Midterm Blues

The semester's half over. Doesn't really seem possible, but it's gone by so fast.

I've been working on a flyer detailing submission guidelines. I was feeling pretty good about it until I realized that the color scheme is reminiscent of the interior design of a Long John Silvers restaraunt. Not good. I'll be changing that one soon.

So, it's my goal to get my MFA in creative writing and because of this, I will be subjected to the horror known as the GRE. I'll be taking this on November 1st (oddly enough, four years to the day since I took my SAT). I'm not sure how ready I am. I studied for it all summer but since the semester started I've had a bit of trouble finding time to work on it in between homework, classes, etc. I decided not to worry about the quantitative section at all and I'm putting all my focus on the verbal. Oh, flashcards, I hate you already.

Last Reading...Until Next Year!

The Fall 2008 RopeWalk Reading Series has successfully come to an end, and if I may say so myself, it went out with a BAM! this year. Gary Fincke shared his techniques, ideas, stories, and his life with a rapt audience last night (October 14). I personally, along with a fellow creative writing student, had the privilege of picking him up from the airport and bringing him to USI to attend a couple classes before his reading. He joined my Child Narrative Techniques class and as a group we discussed his style and technique and his process in developing a story, most frequently beginning with character and voice. I’m impressed by his multi-genre capabilities and his success in all areas. I could see his characters. I believed their lives. I felt their shame and desire.

It was interesting to pick at his brain as he did not hesitate to share everything with the class. He read Piecework for the open reading, but I also had the chance to read his Rip His Head Off and Sorry I Worried You. His reading was wonderful and left the audience wanting more.

I lucky enough to join our guest and his wife, along with the creative writing faculty, for dinner, where I learned that Fincke’s son is a member of one of my favorite bands, Breaking Benjamin. So it was exciting to talk to him about the band, an experience which Fincke wrote about in his nonfiction piece, Amp’d. After dinner, my classmate and I dropped our guests off at their hotel, thanked them for sharing an eventful evening with us, and bid them a safe drive home.

Second RopeWalk Reading

Hello, and welcome to another week of the Southern Indiana Review blog. It has been such a busy week and weekend here. We all spent a lot of time logging submissions and sending out rejection letters, which is not the most fun part of the job, but it definitely needs to be done. Editing brochures, creating posters, and even occasionally reading over submissions to see if we can offer any constructive criticism are by far my favorite (and the most educational) parts of my internship here. And it’s also fun to learn how to focus with the ever-looming sounds of bulldozing going on right outside our door.

And much more importantly, tonight is the second RopeWalk Reading Series event. Today’s featured reader is the 2007 Mary C. Mohr Poetry Award winner, Kristine Anderson. I’m sure I’ll be able to update this later in the week with photos and stories from the reading, and hopefully there will be a good turnout. We’re all really looking forward to seeing this amazing poet read her work. I had the job of working on the poster advertising this reading, which was really a lot of fun to work on. (I chose to go with a "skin" theme, since that was the title of her award-winning poem.) I really like when my job doesn’t feel like a job at all because I get to have so much fun with it.