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Category Archives: Graduate School

Smupdate

I am so very much in love with my writing class that I may want to make out with each person in there, even the Chatty McCathy and the Know It All. I had a glory moment this week when I interpreted a detail in a story that no one else had seen and when […]

Goodbye Canicule

It’s fall. It’s definitely fall. I don’t care that we’ve had the first warm stretch since 2003 and I don’t care that I had a blissful prolonged float in the pool today, it is definitely fall. There’s something different at play here, something about how the angle of the light is softer, more diffused, creating […]

Making hard decisions about graduate school

So graduate school. As I briefly mentioned in a previous entry, I have been accepted to a graduate program. This was both a blessing and a curse. There were several logistical nightmares surrounding the plan (no fellowship, private school with very expensive tuition, no financial aid, no security deposit or first and last months rent, […]

The importance of punk hair for writers

I am much less stressed now than I was last week. This is partially due to the fact that I took off Friday and have tomorrow off as well. The stress reduction I’m sure is also due in no small part that on Friday morning, I took five of my ten grad school applications to […]

The one before my head explodes

I, in case you cannot tell from the above sentence, am cranky. Crabby McGrouchypants, that’s me. It, of course, doesn’t help that I am all female and yucky feeling and losing what is arguably the very fluid of life at a rate that might just be, oh, forty gallons a minute. Last night, I felt […]

Emily Dickenson is a bad mutha–shut yo mouth!

On Friday, I got home late and proceeded to work on my grad school manuscript. I’m doubling the applications this year. Last year, I applied to U of Minnesota, U of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, U of Indiana, and the big granddaddy of them all, U of Iowa. This year, I’m doing those again and adding […]

Tales from the workshop

My class workshopped the Car Salesman story this week. It went pretty well. Some people got it, some people came close to getting it, and some people didn’t get the ending at all. One girl thought I hadn’t finished it and that’s just where I left off. Another person had a problem with the fact […]

Writing is hard

I have my writing workshop tonight and am plagued by complete and utter apathy. We have a story due tonight. I’m too lazy to finish my car salesman story, even though I’m excited by the premise and love the imagery and have the last three paragraphs written in my head. I think the problem is […]

Blahety Blah Blah Fishcakes

I had class last night and was able to shake my apathy, although it’s hard when I’m essentially in an Intro To Fiction class with people who’ve never taken a writing workshop before, but I’m taking it for graduate credit. We talked about theme last night, something I loathe to discuss. The concept of theme, […]

Poet voice

Esteban : Did you have a good class tonight? Wendy : We were supposed to write something fresh and I didn’t… I used the first page from my “Flea Flicker” story because it was in first person and fit the assignment. Esteban : So… you cheated. Wendy : I didn’t cheat! Why does everyone say […]