Claire Gebben

I attended the AWP Conference this year for the first time. Before I left, people kept asking me: Just what, exactly, is an AWP Conference? Now that I’ve attended one, I have these insights to offer. The Association of Writers and Writing Programs is an organization made up of writing faculty and writing graduate students, university and independent presses and editors, and professional writers sharing their writing expertise and connections with one another. The breakdown at the 2012 conference in Chicago, one announcer said, was about 3,200 students currently in MFA writing programs and 7,800 of faculty, professionals, and editors. Student membership in AWP is quite affordable, and a terrific writer magazine – the Writer’s Chronicle – features great articles and submission opportunities and contests. At the conference, I witnessed a lot of mentoring going on, for instance, writing professors ushering their students from table to table, introducing them to editors. I talked with many editors and student editors of literary journals. There were so many free journals handed out I had to mail myself a box of books at the post office before flying home.

What else? Margaret Atwood spoke to a huge, capacity crowd and she was entertaining, inspiring, lovely as always. The book fair – 550 tables worth – was my prime motivation for going, but I also attended four sessions (there are loads of offerings): one on the 10-minute play, two sessions on aspects of writing about family, and one on compiling short story collections for submission. About fifty percent of the literary journals and many sessions contained content for poets, something that made me especially fond of AWP. Yay poets!

Ann Beman – 7 Fun Facts About Bananas
Claire Gebben – Pictures of Other Days
Joe Ponepinto – The Stats on AWP (as I see them of course)

Thank you, Wayne. After that introduction, I can hardly wait to hear what I have to say.

I learned in Keynote Speechifying 101 that one should commence a commencement speech by thanking the distinguished faculty, who are distinguished primarily by the fact they are wearing silly hats and dresses. Speaking of, is it just me or does this gown make me look fat? Because I think it makes a little hippy.

Next I’m supposed to acknowledge you, the students – of Hogwarts, all of the people on the board, all of the bored people, honorable guests, dishonorable guests, and all creatures big and small that crawl upon the earth.

Marc Acito

Like all of you, I’m a storyteller. So I’m going to tell you a story. A true story, except for some of the facts, which I made up – because I write fiction – otherwise known as lies. Like Wikipedia and Fox News, I don’t have to verify my facts. Or, as my Italian ancestors would say, “Si non e vero, e ben trovato.” Which essentially means “If ain’t true, it should be.”

This is a story about storytelling: where it came from, where it went and where it’s going.

In the beginning, there was the word, and the word was with God. That’s the first lie. In the beginning, the word was more likely “Ow!” or “ “Look out for that wooly mammoth.” Or perhaps “Who farted?” or “Is it all the way in?”

Then a lot of stuff and things happened. Storytelling was mostly oral, except when it wasn’t. Because somebody said, “Y’know, Sophocles, that thing about Oedipus and his mother – that’s hilarious – you ought to write that down.” Or, “I hate to tell you Matthew, but Mark, Luke and John beat you to it.”

More stuff and things happened and then Gutenberg invented the printing press, which changed the world and left him bankrupt, which is true. Gutenberg’s invention began the first Information Age, and prevented a lot of Bible-scribing monks from getting carpal tunnel. So that was good, right?

Sort of.  On the one hand, the easy dissemination of information accelerated major social change. For instance, Martin Luther was able to canvas the doors of churches with his 95 Theses, giving rise to the Protestant Reformation and, as you know, forever ridding the Catholic Church of corruption. The printing press allowed Thomas Paine to help bring democracy to the world with Common Sense, The Rights of Man and The Age of Reason, the latter causing him to be shunned and ostracized. Only six people came to his funeral, but because of the printing press, we have this account:

Even those who loved their enemies hated him…with all their hearts. On the 8th of June, 1809, death came – Death, almost his only friend. At his funeral no pomp, no pageantry, no civic procession, no military display. In a carriage, a woman and her son who had lived on the bounty of the dead – on horseback, a Quaker, the humanity of whose heart dominated the creed of his head – and, following on foot, two negroes filled with gratitude – constituted the funeral cortege of Thomas Paine.

Bummer, huh?

Another downside to democracy and revolution was that it hastened the end to noble patronage of the arts. Because it’s hard to patronize the arts when your head’s been cut off.  The system of artists being supported by royalty gave way to a new system of artists being supported by royalties. But it took a century for that new system to take hold, particularly in the young United States, which was notorious for copyright infringement.

By way of example, as late as 1878 Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore scored such a sensation that more than fifty unauthorized productions of the operetta were produced across the US, with eight versions playing simultaneously within five blocks of one another in New York City alone.  From these pirated productions, Gilbert and Sullivan received exactly bupkus, inspiring them to write their next operetta, The Pirates of Penzance. That’s totally true, and I can verify it because I wrote an article about it for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.        But with the advent of 20^th century, copyright law straightened things out more or less and thus began a golden period of American literature: a time of editors who sat at their writers’ elbows and actually edited, of leisurely three-martini lunches, of novelists being culturally relevant (well, white male novelists) and of short stories being published in magazines that ordinary people actually read. Everyone and their Uncle Harry didn’t seem to think they could write or publish a book, so it was largely left to the pros.

Sounds like a dream, doesn’t it?

It didn’t last.

You see, another revolution was also happening, begun by perhaps the most culturally influential novelist of the 20^th, century – anyone want to guess – here’s a hint – she’s not a dead white male – woman by the name of Ayn Rand, whose cinder-block sized book Atlas Shrugged has become the manifesto of the right-wing, despite reading like an interminable three-way between Nietzsche, L. Ron Hubbard and Judith Krantz. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Rand’s theories, let me give you the Twitter version: She also wrote a book called The Virtue of Selfishness. ‘Nuff said.

So Atlas Shrugged gave rise to an economic philosophy of profit-by-any-cost, which gave us Ronald Reagan and the world in which we now live, where the Supreme Court has ruled that corporations are now considered people.  I would say that Tom Paine is rolling over in his grave, but his remains were exhumed and then lost. What it does mean is that the term Supreme Court Justice is an oxymoron. Or just plain moron.

It also means that writer Paddy Chayevsky nailed it. In the 1976 movie Network, he not only predicted the birth of reality television, he laid out the rise of the corporatocracy. “There is no America,” he wrote. “There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.”

So books became big business. Corporate chain stores gobbled up independent booksellers while corporate media empires gobbled up imprints. Luckily, nobody knew what they were doing, so some fledgling writers received absurd six-figure advances for ideas scrawled on cocktail napkins. It’s always been hard for writers to make a living, but here was a brief, shining moment when they could make a killing.

And then came the internet, or, as I like to call it, the blabosphere. So now everyone including your Uncle Harry is a publisher competing for attention, if only with a photo essay on his gall bladder operation. We are living not so much in an Information Age—as an Age of Too Much Information. And we writers now find ourselves at a time not unlike the 18^th century, when writers got stuck between royalty and royalties. Like the writers of that period, we find ourselves with one business model disappearing while the other one is still being created.  No one’s quite sure how to make money right now, or even what it means to publish. And anyone who says they do is guessing.

Consider this—25 years ago I had a personal computer the size of a dorm fridge, with either amber or green letters, with a dot matrix printer that churned like the old mill down at the crik. When I studied abroad I communicated on tissue-thin air mail stationary to keep the cost down with the occasional phone call from an American Express office.

Today, I could reach into my pocket right now and see live streaming video of naked people all over the world. Twenty-five years from now I’ll probably be able to summon their life-size holograms right next to me.

The model for traditional publishing was that a handful of huge bestsellers were able to offset the losses of newer or more niche material. That entire business model hangs in the balance, particularly as J.K. Rowling prepares to start her own media content company. If big-name authors follow her example and cut out their publishers entirely, the industry as we know it is over.

But that is not necessarily a bad thing for writers. The internet has also democratized content, making it possible for independent content providers to eliminate all those pesky middle men.

So far, success with independent publishing has been about speed and volume. The best-selling e-books tend to be genre books, particularly romance, thriller and erotica and, to a lesser degree, sci-if, fantasy and YA. Stand-alone literary fiction is lagging, but that was true of traditional publishing, as well.

The readers downloading e-books read one and want another right away.  The books are cheap – sometimes as little as 99 cents – so readers are willing to take a risk in a way they won’t for a book printed on paper. As a result, quality can definitely suffer. Take for instance the  work of John Locke—not the philosopher—but the John Locke who is the first self-published author to sell a million downloads on Kindle and only the eighth author in history to do so. His writing is so insufferably juvenile it makes Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series look like The Illiad.

Currently, independent books do not qualify for awards, nor will they be reviewed by the traditional media. Even if they do a print-on-demand print run, bricks and mortar bookstores will not carry them. Of course, with the demise of Borders, the future of the bricks and mortar bookstore is an open question, as is the future of the traditional media.

Moreover, without a publisher you will need to do the work of a publisher yourself, hustling your book through social networking relentlessly without seeming like you’re hustling because that’s considered bad online manners.  In addition to being your own PR department, you’ll also need to oversee the creation of an eye-catching cover, which must look fantastic the size of a postage stamp.

If this all sounds like an incredible amount of work it’s because it is. So what’s the upside?

For starters, you cut out the agony of waiting to get published and the soul-killing rejection that comes with it. You’re empowered, in the driver’s seat of your own destiny. The endeavor can be satisfyingly entrepreneurial. I say can because I have yet to try it myself, though I am considering it.

The publishing of my two books were two distinct experiences. Some of you may know the Cinderella story of how I got my start—how Chuck Palahniuk recommended me to his agent who recommended me to his editor, who bought my book in two days. Two weeks later I had a six-figure movie deal. This almost never happens, but it happened to me. When the book came out, I had my picture in People Magazine the week of my 20^th high school reunion.

My sophomore effort, which I think is a better book, was like a tree falling in the forest.  I guess since it was printed on paper, it was several trees.

As a result, the third book in my series got orphaned during the downsizing of the aptly named Random House.  I still haven’t decided what route I personally want to follow. I’m not interested in getting on the hamster wheel of cranking out low-quality novels. And neither I nor the marketplace have yet figured out how to sell thoughtful, well-written fiction. So I don’t have an answer for you on how to navigate this not-so-brave new world. All I can say is that I advise to do as I’m doing and stay up-to-date on the trends and innovations in the publishing industry, which is changing monthly.

Personally, I’ve turned to writing for the theater, but not because I’ve grown disenchanted with publishing, but because I had a midlife crisis and decided to reinvent myself. After being a writer of books about musicals, I seem to be finding a place as a book writer of musicals.

If there’s anything you remember from this speech, I’d like you to remember what I’m about to tell you. That as you attempt to monetize your educational investment, as you seek an audience for your work, ask yourselves some simple but profound questions:

-       What matters most to you? What gets you up in the morning and keeps you awake at night?
-       What would you do if you won the lottery?
-       What would you do if you knew you had a year to live?
-       What would you do if you weren’t afraid?

Now write about that. Don’t just write what you know, write what you really know. Write what you want to know. Write what you want others to know.

I’d like to explain why I’m saying this by doing a little math. You see, one of the many advantages of the Too Much Information Age is you can research such arcane trivia as the bestseller lists of the last 110 years.

So I know that of the 95 novels that made the top ten list between the years of 1900 and 1910 (because 5 of them repeated), I recognized just seven titles.  They are:

The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Virginian, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, The Clansman, The House of Mirth, The Jungle and something called Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, which I only knew because it was made into a W.C. Fields movie. I’ll mention here that I only recognized the names of three of the authors—Conan Doyle, Edith Wharton and Upton Sinclair, a point that’ll be clear in a moment.

Let’s compare those figures with the 94 books on the Top 10 Bestseller list a hundred years later between 2000 and 2010 (because six repeated). Of those 94 books, I recognized 13 titles. Nearly twice as many as a hundred years later, but still a surprisingly small percentage. That’s because on the bestseller list, the author is the brand. Remember what Bill Dietrich said last night about his name being bigger than the title? Those 94 books were written by just 32 authors, of whom I’d heard of 28. By comparison, of the 66 authors on the bestseller list between 1900 and 1910, I’d only heard of the three I mentioned earlier, plus four more, one of whom didn’t count because it was Winston Churchill. Which just goes to show you you never know where your writing career may lead.

Okay, being literary types, math isn’t probably your strong suit, but let’s compare these bestseller lists to the Modern Library’s list of 100 best novels of the 20^th century. According to the Modern Library, the Top Ten are:  

Ulysses, The Great Gatsby, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Lolita, Brave New World, The Sound and the Fury, Catch-22, Darkness at Noon, Sons and Lovers and The Grapes of Wrath.

Now here’s the thing – of those ten, only one made the bestseller list in their day—The Grapes of Wrath.

 My point—if it isn’t self-evident—is that there seems to be an inverse relationship between what sells and what lasts. And one of the beauties of the internet is that a book can never go out of print if it was never in print to begin with. So personally, I look at those numbers and I say to myself, “Self, write for posterity. Write everything like it’s the last thing you’ll ever write. Then work like mad to get someone to read it.”

I’ll be honest, my writing career pretty much died with the recession, my income dropping to 25% of what I’d been averaging, and much of that from teaching. But I never saw my career as completely dead—rather I envisioned my career as passed out on the bathroom floor, resting its head awhile on the cool porcelain before summoning the fortitude to rise again.

Since then, I’ve been pleased to say there have been some encouraging signs of life. This year I moved to New York and prepared a presentation of a musical adaptation of A Room with View. In attendance was theatre legend Hal Prince, who directed many of Stephen Sondheim’s original musicals, as well as Phantom of the Opera. And in a moment I will never forget—and which felt very similar to the moment I met Chuck Palahniuk—he took me in both hands and told the work was superb.

That very afternoon, the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, one of the major incubators of Broadway musicals, committed on the spot to a million dollar mainstage production this coming season of a show that’s not even done yet. This almost never happens, but it happened to me. And it restored my belief in what’s possible—with persistence.

And now I will say the most cherished words of any graduation speech: In conclusion…

Let me tell you one last story. It occurred the first time I came up to Whidbey. I was on the ferry. Being summer, the day was cold and gray, Puget Sound was unsound, cresting silver and rocking the boat. So I was the only idiot outside on deck enjoying the rough, temperamental beauty that is the Pacific Northwest.

As the ferry lurched, I turned and saw I’d been joined by a kid of about sixteen–all floppy hair and skinny limbs–his face alive with wonder as he gazed into the wind.

“Pretty astonishing,” I said, gesturing to the elements.

He nodded.

“This your first crossing?” I asked.

“No, I do it all the time,” he said. “I live on Whidbey.”

In an instant, I liked this kid, because I saw that he was the kind of person who takes the time to notice something spectacular on a routine journey. I glanced down and noted that he was carrying a copy of The Great Gatsby in his arms. Which, I hasten to remind you, did not make the bestseller list in its day.

“How are you liking Gatsby?” I asked.

“I love it,” he said, smiling. Sincere.

“Why?” I asked, being pedagogical.  “What do you love about it?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Fitzgerald’s descriptions are so vivid. There’s this scene where two windows are open and a breeze blows through and he describes the women on the couch as being buoyed up. It’s amazing.”

Later that night, I found the passage online and read it. Here it is:

We walked through a high hallway into a bright rose-coloured space, fragiley bound into the house by French windows at either end. The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up towards the frosted wedding-cake of the ceiling, and then rippled over the wine-coloured rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.

The only stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died about the room, and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor.

The kid was right. It is amazing.

He and I talked of books for a few minutes more–about Huck Finn, Holden Caufield and Lenny and the rabbits. “After reading Of Mice and Men,” he said, “I can’t look at a single soft thing without thinking of poor Lenny. “ He said he loved The Old Man and the Sea and tried to read Ulysses. Ulysses! This kid is a junior in high school. On an island in Puget Sound. In what has been described to me as a substandard school system.

We parted as the boat continued to, in the words of Fitzgerald, “beat ceaselessly against the current.” And whenever I feel discouraged because I’m afraid I’m misunderstood or inadequate or, worst of all, irrelevant – I remember this island and that kid.

And I write for him.

On January 6, MFA and residency students gathered for ten days for the Winter 2012 residency at Captain Whidbey Inn. This time around, it was not such a shocker to see our teacher/administrator Wayne Ude without his glasses and beard (thank goodness he still wears the suspenders). The Captain Whidbey Inn summer and winter location, the MFA program’s relationship with WIWA, accreditation, qualification for FAFSA loans, terrific line up of residency speakers, and so much more are in large part due to Wayne’s hard work and dedication. I have to say this residency (IMHO) was the best yet, since each afternoon session offered two choices simultaneously. One session met in Captain Whidbey’s dining hall, the other in Stone Gallery. The student body mixed familiar faces with new, with 22 returning MFA students (plus the 8 in thesis not in attendance, although half of those made appearances throughout the week). Four August, 2011 graduates (of the Teaching Creative Writing class) were lurking in the wings—the fifth Skyped in her practicum from California. Stir in two new MFA enrollees (one in fiction, one in CYA), five nine-day and two five-day residency students, and our cups (and classes) were brimming over.

For the afternoon sessions, quite a few speakers offered their take on the fast-growing world of digital publishing. The topics of author self-marketing and publicity ran a close second. We were also treated to sessions on writing for children and young adults, historical fiction, science fiction, nature essays, poetry, fantasy, mastering POV and voice in fiction, and picture books. Guest speakers included: Kit Bakke, Gloria Burgess, Tess Gallagher, Nina Hess, Christine Holbert, Cheston Knapp, Deb Lund, Melissa Manlove, Laurie McLean, Kathleen Dean Moore, Dave Patneaude, Terry Persun, Alan Rinzler, Joni Sensei and Susan Wingate. A couple of MFA students also presented one-hour sessions: Yi Shun Lai on social media and Steve White on Kindle e-publishing. The drawback: students had to pick one of two, we couldn’t attend them all. Faculty and student readings drew crowds, and lots of laughs. The meals were the best yet, the lobby crackled with a warm fire, and I don’t think the power went out once, although I hear there was a bit of difficulty with Captain Whidbey’s wifi. (All the better to get some writing done?)

By the end of the residency, three of the residency students joined the program under the provisional admission policy, one in nonfiction and two in fiction. Two residency students from Canada have stated their intention to join, just as soon as Homeland Security allows it(!); both will be in nonfiction.

But wait, there’s more. Wayne says: “Prior to the residency, we admitted five students for next August, and all five have sent in their enrollment agreements, so we’re hoping for a bumper crop of new students in August–which we’ll need since we’re looking forward to the largest graduating class yet.”

Announcing: The MFA program is now running Soundings literary magazine, with 3 faculty as genre editors and 8 students serving as various sorts of assistant editors. Looking ahead, the faculty have approved an MFA in Publishing and Editing curriculum, which is to go before the Board in the near future. Included in the proposal is a 15-credit Certificate in Publishing and Editing as well as the 60-credit MFA in Publishing and Editing.

For me this residency was both the best yet, and bittersweet, as it will no doubt be my last 10-day stint. But there’s always alumni weekend.

Participation in the January 2012 Residency Only Program at The Captain Whidbey Inn, plus a water view cabin for 9 days and nights for only $1500.

For details about the Residency, including twice as many guest speakers as ever before, see the website at  http://www.nila.edu/mfa_residency.htm

The Residency begins with orientation sessions on Friday, January 6, with classes beginning January 7 and ending January 15, 2012.

The cost of meals is extra.  However, it is something to consider since there is a great deal of sharing – ideas, experiences, the writer’s journey – during meals, especially lunches and dinners. There are also some readings held in the evenings, so consider taking at least some meals at The Inn.

For more information about the program content, contact Wayne Ude at ude@nila.edu.

For sign up and registration information, please contact:
Asharaine Machala
Student Services Coordinator/Northwest Institute of Literary Arts
PO Box 639
Freeland, WA  98249
mfa@nila.edu
nila@whidbey.com
mfa@whidbey.com
360-331-0307

In my literary relationships with established writers, members of my writers group and beginning writers in the classes I teach, I often hear the lament that “there’s no market for what I write.”

Take a look at our Market News for November/December, and you’ll see just how incorrect that assumption is. This month’s listings are filled with a mix of new and established literary journal opportunities, calls for contest submissions, agents looking for new talent, and a variety of specialty markets.

There is an audience for just about every writer. It may take some time to find it, but trust us, it’s there. And your Alumni Association is here to help make that search a lot easier. Check back every month, and you may find the niche market you’ve been looking for.

But don’t stop there. The Alumni web site also has the latest Industry News from some of the best sources in the industry, such as Media Bistro, Poetry Foundation, Publishers Weekly, Sisters in Crime, and Writers Digest.

Of course, to tap into these features, you need to be a member of the alumni association – so if you haven’t already, be sure to sign up today!

Saturday, August 20^th was a milestone day – together with seven of my writing colleagues I received an MFA in Creative Writing from Northwest Institute of Literary Arts and qualified to join the alumni association. I was also privileged to deliver the graduates’ response to the words of David Powers (Chair of the NILA Board) and the commencement address by Mark Acito.

I have to say it is intimidating to follow Mark Acito – he is an unmatchable speaker and had the crowd giggling and guffawing from his opening line. But, once you realize that the bar that Mark sets is insurmountable, there’s really nothing to fear.

The Whidbey Eight, that is, we eight grads, surrounded ourselves, throughout the MFA program, with friends and family. We recently lost one member of that supportive group, Stephanie Lile’s fiancé Andrei Bazdyrev. We had counted on him sharing our graduation day with us.

Left to right: Back row, Ann Boochever, Katie Hines, Claire Gebben, Grier Jewel, Charlotte Morganit, Cynthia Waldman - Front Row, Stephanie Lile, Kaye Linden

Andrei was Russian. In Russian folk lore, you can entice the spirit of a deceased loved one to join a gathering if you place a shot of vodka and morsel of bread on the mantle.  Unbeknownst to Stephanie, the rest of us plotted to ensure Andrei was with us. Before I delivered our response, I placed a shot of vodka and a piece of bread on the podium.

Here is an excerpt from the response – it will give you a picture of the newest grads from the NILA MFA program and a flavour of what we’ve been up to for the last few years:

The eight of us are fortunate – in addition to our families and friends at home, we have the Whidbey or NILA MFA family. And during our year or two hanging out in the online thesis chat room we formed our own family. Like any family we are alike yet different. At times we are even dysfunctional.

We live in Florida, Alaska, British Columbia, California, Washington, and Minnesota. We write flash fiction, short stories, pre-teen and young adult novels, hard-boiled mysteries, paranormal and historical fiction. Our characters are the regular folks who live down the block, blacksmiths from Cleveland via Germany, ghosts of B-25 bomber boys, darkly twisted villains guaranteed to tickle kids’ bizarre senses of humor, a child struggling to build a new life in Coyote Canyon, a good old boy detective from the Alberta foothills, siblings coping with loss and coming of age in Alaska, an aboriginal shaman, refugees of the Australian outback and other lonesome souls.

I mentioned the thesis chat room. It’s a private spot where students working on their theses can share questions, information and angst. Mostly angst. The eight of us crashed around in that online room like rogue waves in Puget Sound until we each found our own rhythm and ways of dealing with the storms and unsettling silences of the creative process.

Now, the privacy of the chat room is sacrosanct. Like Vegas, what happens there….

But when we planned our gifts to the MFA program, among other things, we decided to give our colleagues a survival guide. So my classmates are allowing me to divulge some of the secrets we discovered in that chat room.  These secrets are for the private benefit of our Whidbey classmates. Would the rest of you please stop listening.

I will touch on four things: the thesis process, things not to do if you want to survive the process, things you must do, and the Whidbey or NILA experience itself.

First: The Thesis Process. It has been likened to giving birth. Well, it’s at least as painful. But it’s often lengthier than a pregnancy and you’re not guaranteed a bundle of joy at the end. As a matter of fact, when you see your screaming, colicky firstborn, you might wonder if your muse has been cheating on you.

I asked our group to sum up the thesis process and, in addition to the birthing metaphor, I heard:  a dental visit, vivisection, and – perversely – fun.

It will change you. Your body shape will morph. Aging escalates. You will begin to print out drafts in 16 point script. Hot guys might start calling you ma’am.  Unless you’re a guy, in which case babes will call you sir.  And you will learn that when your adviser focuses on the design in the tablecloth at your first meeting to discuss your manuscript, it’s not as bad as you think. It’s worse.

Second, things to avoid:

Do not choose a thesis that requires you to learn to operate a forge; or to master an obscure German dialect in less than six months. Or a thesis that requires you to learn to fly B25 bombers.

Do not select a thesis adviser who is in the middle of house renovations. In fact, do not renovate your own house mid-thesis. All these things consume valuable time and add significant stress.

Third, the must do list:

Speaking of stress, do find ways to cope. We became champions of computer games, fashioned voodoo dolls that resembled our advisers, indulged in chocolate with beer chasers, and wrote President Obama to complain about strip searches and the futility of revision.

Please recognize that stress does not burn calories. It adds them. You are not 36 months pregnant, you are eating your way through the stress of a thesis.

Do find creative ways to procrastinate.  We recommend dancing in your underwear, writing President Obama, and watching Star Trek reruns, Amazing Race, Judge Judy and Real Housewives.

Do write every day as if it is your last. Yet pace yourself. Have fun. Keep track of memorable factoids. For example, one of us consistently caused trouble by lunching on the roof of the Camp Casey dorms, and another is known for capsizing her kayak in Penn Cove on cold January mornings.

But what will stick with me the most is our class mascot, Popeye, Grier Jewell’s fabulous pooch, who has been hanging out with us every morning this week and who delights in finding ways to stimulate our olfactory nerves, like rolling atop very dead fishy things before padding through our meeting room. All I can say is, if there are skunks on Whidbey Island I pray Popeye does not find them.

Last, the Whidbey and NILA Program.  Well, you already know this, because you are students in the program. It is a priceless, enlightening journey. It is a killer. It rocks.

And we eight grads are extremely fortunate to have been part of it.

On behalf of the graduating class, thank you to Whidbey, the wonderful faculty, our patient advisers, our colleagues, our friends and especially to our families. You have given us immeasurable support for which we will always be grateful.

Confession: One of my longest lasting friendships began way back in the unfortunate environment of ninth grade. Rachael and I were probably two of the quirkiest (read: artistically misunderstood) characters in our class, which is naturally how we were drawn to one another. In some ways, our friendship—like most that occur in high school—began somewhat passive-aggressively. Some days we would finish one another’s sentences. Other days, we couldn’t see eye to eye on anything. I’m sure there were even days we couldn’t stand the sight of one another—but then, that’s high school for you. And, yet, throughout the challenging years of our fine young education, well through college, and into marriages/kids/divorces/premature mid-life crises, we have managed to stick together through and through. The one constant in our relationship? We still can’t see eye to eye on everything and we often continue to butt heads on the little things. This is a wonderful friendship, though, as it’s built on trust and respect. We may not always agree, but we respect one another’s views, decisions, and occasional emotional breakdowns. It’s a shame my dear friend Rachael is not a writer.

During your time in a Master of Fine Arts writing program, you had the incredible opportunity to share your work among your peers and give/receive feedback and criticism. No doubt there was criticism that was well-received and some that was perhaps a bit harder to take. But that’s the joy of sharing your work with others—you get in someone else’s head for a moment to see your story/poem/etc from a reader’s point of view. Hopefully this process strengthened you, both as a writer and as a critic to others’ work. Hopefully, too, you found friends that continue to offer support, words of wisdom, and cheering when you need it most. It’s important to recognize those peers that are valuable to your writing life and ones based on mutual trust and respect. It can be difficult to maintain relationships after a program is complete, especially from a distance, but we all know how important it is to feel connected to the outside writing world.

Alumni associations, such as the one offered to you, are one of the great avenues for keeping in touch. With this delicate thread to hold you together, you may feel more inclined to check in with one another over the years or perhaps make a visit to your former stomping grounds. And you should. Revisiting a residency and participating in whatever programming is offered to you as alumni is not only a great way to keep in touch, but a wonderful opportunity to explore new work and receive some continued critique. Perhaps you might form a small critique group to share one another’s work. Or you may decide attending the evening readings is the perfect pick-me-up for feeling that sense of urgency in your own work again. Or, of course, offering to lend a hand by volunteering with your program can certainly keep you in the know when it comes to your program. Whether it be fundraising, working on a program anthology, sharing your marketing skills, or simply sticking stamps on envelopes, your continued enthusiasm and involvement is not only a value to yourself, but also serves to benefit the program and the new cohort.

Outside the program nest, you’ll also benefit from keeping those peer connections alive through social media, phone calls, in person coffee dates, and by scheduling meet-ups during conferences like AWP. There’s no greater joy than traveling hundreds of miles away to attend a writing conference and sharing the positive vibes with friends to make you feel at home. By keeping in touch and taking that proactive step to stay connected, you’ll benefit from your MFA program well beyond the academic years; you’ll be nurturing that community you established as a student writer.

This can be particularly important for not only reminding yourself you’re not alone out there, but also for keeping up that habit, that routine you established while in the program. Remember what it was like to know you had a watchful, yet supportive, group of peers and instructors awaiting your material come deadline? Remember what it’s like to work to deadline and the rush it gave you for getting the work done no matter what? Sometimes we lose that drive, that structure when we leave a program. Keeping in touch with your peers and your program is a great reminder: you’re not alone and you have a job to do.

In The Low-Residency MFA Handbook: A Guide for Prospective Creative Writing Students, there are a few sections you may find helpful at this point in your writing career. “Life After the MFA” and “Learning From Experience” are two chapters that focus on stories shared from alums from around the country. In them, alums share the ups and downs of life after the MFA and how they continued to nurture their writing and their writing communities.

Perhaps this sounds familiar to you:
“The MFA helped me clarify my writing life and to find out what needed work and what I was doing correctly, but it did not make me a writer. I talked to many, many people who were looking forward to leaving the program and becoming writers, or who thought that doing the work of the program would transform them somehow and when they graduated, they’d get to the real work of their creative selves — and I suppose even I thought that to some extent — but the reality is that once the thrill of being in a program is over, there is still the long lonely blank page and filling it is as dreadful and exhilarating as it was the first time I sat down to write.”

That’s what Clark Knowles, an interviewee from the book, had to say. And Clark is right. Sometimes, we think an intense writing experience like the MFA will transform us. In many ways, it does, but it doesn’t do so magically and the magic doesn’t stick if we don’t make it stick. We have to work at it. We have to continue those friendships and critique groups. We have to want it for the long-term.

Writing is hard work. And sometimes we feel as though we’re just not getting done what we thought we would. That’s exactly why it’s so important to maintain those connections, as we all have moments where we get a little down on ourselves, and perhaps down on our writing. Diane Lefer, a former faculty member at a low-res program, had this to say in her interview with me:

“If you go straight through without a leave of absence, you’ve been on a relentless treadmill of producing and revising work. Some students have a period of creative collapse right after graduation. Not to worry. Your brain needs to recover and assimilate everything that was thrown at you and you need to reconnect with the family and friends you neglected while working on the MFA. You will write again — beautifully and very soon.”

By now, you know that nothing happens over night. You also know that some nights there is not a drop of ink left in your creative pen. These moments pass, however, and sometimes those quiet spells are actually good for us—mentally and creatively. It’s in these down times where our brain works to clear out the dusty corners to make room for the shiny new material. It’s also in these times when you may most rely on your writing peers. Their support, encouragement, and enthusiasm will help you through the rough times and then cheer you on when it’s time again to celebrate.

No matter how you decide to stay connected to your MFA community, you’ll find that keeping in touch with even a handful of those peers can be the best support system you’ll ever come across. Like my old high school friend Rachael who manages to stick with me through it all, that’s what old friends are for. To kick you in the pants when you need it. To cheer you on only when it’s deserved. To hold your hand and remind you you’re not the only one feeling blocked. To tell you it’s time to quit the endless editing wheel and get that darn submission out the door already.

So go on. Call up that old critique partner. Check in with your program director to see how you might lend a hand at the next residency. Send a note to your former faculty mentor to provide a quick update on what you’ve been doing. You’ll be glad you did. They will too. Your community relies on you. And you, on them.

Link to original posting

As Book Review Ed for the Los Angeles Review, I recently needed to recruit a few additional reviewers, so I placed an ad on CRWROPPS. Although the positions don’t pay, within twenty-four hours I had received sixty responses, most including CVs or samples of published reviews, and most from writers who would be well qualified for the job, even if it paid.

The overwhelming response for these gigs sheds, in its way, some light on the literary profession. I know of few industries outside the arts where an advertisement for a volunteer position would bring so many professional applications. This result, and the fact that CRWROPPS, a simple online posting service, reports a membership of nearly 6,000 writers, indicates the still large and growing community of writers, despite an almost complete disregard of the literary world by mainstream media. It means also there are far too few publishing opportunities, especially for those who believe criticism is as important a part of the literary world as the more creative endeavors.

This is not a surprise, but it is a bit of an eye-opener regarding how the cramped literary field has forced writers to jump at even the slightest opportunity for publishing credits.

So few outlets for true self-expression in our society. Most respectable literary journals receive hundreds, often thousands of submissions for every poetry and fiction publishing slot. The scant number of outlets means writers must scramble for every chance to see their names in print. Isn’t there some way we can merge literature back into our culture, to make it matter to a significant percentage of the population once again?

What about an American Idol for writers? A show where budding poets and prose writers audition their work in front of a panel of literary stars who react, sometimes belittle, and then vote on the merits of the storytelling. I’ll bet it would be as entertaining as any other singing/dancing/comedy showcase on the networks today, and instead of promoting meaningless, corporate-sanctioned displays of self-indulgence, it would invite viewers to not only view, but participate in discussions of art and how it comments on the world, and maybe even create some art of their own.

Am I dreaming? Probably.

Whidbey Pier - Coupeville

For three days (April 1 – 3, 2011) WIWA Writers Conference attendees were drenched, but soggy shoes and coats were beside the point. Brief hikes up Coupeville streets connected the main check-in station at the Rec Hall with workshops and lectures held Friday at the Methodist Church, the Coupeville Library, Service Alternatives for WA, the Island County Historical Society, Anchor Inn Bed and Breakfast, and Coupeville Inn. This broad array of venues, was matched with a wide scope of walk-in workshops: Envision Your Future as a Successful Writer; Reading for Success: Presenting Your Work to an Audience; Find Success Connecting with Your Muse: a Glimpse of the Amherst Artists and Writers Method; Perfect Pitch: Prepare for Success. Conference goers were invited to attend whatever workshop they chose, and came and went during presentations, as consults with editors and agents were concurrent during the morning hours.

In the afternoon, three-hour, preregistered workshops were offered: Warrior Writer; Buy this Book; Pulling Better Stories from Passion; How to Think Like a Publisher; Super Power Openings or How Many Hooks are Enough?; Internal Rhythm and Word Percussion; The Virtuoso Sentence: What it it? How do you learn to write it? Can it make you a great writer?; Hot Hot Hot; Writing and Publishing Personal Essays.

The traditional and much loved fireside chats were held morning and afternoon on Saturday. These workshops, held in smaller, mostly private home settings, personalized lectures and discussions in ways fellowship halls can’t, and topics included all genres and types of writing – a rich array, each with three presenters for a layered, more complex taste of each subject.

Sunday morning offered publishing information: The Publishing Business for the Writers; Publishing Overview; Publishing Options for Novels and Collections (Poetry or Stories); Blog Touring 101. Plus, one-hour workshops on Go Kindle! and Optimize Your Sales Potential: Amazon for Authors.”

As if this weren’t enough, an evening snack included poetry and discussions with four Northwest poets, plus a live theater presentation of “Collected Stories” was given, plus an opportunity for attendees to read their own original work in a venue called “Bedtime Stories” at the Methodist Church.

I can report that those who attended my workshop were passionate, dedicated writers driven by curiosities strong enough to leap tall buildings in a single bound. The raw energy of writers coming together would be ample to light Seattle indefinitely; and when we wrote and shared efforts together, the rain outside stopped mid-fall, and the air softened, suffused with humanity and natural talent.

Communal listening and discussion among writers is the equivalent of B12 shots, and can renew and sustain the deep wells of full, passionate energy required to write for months. Conferences, as well as open MFA residencies (like the Whidbey Writers Workshop’s coming in August) are M.A.S.H. tents for writers. Writing, as we all know, is an intensely private yet many-layered effort. It touches every cell of every part of us, drawing out everything every time. For if it doesn’t, what gets down on paper – or today’s equivalent, which may be only white air recording black squiggles – is thin or brittle, is a sad dead thing waiting to be swept into other dry leaves.

The WIWA Writers Conference reflects WIWA itself, with its emphasis on writers sharing knowledge and encouragement with other writers. This conference fulfilled its mission statement, just as all its other facets do, and then some.

By Ann Beman ’09, Whidbey MFA Alumni Association secretary

Everything in moderation. Sure. It sounds reasonable. But let’s say you’re at the 2011 AWP Conference in Washington, DC, where you’re faced with more than 8,000 writers (many the equivalent of literary rockstars), more than 500 publishers, 350 presentations: readings, lectures, panel discussions, and forums, plus hundreds of book signings, receptions, dances, slams, and other such wing dings. If you were me and you were faced with all those literary delicacies, you’d have glutted like a bunny at Carrotpalooza. Or, specifically, you’d have eaten way too many Chipotle burritos because the restaurant was super-close to the conference center hotel. And, you would not have been alone. Several Whidbey MFA alumni braved Midwest storms and way too many Chipotle burritos to attend the 2011 AWP Conference, Feb. 2-5.

AWP is a national, nonprofit literary organization for teachers and writers. The organization publishes The Writer’s Chronicle, the AWP Job List, and the AWP Official Guide to Creative Writing Programs. AWP holds its Annual Conference & Bookfair in a different region of North America in order to celebrate the outstanding authors, teachers, writing programs, literary centers, and small press publishers of that region.

At this year’s “big literary conversation” in DC were Kobbie Alamo ’10, Nancy Boutin ’07, Tanya  Chernov ’08, Kelly Davio ’09, Joe Ponepinto ‘09, and yours truly. As editors of The Los Angeles Review literary journal, published by Red Hen Press, the latter five of us took turns staffing the LAR table in the Bookfair. Ours was among ~113 booths and ~340 tables, at which presses, publishers, writing programs, and journals hawked wares and services. When we weren’t chatting up prospective subscribers or soliciting submissions from itinerant writers, we Whidbey MFA alumni attended panel discussions with titles such as Beyond Psychobabble: Finding Effective Language for Workshop Critiques; Status Update: The Personal Essay in the Age of Facebook; The Role of Alumni in Graduate Writing Programs; and What To Expect When You’re Expecting Your First Book. Along with Red Hen Press publisher (and frequent Whidbey MFA residency speaker) Kate Gale, Nancy Boutin sat on the panel Women Writers and Rejection: How to Get Published and Avoid the Slush Pile.

My favorite panel, To Tell You the Truth: Strategies in the New Nonfiction, featured Graywolf Press authors Stephen Elliott (The Adderall Diaries), Nick Flynn (Another Bullshit Night in Suck City), and Ander Monson (Vanishing Point). After the panel, I hotfooted it to the Graywolf booth and bought every memoir and essay collection mentioned. When I returned to my hotel room, I transcribed my notes and posted them on Catalyst for the Directed Reading Memoir class I’m intern-teaching under Ana Maria Spagna. I subscribed online to The Daily Rumpus, “an overly personal daily email from Stephen Elliott,” editor-in-chief of online culture magazine The Rumpus.net. And I devoured The Rumpus article “A Superbowl Preview for Those Who Don’t Know Football” as I drank Snapple out of the Write Like a Motherfucker mug I’d picked up at The Rumpus’s AWP table. Snapple, FYI, makes a fine accompaniment to a Chipotle burrito.