Vermont

February 12, 2009

Just sent off my application for the Vermont Studio Center. I’ve never gone, but I’ve gotten partial scholarships in the past. Let’s see how this one goes. They’ve always been very nice, very gracious in their response to me so one of these times i’d love to attend.

Ideally, it would be wonderful to take a semester off from school and work on the book, but we’ll see.

So now i’m fully ensconced in my teaching schedule. And I’m really loving the two Creative Writing classes I teach. One at the community college and the other at this cool writing center downtown.

Being this busy has me simultaneously flustered and inspired. Sometimes I zone out when driving from school to school (not a good safe thing, I know). But I am more inspired and more motivated to keep writing. Encouraging my students’ projects gets the gears in my head really working. The class at the writing center is all about writing short pieces–fiction and nonfiction, and it’s really sparked, or re-ignited my passion for short stories and essays (which used to be all I wrote but I put the short stuff away to work on the novel).

Lately I’ve been really into the Lit Mag A Public Space–every issue is amazing; I haven’t found a dull one yet. And this new issue (Issue 7) is no exception. One of my favorite reads in it is a regular section called If You See Something Say Something and i’m destined to send them something. This issue features the always great Peter Orner on Illinois Governers, and Jillian Weise’s Valentine to Darwin (I worship anything in letter form).

A Public Space is also one of the most beautifully packaged lit journals out there– If you don’t have a subscription to it you are seriously missing out. Go on, it’s only $36 for four stunning issues.

And finally, i’ll end with a short-short by Lydia Davis, the master:

A “A Man from Her Past” from Varieties of Disturbance
Lydia Davis

I think Mother is flirting with a man from her past who is not Father. I say to myself: Mother ought not to have improper relations with this man “Franz!” “Franz” is a European. I say she should not see this man improperly while Father is away! But I am confusing an old reality with a new reality: Father will not be returning home. He will be staying on at Vernon Hall. As for Mother, she is ninety-four years old. How can there be improper relations with a woman of ninety-four? Yet my confusion must be this: though her body is old, her capacity for betrayal is still young and fresh.