Monthly Archives: June 2010

From the New York Times:

Mr. Merwin moved there [Hawaii] in the mid-1970s to study Zen Buddhism, and now lives with his wife, Paula. He said he has cultivated more than 700 endangered species of indigenous plants on the formerly denuded plantation, including the hyophorbe indica, a palm tree he helped save from extinction.

A poem printed in a companion article:

Every year without knowing it I have passed the day

When the last fires will wave to me

And the silence will set out

Tireless traveller

Like the beam of a lightless star

Then I will no longer

Find myself in life as in a strange garment

Surprised at the earth

And the love of one woman

And the shamelessness of men

As today writing after three days of rain

Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease

And bowing not knowing to what

After ten days spent immersed in craft talks and readings, surrounded by folks absolutely committed to their writing, returning to everyday life and everyday concerns can be disconcerting. I mentioned a sense of isolation that is a part of the low-residency model and, for me at least, this feeling is most acute in the days immediately following Residency. Like being adrift, unmoored.

Fortunately this feeling passes after a day or two, especially when you realize the sheer amount of work ahead in the next six months. I’m in my essay semester and I’ve just started doing research for my paper on Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel, The Unconsoled. It’s a dense novel and will be a real challenge to write about. Fortunately, it’s also a novel I greatly admire. One thing that’s helped a lot is Pacific University’s account with Jstor, an online resource that lets you access a huge amount of articles and scholarly essays from a myriad of academic journals. It’s an incredibly useful resource that students can access through Pacific’s library website.

I’ll be at Clarion West next summer. From the frying pan into the fire, etc. etc. If you have any questions about the MFA at Pacific University, especially regarding wheelchair access, feel free to contact me.

From a recent article in the New York Times–

…the emphasis on futurity misses an essential truth about fiction writers: They often compose their best and most lasting work when they are young. “There’s something very misleading about the literary culture that looks at writers in their 30s and calls them ‘budding’ or ‘promising,’ when in fact they’re peaking,” Kazuo Ishiguro told an interviewer last year. Ishiguro (54 when he said this) added that since the age of 30 he had been haunted by the realization that most of the great novels had been written by authors under 40.

With the death of Jose Saramago, it should be noted that he first published Baltasar and Blimunda, his break-through work, when he was 60 years old. And today, The Guardian reports that an 82-year-old lands first book deal | UK news | guardian.co.uk.

Intriguing article at The Guardian–

The way the books industry is interacting with digital media is developing faster than many had foreseen, with the latest example an attempt to offer fans of author Iain M Banks exclusive unseen chapters, his original notes and commentary for his latest novel.

Still groggy and tired so this will be a short post. Yesterday, after a final craft talk by poet Kwame Dawes, I spent the day cleaning my room and getting ready to leave– there was a party planned after the graduation ceremony but I decided to skip it and go home rather than spend another night in the dorm. Got back around 9:30 PM and gratefully went to sleep in my own bed.

The grad ceremony itself was very moving with the procession of faculty and grads being led into the hall by a bagpiper.

To give prospective students an idea of a typical day at Residency, below is the schedule for Monday, June 21 (full names of students have been removed).

Monday, June 21
7:30 – 8:30 a.m. – Breakfast on your own

9:00 – 10:00 a.m. – Craft Talk by Kellie Wells, “The ‘Skirls and Screaks’ of ‘the Deserving Dead,’ Stanley Elkin’s Death-Defying Maximalism”

10:15 a.m. – Noon – Workshop #3, Cycle One

Noon – 1:00 p.m. – LUNCH  TOGETHER

1:30 – 2:30 p.m. – Craft Talk/Reading by John Rember, Nocturne: The Story and Its Process

2:45 – 3:45 p.m. – Guest Craft Talk/Reading by Mark Spragg, “Beginner’s Mind”

4:00 – 5:00 p.m. – Graduate Reading: Poetry
Ryan — with critical introduction
Johnnie — with critical introduction

4:00 – 5:00 p.m. – Graduate Reading: Nonfiction
Sarah — with critical introduction
Mary Anne — with critical introduction

5:00 and 5:30  p.m. – Shopping trip to grocery store

5:00 – 6:00 p.m. – Dinner on your own

7:30 p.m. – Reading and Book Signing by Claire Davis, Craig Lesley & Peter Sears

9:00 p.m. – Student Reading

I’ll post some final thoughts on the Residency tomorrow.

The Residency is winding down and the pace has slowed a bit. What’s great about the last few days here is that you get to attend presentations and readings given by the graduating students. The talent in this MFA program is impressive and I find myself trying to make mental notes of the names of those students that I suspect will be getting published soon.

Personally I am eager to finish up and get home. Have completed all the reviews and paperwork so I’ll be leaving campus with no assignments hanging over my head. These ten days are stimulating (maybe too much so) and it’s a great atmosphere but nothing can beat your own bed, your family, etc. etc. I’m also eager to get cracking on my essay so I can refocus on writing short stories. Already have a few ideas bubbling in my skull…

Final craft talks in the morning then the graduation ceremony tomorrow night, with a dinner and party to follow, one last night in this tiny dorm room, then back to the Puget Sound on what promises to be a warm Sunday afternoon. Looking forward to wrestling with my Leo again!

Visually impaired dog plays ‘Fetch’

I’m constantly amazed at how accessible the faculty are at Pacific. This morning I went to Maggie’s Buns, a neat cafe right across the street from campus. Inside I chatted with a faculty I had worked with in 2009 while I waited for my adviser from last semester to arrive. When she did, we spent about an hour sitting outside having coffee and talking about writing and the writing life. Really a great way to start the day and a microcosm of what the MFA Residency is all about.

Right now most of the students I talk too are a bit fuzzy-headed from the busy schedule we’ve all kept the last week. Personally, I’m looking forward to getting home and relaxing for a day or to before tackling my first correspondence packet. Since the third semester is the “essay semester”, I’ll be focusing on writing a critical essay on (at this point) the unreliable narrators of Kazuo Ishiguro. Thinking of examining Ishiguro’s The Unconsoled and perhaps When We Were Orphans. Will settle on a topic after I talk with my adviser– I’d like to get this essay out of the way as quickly as possible and get back to focusing on my short stories.

Looking forward to Barry Lopez‘s guest craft talk and book signing tomorrow afternoon.

buff yer Pally, and mount yer kodos …

The Guild Season Four begins on July 13!

What a gorgeous day in Forest Grove, sunny but not too hot. Faculty met to determine pairings so students had the afternoon off. Some went to Portland and some to a nearby state park. I spent my afternoon in my room working on Residency Reviews– commentaries on the craft talks we have attended throughout the week. Had Billy Bragg playing on the iPod– the sense of being back at Evergreen State (H dorm) was spooky and slightly sad.

After tonight’s faculty readings, the pairings were posted and I was pleased (and alliterative) to find I’ll be working with the same faculty who led my workshop– a terrific writer and teacher.

Speaking of workshop, I realize that  haven’t described how they function. Basically the group you are assigned to meets for a couple of hours before lunch. One student’s writing submission will be the focus of the first hour, another the second, although sometimes only one student’s work is examined and the rest of the time is devoted to discussions of craft. Each faculty has a different way of leading the workshop but for the most part the person whose work is being critiqued will stay quiet and take notes while the rest of the workshop discuss his/her submission. Issues such as character, structure, and theme are the main focus with line editing and other more technical areas  confined to the comments we have written on our copies of the work (we give these marked up copies back to the author at the end of the workshop). At the end of the allotted time, the student being critiqued will be asked if he/she has any questions– a few sometimes do have an issue they’d like to have addressed but mostly a simple, “Thank you” ends the session. Defending one’s work or trying to explain anything not directly on the page is bad manners and just not done. My work was up for discussion today and the feedback was very helpful.

One thing I wanted to mention about the Residency is the way interacting with the faculty can really prune away any feelings of inadequacy one might have. To be around writers who have books coming out, or movie deals, or who have just come back from book tours– it makes the whole idea of being a working writer somehow seem more real, more tangible, more possible.  For me, writers have always seemed like these remote deities. To hang out with them and realize they are folk like you– it is a very cool and very encouraging thing.