by Christina Seymour, Jessi Lewis, and Morgan O’Grady

Christina (3rd year, poetry):

Three of our MFAs just returned from a ten day trip to Norway. The collaborative creative project, hosted by the University of Bergen, included students from West Virginia University, Temple University, the University of Minnesota, Duluth, and, of course, the University of Bergen. Director of the Center for Literary Computing, Sandy Baldwin, generously established this course and initiated this process, which began with researching the Gray Barker Archive. Once in Bergen, several projects emerged within a frame narrative that will soon viewable by all.

I, for one, found the experience life-changing in the sense that I now look at home differently. I saw new, unforgettable landscapes. I kayaked on a fjord. I forged connections with a talented, diverse group of students. I ate new foods, became much more comfortable with flying, learned more about interaction and personality, and philosophized about image, layering, and structure in a more objective way than I could have in my regular setting. And I performed karaoke with all these new friends and professors.

Jessi (3rd year, fiction):

It’s hard to walk away from a trip like this without feeling an immediate influence. The tools we used for online narrative creation in the course allowed us to take our trip and consider it in a unique light. Even the green of the country side and the Norwegian language were reflected in our final collaborative projects. It’s a great way to experience a new culture, and then respond to it with others.

Morgan (2nd year, poetry):

This project worked on stretching my comfort zones and learning how to work with highly skilled people. At times there were so many ideas that it was difficult to stick with one narrative! Being in Norway allowed for the project not only to explore our ideas, but how these ideas fit in with the landscape. It was a lovely trip and I was lucky enough to meet a lot of awesome artists.

Photos courtesy of Christina Seymour:

Sandy, driving us to Flam.

Three excited travelers in front of a large cruise ship on the fjord in Flam (with an umbrella).

A stave church in a small town on our long, winding journey to Flam. Planes, cars, and ferries that day.

Bergen (the wharf area, Bryggen)

After kayaking on the fjord in Flam!