Jake Shore’s newest play, Adjust The Procedure, is a work for the times. Held over a Zoom call, the four character play takes place within the bureaucratic infrastructure of a university. The summary: It’s early Fall 2020 and the pandemic consumes a Manhattan university. In addition to tracking rising cases of COVID on campus, the… Continue reading Pandemic Theater? A Goddard Playwright Adjusts
Category: MFA in Creative Writing
Welcome Dr. Danita Berg, MFA in Creative Writing Program Director
Welcome home, Dr. Danita Berg. Danita will assume the position of MFAW program director starting on May 3, 2021. She holds both an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College and a Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Composition from the University of South Florida. She brings an extensive background in college-level teaching, administration, and leadership, with… Continue reading Welcome Dr. Danita Berg, MFA in Creative Writing Program Director
Q&A with author Matthew Quick
In 2018 Matthew Quick (MFAW ’07) was interviewed by Dustin Byerly (BA RUP ’01) for Clockworks magazine. Recently, I spoke with Matthew Quick (MFAW ’07) about his journey from high school teacher to award-winning author and the role Goddard played in his development as an author. Matthew Quick is the New York Times bestselling author… Continue reading Q&A with author Matthew Quick
Spotlight: Suli Holum, MFA in Creative Writing
Suli Holum was playing the role of Emilia in a production of Othello at the Lantern Theatre in Philadelphia when the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns began. After just two preview performances, the entire crew packed up and the curtain fell. The show never officially opened, and Suli was suddenly left wondering what to do when her… Continue reading Spotlight: Suli Holum, MFA in Creative Writing
Mike Alvarez’s Goddard Journey- The Paradox of Suicide & Creativity
Two-time Goddard graduate Mike Alvarez (IMA ’10, MFAW ’13) was awarded the prestigious Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans. The fellowship honors and supports young New Americans – immigrants and children of immigrants—to use their graduate training in this country to make distinctive contributions to American life. Mike will receive up to $90,000… Continue reading Mike Alvarez’s Goddard Journey- The Paradox of Suicide & Creativity
“The Day That You Bloom” a Commencement Address by Sherri L. Smith
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
Goddard Collaboration Inspires Poetry Chapbook
From “Sea to Shining Sea” Poet and writer Synnika Lofton teaches Literature, creates poetry, and operates a music and media production company in Chesapeake Bay, Virginia. Donnelle McGee writes poetry, operates a small publisher, and teaches at Mission College in Santa Clara California. Both artists met in Vermont at Goddard College. While three thousand miles… Continue reading Goddard Collaboration Inspires Poetry Chapbook
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
BITING THROUGH: In recognition and celebration of Juneteenth
by Elena Georgiou “I think we often think of freedom as a destination. Freedom as a noun, freedom as a settled place, freedom as being settled. And this image to me is very much in line with, I think what my understanding of freedom is. That it is constantly in motion. It’s constantly shifting. There is… Continue reading BITING THROUGH: In recognition and celebration of Juneteenth
$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
An Epiphany of Hope: Sherri L. Smith’s Writing Process for “The Blossom and the Firefly”
Sherri L. Smith had been working on writing her Young Adult novel The Blossom and the Firefly. Late one evening, Sherri made a declaration to her husband. Three days before the editors deadline, she announced that she had just completed her first draft. But the conversation that followed made her rethink everything. In an interview… Continue reading An Epiphany of Hope: Sherri L. Smith’s Writing Process for “The Blossom and the Firefly”
Writer in the World Podcast EP. 9: “The Voice”
Faculty member Kenny Fries, a leading voice in the disability arts and disability studies world, talks about high standards, research, humor, and finding ways to be in the present time. A poet, memoirist and essayist, and also a librettist, he says that traveling and living internationally is “as necessary as blood.” “Most of my work… Continue reading Writer in the World Podcast EP. 9: “The Voice”
Writer in the World Podcast EP. 8: “The Limitations of Language”
Bhanu Kapil speaks about growing up amid immigrant voices in North West London, and how she “accidentally” became known for her performances as a way to cross time and space. “Trying to write a novel as a diasporic writer, I find it quite challenging to write the historiography, the memory, the cardinal flux of a… Continue reading Writer in the World Podcast EP. 8: “The Limitations of Language”
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.
Writer in the World Podcast EP 6: “The Dark”
Can one’s imagination run too wild? Fiction writer John McManus talks about channeling the dark – anxiety, emotion, even wildly horrible possible futures – into his stories. He shares the evolution of the novel he is currently working on, Magnetic South, in which “fake” reporting about the colloquially-known “Kill the Gays” bill in Uganda leads… Continue reading Writer in the World Podcast EP 6: “The Dark”
Writer in the World Podcast EP 5: “The Outsider”
Born and raised in an immigrant family in England, Goddard’s MFA in Creative Writing program director Elena Georgiou shares her experience of a community where there was “no pretense about a melting pot.” She talks political dreams, and how being an outsider, and a second class citizen, in her own country has fueled her writing: … Continue reading Writer in the World Podcast EP 5: “The Outsider”
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”
Writer in the World Podcast EP 2: “Defying Gravity”
“Defying Gravity” In the second episode of the Writer in the World podcast, Rahna Reiko Rizzuto interviews MFAW faculty Richard Panek who teaches fiction and non-fiction at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont. Panek, an essayist, journalist, humorist and fiction writer, talks about how he became enamored of writing about science: “I saw that in writing… Continue reading Writer in the World Podcast EP 2: “Defying Gravity”