by RebCon (otherwise known as, Rebecca Thomas and Connie Pan)

Pictured above: WVU’s very first table at AWP with two of our lovely faculty, Mary Ann Samyn and Glenn Taylor, and the fabulous Connie Pan, an MFA candidate in fiction. Next year, Boston!

This year AWP (The Association of Writers and Writing Programs) was held in Chicago. The windy city hosted over eight thousand writers as they saw sights, saw panels, saw books, and saw lots of red canvas bags. This year, AWP sold out well before the conference, putting this year’s conference on record for the most well-attended conference ever.

How to Survive AWP in 5 Easy Steps.

1. Bring cash, lots of cash. There will never be a greater opportunity to be around this many independent lit mags, university presses, indie presses, and student run mags in your life. The average Barnes and Noble has what? Like six lit mags on hand at any given time? And your local Barnes shelves are definitely barren of these rare books. AWP has four banquet rooms full of this stuff, so bring your monies, kiddos.

2. Don’t do the courtesy grab. In the Book Fair, people are handing out sangria, whiskey, wine, key chains, stickers, journals, candy, pens, notebooks, bookmarks, and, while all this free stuff is bewitching and exciting, before you know it you will end up with a bagful of AWP paraphernalia that you have no idea what to do with and a broken back. Grab only what you like (always grab the alcohol or coffee).

3. Liquids. First, coffee. The Book Fair and the panels start at 8:30AM and even after the keynote address, there are still rad off-site readings and events to see. So have some java and reboot with some more java. Stay hydrated. In every corner in every room, AWP has water jugs ready for you; make sure to fill and refill because at around three o’clock they stop replenishing them. Maybe we’re writers because we don’t like talking. I think at least 80% of us would agree to that, and AWP is all networking. So a flask of wine or a six-pack at the hotel is a must to heal your wounds and forget the day.

4. Talk. Despite our unified fear of talking and all the times our moms said not to talk to strangers, you have to and you should. Ask mags about their aesthetic; see if your work would fit there. Make new friends, be memorable, so when you slyly mention in your cover letter that you were the one who had a glass of Franzia and talked about the Karen Russell interview, they will remember you, and they will remember that even though it might have been the wine, they liked you. Just don’t talk to the guy dressed up as Gumby in a banana suit (yes, that did happen).

5. Stop by the WVU table. RebCon is proud to say that we have spearheaded the first ever table for WVU, and we pimped everything West Virginia has to offer: the MFA Program, English PhDs and MAs, the PWE Program, WVU Press, Calliope, Mountaineer Pride, our Orange Bowl victory, pepperoni rolls, and the fact that we are literate and thriving. Our wonderful faculty and alumni held book signings throughout the weekend. MFA alumna, Kelly Moffett, kicked off the signing spree on Friday, followed by faculty members Jim Harms, Katie Fallon, Mary Ann Samyn, and Glenn Taylor. The entire time we sat at the table we kept being reminded of how proud we are to be a part of this program. West Virginia natives and alumni continuously stopped by the booth to say how happy they were to see WVU represented at AWP. It was fun shocking prospective students with how great our program is (we’ve got some pretty sweet funding). Plus, we had suckers and Twix.

But the real joy of our table was having it become a home away from home at the conference, a haven for when the Book Fair got a little too hectic. For Jim Harms “having a real presence at AWP” was great. For him, our table became “a little home to return to now and then, and [it was comforting] knowing that friendly faces were advocating for all we do here at WVU.” Mary Ann loved how RebCon quickly “snag[ged] passers-by to sing our praises. Having ‘our’ table’ as a refuge made a big difference.” But Glenn Taylor might say it best about the bonding experience of AWP: “After surviving AWP, we’ve become great friends.” It’s true. Come be our friend at the next AWP. Boston or bust!

Recommended by Rebecca Doverspike

After reading Jessie Van Eerden’s essay “Soul Catchers,” my first and deepest impulse was to share it with everyone. Though we say this often, once we actually think about those we know—specific friends, families, colleagues—we realize most pieces will only resonate with a few of those people. This essay casts wider, and I really think almost everyone I know would love it and learn something indispensible from it. Her essay is a kind of letter as well as a narrative, lovingly addressing a woman named Eliza, from the Whetsell Settlement near Beatty Church in West Virginia. She speaks about photographers coming into Eliza’s home to capture images for the “War on Poverty,” their desire to capture and claim something “distant” from themselves, to hold in their hands at a remove. Her voice throughout the piece works through both fury and love, speaking of what’s that’s left out of those photographs, and what’s left out anytime we “other” or refuse to see another with the layers and complexity we afford ourselves. Her language is quick, gorgeous, moving, and clear; through it, she shows a complexity of issues that I find myself still working through. I could not recommend this essay more highly—it will stay with me for the rest of my life. I think you will find yourself learning something through each sentence. You can find it in The Oxford American, Best of the South III from 2008 (well worth the seeking; I promise). To read more of Jessie’s writing, visit her website.

Reasons Why Not All MFA Horror Stories are True: WVU’s MFA Class of 2012
by Rebecca Thomas

When I started the MFA program almost two years ago, I was scared. I had heard horror stories about MFA programs: the people were mean, snooty, back-stabbers. I was told that everyone thought very highly of themselves. Then, I went to the Meet-and-Greet at Kelly Sundberg’s house and realized that my fears were for nothing. These people were lovely. I went to workshop and marveled not only at how wonderful their writing was, but also how generous everyone was with their feedback. I have had the pleasure of workshopping with each of the Third Years, and I loved reading their work, getting to know their voices, and valued their feedback on my own work. Now, as the semester is coming to an end, I’m starting to have to come to terms with a life sans these fine Third Years in workshop. It seems unimaginable, and it’s enough to send me spiraling into gym shorts and bags of Chex Mix, but then I remember their writing, I remember their theses, and I remember that I’ll still get to keep on reading their work when it inevitably gets published. Thank you marvelous Third Years for your warmth, generosity, and everything that you have brought (and still bring) to WVU’s MFA program.

Please join us on Thursday, April 26, at 7:30 in the Rhododendron Room in the Mountainlair. Our wonderful Third Years will read from their thesis and get hooded. There will even be refreshments, too.

Poetry

Lisa Beans
Lisa Beans knows that whatever her future holds (possibly teaching, possibly living in Poland—she’s a Fulbright finalist!), she will write poems. (Update: Lisa wont he Fulbright. She will be traveling to Poland this fall to read, write, and teach for a year!) Wherever she ends up, she will miss all of her peers, past and present, at WVU who have become her best friends. She counts “getting a cat and caring for its life [and] learning how to write poems” as two of her biggest accomplishments here. One of her favorite memories was at the beginning of this year. She said, “we had a reading on the rooftop deck of Hotel Morgan. It was warm, but not hot. The sun set as we read. We could see all of Morgantown. Beautiful.” It’s that beauty of Morgantown that she advises future MFA students to be aware of among other things. She tells them to “Pursue friendships. Cherish writing. Look outside a lot.”
Read about Lisa more in depth in her student spotlight.

Micah Holmes
Micah’s future involves accents and probably a lot of tea. He says that he has “accepted an offer?to study Medieval Lit at King’s College London, so as long as everything goes according to plan, [he’ll] be taking a second master’s from an awesome English college.” As awesome as a future at King’s College is, it’ll be hard to top the wonderment of workshop. One of Micah’s favorite memories is in his “first workshop when Mary Ann asked [everyone] to bring in some other type of media that [they] wanted to write ‘like.’ Aaron Rote brought in this little recording device that he used to record the things [they] said during workshop. Then he did some crazy loop thing with the audio and mixed it all together. The machine (whatever it was, it all sounds more mystical now) had lights on it, so [they] turned off the lights and let it light up the room with color. How many classes do something like that?” he asked. He admits that he will miss his “extended MFA family. Everyone here has been amazing,” he said. He counts his biggest accomplishment as being “a poet, like for real, not just a cat that writes every once in a while. [He] feels really connected to [his] work, and that wouldn’t have happened if [he] didn’t spend the time here.” His advice for future MFAs: “try to get to know everyone in the department and to stick close to your classmates. We have a tight knit program here and its one of our biggest strengths. Most importantly though, enjoy it!”

Matt London
Matt London’s future plans are more of school and also the pretty big step of marriage. One of Matt’s favorite memories is “seeing one of [his] favorite books on his office mate’s desk the first day [he] arrived. It was a good omen.” Reading is definitely one of the things that Matt holds most important. When he leaves here, Matt admits that he will probably “troll the WVU Bookstore for the reading lists the professors assign.” Matt says that his biggest accomplishment is “getting out of [his] own way” in writing. One of his favorite pieces that he workshopped was ” ‘All they left was a phone book’—it was the time [he] wanted to achieve a certain experience in a poem and the class had just that. It was that moment where all this (writing, reading, endeavoring) clicked and something said ‘Hey, you might be doing the right thing here.’”

His advice for future MFAs: “Find who reads your work the best and pay extra special attention to that person’s critiques of your writing. And, likewise, in workshop, it’s tough to be an expert on every person’s work. So be a leader in the field of one piece: find one piece that in that week’s reading for which you can really give sound critiques. Lastly, find out what everyone is reading, write down those books and authors, and go check them out. My library has expanded at an exponential rate over the 3 years I’ve been here.”

Fiction

Justin Anderson
While Justin Anderson might not be entirely certain about what his future holds (“university teaching jobs aren’t exactly falling into [his] lap right now”), he does know that he’ll “be trying like crazy to get [his] collection ( Gardeners ) published and writing new stories.” He would like to “try to buy a house with some land and maybe get a second car. Sort of get situated somewhere. Take a stand.”

Justin will miss the workshops here at WVU. He said, “the dynamics of these things are absolutely remarkable. Little microcosms of society.” In fact, his favorite memory is “probably the first time [he] got graduate-level feedback on work. That was really something. Extremely humbling and encouraging all at the same time. It’s always been a good experience since, but that first time [he’ll] not forget. [He] came home and read the comments over and over with delight.” His biggest accomplishment also ties into workshop. He said that “after three years, he finally wrote a story [“The Cosmological Constant”] that Mark didn’t think needed [to be] changed. That was a big one. Mark’s a sharp, honest critic.” That story ended up being his favorite piece that he workshopped. He says that the “story came together in an almost divine way. It grew out of this note jotted down in [his] journal: ‘Possible title? ‘Cosmological Constant.’’ And though the writing came fast, it’s one of the longest, most nuanced stories [he has] written. For [him], it sort of stands as the watermark of where [he] made it to as a writer during [his] time here. Nobody seems to want to publish it, though. But that’s nothing extraordinary.” I have a feeling it will only be a matter of time before we see the story in print. I was in that workshop; it’s good.

His advice for future MFAs: “Be humble. Be open. Listen to what people say about your work and listen to what they say about how and why they write. Listen and think about it, even if you don’t agree with it. You don’t have to agree with everything. Read widely. Don’t fall into research rut. Don’t come in to the program with a chip on your shoulder. There’s the danger that it’s glued on there too tight and won’t get knocked off somewhere along the line, no matter how badly it needs [to be] knocked off. And that is not good for a writer; retaining the chip.
“If you’re not already sure your work is problematic (it’s called “the artist’s reward”), then why join an MFA program? I mean, you already know it all, right? Great. Go forth and spin gold.”

Read more about Justin Anderson in his student spotlight.

Justin Crawford
Justin Crawford knows that in the immediate future he’s going to enjoy and “relish” the accomplishment of being an MFA. He also knows that he will be sending out his work as much as possible. He says that one of his favorite memories here is his first meet and greet: “It was at Elissa Hoffman’s old place out [in] Woodburn, and though I’d already lived in Morgantown for four years by then, it felt like a whole new town[.] It was a warm summer day, and people gathered in the house, on the porch, and in chairs in the lawn, most people drank the heat away. Children played. Bees got into everything. I was there with my wife, Jessica, and some familiar faces, but I didn’t know most of the people. But it didn’t matter. Everyone talked to one another, everyone was very welcoming. It was discovery. It was like I found some secret world that had always been there, but I had just recently got my invitation and I belonged.” He says that he will miss the people the most when he leaves WVU. “I’ve met so many extraordinary people during my stay: faculty, guest speakers, employees of WVU, colleagues, friends and family of colleagues, and just total strangers,” he said. He says that he enjoys the process of submitting work, and that he’s been riding high on his two publications, “Converge” in Inwood Indiana and “Death and Progeny” in The Meadow.

His advice for future MFAs is to “get out of Morgantown as much as possible. Take drives out Preston County. Go hiking at Coopers Rock or Dolly Sods. Go swimming at Tygart Lake in Grafton. Go eat pulled pork sandwiches at Big Mike’s in Smithfield, PA, or go eat pie and ice cream at Apple Annie’s in Point Marion, PA. Make yourself some Appalachian friends and travel far and wide, rural and populated. Get away from the routine that you’ll cling to as a first year because the stories, essays, and poems you’re trying to cultivate will not happen in your apartment or office. They sure won’t come from your students, and your colleagues and faculty are keeping their stories for themselves. Plus, Morgantown is a much better place when you leave it for a while.”

Rachel King
In the future, Rachel King will either be an editor or a bartender, and she will definitely write. Rachel had a hard time narrowing down a favorite memory here at WVU, but she said that a few of her favorites are: “stumbling upon The Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics while shelving books in the Wise library at 1 am, being trapped at a truck stop in Hancock on New Year’s Day, giving Kevin [Oderman] advice on the best places to retire in Oregon.” Like many people that have lived in Morgantown, Rachel will most miss the “pepperoni rolls, eggs from the co-op, distinctive light tones that occur when sunlight encounters West Virginia’s hills.” While here, Rachel was able to successfully rewrite a short novel for her thesis. She counts this as her biggest accomplishment. Her advice for future MFAs is to “write stories you want to read. Listen to readers who get what you’re trying to do. Utilize your professors’ knowledge. Find a lifetime friend or two among other MFAers.”

Read more about Rachel King in her student spotlight.

Nonfiction

Elissa Hoffman
Elissa Hoffman says that her future is “To keep writing!” She says that she will “Write and write and write. And read and travel a bit and live life—so [she] can write some more.” She says that she will miss “the rapt look on Kevin Oderman’s face when he likes an essay written by one of us.” Besides Kevin’s facial features, Elissa will also miss “the camaraderie of being in class with the writers and professors in the program, and the great feedback [she] always got from them.” She is proud that she has been able “to write from the inside, not the outside, to write from within a thinking trance, where all levels of consciousness are operating, and [she] really [has] no idea beforehand what’s going to fly out of [her] mind and into words.”

Her advice for future MFAs: “Take as many classes as you can, an interesting variety. Make lots of friends in the program. Don’t be afraid to write the hard things—those are what readers are most interested in, most touched by. Value your experiences, mine them for what they really say about you, and use it all in your writing.”

Kelly Sundberg
Kelly Sundberg’s future is writing. She said, “after finishing my MFA, I plan on revising my thesis further if needed, then submitting it to agents and book contests. I’d also like to push myself to write in different forms than I already have. I’m interested in writing more lyrical essays and incorporating more research. Finally, I’d like to try and attend conferences and writer’s workshops as a way of continuing the work I’ve done here.” One of the things that she will miss about WVU is actually her office, Colson 309. She admits that it “sounds cheesy,” but she’s had fabulous office mates that have shared conversation, coffee, food, plants, and writing. Of course, she’ll miss the community besides just Colson 309. She said, “WVU has a very warmhearted program—both the faculty and students—and we support each other a lot. It’s going to be hard to leave that.”

Her biggest accomplishment here was when she collected her collection of linked essays into one big undefined116122.undefined116123.undefined116124.undefined116731.undefined213152.document and realized that “someone might actually want to read this.” She says that “the amount of growth in my writing from when I started the program to now is immeasurable.” She counts her favorite piece that she’s workshopped as part of that growth. Her essay, “Demolition” was “a breakthrough essay, because that’s when [she] began understanding how to conceive of structure. Kevin [Oderman], [her] thesis director, often compliments [her] on [her] ability to conceptualize an essay, and [she] think that’s something he has taught [her] here. With nonfiction, once you conceptualize the piece, it feels like the rest comes organically.”

Her advice for future MFAs: “Start trying to publish your first year in the program. Don’t go crazy, and don’t submit before you think a story is ready, but we’re in this program to become publishable writers, and you’ll never know if you’re publishable if you’re too scared to send your work out. Rejection hurts, but it can also show you where you need to improve and put in that extra work. Getting a rejection is great motivation to revise, and getting an acceptance is an affirmation of the work you’ve been doing.”

Read more about Kelly Sundberg in her student spotlight.

Recommended by Jessi Kalvitis

Over the course of the last few months, in fragments between readings for class and catching up on decades of bad television, I read Skin: Talking About Sex, Class and Literature, a collection of essays, columns, and other nonfiction tidbits by Dorothy Allison. The book was published in 1994, but the pieces collected therein were mostly written in the mid- to late-1980s. Upon finishing the book, I noted in my reading journal (yes, I keep a reading journal) that many of the pieces were “about sex, but plenty of ones about home, about friendship, about growing up, about identity. This is more the Dorothy Allison I want to emulate—brash and bad-ass, but multifacted and intriguing.” Some aspects of the book are, thank goodness, severely dated but still interesting to read from a historical perspective, especially for anyone who may be curious about what it was like to be part of the feminist and/or LGBT community a generation ago. Other elements—such as when Allison speaks of her mother and many other relatives dying of cancer before age sixty, how none of them had ever had access to health care, how she had always assumed the same would happen to her—are, sadly, still extremely relevant today. It’s an alternately difficult and beautiful reading experience, and for both of those reasons I strongly recommend it.

Recommended by Justin Crawford

Ron Rash’s first novel, One Foot in Eden, is a country noir murder mystery told from the voices of an older sheriff, a farmer who is suspected of the murder, the farmer’s wife who is instrumental in an affair that is a catalyst for much of the plot, the wife’s son who gives voice to a later generation, and a sheriff’s deputy. The murder is the thread that both weaves and entangles the plot, but the characters live and breathe a life outside of the primal crimes they commit. What pushes the plot the most is happenstance, folk magic, and the characters’ desires to keep their secrets buried deep enough that flood waters don’t wash them up again. I was drawn to Rash first by his poetry, and One Foot in Eden shares similar themes, ideas, and characters with his collection of poems Raising the Dead. So far, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed every book I’ve read from him. If people enjoy well-rendered characters, simplified plots that span over time, culture, and place, and a depth of human emotion that can surprise and draw suspense—then they might enjoy One Foot in Eden, too.

by Rebecca Childers

If ever stuck while playing a West Virginia University Creative Writing MFA version of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, I have a tip for you. In 2008, our new MFA Fiction Faculty member, Glenn Taylor, published a story in the Hamilton Stone Review, the same edition featuring, then MFA Fiction candidate, Lori D’Angelo.

When Lori D’Angelo graduated from WVU’s MFA program in 2009, she left the department with lots of our favorite thing: stories. Be they about her desk that seemed to hold a miraculous amount of things, how she made everyone laugh until they cried at readings, her ability to write a novel in two weeks (during TA training!), or her firm and helpful comments in workshop, it is clear to those of us left behind that we missed out on something awesome. Yet, she still inspires us. Three years later, her work ethic and immense talent has only grown and blossomed recently landing her a prestigious grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation to aid her in the completion of a novel.

The Elizabeth George foundation awards grants to unpublished and emerging writers. Elizabeth George is an American author who writes mystery novels set in Great Britain. Lori, an Elizabeth George fan, applied for the grant from her foundation hoping to be able to gain some guaranteed time to work on her own novel, but didn’t expect to get it. She was pleasantly surprised. “The money is important and will be a huge source of help to me, but also important is the validation—the belief that my work is worth believing in and funding. That’s an amazing gift for any writer,” Lori said.

The novel Lori plans to dedicate this much deserved time to explores the impact of each decision a woman makes. After 16-year old Myra’s mother dies she makes a choice that sets off what Lori calls a “chain reaction of sorts.” This novel blossomed from an idea Lori had after the birth of her son, Ben, in 2010 (she is pictured above with him). She wanted to capture the process of someone coping with their own early death in the afterlife. But she couldn’t get the story to do what she wanted. “It seemed kind of lifeless, and then I realized something,” Lori said, “The energy in the novel, and my interest in it, was in the live characters rather than the dead ones. So I started again.” Her epiphany clearly led to a success. Some major themes of her new direction are mother figures, loss of mother figures, the choice to be or not be a mother and how that affects everything else in a woman’s life.

The ability to carefully wait and let her novel become what it is meant to be is a skill Lori believes she acquired after becoming a mother. She believes motherhood has made her more patient with her writing. “Babies and children don’t always do things on your timeline, and writing is like that too,” she said, “A story doesn’t always work when you want it to work. Sometimes, you have to just let it sit—be patient.” Another thing that has changed her work in recent years, is simply graduating from the MFA program. “When you’re in an MFA program, you’re often in direct competition with your peers for everything, and that can be really stressful, especially if you are a competitive person,” Lori said. “After the MFA, you now need to find a balance between your writing life and the rest of your life, while, in the MFA, your writing life often takes precedence over everything.”

The night I contacted Lori about this article she was attending a gun show for research for her fiction. As a writer, she believes in taking advantage of every resource possible. Lori attended the West Virginia Writers’ Workshop every year she attended WVU and appreciated getting feedback from a variety of voices not familiar with her previous work. Now, one way Lori is improving her writing post-MFA is by continuing to attend lots of conferences, both large and local. She began writing her novel while at the Nebraska Summer Writers Conference. “I picked that conference because the focus of the class I chose there was on novel writing, planning a novel, and setting a schedule so that you’d actually finish the novel,” Lori said. Another conference that helped her with her novel was the Book Passage Mystery Writers conference. Though she doesn’t write mystery novels, she said a lot of the advice applied to all writers. She was able to get feedback on her novel from an experienced agent, and listen to successful published writers talk about how they inspire themselves to continue to write. Lori has attended AWP twice. The best way to attend AWP, she thinks, is to know what you want to learn before you go. “This time, I wanted to specifically find out more information about what happens after a book is published, how one works with a publisher, and how not to use social media as an author,” Lori said. Small, local conferences can be just as helpful, Lori believes, and have much more affordable registration, travel, and lodging costs than larger more well-known conferences. She recently had a successful day at the Roanoke Regional Writers Conference. “When choosing conferences, I think it’s good to choose strategically and pick conferences that offer what you think you might need. What you might need isn’t always a workshop,” Lori said.

Lori is of course, continuously inspired but what she reads. She recently read Shari Goldhagen’s Family and Other Accidents, a story about two brothers. It is told from the perspective of the brothers, their girlfriends, eventual wives, and children. Lori found the characters impressive and the story engaging. She was also drawn in by the language. “Just amazingly well written sections that made you want to read them over and over again. In fact, I have gone back and re-read them,” she said. Lori is currently reading Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout, a story of a retired schoolteacher who in interacting with her community comes to a deeper understanding of life and self. Lori is reading this book as slowly as possibly, because she does not want it to end.

For those of us inspired by Lori to apply for writing grants after graduation, she has kindly given us some advice. “Just do it,” she said, “Also, ask around.” Talking to people who have applied for similar things really helped her. She was able to read a cover letter for a grant that helped shaped her own. Also, she learned how to form a budget plan—something required for those who made it to the second round—by doing some smart googling. The most important part of the process, though, is having a specific project in mind. She said, “you need to be able to articulately explain what that project is and why it should be funded. I think you’re much more likely to get a grant or any type of funding if you say I want to write a novel about this thing in this place featuring these specific people rather than if you are less specific and say I want to write a novel about people dealing with loss.”

“Before I begin, I’d like to thank my dog Maggie, she couldn’t come tonight, but she inspires everything I do,” Lori said at her first Formal MFA reading as a first year at WVU. One last piece of advice from Lori? Get a pet. Lori has three. Maggie who is an Austrailian Cattle Dog, Harley the Beagle, and a wonderful cat named Felix. Lori said, “I think that my pets make me a better person. They also inspire and inform my work.”

by Rebecca Doverspike

Doors that open to the sea terrify me.
One day I’ll walk out, fall over
the threshold and maybe feel relief.
The ocean, after all, is lovely.
-Lisa Beans, from “Edward Hopper, You Make Me Feel This Way”

When I first heard of Lisa Beans, it was as an incoming MFA candidate—she sent a postcard to welcome me. I smiled through her lovely cursive words, and when I reached the bottom I thought, “Lisa Beans! That is the perfect name for a poet,” and indeed it is. As I’ve gotten to know Lisa in our one overlapping year, I cherish experiencing her graciousness and warm-hearted kindness.

There’s a gorgeous articulateness to Lisa’s poetry, a thoroughness and beautiful emotional clarity that asks us to move slowly through her language. A kind of quietness that pierces through (in a way I didn’t know quietness could do). Often her poems involve turns of surprise and I feel like I’m traversing new landscape in myself and the world (her language draws those together) as I read. She seems both aware of and a participant in the way poetry exists in/of the world—finding inspiration in a newspaper article about swans to paintings to objects or animals resonant with emotion, to scientific matters like comet scars, light, and pain indexes. I find Lisa’s poetry graceful as well as emotionally powerful. Somehow, she manages both the calm and the storm (indeed, emotional clarity involves both). I’ve heard Lisa read on several occasions and her voice matches the beauty of her lines. So much so that if/when we come to a place of pain in the poem, I feel it deeply; it bows the heart. There’s a sense of spirit in her poems, a kind of visionary response to the world, that stays with me long after I’m through reading/listening and is something I hope many people get the chance to experience. For now you can find her work in Connotation Press and Barnstone, and keep watch for more.

Often when I really admire an artist, poets in particular, I find the kinds of interview questions people ask to be rather ridiculous and often missing the point. To be fair, this isn’t truly the fault of the interviewer—when something of a poem’s brilliance or beauty speaks to us, takes us under, gives us new lungs with which to breathe the world in, or clears the ones we’ve got, the effect is always partly mysterious. If a poem is successful, if it does something to us in a transformative way, if we are wholly absorbed in experiencing its lines and spaces, in many ways such a poem eclipses questions –we’re somewhere in it. One may wonder, then, why I’ve even undertaken to interview a poet I deeply admire, but the redeeming part of this equation, the part that keeps us reading even when we think the questions silly, is that the poet finds a way to respond brilliantly in spite of the scaffolding. The poet’s personality still comes through, because, as Lisa’s poetry reminds, poetry isn’t confined to the margins on a page but also experiencing the world and being responsive to it. Where do you think those lines come from?

When did you begin writing poetry? What led you to it?
I didn’t begin writing poetry until my junior year of undergraduate. I was originally an English literature major and took a fiction writing class to fulfill an elective of that major. I realized I like creative writing much more than the literature courses that I was taking. However, the short story just seemed like too much. I got a lot of praise for the first paragraph in my first short story and then I lost some focus after that so naturally my professor suggested I take his poetry workshop. I liked the smaller parameters of the poem and line, the focus on every word.

What kinds of experiences influence your work most? What does your writing draw from?
Well Willa Cather says, “Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen.” So definitely childhood, being in love, place. The basics. Specifically the landscape of Nebraska where I grew up is always haunting my writing whether it be literal descriptions of the prairie or the emotional resonance that I connect with that place.

How has your writing changed during your time in the MFA program? How have your teachers and fellow-workshoppers interacted with and/or helped shape your work?
My writing has gotten better. It’s just gotten more multi-faceted I guess. I think I’ve learned how to write a really great poem but then I realize I need to explore the stanza more or syntax more. Mary Ann and Jim are amazing teachers; they are incredibly nurturing, knowledgeable and perceptive. My peers usually know exactly what’s going on in my poems, good or bad and that’s really helpful to have that perspective. The wonderful thing about this program is that everyone is supportive and cares about your work and you as a person.

What does your writing process involve?
It involves a lot happening before the actual writing of the poem. A lot of thinking. Mary Ann Samyn says that everything is poetry writing: doing the dishes, watching the bumblebees outside the window which I am doing right now—that’s all part of it. I line might come to me and I’ll just think about it for a long time. I’ll hear it over and over again and then the line will start interacting with the bumblebees or a dream that I had the night before or a memory. Sometimes I have a specific experience or memory that I want to write a poem about and that’s usually more difficult because then tendency is to write the narrative of that experience but that’s not what I do. So often I’ll free write about it, get out that narrative and then I’ll start to understand what’s really interesting about it, where the poem is.

Which poets do you most admire and why?
I admire the strangeness of language balanced with the emotional clarity of ee cummings. I actually admire that in a lot of poets, Jeffrey McDaniel, Wallace Stevens, Matthew Zapruder. I admire the simple beauty of emotion, image and language of James Wright, Christine Garren, Franz Wright, and Li-Young Lee.

What is the most valuable thing you’ve learned in the program? What did you find most challenging?
Just how to write my poems and to have faith in them. For most challenging, as I stated before, thinking that I’ve figured out how to write my poem and then realizing I still have a lot learn, which I’m sure will be a life long process.

What’s next for you?
Hmmm….good question. I’m a finalist for a Fulbright to Poland. I should being hearing back from that anytime now but I’m also applying for teaching jobs all over. Maybe work at a flower shop if none of that works out and continue to write, of course.
Update: Lisa won the Fulbright! She will be heading to Poland this fall!

Any advice for incoming MFA students or other writers at large?
Read a lot. I know that is always said but I really don’t know how you could become a better writer without reading extensively. Also, eat at Tailpipes often.

What do you say when someone asks you, “What is your poetry about?”
I roll my eyes at them. Kidding! I guess I would say beautiful things even if they are the ugly things.

by Rachel King

The Council of Writers, the WVU MFA graduate student organization, has had, perhaps, the most fun and productive year to date.

In July, the COW officers snail-mailed Welcome Packets to the incoming MFAs. These manilla envelopes contained maps of Morgantown, brochures on what to do in West Virginia, and fancy booklets, crafted by Justin Crawford and Matt London, which highlighted second- and third-years’ loves and quirks. We officially met these new MFAists at the August Meet-and-Greet potluck on Rebecca Thomas’s back porch, where we drank beer, talked writing, and watched swooping bats. The morning before the Meet-and-Greet, on Rebecca Thomas’s front porch, COW participated in South Park’s annual yard sale. In September, COW socialized again, this time in the interior of Rebecca Thomas’s house, at an informal reading. All three events were well attended.

In October, we held our annual fall reading at ZenClay. Because it was Halloween weekend, costumes were encouraged. Our featured readers, Kelly Sundberg, Justin Anderson, and Matt London, instructed and entertained with pieces about shit, garage sales, and banks (respectively). When, as the emcee, I revealed a humorous side, Mark Brazaitis seemed relieved I could write about something besides rain and depression. Also in October, COW joined with EGO, the English Graduate Organization, for the department’s annual Book Sale/Bake Sale. A few weeks later, on one of the coldest days of this mild winter, we held another bake sale outside of the Mountainlair. These two fundraisers, as well as the Student Government Association grant money, are allowing us to bring TWO poets to campus this year: Zachary Schomburg and Matthew Zapruder.

A holiday party took place in December at Jeremiah Shelor’s apartment. I was unable to attend, but I heard many scarves and candles were exchanged.

COW’s annual “spring”reading took place in mid-February at Arts Monongahela on one of this winter’s few snowy evenings. Lisa Beans, Elissa Hoffman, and I, the featured readers, enlightened the audience on the intersection between beauty and pain, the hazards of family gambling outings, and the mind of a psychotic teenage boy (respectively); Rebecca Thomas brought down the house as the emcee; MFAists baked a delicious array of Valentine’s sweets; and a box of red wine mysteriously disappeared. The Arts Monongahela board member, who planned to unlock the venue and skedaddle, was so impressed by our quality of writing that he stayed the whole evening.

In late-February, a handful of MFAists travelled to Chicago for AWP. Rebecca Thomas and Connie Pan planned and manned the first-ever WVU MFA table. They gave out free candy, free brochures, and free lectures on the history of West Virginia. They returned brimming with ideas for a WVU MFA literary journal, which they intend to get off the ground next year.

In early March, the poet Zachary Schomburg, en-route from West to East Coast, stopped in Morgantown and performed at 123 Pleasant Street, amid much beer and darkness, an excellent introduction by Matt London, and a beautiful opening act by the poet Rebecca Farivar. More people attended this reading than most concerts at 123. Perhaps 123 should drop all bands and only feature poets. Matthew Zapruder, our second visiting poet, will read on Tuesday, April 3rd in the Robinson Reading room of the Wise library. Lisa Beans will introduce him. At the April COW meeting, we plan to elect new COW officers, and a month later we’ll celebrate the third-years’ graduation at a Cinco de Mayo party/informal reading.

Thank you to everyone in COW, especially the other COW officers—Lisa Beans (vice-president), Connie Pan (secretary), Rebecca Thomas (treasurer), Mattin Crawfdon, aka Matt London and Justin Crawford, (publicity)—and all of the MFAists who, all four times I commanded “bake!”, actually baked. I am leaving COW in such obviously capable hands that I predict next year will be even more fun and productive than this one.

The West Virginia Writers’ Workshop will be celebrating its 16th year this summer when, as usual, it hosts writers from around the country (and perhaps even the world). This year’s Workshop will be held July 19 to July 22, in Morgantown, on West Virginia University’s lovely downtown campus.

The Workshop is designed to offer writers at any stage of their careers, from beginner to established author, the opportunity to share their fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction in a workshop of fellow writers. In addition to intense discussions and critiques of participants’ work, the Workshop features readings by the Workshop’s leaders, all of whom are nationally acclaimed authors, and craft talks on elements of the writing process. Furthermore, the Workshop offers a panel on publishing in which attendees are invited to ask anything about the sometimes labyrinthine process of moving from written work to published work. The Workshop’s highlight is an open-mike reading by Workshop participants.

What’s to like about the 2012 West Virginia Writers’ Workshop? Plenty. The Workshop’s director, Mark Brazaitis, a fiction writer and poet (The River of Lost Voices, The Other Language), says he could come up with a list 100 items long. But here’s his top five:

1. This summer’s Workshop will have a dynamic, exciting faculty. Faculty members include poet Faith Shearin, whom Garrison Keillor has featured twice on his program The Writers Almanac; Stephen Amidon, who had the audacity to write a history of the human heart—and pulled it off beautifully; and Michael Czyzniejewski, the editor of Mid-American Review and an up-and-coming fiction writer whose work has appeared in dozens of prestigious literary journals.

2. Workshop leaders will be accessible during the entire four days of the conference. Talk with them, learn from them, laugh with them, steal offhand remarks from them to use as opening lines of poetry or final lines of short stories.

3. Morgantown in the summer is beautiful. If I were the author of the Farmers’ Almanac, this is what I would say about the weather for this coming July 19 to 22: “Gorgeous. Inspiring. Literary.”

4. The open mic reading on Saturday night is always a blast. Workshop participants share their work in a supportive and festive atmosphere. More and more of our past Workshop participants are published authors (thanks, in some cases, to the Workshop), and this year’s reading is bound to be the best yet. Even better, you can come to the reading with a bottle of your favorite wine!

5. Because if you don’t come to the West Virginia Writers’ Workshop, you may miss learning the secret to writing the Great American Novel. You’ll certainly miss a great time.

Follow the link for more information on the West Virginia Writers’ Workshop.

March has been kind to our MFA students. Not only has the weather taken a turn for summer, but the publication acceptances keep on coming. MFA candidate in fiction, Justin Anderson, will have his work appear in an upcoming issue of Chocorua Review. Connie Pan, an MFA candidate in fiction, will have two of her poems appear in an upcoming issue of Hawaii Review. Kelly Sundberg, a nonfiction candidate, will have a poem of hers appear in the July issue of Literary Mama. Congratulations to all!