Here’s what Spalding MFA students, alumni, faculty, and staff have been publishing, producing, and doing since our last update!
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NO EXIT: When Endings Disappoint
By Dianne Aprile
Spalding MFA faculty, Creative Nonfiction
I’m a big fan of ambiguous endings. I have no problem with being left in the middle of things in the last scene. In fact, I find pleasure in lingering with a range of possibilities after the final page is turned. I have no quarrel with a novel or memoir that closes with its main character teetering on the brink of change—rather than safely ensconced on the other side of it. Continue reading “NO EXIT: When Endings Disappoint”
GROWING UP WRITING
By Nancy McCabe
Spalding MFA Faculty, Creative Nonfiction
“…reminiscing about my origins as a writer is not just a nostalgic act, but one that helps me to keep sight of the reasons why I write.”
I’m surprised by people who think of writing as drudgery, an onerous task we take on to punish ourselves only because of our unforgiving work ethics. For me, the need to write goes back to my childhood, when writing was just another game, like playacting or drawing. Writing, when I was young, was a pleasure, a refuge, solace, a chance to play, with no need to demand perfection from myself, and writing as an adult, is, much of the time, an attempt to recapture that experience. Continue reading “GROWING UP WRITING”
SAILING WITH AHAB’S WIFE
By Sena Jeter Naslund
Spalding MFA Program Director
Growing up, it was the novel rather than the short story that had made me want to be a writer, but in graduate school at Iowa I had written only short stories. While I had published a short story collection, Ice Skating at the North Pole, I would need to serve an apprenticeship learning how to manage the form of the novel, from the inside-out. Continue reading “SAILING WITH AHAB’S WIFE”
Writing the Nonfiction Book Proposal
By: Susan Bartoletti
Spalding MFA Faculty
For me, a nonfiction book doesn’t begin with a fact or a subject. It begins with the feeling I get about the fact or subject. If the subject makes my heart turn over, that’s when I know I’m on to something. Continue reading “Writing the Nonfiction Book Proposal”
