The Circle of the MFA: What I Learned 10 Years Ago, and What I'm Passing On (I hope)

Every January and July, I anticipate the photos and congratulatory notes for the newest graduates of the MFA program I myself completed in 2008. The two years I spent attending residencies at Stonecoast (at the University of Southern Maine) were pivotal for me as a writer, and in many ways, as a human being.

Almost coinciding with the news about this summer's graduates, I found myself talking about what I learned at Stonecoast and how that influences my work today as an instructor and thesis advisor (in the Bay Path University online MFA program in creative nonfiction). The occasion was an interview for the Bay Path Director's Blog.

Here's a bit of my response to a question about what I most want to tell students: 

"... I want to advise every student to savor every moment, to dive in deep to every opportunity the program puts in their path, because any MFA in any form is always over too soon..."

You can read the rest of the interview here.

Image: Flicker/CreativeCommons - ccdinges101

MFA Graduation Reading: Eight Years Later, Standing in Very Different Shoes

Some (not all) faculty, and all graduating students, Bay Path MFA 2016

Early this month, the seven writers who make up the first graduating class of the Bay Path University MFA program in which I teach, gathered on campus in Longmeadow, Massachusetts for a reading and celebration. 

When I got the email two months earlier, inviting faculty, it took me less than a minute to reply yes. What's a three hour drive compared to an in-real-life event of that importance? Yes. Yes. And, yes!

For an all-online MFA program, still in its toddlerhood, having those newly minted MFA students—as well as a handful of other students whose programs are still in progress—plus seven faculty members (who could make the trip), the program director, tech and program support staff, dean, and college president, all in the same room (the university's library, of course), was wildly wonderful. 

For me, the day brought memories of completing my own MFA eight years ago. Standing in different shoes this time—watching and listening to writers whose MFA journey I helped mentor—was an especially fulfilling and humbling experience. It helped me understand better why my own MFA graduating class's mentors were once shedding tears.

As I listened to the students read, I kept thinking what a privilege it is to have witnessed, and helped nurture, their transformation from excited new MFA students whose work held so much promise, to far more skilled, more confident, more interesting writers, who are delivering on that promise many times over.

It was my lucky good fortune to introduce two of the student readers. As I delivered the introductions, I was far more nervous than I ever am reading my own work in public. The occasion felt weighty, as if I had been entrusted with a job of great import, and would have only one chance to do it right. It was also very clear to me that it was not at all about me. 

I realized that hardly anything equates to the feeling of telling a roomful of eagerly waiting people just how lucky they are—because they are about to hear something special, created and so carefully polished, by someone they care about.

While I was writing those brief introductions, I found myself constantly in mind of something Richard Hoffman, a faculty member of the Stonecoast MFA program, once said to me, on the eve of my own graduation: that it was time for me to cease being his student and be welcomed into the literary world as his colleague.

I have new colleagues now. Lucky me.

Onward….

From Lemons to Lemonade, with Writing, Loss, and a Speeding Car in Between

Winter and early spring have been a chaotic few months, bitter and a little hard to take. It began with knee surgery for my husband, followed a few weeks later by the loss of his much-loved father, with whom he worked, side by side, for nearly 40 years. 

Then, about three months of  recurrent illnesses (and tests and a bit of surgery) for me, and finally--as if my family wasn't already feeling like we'd gotten hit by a speeding vehicle, an actual speeding vehicle turned a quarter of my husband's  brick and concrete warehouse into a drive-thru. (Fortunately, hubby was 20 feet away from the crashed wall--though 20 seconds before he was right behind it.) Seeing your husband bowed first by loss and then by the physical destruction of the place where he and his father built their business, is something I don't yet have words for.

Yes, life goes on. As life went on the last few months, I kept writing, because--well, that's what we writers do, right? We write. Nonfiction writers especially write about what's swirling through our lives, buffeting us with emotions and situations we'd rather avoid, or don't understand, or find confusing, stressful, emotionally demanding. We write, not sure why some days, or where any of it may lead.

What I've been scribbling over the winter of discontent may or may not ever amount to anything. Right now all those hand written pages are just pages, just notes and half-simmered thoughts and ideas of what may make a good essay--one day. For now, it's just marinating. Another day, I'll peek under the lid and see what the stew holds, maybe ladle out something that looks or smells promising.

Meanwhile, the writing life went on, goes on...

~ The academic semester is ending, and later this week, I'm heading to the campus of Bay Path University in Massachusetts to see our first creative nonfiction MFA class graduate--and meet most of my online students for the first time, as they read from the creative work I've witnessed them conceive, craft and revise and rewrite, for the past two years. 

~ My fingers are crossed that a 2017 AWP panel proposal will be accepted. 

~ Fall courses are penciled in.

~ The rejections arrive, are duly noted. And the essays and short memoir pieces and pitches go out again.

~ An essay close to my heart has been accepted by a print journal I admire (with a fall publication date).

~ I've sent off a rewritten memoir manuscript--this time a more traditional linear narrative (transformed from a linked essay collection). Will YOU cross your fingers for me on that one?

Meanwhile, it's spring (though the continuing cold weather in New Jersey suggests otherwise). The crappy winter is in the rear view mirror. Summer is ahead. And, lemonade.

Onward...

Images: Flickr/Creative Commons -- Lemons (BobBertholf); Lemonade (LaurenAllik-Floating/Vibes). 

Beware of what you wish for. (And what you don't.) -- My Teaching Writing Update.

For the past seven years, I've tried to keep this blog filled with tips, advice, and resources that will help writers. For the past few months I've relied heavily on some generous guest post contributors and interview subjects (as well as link round-ups) to do the job. My own contributions dwindled because I was extra-busy. Thanks, readers, for supporting the guest bloggers, and sticking around! At first my busy-ness was all about writing, teaching, and editing in fairly equal portions. But lately, that shifted. I hope you'll indulge me a bit while I explain. Then, the plan is to get back to a more regular posting schedule in September. - Lisa

During my MFA program, I frequently thought (and sometimes said), oh, I'll never teach.

Ahem. 

Toward the end of those two years, a mentor who knew me well predicted, I think you are going to teach. It's clear you want to help other writers.

"Nah," I said. 

Three months later, a local library hired me to teach an adult memoir class and another in freelancing. Within six months, I was teaching creative nonfiction online via small private classes I'd developed. Within 15 months, I was teaching in the continuing education writing program at Rutgers University, and two years after that, I was asked to teach memoir and personal essay writing for a lovely, multiple-location regional organization, The Writers Circle.

In between, I created the *I Should Be Writing!* Boot Camp for writers in any genre (it's now on-demand solo course). Along the way, I developed a monthly coaching option, which brings so many wonderful writers my way.

Now, I'm setting out on new teaching adventures. And, I've been thinking of Barbara Hurd, who like all terrific mentors, sometimes say what their students don't necessarily want to hear. I've also come to understand the power of the MFA community one develops, too.

When Suzanne Strempek Shea, a faculty member from the Stonecoast MFA program I completed, called me about 20 months ago to gauge my interest in joining the faculty of a new all-online, all-nonfiction MFA program in the planning stages for Bay Path College (now Bay Path University), I didn't hesitate. It sounded perfect. 

I said yes, then tried to put it in the back of my mind, tried to temper my excitement. After all, it was nearly two years away, and needed all kinds of approvals and certifications before it could (would?) launch.  

A few days ago—after a summer of syllabus revision, training in the online course management system, and wonderful conference calls with the director and other faculty—I welcomed some 20 students into the two classes I'm teaching in that vibrant new MFA program.

Once the students began checking in, I realized that I was right where I wanted to be.

But there's more to the teaching story.

In April of this year, the Rutgers program was shut down; sad, but I'd had a good run there.

I live about one mile from Montclair State University. I've used the library there, attended literary events there. I've signed my kids up for programs there, our family has seen plays and concerts and sporting events on campus. And two years ago, I applied for a teaching job there. I didn't get it.

What I did get – about a month ago – was a call from the writing program director: Was I interested in teaching one section of an undergraduate elective creative nonfiction writing class? 

My plate seemed full already. But then, isn't it always? 

I was a kid who always loved school, longed for the smell of fresh pencils and the feel of new notebook pages. As an undergraduate college student, I jammed my schedule with as many different kinds of writing and literature classes as I could. I remember the feeling of being in those classrooms. I love September and the idea of a new semester. (And I'll be they one day unwittingly contribute to my Stuff My Writing Students Say series!)

So next week, I'll be in that classroom at MSU. I'll be online with my Bay Path students every day. I'll be writing. I'll be sending out the memoir. I'll be editing, and prepping for the fall session at The Writers Circle, and helping to get out the fall issue of Compose Journal.

It's a lot.

It's a little bit of everything I ever and never wished for, and clearly need.

Wish me luck.

Images: Flickr/Creative Commons - Old time teachers desk, Todd Petrie; Scrabble tiles, Denise Krebs; Notebooks, Kristen Nador;