Goddard MFAW Spring 2021 Commencement Speech by Sherri L. Smith (Transcript) Hi Everybody! Welcome to commencement. Okay, let’s just acknowledge it’s been a really weird week. And a really weird year, and the year’s only just begun. I spent some time last weekend thinking about what I was going to say today. And then Tuesday… Continue reading “The Day That You Bloom” a Commencement Address by Sherri L. Smith
Author: MFA Writing
A List of Awards Granted to Goddard’s MFA in Creative Writing Faculty
The writers who teach in the Goddard MFA in Creative Writing Program have been published and produced internationally, and are recognized in their fields. They are active writers. Collectively, current and recent faculty members have published more than 150 books, had plays produced around the world, and won most of the major U.S. literary awards.… Continue reading A List of Awards Granted to Goddard’s MFA in Creative Writing Faculty
$200k Gift Announced for MFAW Student Emergency Fund
We are delighted to announce that Goddard recently received an anonymous gift of $200,000 (plus an additional $30,000 to cover grant administration costs) to establish an emergency fund for students in the MFA in Writing Program. MFAW students will be able to apply for a grant of up to $3,000 per semester to help with unforeseen financial… Continue reading $200k Gift Announced for MFAW Student Emergency Fund
The Soft Parade: A Writer’s Response to COVID-19
While we all are destined to reach a point of stop-breath finality, our routes towards this summit traverse different topographies, navigate different twists of watercourse, and feel different illuminations of heat. Still, we mark similar paths: we all are, simply, in time, going to die. I think of this truth, in one way, as belonging… Continue reading The Soft Parade: A Writer’s Response to COVID-19
Writer in the World Podcast, EP 7: “The Child”
Susan Kim writes with themes surrounding female empowerment, privilege, institutionalized racism and classism, but always through the lens of human behavior.
“Three Long Mountains and a Wood”: Where Language Has Led You
by Julia Bouwsma As a poet who lives off-the-grid in the woods of Northern New England, my working practice has come to align with the seasons. In winter I hunker down and write, recalling my first winter in Maine when I hunched by the woodstove watching the snowdrifts swirl and amass at my kitchen window… Continue reading “Three Long Mountains and a Wood”: Where Language Has Led You
Enchantivism: Activism for Introverts
“If you want to change someone’s mind, tell them a story.” – Dr. Craig Chalquist, PhD, depth psychologist, Pacifica Institute Dr. Craig Chalquist has created a course in how to use dreams, myths and deep storytelling to inspire positive change. He is also a master gardener, which adds an ecological element to the work–our well-being… Continue reading Enchantivism: Activism for Introverts
Diary of Books
I’ve never kept a diary. At least not since I was eight, when my father bought two blank journals and suggested that he and I spend time together every evening writing in our diaries. For several weeks we did just that, sitting side by side on the living room couch and recording the events of the day. One day I came home from school and found my diary in the wrong place on the bookshelf. When I inquired about this, my dad said, “I have to admit something to you. I was so curious about what you’ve been writing that I couldn’t help myself, so I went in your room and read it.”
CLOCKHOUSE: Call for Volume Seven Submissions
CLOCKHOUSE seeks submissions in poetry, drama, fiction and nonfiction for its 2019 issue Clockhouse is an eclectic conversation about the work-in-progress of life–a soul arousal, a testing ground, a new community, a call for change. Clockhouse seeks submissions in poetry, drama, fiction and nonfiction for its 2019 issue. We are interested in diverse voices and… Continue reading CLOCKHOUSE: Call for Volume Seven Submissions
On Disability and Diversity: The Exclusivity of Inclusion
…disability is too often excluded in discussions of diversity, a good deal of which, for good reason, focuses on race. This silence is especially noteworthy because disability crosses racial, gender, sexuality, class, and national boundaries.
MFAW-VT Student Janet Colson’s Play
MFAW-VT student Janet Colson’s short play “Janet and Rico’s Fabulous (Fictional) Adventure at Golden Harvest” was performed at Lansing’s Renegade Theatre Festival as a part of the Renegade Ruckus, a 24-hour playwriting marathon. Janet’s play was the final play of the festival and is being considered for an encore performance at the next City Pulse “Pulsar… Continue reading MFAW-VT Student Janet Colson’s Play
Alchemy of the Word News
In today’s Craft Book Spotlight, The Writer magazine gave our very own all-faculty compilation, Alchemy of the Word, a nice shout-out: “When National Book Award winner and acclaimed memoirist Maxine Hong Kingston praises a book, you sit up and pay attention. “Whether you’re a young beginner or a veteran writer like me, you’ll get support… Continue reading Alchemy of the Word News
Cathedrals and Yurts–A Reprint…
“I get it: I keep trying to build cathedrals when I should be building yurts.”
MFAW-VT Alumnus Charlie Bondhus’s Third Poetry Manuscript Accepted for Publication
MFAW-VT alumnus Charlie Bondhus‘s second poetry collection, Divining Bones, has just been accepted for publication by Sundress publications.
MFAW-VT Alumna Lizz Schumer at The Rumpus
MFAW-VT alumn Lizz Schumer has just been offered a full-time job as staff writer at the Hearst Lifestyle group, writing for Good Housekeeping, Redbook Magazine, and Woman’s Day Magazine‘s print editions. And, at the beginning of August, Lizz;s personal essay “The Ravine” is featured in The Rumpus’s series: Enough*
Dear John McCain,
Dear John McCain,
I think of your tap code late at night when I am lonely. You broken and spent in the Hanoi Hilton tapping out “Are you okay?” to the guy on the other side of the wall.
MFAW-WA Nita Sweeney is Short-Listed!
MFAW alumna Nita Sweeney’s unpublished memoir, Twenty-Six Point Freaking Two: How a Sedentary, Middle-Aged Manic Depressive Became a Marathoner (with the help of her dog), was short-listed for the 2018 William Faulkner – William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition nonfiction category. Read Nita’s blog, to see more about the news created by her unpublished memoir and advice for… Continue reading MFAW-WA Nita Sweeney is Short-Listed!
MFAW-VT Faculty Member Jan Clausen’s Criticism Published
MFAW-VT faculty member Jan Clausen’s review of new poetry and hybrid works appears in the July/August issue of the Women’s Review of Books. She addresses Ada Limón’s poetry collection The Carrying and Amy Fusselman’s lyric essay Idiophone.
MFAW-VT Alumna Gina Leigh Helms TV Show!
MFAW-VT alumna Gina Leigh has just launched the pilot episode of Circus Town Circus Town is an original, all-puppet children’s television show that explains physics through the fun of circus stories. Meet Sally Spangles, her best friend Girard the Giraffe, and a singing flea circus! Circus Town had its beginnings in Gina’s Goddard thesis. Gina traveled… Continue reading MFAW-VT Alumna Gina Leigh Helms TV Show!
MFAW-VT Alumna Claudette Webster Poems in Black Renaissance Noire
MFAW-VT alumna Claudette Webster has three poems just published in Black Renaissance Noire (Vol 18, Issue 2, Summer 2018). This journal is put out by NYU Institute of African-American Affairs. You may purchase a copy via: https://www.nyubrn.org Black Renaissance/Renaissance Noire publishes essays, poetry, fiction, photography, art, and reviews that address the full range of contemporary BLACK concerns. It… Continue reading MFAW-VT Alumna Claudette Webster Poems in Black Renaissance Noire