On June 17, 2016 I began my MFA adventure at the first residency in Wilkes Barre ("How do you pronounce?" "Stupid Alabamian.")
"Help, help, I drowning!"
"Um, if you want to body surf, you should have taken 'Introduction to Creative Writing' at the local community college."
"But, but, gurggle."
"Suck it up."
"The water's too salty."
And I made it through the first residency.
Observation: Everyone is better than me, just like on the Junior High football team.
August, 2016
Fiction with Sarah Pritchard
Nonfiction with Mike Lennon
"Help, help, I drowning!"
Mike and Sarah toss me a life preserver, "Squeeze into that."
Homer Simpson whine, "But I'm too fat."
"Then hang onto the side."
"Gurgle."
"You passed."
"Gurgle."
January 2017 Residency
"I had to change my flight because...."
"Dang, it's cold."
"It's my cohort!"
"Dang, it's cold."
"What did you think?"
"Dang, it's cold."
"Seriously, you thought the portfolio was good?"
"Your pulling my leg, right?"
"Speed dating? I'm not sure my wife will approve."
"My story is about..."
DING.
"Rainman meets Witness."
"They'll think you're pitching a screenplay."
"Dang."
DING
"Well, it's set in the south and my protagonist is a single mother, 40-year-old police detective...."
"Is the daughter in it?"
"Well, I...."
"If she is a single mother then the daughter..."
DING
"It's like a book, not the movies, Rainman meets Witness. It's set in Birmingham...."
"Didn't they call it Bomingham?"
"Yes, but that was before I lived there..."
DING
"Dang."
"It's like a book, not the movies, Rainman meets Witness. It's set in Birmingham. And the protagonist is a single mother of a college aged daughter, She's 40, bitter, and a homicide detective...."
"Who? the daughter is 40?"
"No, no, I mean...."
DING
"Have you read Faulkner?"
DING DING DING
"It's like Faulkner's Benjy lives in Birmingham and sees a murder. The homicide detective is a 40 year old single mother of a college aged daughter. She attends the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Anyway she is bitter because she had to drop out of college because she got pregnant."
"Have you read, The
Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Haddon?"
"No, and I haven't read The Sound and the Fury either."
DING
"Sign up in my office and we'll meet and work out a mentor for you."
Poor Dr. Mooney drew the short straw.
February 2017
Write
Submit
Read
Submit
Write
Submit
Read
Submit
Write
Submit
Read
Submit
And that was just February.
May 29, 2017
Submit? No?
More to come...
No comments:
Post a Comment