First RopeWalk Reading of the Semester

So I’ve had almost four official weeks of SIR interning. I’ve learned how to log submissions, make posters, and how not to make a program. And now I’m writing my first blog. It’s all been rather exciting and educational. I look forward to seeing what the rest of the semester brings.

We had the first installment of our RopeWalk Reading Series, one Holly Goddard Jones, author of the upcoming Girl Trouble from Harper Perennial last Thursday. An interesting turn of events (read illness) led to Jones teaching my Techniques of Creative Writing: Child Narrator class and it was one of the best experience of the rare "college substitute teacher day" that I’ve had. Fresh from her car trip all the way here, she jumped right in and led a great discussion about the importance of point of view and voice. It was excellent. Not only did we get to attend a reception to hear her talk about her writing and go to her reading later on, we also got the added pleasure of seeing how she teaches. Overall, I’d say it was a great way to start out the reading series.

Hacked by Dickens!

I'm taking advantage of the fact that I still have blog access, a fact that Mitchell (aka RM, according to some of his recent blog activity) has inadvertently pointed out to me by asking for my blog help, and which I'm not 100% certain he wants me taking advantage of. But what's he gonna do, fire me?

Exactly.

I'm here in Greensboro, mid-semester or not quite, getting into the groove of MFA life at UNCG. To anyone interested in applying to the program here, know that it's a good one to get things done in. The program is really set up in a way that allows one time to sit around reading and writing and thinking and searching with a metal detector for abandoned Confederate gold, or at least that's the case for me, and in this particular semester. I do know other first years who have RAs (that's Research Assistantships to you noobs) doing horrible things like answering the incessantly ringing phones in the graduate office or grading papers for classes of like four thousand students--but who cares about them. I've got this cush job in the English office where occasionally the phone rings and I have the option of ignoring it if I'm really doing some hard thinking, or of picking it up to see what department they were actually trying to call (in many cases, they are actually trying to reach the Greensboro unemployment office. Go figure that one out.). The remainder is updating the MFA and Greensboro Review web sites, because someone leaked to them that I have some experience in that area.

I'm taking a class on Publishing, as well as Structure of Fiction and Fiction Workshop--all great classes that take place in the same building on the same floor and two of which are even in the same room at roughly the same time, so it's tough to get confused, though I have managed it.

But there are also nights when you will still be up at 3am dealing with a cast of characters of your own creation who need to do something other than stand in a circle on a street talking to each other.

UPDATE: Ron hacked my hack and posted this before I was finished writing/editing it. Foiled again!

One from the Archives

I was cleaning up the iMac desktop today and discovered an SIR staff photo with 2006 Mary C. Mohr Fiction Award winner Dana Kinstler--in town for her RopeWalk Reading Series appearance--and despite the the fact that Ben Percy later told me I looked like a World Championship Wrestling reject, I decided to share...(L->R: Matt, Nicole, Dana, Tom, former WCW villain)

Signaling the End to Our Summer Slumber

OK, we've officially been back in business for a few weeks now, but things are quite chaotic at SIR-central. Most of all, we're trying to adjust to life without web/computer guru Christopher Dickens (safely ensconced at UNC-Greensboro), but we're also "adjusting" to the fact that we're an island in a sea of construction for the new ceramics studio (30 paces to the south) and Business and Engineering Center (six inches to the north). To move or not to move has been the question. We decided to stick it out.

Here are a few photos, including two of the new SIR intern crew: