an Open Mic Friday evening, so bring a poem, a piece of flash fiction, an excerpt from a story or novel or memoir, a scene from a play or screenplay, a short essay--something to show us what you're up to in your work!

Goal Setting Workshop at Residency

For anyone signed up for my goal setting workshop next Wednesday there is no pre-work. However, I'd ask that you be thinking about your writing goals (and overall professional and personal goals) for the next 3-5 years. We will be doing hands-on work to help you write a succinct vision statement, strategic goals and action plan that will be a living, evolving, tangible document to help guide your success and maneuver the usual challenges and obstacles that tend to derail our best-laid plans.

I look forward to seeng you next Wednesday and during the first weekend in Danbury. If you have any questions feel free to leave them here or email me at AnneWitkavitch@comcast.net.

A

Heads-Up on New Course Templates

The templates for all courses have been revised (http://www.wcsu.edu/writing/mfa//course-templates.asp). If you are a returning student, please be sure to familiarize yourself with the templates before meeting with your mentor(s). The primary change is that each course now has recommended amounts of reading and writing, an element that many students have requested.

These new guidelines are not intended to discourage creativity in syllabus composition. If you have good reason to veer from the recommendations, just make a case for it in the syllabus. For example, I was happy to approve a syllabus for the Genre History, Criticism, and Theory course last year that used a single textbook. It was a 500+-page textbook anthology of important essays in poetics, and the student analyzed and wrote about every essay in the book, a significant amount of dense work. Similarly, to cite an example I’ve used before, if a student were to identify and catalog every allusion in Ulysses or tracking and cataloging historical and cultural references in Moby Dick, the student would be doing significantly more work than reading and reviewing the collected works of Jonathan Safran Foer. So be creative, but in the absence of inspired creativity, use the guidelines.

A new interview with BC

http://robmclennan.blogspot.com/2010/07/12-or-20-small-press-questions-brian.html

MFA Alumn Featured in New Anthology

Hi everyone - I signed off on the ARC last week; and have in my possession the actual proof of my soon-to-be released anthology. So much work left to do...simply an eye-opening experience. I cherish every moment!

I thought you might be interested to learn that some WCSU folks are in the anthology. Kirsten Genthner's essay, She Considers Her Maybes, is a beautiful piece about transitions as a mother; Jennifer Bouchard has two essays, Searching for Dali but Not Really (she won this editor's heart with her exquisite descriptions of Cadaques) and My Zen Garden about my favorite zen activity, gardening. Irene Sherlock's essay, Girls of Summer, is a beautiful tribute to life transitions experienced by mothers and daughters.

I look forward to seeing everyone at the residency on Sunday and Wednesday. If you have any questions about the book or the process, I'm more than happy to talk your ear off about it! :) Overall just looking forward to saying hello and hearing about everyone's learnings and successes in this wonderful world of writing. Cheers!

Position at Housatonic Community College in Bridgeport

What English Teachers Do On Their Summer Vacations.

Well, not all English teachers. Maybe just this one. Instead of lying around on the beach, she dug up and wrote the real story behind the Edith Wharton classic, just so you'll have something tres interesting to read at the beach instead of all that boring Stieg Larsson. So considerate, that Trudy. Now if she could only figure out how to keep the sand out of her Kindle.

WestConn ID

New Students and those of you who never bothered to get a university ID before:

Please plan to find some time during the residency (during lunch or one of the free time periods) to go over to the WestConnect office in Old Main on the Midtown campus to get your ID. You'll need it for 24-hour computer lab access and for library access. If you don't expect to need library or lab access, then you don't need an ID (though it is occasionally handy to have them for various student discounts).

Student/Faculty Appointments at Residency

Appointment times for Student/Faculty appointments are posted on the MFA web page. Please check the schedule, which is organized by faculty member and day (Monday and/or Friday). Some mentors only have appointments for one day or the other. If any of your mentors are not listed, that means they will not be at the residency. In that case, I will give you contact information for your mentor(s) at the end of the residency so you can contact them and get going on your syllabus production.

Residency Workshop Materials

I will be sending out via email today instructions and materials for the following residency workshops: Holub, Sundeen, Cohen, Mortenson, Almond, Corso. For all other workshops, please read the workshop description carefully to determine what you need to do in order to come to the workshop well prepared.

MFA Graduate Assistantship

I'm pleased to announce that for the first time the MFA program will offer a Graduate Assistantship to a student registered in the MFA program. The assistantship is available immediately for a student enrolled in the Fall 2010 semester. If you would like to apply for the position, you can submit the application downloadable from the Grad Studies web site along with the requested documentation (c.v./resume and letter of reference) to the Division of Graduate Studies (not to me, and not to the MFA office). There are also a number of other assistantships available, listed below.

The responsibilities of the MFA GA include:

• Collaborate with the Coordinator to promote the program via:

o The MFA blog (by creating and posting program news, features, and information designed for the consumption of students, faculty, and potential students)
o The MFA web site (by creating and posting tools, documents, and up-to-date information for the consumption of students and faculty and features, news, and up-to-date information for potential students)
o Classroom visits to upperclassmen
o Promotional literature
o The annual Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference (not a requirement)
o Online and print MFA program guides and listings
o Other venues that the GA might help to identify

• Assist with the planning and operation of on-campus workshops during the academic year (at least five offered per year), including the Spring Literary Festival

• Assist with the program’s assessment process (especially collecting documentation and preparing it for committee review)

• Assist with the planning and operation of the August/January residency

• Assist with other program communications such as pre-residency mailings to students and faculty

• Assist the Coordinator with establishing community connections for workshops (for teachers, general public, young adults, etc.), which are planned as part of the long-term mission of the program
The GA might also have the opportunity to assist with some editorial tasks of Sentence: a Journal of Prose Poetics and Kugelmass: a Journal of Literary Humor—this would not be expected of the GA, it would be an option.

The MFA GA will be required to work in the MFA office for 10 hours each week--this is not a teaching assistantship. Compensation is $1950 for the semester. Note that the assistantships that involve teaching receive more compensation ($2400 or $4800) and require a greater commitment of time (15 hours or 25 hours per week and registration in ENG/WRT585 Apprenticeship in Teaching College Writing) than the MFA assistantship.

Other Available Assistantships:

Academic Assistant (grading and research for faculty)
Art
Biology
Business
Earth and Planetary Science
English (teaching assistants)
Education (working with the Ed.D. and Counseling programs)
Education (working with the MAT and MS programs)
History/Debate (assisting the debate team)
Math
Nursing
Writing
Labs:
Math Lab
Tutoring Lab
Positions are subject to change without notice.


Send your application and supporting documentation (c.v./resume and letter of reference) as soon as possible to: Graduate Studies, Western Connecticut State University, 181 White Street, Danbury, CT 06810 or fax to (203) 837-8326. Graduate studies will forward the applications to me as they arrive. I hope to have the applications reviewed and a GA selected by the residency. Since I will be reviewing the applications, your leter of reference should be from someone other than me. If you do not have a letter of reference to provide immediately, you may submit the other materials with a note that the letter is to follow.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at 203-837-8876 or the Division of Graduate Studies at
(203) 837-8243.

Residency Workshop Signups

Folks, some of you have not yet signed up for workshops. The seats are dwindling quickly, and the workshops will be open to recent grads as of tomorrow. If you haven't yet signed up for workshops I recommend that you do it now, or your pickings will be quite slim!

Announcing Upcoming Release of Press Pause Moments

My anthology, which I compiled and edited, titled Press Pause Moments: Essays about Life Transitions by Women Writers will be released in September 2010. More info soon about how to order a copy, website, blog and YouTube channel.


For now, you can join the Facebook Fan Page for Press Pause Moments , which is about the book, and Press Pause Now , which is about life transitions, goal setting and achieving balance.

Flash Fiction Slam at the Rez

You’ve taken a look at your Summer Residency 2010 schedule and noticed on Monday night after all is said and done, there is something called Late Night: Flash Slam at the hotel. You wondered what that was exactly. Quite simply, everyone is invited to participate in a flash fiction slam. You will read – nay, perform – your own piece of flash fiction in a contest-like atmosphere with judges (TBA), fellow competitors and an audience that may or may not be hooting and hollering. Prizes may be awarded.

So make sure you bring a work of flash fiction to the residency. Because this isn’t a writing exercise. We will not craft these works on the spot and then perform them. Imagine the crap we’d be shoveling. There’ll be a signup sheet floating around, or perhaps secured to a table in the place where we eat. Depending on interest, we might have to cap participants so don’t dilly dally.

Dave

Basics

Each piece will receive a score on a scale of 1-10 (full and half point increments) from each judge with a time limit of 6.5 minutes. Participants must provide an accurate word count prior to performing.

Judging

Participants will be judged on literary merit, length, as well as performance.

Scoring

A “degree of difficulty” handicap will be put on each piece based on word count as follows, with progressive half-point deductions placed on each range (highest score possible in parenthesis):

1-200 words (no handicap)

201 words to 400 words (9.5)

401-600 words (9.0)

601-800 words (8.5)

801-1,000 words (8.0)

Over 1,000 words (7.5)

For example, a story that is 848 words that received a 9 from a judge would be scored as a 7.2 (9 x .8 = 7.2)

One point per score will be deducted for every 30 seconds you exceed the limit.

Notes

Judges may deduct points if they sense the work being read is not flash fiction (for instance, if they suspect it is, say, technical writing or poetry)

Scores will be disclosed at the end of the competition so not to inadvertently penalize or benefit stories read first.