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, …
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 …
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 …
by Julia Bouwsma As a poet who lives off-the-grid in the woods of Northern New England, my working practice has come to align with the seasons. In winter I hunker down and write, recalling my first winter in Maine when …
“If you want to change someone’s mind, tell them a story.” – Dr. Craig Chalquist, PhD, depth psychologist, Pacifica Institute Dr. Craig Chalquist has created a course in how to use dreams, myths and deep storytelling to inspire positive change. …
CLOCKHOUSE seeks submissions in poetry, drama, fiction and nonfiction for its 2019 issue Clockhouse is an eclectic conversation about the work-in-progress of life–a soul arousal, a testing ground, a new community, a call for change. Clockhouse seeks submissions in poetry, …
In today’s Craft Book Spotlight, The Writer magazine gave our very own all-faculty compilation, Alchemy of the Word, a nice shout-out: “When National Book Award winner and acclaimed memoirist Maxine Hong Kingston praises a book, you sit up and pay …
Dear John McCain,
I think of your tap code late at night when I am lonely. You broken and spent in the Hanoi Hilton tapping out “Are you okay?” to the guy on the other side of the wall.
On Writers, Writer’s Block, Generosity, Creativity and Community
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about thrillers. About why recently I’ve been reading them compulsively at all hours of the day and night. Maybe the subject for a new book? I’m thinking about that. In the meantime I devour them at a great rate.
“Fiction is the art form of human yearning.” – Robert Olen Butler
“We are living in the most fearmongering time in human history.” – Barry Glassner
“I think what we need to do is to remind people that the Earth is a very dangerous place these days. That ISIS is trying to do us harm. And that the president’s commitment is to keep the country safe.” – Sean Spicer
Dear MFAW people,
I’m guessing that, for the majority of you, your first desire to write was a way to express an emotion that you were having difficulty feeling or understanding.
A few weeks ago, a student wrote and asked me why I had given him an A- instead of an A as a final grade. This wasn’t at Goddard, obviously. I also teach television at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, …