Kendall Dunkelberg

Low-Residency MFA Steps Closer To Reality

I’ve written a few posts about my ideas on a low-residency MFA in creative writing. Last week, those ideas became a lot closer to reality. You might say they’ve been realized at Mississippi University for Women, when our governing board voted to approve our proposal. But I’ll really believe it’s real when we have students.

What is real is that there is lots of work to be done to put into practice the program that looked good on paper. And that work has begun in earnest. I’ve written a press release and put up our website http://www.muw.edu/mfacreativewriting with a description of the program and a list of the courses that have been approved. Still to come are admissions procedures, a breakdown of costs, and a list of faculty.

On the last front, I have contacted a number of writer friends about our new program, and the response has been phenomenal. I am very thankful for all the congratulations I’ve received, along with offers to end students our way and offers to teach for us. I will be taking people up on these offers, esp. for teaching, either as core faculty or as visiting writers. One of the best things about directing the new program will be the opportunity to work closely with so many other creative professionals — I want to bring in artists, musicians, chefs, historians, producers, publishers, museum directors grant writers, and many other members of he the creative economy in addition to writers.

I’ve already had some great conversations with people, and I’m well on the way to lining up some exciting new colleagues to work with as we take the. Program from the idea stage to the start of classes. And of course, the support of my department, my chair, dean, provost, and president has been and will continue to be vital to our success. Check our website for updates! I hope to have more announcements soon and often in the coming months.

Book Review: Sympathetic Magic by Amy Fleury

Sympathetic Magic by Amy Fleury

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As the title poem announces, “Sometimes what is needed comes to hand.” These poems are both needed and close at hand. Amy Fleury’s voice is never overly intellectual, never too familiar. These poems are calm and contemplative, yet they bring necessary images to life, whether it is through the exploration of minutiae from a Kansas landscape like the “First Morel” or the touching encounter between father and daughter in “Ablution” or the perception of nuns and saints in their “Niches.” It is great to see a poet who vacillates so dexterously between intensely personal poems and poems of complete objectivity. Read these poems whether you are in “the waters of loving” or “the sump of loss” or somewhere between. They will do you good.

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Eudora Welty Writers’ Symposium Wrap-Up

It is hard to believe that two weeks ago today we at Mississippi University for Women were in the throes of another fabulous Eudora Welty Writers’ Symposium. Hard to believe that two weeks have passed and hard to believe what a great weekend it was. Every year we say it was the best and couldn’t get better. Every year exceeds our expectations (or our memory), but this year truly was unique.

The Symposium began in earnest for me on Wednesday morning, Oct. 22, when I picked up the inimitable Carol Ruth Silver from GTR airport. A tour of the Tennessee Williams home and lunch on the Riverwalk. Conversations about San Francisco, Chinese dual-language education, recycling, and of course the Freedom Rides in Mississippi on a gorgeous fall day brought me out of the stress of planning the weekend and provided a bit of calm in the storm. In the evening, dinner with Tim Parrish at The Little Dooey followed by some conversation over beers at our house was another welcome island in the stream of tying up a few final details, putting out fires, and writing my introduction for the next night’s keynote session.

Thursday was busier than normal (so I’d been working ahead), since we have a grant to produce a half-hour video of interviews with four of the symposium authors. That meant getting pizza for lunch, meeting with the interviewees over lunch, and then taping interviews all afternoon. These went great, and actually provided an excellent kick-start to the symposium, since I got to know the authors and I felt the energy building as we talked. Tim and Carol Ruth were shuttled over to WCBI for interviews on the local station in the midst of all of this, and our other authors started to arrive, so things were really getting underway. I had brought my clothes for the evening down to campus and changed in my office, so I could pick everyone up in the university’s big van and bring them to dinner at 5:00, and then the real public part of the symposium began.

Tim Parrish’s reading at the keynote was inspired. He has been so gracious and enthusiastic throughout the symposium and the months leading up to it, that everything went off without a hitch. Maridith Geuder had suggested creating more of a set for the video production, so Tim read from a wing-back chair on stage. This arrangement made the readings much more casual and intimate. Tim dedicated his reading from Fear and What Follows to his dad who passed away this year, and he read passages that dealt with his father’s influence. He also read from his novel The Jumper — all I can say is get a copy of both of these books and read them. You won’t be disappointed! It was a fabulous reading with great Q&A after, and we hardly wanted to break for the book signing and reception (though the food was well worth it).

It’s hard to give highlights of Friday and Saturday, since everyone’s readings were great. I especially enjoyed Carol Ruth Silver’s reading and discussion of her time as one of the Freedom Riders in 1960s Mississippi and her days in Parchman prison as a result of that civil disobedience. The bravery of all the riders is almost impossible to fathom, especially when you hear of some of the prison episodes or think about the violence that they could have confronted with an angry mob.

I always love the poets, and John Bensko, Amy Fleury, Shayla Lawson, Derrick Harriell and Richard Boada were no exceptions. Each had their individual style and grabbed the audience in different way. This year was a nearly perfect mix of styles, yet each poet responded to the others and themes could be traced in all of their work, crossing over to the fiction as well. One of my favorite parts of the symposium was the Q&A, in part because the writers this year were so engaged with each other.

Friday afternoon featured our Common Reading Initiative author Deborah Johnson and the two judges of our inaugural high school writing contest, The Ephemera Prize. Derrick Harriell and Katy Simpson Smith gave great readings and then did double-duty introducing and commenting on the prize winners: 5 MSMS students. Three of the students were able to read their work in person; the other two who were on a music tour for their school, had recorded their reading, which we played for the audience. All five did a fantastic job and we were impressed with the quality of their work.

As usual, Friday evening we all were invited to the Welty Gala, and enjoyed the opportunity for a few more receptions, good food, and a fascinating speech by Robert Edsel on The Monuments Men and the work that is still ongoing to retrieve art and cultural artifacts stolen during World War II. And in the morning we met for four more readings.

Nearly everyone’s travel plans allowed them to stay for the full symposium this year, which was another great part of its success. Tim and Shayla originally had been scheduled to depart at noon and would have missed out on some of the morning session, but Delta kindly rescheduled their flights until 2:30 (I’m kidding, of course, though Delta did reschedule the noon flight for 2:30, we have no idea why, but we were glad!) After the last reading by David Armand, those of us who could stick around went out for lunch at Profitt’s Porch, a Welty tradition. Bright sun through the trees, good food, the view of Officer’s Lake, and even a bald eagle sighting made the perfect conclusion to the weekend. Steve Pieschel whisked our air travelers to GTR in time for their flight, and goodbyes were said to those driving home. Kim and I got back in time to catch Aidan’s soccer game that clinched their State rec-league championship, and then we all came home and collapsed.

Book Review: The Last Days of California

The Last Days of California by Mary Miller
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I loved the narrative voice given to Jess, and the immediacy of her story, where every moment is painted with vivid detail. Miller’s dry, sometimes sardonic sense of humor gives the story just enough of an edge, and the four family members trapped in the sardine can car on a road trip to witness the Rapture in California, keep tensions simmering and nearly ready to boil. And yet the sisters’ conflicts are never predictable and the parents are never the cardboard antagonists they could easily have become. We develop sympathy for the mother and the father’s weaknesses and inconsistencies, even as we get to know the two sisters through their rebellions: arguments about wearing their King Jesus t-shirts and misadventures with the boys they meet along the road. If anything, I might like to see a little more resolution of the issues of underage drinking, date rape, and teen pregnancy. The issues are there and portrayed realistically, but never quite acknowledged by the characters or resolved, though a full resolution might be too much to ask of the 15-year-old narrator. We are left with haunting questions that make this so much more than the typical road-trip novel. The changing relationship between the two sisters, and their understanding of their parents’ humanity provide the heart of a story that will remain with you long after the road trip ends.

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Book Review: Fear and What Follows

Fear and What Follows: The Violent Education of a Christian Racist, A Memoir by Tim Parrish

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Fear and What Follows, takes a chilling and at times difficult, even challenging look at America of the 1970’s, specifically the city of Baton Rouge and the school and neighborhood where Parrish grew up. It was the time of the Vietnam War and Watergate. Tim’s brother was a Vietnam vet suffering from PTSD before it even had a name. It was a time of integration of schools and neighborhoods, and of the white flight that resulted. And it was time of racial violence and unrest, in which young Tim is willfully engulfed. The book is an attempt to understand the choices that were made and the forces that drove him to make those choices. Yet it is not an apologia where we end up feeling sorry for and defending the main character. Instead, I think we are asked to put ourselves in his place, but also in the places of the even tougher kids whose violence goes unchecked and the Black kids who are both victims and violent themselves. We are asked to understand and confront the causes of violence and racism in ourselves. I don’t think I have read a more brutally honest account that is so beautifully written. It has the credibility of lived truth, yet the narrative is as engaging as any thriller.

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Lessons from Hitting the Road

It’s hard to believe it’s been over a month since my last post! This is what happens once the semester gets going in earnest, and this semester I’ve been even busier. Besides working on various proposal documents for our MFA in Creative Writing (see recent posts), I’ve been hitting the road to promote the Eudora Welty Writers’ Symposium. The nice thing about this has been the chance to meet with so many alumni of Mississippi University for Women in Jackson, Meridian, Memphis, and this coming week, Columbus. The only downside has been the hours spent in a car driving from place to place, but at least on one of these drives, I got to go along with author Deborah Johnson, and we had good conversations about writing and teaching.

One of the things I’ve learned from seeing former students is that they do go out into the world, get good jobs (even if it sometimes takes awhile). We can’t always envision what they will end up doing for work (anymore than they can when they are in college), but we have to trust them to find their way. And they do that very well.

On some of the creative writing lists I belong to, there has been a fair amount of hand-wringing lately about whether to encourage students to go on to graduate school for writing. I sympathize, and I agree that students today need more debt counseling than we did when i was just getting out of my undergraduate program. An education has become more expensive and the rewards can be more elusive. But I also am reminded that our good students will find their way. The jobs they end up in may not be the ones they expected, but they will find fulfilling careers, and they will make use of the skills their education taught them.

It’s nice to get outside the university atmosphere now and then, both to connect with the ‘real world’ and also to be reminded that the ‘real world’ and the ‘ivory tower’ aren’t as disconnected as we sometimes are led to believe.

New Graduate Program Proposal: Nuts and Bolts

I’ve been writing the past few days about our new MFA proposal for a Low-Residency program in creative writing. You might think that sounds nice, and it is exciting to consider and put together a brand new academic program from the ground up. You get to rethink how you want to structure a program, what your goals might be, what the practical realities of implementing it might be. That’s been the fun work of the past several years — daydreaming or planning the program, depending on how close to reality you are. Even writing the initial Proposal to Plan was a lot of fun and fairly easy, since it was the big picture.

But now, even though the big picture is still on my mind, it’s a lot more work to get down to the details. I’ve been working on writing new course proposals: there will be almost 30 initially, including Special Topics, Internship, and the Thesis. It’s a wide variety, and I wouldn’t have to propose them all at once (and we likely will add some more later), but I want to show the range of courses we plan to offer, and I want to include a few ‘hooks’ to other programs. For instance, MUW has a new MA in Women’s Leadership, so I have included some courses already that focus on women writers. I’d like there to be a small concentration for the Women’s Leadership students who want to take literature as part of their degree. Our Education Masters programs may also be served by some of our literature classes. The writing classes will likely be reserved for our MFA students, but I wanted to make them open to other students who have the qualifications, so the prerequisite was permission of the director.

Each course proposal needs a rudimentary course outline and course objectives. I’m not being incredibly detailed in these (and was told this would be okay — I hope they remember that!) because I’m writing so many and I won’t teach all of these classes, but still it is both fun and very demanding to think about what could be taught in each of the areas I’m proposing.

Of course, all of this would be easier if I were proposing an MFA program where there was an existing MA in literature. But we don’t have that here, and we aren’t likely to get it unless we were to propose a Comparative Literature degree (I don’t believe there is one of those in the state, and we still have to worry about duplication of programs). Many of my course proposals include an international focus, both with that in mind and because I want our program to have a global vision both because I want our program to stand out, and I think American writers need to be less provincial.

I like thinking about the types of courses we could teach (workshops, residencies, and forms and literature classes) and the choices students might make. I like thinking about the writers who think they want to teach and the writers who want to enter the publishing business and what their needs are. And I like thinking about what I want to communicate to prospective students about our program by putting the program in place. But it does mean writing pages and pages of proposal documents and researching some of the classes I probably will never teach. Heck, I’ve had to look up some names of authors I might want to use in the classes I will teach. After writing this many course proposals, I feel lucky I can remember my own name some of the time!

I’m reminded of the wealth of great literature that’s out there, and it’s exciting to steer a course for a new program to study the things I would want to have in a program if I were a grad student today. Of course, the program will grow and change as we hire new faculty, and especially as we start teaching students and begin to assess their needs and expectations. For now, I’m suspended somewhere between the idea stages that I lived with for so long (our initial proposal didn’t get off the ground before the economy crashed in 2008, so I’ve been waiting until the time was right to try again) and the even trickier nuts and bolts that I’ll start dealing with when the proposal becomes a reality.

Creative Writing as Economic Development

Why get a degree in creative writing? Or for that matter, why take a class?

Recently when writing grant proposals and proposing our new Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing, I’ve argued for creative writing as a form of economic development. In those contexts, I trot out statistics that show the creative economy is one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy, and that writing skills are valued highly by employers. Those figures are real, and they suggest that a degree in creative writing can lead to a good job, even a career, though the path may not be quite as straightforward as it is with a medical degree or an engineering degree.

But that is not what I am thinking about this morning. The job you could get with a certain degree is only one part of the value of an education, and only one part of economic development. The part I’m thinking of is a little ess tangible.

Yesterday, our local newspaper, The Commercial Dispatch ran an article on poverty in our area. Though I know that poverty is widespread, I was still struck by the statistics: that most of the census tracts in our area have more than 20% of their population below the poverty line or that over 45% of kids in our city live in poverty. Unemployment is high, but according to the article another part of the problem is “poverty of spirit,” a lack of hope or the inability of some who have grown up in poverty to imagine anything different.

It seems to me that this is one area where the study of creative writing can help. I’m not suggesting every poor person should enroll in a writing workshop, but I am thinking about the intangible effect it can have for those who do. In other words, we teach certain skills in writing. We teach how to communicate effectively, and we teach about form and conventions. But perhaps more importantly, in creative writing we teach self-expression.

It’s typically not one of the goals on my syllabi, since it can’t be measured. It’s like the unintended yet positive side-effects of an experiment. I can’t guarantee self-expression, but I can provide the opportunity for it to happen. In creative writing classes, students learn to write from themselves. They learn to revise this writing and to give it structure. They negotiate form and tradition to find their own way to express their most intimate thoughts. So even if students in my class never go on to write another poem or story in their lives, I believe they have gained an invaluable lesson, a lesson they have taught themselves about who they are.

A writing class trains us to imagine a world that exceeds our own, yet that also is inextricably tied to our core selves. Creative writing helps us see beyond our immediate circumstances and imagine a world we could inhabit. Creative writing attacks that “poverty of spirit” that can keep people in poverty even if economic conditions improve. If you don’t believe me,read the thoughts of poet Randall Horton on how a poetry reading changed his life.

Of course, this is not the kind of thing you’d say in a grant proposal, yet it is what I think of when I consider the economic impact of creative writing. Are there other fields that might have a similar effect? Undoubtedly. Any of the arts or any field that really grabs students’ attention can help them realize themselves, yet creative writing is uniquely situated at the crossroads of art and language to allow students the creative vision to realize themselves and the language with which to express it.

Low-Residency MFA — What is it?

I’ve been working on our proposal for a new Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing at Mississippi University for Women, and it occurred to me that it might be worth blogging about what one is. So let’s start with the most obvious question.

What is an MFA?

To non-academics, the acronyms we use can sometimes be confusing. An MFA is a Master of Fine Arts degree. In Creative Writing, this is seen as the terminal degree (the highest degree you need to teach), though there are some Ph.D. programs in Creative Writing now. It is different from an MA in English with a concentration in Creative Writing because the emphasis tends to be more on writing classes and less on literary scholarship, though some literature classes are usually part of an MFA program. MFA programs are also typically longer than MA programs by a year or more, and they usually involve more classes or credits.

So in our MFA program, we will have three main types of classes: Writing workshops in specific genres (poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and drama), literature classes, and forms classes. Literature classes emphasize literary scholarship, reading for interpretation in other words. Forms classes emphasize craft, reading to learn how a genre has developed or to learn the nuts and bolts of writing. Literature classes involve reading primary texts and scholarly essays or books about those texts. Forms classes involve reading primary texts and essays or books about the genre, which may be essays by working writers about their craft. Students will be required to take at least 4 Workshop classes and 4 Literature or Forms classes, along with 4 electives that can be Workshops, Literature, or Forms classes. This gives the student flexibility in creating their curriculum. We also plan to offer independent studies, seminars, and internships, which may count as electives.

After all, students have different goals in mind when entering an MFA program in Creative Writing. All want to become better writers, but some also want to teach and others also want to enter the world of publishing or find other writing careers. Those who want to teach at the university level should take at least 6 literature courses (though some may already have a Master’s in English). Those who want to go on in publishing or a related field may find the Forms classes better suit their needs. Since our program is low-residency, most of our classes will be conducted online.

So what does Low-Residency mean?

Traditional MFA programs are full residency programs. In other words, students move to the university town, attend classes on campus, hang out together after class, and have an intensely creative experience. This is a good model, especially for young students who are fresh out of undergrad (or have worked a few years), and who don’t have career or family responsibilities that limit them geographically. I recommend to my students that they look for this kind of experience while they can. But it isn’t always convenient for those who have started a career or a family or have other obligations that won’t allow them to move to where their grad program is.

That’s the need that Low-Residency programs were designed to fill. They’ve been around for decades, though the means of teaching them has changed as distance learning technologies have developed. The idea is that creative writers need a sense of community and that face-to-face discussion of student work can be more productive than fully online or correspondence work. Creative writing programs often feature a reading series. They often have social or community involvement as part of their program. In a fully online or distance learning program, these elements are limited if not lacking, but in the low-residency model, students are required to come to campus periodically for intense workshop experiences.

In our program, if it’s approved, we plan to have two types of residency classes: a short residency where the time together is about a week (and work is done before and after the residency online), and a full residency, which will last about two weeks and work is mostly completed while on campus. The short residencies will be optional to allow more flexible scheduling; one full residency and one short residency will be required in the first year. During these times, besides additional workshopping of student writing, we will have hands-on experiences in different art forms or subjects (music, pottery, painting, theater, environmental writing, history, etc.) and sessions on writing as a profession. The full residency will be scheduled in late May or early June. Short residencies will be scheduled throughout the year at times that we hope will be convenient for our students, though one will likely be scheduled to coincide with the annual Eudora Welty Writers’ Symposium.

Though all programs are a little different, I think this overview of the one we’re planning should give you an idea of what they are. You will spend 2-3 years (or more) in intense conversation with other writers about your writing (our program could be finished in two years, but we recommend 3 or more, especially since most low-residency students are also working, so they will take classes part-time). You will also develop your ideas about literature through literature and forms classes, and you’ll learn about the profession of being a writer and/or teacher of writing.

Master of My Domain

Well, I just made the leap, folks. You can now access this blog at kendalldunkelberg.com — of course the old address of kendalldunkelberg.wordpress.com will also work. I’ve been thinking about making this change for quite awhile, but have finally done it for a few reasons.

A) the blog is getting more and more hits, largely due to my technology posts. When I exceeded 250 posts in one day, I figured it was time to do something about it. Actually, when I consistently started having over 100 hits a day, I was pretty darned pleased. That told me this is more than just a hobby or an experiment in blogging, and I should celebrate with a more defined web presence.

B) This blog started as an author blog, and having my own domain name will help readers find me. I’m working on a couple of poetry book projects and a textbook, so the increased visibility ought to come in handy one day soon.

C) Mississippi University for Women, where I teach is proposing a low-residency MFA program. I should say, I am writing up the proposal and will be the director of the program, assuming everything gets approved. We cleared the first hurdle, and so we’re optimistic about the rest of the journey. Again, having a website that’s easier to find can’t hurt.

When I first started writing a blog, I did it primarily to learn how it works and as a place to put my occasional writings. I’d still like to make the blog more of a regular part of my writing routine, but it’s become a bigger part of my online identity. Now it has an address to match.