First week of March, still frigid in New York, where it feels like someone in the sky kitchen said, “There’s hardly any winter left in the pot–you finish it,” and dumped a double helping on our plate. Still the same ice ridges and filthy snow heaps, still the pedestrian sidewalk rage at being trapped behind… Continue reading Narrative Permission Slip
Category: Thoughts and Musings
Total Immersion: Museum as Narrative
By Richard Panek How could it happen? Was it the wrath of God or the malice of Poland? Was the crew drunk or was the Vasa wrongly built? The town was alive with rumours. I’ll bet it was. On August 10, 1628, the warship Vasa—the pride of Sweden, the talk of Stockholm—set sail on its maiden… Continue reading Total Immersion: Museum as Narrative
Traveling Toward Publication
by Kristen Ringman From the moment I arrived on campus, I felt the magic of Goddard. It wasn’t just the gorgeous woods fringing the campus. It wasn’t the music building, where the students gathered every evening and often remained until morning. It wasn’t Darla, the little dog that Program Director Paul Selig always had by… Continue reading Traveling Toward Publication
Where writers are actually writing
reposted from Bhanu Kapil’s blog Dear Ryan, You taught on another coast, it’s true. We once shared a shower. Well, you came downstairs and used the downstairs shower on the occasion we shared a dorm. Your brother showed up out of the blue, and we all welcomed him and shared our snacks. You were at… Continue reading Where writers are actually writing
Love by Drowning
“BETTER THAN GONE GIRL” proclaimed the headline on the Huffington Post story about the new novel by my longtime friend, writer C. E. “Buzz” Poverman, and I had to agree. I’d read and blurbed Love by Drowning in galleys and was blown away by the power and beauty of the writing, especially in the sea episodes. The reviewer, Melanie… Continue reading Love by Drowning
CLOSING NIGHT
I’m on a train on my way into the city. I’m leaving behind my daughter who is five months old and has a respiratory virus. My wife will be alone tonight to take care of her. What is about to happen will never happen again, so I leave them behind because I have little choice.… Continue reading CLOSING NIGHT
New Zealand Pleasures
by Nicola Morris I love small collections of books… a hotel shelf of books, a “free library” on the side of the street that has popped up with a tiny collection, some books left at the laundromat. Here in New Zealand I went off to the library to find some New Zealand fiction. I found… Continue reading New Zealand Pleasures
I Saw Them Standing There
(This essay was the author’s faculty reading at a recent MFAW-VT residency. It commemorates an event that happened 51 years ago this week.) By Richard Panek I was watching the Beatles on “Ed Sullivan” recently when I got to thinking about Galileo. “Ladies and gentlemen, here are The Beatles!” cried Ed, in his imitable style,… Continue reading I Saw Them Standing There
The Transfiguration of Recovery and Creativity
by Brianna Johnson As my degree was conferred, I felt/I understood a quantum shift. The first, or first perceived, of a series of seemingly religious experiences. Saints and colors and relics and snags of bone. I spoke about bravery. And then, I found myself in a desert. Eight months out of Goddard and three months… Continue reading The Transfiguration of Recovery and Creativity
WHEN POEMS COME BACK
Besides teaching at Goddard, I teach at Sheridan College, a small community college in Sheridan, Wyoming. Every once in a while we get an amazing student. T. is one of the student-consultants in our writing center. He is a music major who is an excellent percussionist, but he has suddenly discovered literature. He comes… Continue reading WHEN POEMS COME BACK
OH, ANTONIONI!
by Jane Summer I am driving behind a tow truck. On its flatbed, a toothless black SUV faces me. A crucifix swings wildly from the rearview mirror. I’m thinking nothing can save us. I’ve been sad lately. My book is about to come out. That doesn’t cheer me up. In November our dog, a young… Continue reading OH, ANTONIONI!
Of Heisenbergs and Beethovens
By Richard Panek The 16-year-old student has an idea, but she doesn’t have the maths to support it. She does, however, have a drawing. She submits it to her tutor. He examines it, then delivers his verdict. “This is not science,” he says. “This is story-telling.” He’s right: Through her art she has told a story.… Continue reading Of Heisenbergs and Beethovens
How To Write A Poem
By Bhanu Kapil (Originally published on The Poetry Foundation’s Harriet blog, for national Poetry month, April 2012. Which means, for the entire poem, you have to go there. But to begin…) How to Write a Poem 1. Eat the raw heart of a horse. This will distinguish you from a cast of thousands. 2. Are you… Continue reading How To Write A Poem
Breathing in Rhythm
by Lizz Schumer I sat in my dorm room at my East London university, staring at my own reflection in the window above my desk as I emailed my undergraduate writing mentor, a Goddard alum. “I can’t do this,” I wrote, sniveling. “It’s not what I wanted. It’s not what I needed.” The UK writing… Continue reading Breathing in Rhythm
Future Anxiety and Young Adult Fiction
I was doing some research (i.e. “avoiding work/killing time online”) when I found an old piece on Quora, a content partner with Slate. It posits the hypothetical question, “what would happen if oxygen were to disappear for five seconds?” The respondent, a self-described science junkie named Andrew Cote, describes a series of truly eye-popping events… Continue reading Future Anxiety and Young Adult Fiction
Isla McKetta: Things I Wish I’d Known When I Graduated from Goddard
It seems like ages ago that I graduated from Goddard’s MFA program in creative writing at Port Townsend. It was only the summer of 2010, but I still remember the rush of holding that diploma in my hand. My classmates and I were ready to take on the literary world. Or so we thought. It’s… Continue reading Isla McKetta: Things I Wish I’d Known When I Graduated from Goddard
Robert Gober’s Heart
“The Heart is Not a Metaphor”, Robert Gober’s retrospective at MOMA ended on January 18th, which makes me happy I saw it but unhappy for those who missed it. Gober works in various mediums—installations being, of course, the most enveloping and most beautiful. Installations remind me of the other worlds that artists live in and… Continue reading Robert Gober’s Heart
Resistance and Change: Ursula K. Le Guin’s Radical Imagination
Post State of the Union, the speech that is still sounding in my mind is one that was given back in November: Ursula Le Guin’s address at the National Book Award ceremony. Yes, she chided us for selling books “like deodorant,” but these are the words that are resonating in me: “Hard times are coming,… Continue reading Resistance and Change: Ursula K. Le Guin’s Radical Imagination
queer divine dissatisfaction – words to live by
Searing, soaring advice from the master Martha Graham… “There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium… Continue reading queer divine dissatisfaction – words to live by
Disability Theater: A Note from Berlin
The past five months, I’ve been in Berlin researching a new book. Much of my time is spent learning about difficult things, such as how disabled people were killed under the Nazi Aktion T4 program. But much of my time is also spent partaking in the extraordinary cultural riches of Berlin. The past few years,… Continue reading Disability Theater: A Note from Berlin