by Rebecca Thomas

2012 Virginia Butts Sturm Writer-in-Residence Jaimy Gordon with Sturm students

It was a week when a hurricane brought feet of snow. While our mothers texted us to ask if we could live in our houses for days without power, we were preparing to meet powerhouse author Jaimy Gordon. Luckily, we never had to test our ability to survive off of canned beans and expired soda. The power stayed on, we went to school, and we worked with an amazing writer all week. Yes, the writing gods smiled on us Morgantownites: we dodged Sandy, and we met Jaimy.

Jaimy Gordon is this year’s Virginia Butts Sturm Writer-in-Residence. Every year, WVU graciously brings in an author, selects a few lucky students to work with her, and gives the students a book of the author’s to boot. And this year WVU chose amazingly well. Jaimy Gordon is the National Book Award winner for her novel Lord of Misrule. She has also written three additional novels – Bogeywoman, She Drove Without Stopping, and Shamp of the City-Solo: A Novel. She is also an incredibly generous person.

For the past two years, we’ve been reading Jaimy’s novels in my fiction workshop. We read Lord of Misrule and marveled at her ability to capture the voice so precisely of such different characters. We read Bogeywoman and fell in love with her protagonist and her prose. Jaimy’s use of an asterisk makes me swoon! And then Mark Brazaitis told us that she was our Sturm author. He reminded us of the deadline to turn in work to be selected for the workshop. I don’t think I was the only one who panicked over what to turn in.

I don’t think I needed to be so fearful though. All week, Jaimy devoted her time to the Sturm workshop. She started the week with a public reading from Lord of Misrule. The Sturm workshoppers sat together, and we smiled at each other throughout it in a “I can’t believe this is happening” sort of way. During the workshop, she gave detailed feedback, talked to us individually about our stories, and regaled us with writing wisdom: “ask yourself if you can find a way around [the word] seemed,” she told us, reminding us that the word feels “less sure of itself.” “Very is almost always a wasted word,” she said. I jotted down as much as I could, and looking around the room, I noticed most of the other workshoppers doing the same.

Morgan O’Grady, a first year MFA candidate in Poetry, was also impressed by Jaimy’s generosity. “What stuck with me was how much Jaimy cared about each of us,” Morgan wrote. “She really had a wide knowledge and was extremely accepting and kind.”

But Jaimy’s extensive knowledge wasn’t just contained to the classroom. We spent post-workshops sipping champagne, feasting on Little Caesars pizza, and talking shop. Yes, we all were exhausted by Friday, but it’s not often you can hear a National Book Award winner talk about the writing process over Crazy Bread. But alas, it had to come to end. As the last of the snow melted, Jaimy said goodbye, and we all felt a little lost.

Connie Pan, a third year MFA candidate in Fiction, might have summarized Sturm week the best. She writes, “Sturm was a whirlwind week, and I mean that in the most magical sense. It felt a little—or a lot—like falling in love. I remember walking home and saying to my fellow Sturmies, ‘I feel alive!’ Yes, exclamation point. I knew the Virginia Butts Sturm Workshop was going to be a great experience, but Jaimy surpassed that expectation on so many levels. She was extremely generous with her advice on everything from craft to life. She made herself available in and outside of workshop. She made my paper bleed, which I was grateful for. She helped me see things about my chapters that I would have never realized had I not submitted them. When she left, I felt like I was saying goodbye to a great friend. Yes, I spent the weekend in sweatpants with Chinese and Netflix, revising my chapters, of course.”

Thank you, Jaimy, for a week that left us wanting to write. Thank you, Jaimy, for a week where we all got swept up in writing. Thank you, Jaimy and WVU, for giving us such a “whirlwind” of an experience.

Find out more about the Sturm Writer in Residence program , and hear Jaimy read from her Lord of Misrule.