By Lucas M. Peters My polyglot wife is fond of telling me that as you are learning a new language, you are learning a new culture. Language, she says, is an extension of the culture of a place and its people. It is an unwieldy thing that has many strange branches and rules. It simultaneously… Continue reading The Original World Wide Web
Tag: alumni
How I Picked Up a Spade and Became a Writer
by Kimberly Mayer The year was 2000. The end of the second millennium, the beginning of the third. A recent transplant from Philadelphia to Seattle, one of the first things I did in my new land was enroll in The Master Gardener Program. King County is where the international program originated in 1973, and to… Continue reading How I Picked Up a Spade and Became a Writer
Trapped in the Iron Maiden
For the last year, my body’s felt like it’s been trapped inside its own iron maiden. You know, one of those medieval torture devices the size of the human body with spikes in the interior. I read that the device was entirely made up, and that it wasn’t. I read that the first one, in… Continue reading Trapped in the Iron Maiden
The X-men and Women in Us All
JC Sevcik on the writer in the world, the hero in us all… All my life, I’ve been a loner. As far back as I can remember, I’ve felt like an outcast. I did not have what anyone could possibly mistake for a happy childhood, but I always had stories. My father died when I… Continue reading The X-men and Women in Us All
Rejection Makes You Stronger
Minneapolis AWP — Check! I write this sitting cross-legged on the nubby zebra-print carpet of Seattle’s SeaTac airport. A friend dropped me off an hour early and I couldn’t be happier with the extra time to just chill. At the risk of sounding cheerleader-ish, what I want to say to all the beautiful passersby is… Continue reading Rejection Makes You Stronger
Pitch Madness! How I Got My Agent
By Mia Siegert Recently, I participated in a Twitter and Blog Competition called Pitch Madness hosted by Brenda Drake. With increasing use of e-readers and social media marketing, writers are able to connect with agents and editors, sometimes having only 140-characters to pitch one’s book. If an agent’s attention is caught from just 140-characters, that… Continue reading Pitch Madness! How I Got My Agent
Cara Hoffman interviewed by George Stephanopoulos
Burgers & Books: George Stephanopoulos with Cara Hoffman The ‘Be Safe I Love You’ author reveals what drives her to write and where she finds inspiration. ABC News broadcast. ABC US News | World News
Science Fiction as Social Activism
by Chana Porter There is a TV show called Orphan Black which follows a woman as she discovers that she has many identical clones all over the world, the intentional orphans of a top secret genetics project. I’m most interested in Orphan Black as an exercise in empathy. The main character sees the person she… Continue reading Science Fiction as Social Activism
The Confidence Code: Joining the Party
As long as I can remember, I have had my nose to the grindstone, learning early in life how to tune out the noise of the rest of the world around me. I developed such a keen muscle for exclusion that when I had children, I actually had to train myself to pay attention to… Continue reading The Confidence Code: Joining the Party
Finding The Words
On deep grief and finding the words… By Carolyn Bardos My relationship with language used to be sweet and easy. Thoughts came, I wrote them down, said them aloud, played around with structure, voice, and perspective. In recent years, though, certain life events have left me all but wordless, and I think I know why. I’m… Continue reading Finding The Words
When Play Leads to a Poetry Warning
By Cody Pherigo Diane Ackerman explores the history and deeper workings of play and how it is entangled with the creative process in her book Deep Play. She opens with a definition and a premise: PLAY. It is an activity which proceeds within certain limits of time and space, in a visible order, according to… Continue reading When Play Leads to a Poetry Warning
Quest Writer’s Conference 2015
The Quest Writer’s Conference 2015 launches this June, founded by Goddard alum Jessamyn Smyth. Dates for the conference will be June 21-28 in Squamish, British Columbia (just north of Vancouver). They are rapidly approaching the application deadline of May 1st and encourage writers in all phases of their work to apply. This conference might really… Continue reading Quest Writer’s Conference 2015
Tyler Whidden Headlines Playwriting Festival
Playwright and Alum Tyler Whidden with a young actor… In an interview for the upcoming Festival, Whidden expounds on his newest play, ChocolateSexPuppyTacos (a Non-Denominational Play): Can you talk about the idea behind your play “ChocolateSex…” ? I think it’s a conglomeration of two of the many lives I’ve lived. When I was a kid,… Continue reading Tyler Whidden Headlines Playwriting Festival
Chera Hammons: The Descent of the Germanwings
Congratulations to MFAW-VT alum Chera Hammons who just had the following poem published at Rattle.com.To mark National Poetry Month, here is the poem, in its entirety: THE DESCENT OF THE GERMANWINGS Musicians know how to write silence, how to lay lines and measures across a white landscape, to show where music is… Continue reading Chera Hammons: The Descent of the Germanwings
Goddard Alum/Faculty Reception at AWP
Calling all Goddard College Faculty and Alums who will be attending AWP this year! As members of this elite squad, you are invited to our reception, to be held at the Conference. This is a great way to catch up with old friends, meet some new ones and generally feel more at home while browsing the… Continue reading Goddard Alum/Faculty Reception at AWP
The Graphic Novel with Susan Kim and Rachel Pollack
An Interview by Beatrix Gates Vermont Graphic Novel faculty Rachel Pollack and Susan Kim attended the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) Fest with MFA Graphic Novel grads Anne Bean and Ryan Wynns, ’13, see pix below. Bea Gates: How would you describe what the… Continue reading The Graphic Novel with Susan Kim and Rachel Pollack
To Read Is to Dream, Guided By Someone Else’s Hand
by Traci Dolan-Priestley Fernando Pessoa’s The Book of Disquiet, published after his death and put together by assembling notes that he left behind, was the first book I read about what it meant to be a writer. Not how to write, no, no, not even mentioned. I’ve quoted this particular passage many times. “One of the… Continue reading To Read Is to Dream, Guided By Someone Else’s Hand
Trusting the Process in Tucson
by Kristen Stone One of the most amazing things about my Goddard experience (beside the invective to TRUST THE PROCESS, something I still wrestle with, on the daily, in my writing and non-writing lives) is the connections I made with writers—who became friends—around the country. One such friend is Kristen Nelson, founder and Executive Director… Continue reading Trusting the Process in Tucson
The Goddard Salons and The Un-Book Tour
by Ann Hedreen I remember poring over my first Goddard MFA residency schedule and the way my eyes skidded to a stop at the word “salon.” We would have such things as salons? À la Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas? I felt a little frisson, a cocktail of thrill mixed with dread. My instincts… Continue reading The Goddard Salons and The Un-Book Tour
Some [tiny] examples of the EXTREMELY AMAZING THINGS THAT HAPPEN CASUALLY AT GODDARD AND NOWHERE ELSE*
by Kristen E. Nelson I got to study with Rebecca (mother-f***ing) Brown. That’s sometimes how I say her name when I get excited about Rebecca, and once you read/meet/encounter/learn from Rebecca, you continue to be excited about her. I read her short story collection What Keeps Me Here and then read all of her books.… Continue reading Some [tiny] examples of the EXTREMELY AMAZING THINGS THAT HAPPEN CASUALLY AT GODDARD AND NOWHERE ELSE*