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
Category: Thoughts and Musings
A Radical Alternative to Online Instruction
The sudden shift to remote instruction has caused a needed moment of critical interrogation in higher education. Colleges, universities, and the students that attend them are all making difficult choices about the Fall semester. At the heart of these decisions lies a question about the fundamental nature of education. Goddard College, a well-kept secret in the… Continue reading A Radical Alternative to Online Instruction
Manifesting Goddard in Your Life
I was like many Goddard students. I discovered this remarkable student-centered pathway in the 1990’s but did not enroll until 2006. It took that long to manifest Goddard in my life, but it was well worth the discovery. I was an artist, educator and social worker in the midwest growing my tribe of five beautiful… Continue reading Manifesting Goddard in Your Life
An Open Letter to a Prospective Student
Dear Goddard Prospective Student, I am not going to tell you my story. I am going to take the things I have seen and heard over the last two years at Goddard and create your story. It’s just the two of us here on this page, so let’s not be humble and shy. Admit it… Continue reading An Open Letter to a Prospective Student
Unschooling toward Educational Liberation
by Bernard Bull, president of Goddard College ((((ring)))) By the time that someone graduates from high school, there is a good chance that they have been through a multi-year Pavlovian experiment that consistently results in people learning to respond on command. ((((ring)))) Doing the simple math, if you attended a school that used bells between… Continue reading Unschooling toward Educational Liberation
Writer in the World Podcast EP 4: “Trust”
In Episode Four in the Writer in the World podcast series faculty spotlight series, Rahna Reiko Rizzuto interviews fellow faculty member and award-winning playwright Rogelio Martinez who teaches dramatic writing on the Vermont campus. Martinez speaks about leaving Cuba: “a land where trust doesn’t come easily.” In May 1980, when he was nine years old,… Continue reading Writer in the World Podcast EP 4: “Trust”
Writer in the World Podcast EP 3: “The Forest”
In the third episode of Writer in the World Podcast, author and Goddard faculty Sherri L Smith talks about why writers should take time to express gratitude to trees and be prepared to listen. Smith teaches fiction, graphic novel, non-fiction, screenplays, and fantasy at the MFA in Writing program at Goddard College. Fellow faculty Rahna… Continue reading Writer in the World Podcast EP 3: “The Forest”
“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
UGP Faculty Karen Werner’s “Goddard moment”
I was in a master’s program in education when I felt a wave of wanting to be in spiritual practice. A gifted professor wove together Toni Morrison, Freud, the myth of Psyche and Cupid, and the professor’s own interviews with 9-13 year old girls. Voice, resonance, relationship, democracy. “The honesty of things is where they… Continue reading UGP Faculty Karen Werner’s “Goddard moment”
Transformational, Spiritual, Personal: MFAW alum testimony
Look. Listen. I’m what they call “mid-life.” I’m what they call “late-blooming.” And even though I was just an “average-Joe” and a “working-mother,” I happened to be in the “right-place-at-the-right-time” when the “opportunity-presented-itself.” I was “ready-willing-and-able” to “follow my dreams.” I’m lucky. I went back to school. I went to Goddard College. When I was… Continue reading Transformational, Spiritual, Personal: MFAW alum testimony
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.
Cathedrals and Yurts–A Reprint…
“I get it: I keep trying to build cathedrals when I should be building yurts.”
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.
Emails to a Young Writer, or I Am Not Friedrich Nietzsche:
On Writers, Writer’s Block, Generosity, Creativity and Community
Why This Blog Is Late
I just started rehearsals for a ten-day workshop a relatively new play of mine: BORN IN EAST BERLIN. The workshop is at TheatreWorks in Palo Alto. I decided to blog the first day.
You Talking to Me in Annotations?
At this past residency in Vermont, a few faculty members were sitting around before a meeting, talking about nothing in particular, and then one of us, for whatever reason that made sense in the moment, was describing a scene in a Martin Scorsese movie. Maybe Casino; maybe Goodfellas. Doesn’t matter. What matters is what happens… Continue reading You Talking to Me in Annotations?
The Sugar Balloon
Whenever you bump up against a writing situation that feels impossible, remember the Sugar Balloon, and all the experimentation, tenacity, innovation, determination, and risk that it took to arrive at this floating answer to a once-thought-impossible question.
Notebook
The paragraph or so of writing in preparation for this post I began on an empty page of an old, located notebook, one that flips vertically like a police ticket or meter maid book, but unlike law enforcement trappings
Claribel Alegría: A Poetry Pendant
By chance or design, I held the words of the Salvadoran poet Claribel Alegría, later translated by poet Carolyn Forche and published by Pittsburgh in Flowers from the Volcano.