What's New
Spring 2011My essay "The Broken Cup" has been published in Web Conjunctions. It is a lyric essay which braids together four different lines of thought about the ancient Taoist idea that physical emptiness is a prerequiste to spiritual fulfillment. This summer I read the essay as part of the Ashland MFA residency, assisted by three of the other founding teachers in the program: Stephen Haven, Kathy Winograd, and Ruth Schwartz. It was the last reading in the two-week residency and a wonderful night. You can read the essay at this link to the Web Conjunction site: Also, my essay "Blood Mountain" was accepted for publication by the on-line magazine "Ascent." In the essay, an experience of vertigo at an overlook while walking up Blood Mountain with my sons leads to thoughts about what it means to feel 'at home' in the universe. You can read the essay at the link below.I had fun in my creative writing classes this fall. At Young Harris I taught a class in creative writing in prose in which students brought three nonfiction projects to completion. The class and the discussions, both on and off-line, were intense! In the Ashland MFA I conducted an on-line class in creative nonfiction for first-year students. We read books by writers of nonfiction, many of them connected to Ashland either as teachers or visiting writers. It was a great line-up of texts: The Memoir and the Memoirist by Tom Larson, Blessing of the Animals by Brenda Miller, Green Fields by Bob Cowser, and About a Mountain by John D'Agata. All four of my students made substantial progress on their nonfiction manuscripts, and the on-line discussion was exciting. Any who are interested in learning more about the Ashland MFA should e-mail Sarah Wells at swells@ashland.edu. In the Ashland MFA program this spring I will teach a thesis class with three students: Erin Joyce, Nancy Leinbach. and David MacWilliams. I will be overseeing their work and offering suggestions as they bring their manuscripts to completion. At Young Harris College I will teach contemporary literature with a focus on writers writing about art. It is a new class at the college. The reading list includes Still Life with Oysters and Lemons by Mark Doty, Ghost Writer by Phillip Roth, and Imitations by Robert Lowell as well as other books. The college will also offer creative writing in drama this spring--a joint enrollment class in English and theater and another new addition to the YHC program. Our visiting writers at Young Harris this spring will be Robert Rahm, the author of The Mercy Papers (nonfiction), and Enid Shomer, the author of Black Drum (poetry) and Tourist Season (short stories). In February, I will present on two panels at the AWP annual conference in Washington, DC. The first panel is called "Playing for Keeps: Intensity and Creativity in the Lyric Essay" which includes Bob Root, Kathy Winograd, and Rebecca McClannahan as panelists. The second is called "The Unfolding Story: Narrative Possibilities in Creative Nonfiction" with Joe Mackall, Mike Steinberg, Jocelyn Bartkevecius, and Bob Cowser on the panel. It should be a lot of fun, and I hope to see many of you there. |