Topic: MFA in Creative Writing

Of pens, peonies and summer rain…

By Christine Anne Piesyk | June 29, 2008 |

‘On the Road in America’ is an occasional column of meanderings and musings, written during my semi-annual sojourn north.

After the first bursts of near tropical heat in Clarksville, the cooling summer rain in Vermont is a gift to cherish. It began last night, after a day of haze and clouds. It ushered in coolness somewhere around sunset, and by nightfall I could hear the raindrops lightly kissing the brick sidewalks, dripping lightly from the eaves. No blustering wind, no storms. Just that gentle rain.

This morning I walked by a bank of peonies, damp and brightened by that rain, slightly bent by the weight of water. The temptation to pick a few stems was strong.

We are a large group this semester at Goddard College, writers all of poetry, prose, fiction and non, memoir, plays and screenplays, even graphic novels. Unlike other residencies here, this one — by its very nature as an MFA writing program — requires a certain amount of solitude in and around such activities as workshops, advisor sessions, seminars, and sometimes heated discussions abut things like style, form, voice, perspective, language… Students meet, interact and retreat for the solitary task that is composition. «Read the rest of this article»

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