My last residency at Ashland University involved the usual guest speakers in the evenings and after lunch craft seminars. My writing workshop was mentored by Joe Mackall, author of "The Last Street Before Cleveland". During the workshop we reviewed each of five student's final thesis. Most still required changes and some completion.

We also discussed two books:
Steve Almond's "Not That You Asked" which is a great book for looking at strong authorial voices, most of the class really appreciated the review of a visit to the library to review Kurt Vonnegut's writing.

and

Gretel Erlich's "The Solace of Open Space" which is a great book for looking at the rich depth that essays and memoir can contain in terms of detail. She uses a brief narrative arc to order her essays, mostly focused on a quest where she overcomes her grief at the death of her fiance and eventually marries another, but also the quest to become a worker on a Montana sheep ranch.

Both authors were available for our workshop for a question and answer session. 

Gretel Erlich focused most on her research work and how she worked in the field to collect information. Steve Almond discussed a basic model of narrative fiction, some problems and how he chooses assignments.

In our workshop, we also discussed which scenes from our thesis would best work for each of two readings for which we'd provide material:
- a two minute selection to be read by our thesis advisor (Robert Root for me) at graduation
- a eight to ten minute selection to be read for the graduate student reading.

My husband captured mine on video, I hope to load them and make those available.

My thesis, list of memoirs read during the program and introduction to my thesis went into the MFA Director at Ashland University, Stephen Haven, before my birthday. It went through many rounds of edits, growing much more than 200 pages then trimmed back heavily to below 180 pages including poetry and photographs.

The last thesis semester was pretty intense and started with a thesis in its entirety turned into the professor of the previous semester and the current semester mentor, Robert Root. The major complaint about my thesis was a lack of focus and also the complexity. I did write more, sometimes rewriting sections to better fit my intent.

The chief trauma in this semester was I had a terrible time writing the last two chapters, my brain just wouldn't cooperate and tell me what I needed to make it end. Luckily, I did eventually get it written.

What did I cut?

A fatal flaw according to Vivian Gornick is to include a self-defense, a scene portraying my entrance into the scene to showcase my own lifespan even if it goes against the purpose for the memoir. So yes, I cut out scenes that talked about where I was in my life during the story of my brother's life. Not all of it was cut, since things that happened in my life connected with things that happened in my brother's life. Essentially having the narrator put too much of their own opinions, life, or experiences slants a book and amounts to authorial intrusion which detracts from the flow of story by taking the attention of the reader and moving it to the narrator.

I often had to cut telling of events and turn it into scene and cut back on scene if it didn't greatly advance the story.

Why did I use mixed genre?

Poems helped place the story with a worry point or more emotional way of looking at a time. Photos helped to show what we saw versus what we remembered experiencing and helped make the point about place and our connections to place. Photos helped humanize the piece.

One source of conflict was my desire to include references that might help an audience following in my footsteps could use for their own search or own understanding.

About Book Lists

There is really a solid sense of accomplishment to look back and say, I read all of that.

About Introductions

A major revision for my introduction required that I use more specificity in explaining how an author contributed to my own growth in this area. I expected to have one or two points but I had far more in the final version.

I spent a week and cranked out my critical paper and then had it rejected as a how-to paper rather than a critical review. My Ashland University MFA program mentor Tom Larson requested that I read two other books and focus more narrowly on my topic of family mental health memoirs. So we agreed on "Hurry Down Sunshine" by Michael Greenberg and "Surrounded by Madness" by Rachel Pruchno along with Richard Hine's "Broken Glass". My previous paper is a good start on this upcoming term's paper about lesson's learned or something like that, I will hear more. I've done some planning about that content during the break.

So then I had to focus on finishing the last of my scenes and weaving them together with a frame of narrative, something that was new to me. In the end, I turned in 90,000 words on my draft thesis and a twenty-five page critical paper that grew to 28 pages when I formatted the reference quotes in an indented paragraph when they went more than a line or two, as suggested by the AP Style Guide. I was pleased to get good feedback on the paper.

My rough draft received the commentary that yes, it was a draft and had several stories in it.

By the time I was finished cranking out as clean of a copy as I could in the time available, I was feeling a great deal of stress in my arms and back, my tendinitis flaring up. So I've taken the holiday weeks off to get more exercise. Bob and I managed to finish hiking at each of the Seminole County Wilderness areas, learning two fun new places and once swamp walking up to our ankles.

I've also worked on my gardens, getting them weeded and planting some new plants.

But I haven't forgot about my work. I've worked on outlining one of the extracts from the 90K words as a potential book and figured out where I wanted to break the 90K into two volumes, one early life, one later life. I have a print out that I will start marking up with edits.

I've also been rather laid back about getting my reading list out in the form of reviews--I found out how out of date my Goodreads list is for one, plus outlined a dozen other papers I can write, several that I've already started.

My return from a busy residency at Ashland University's MFA Program featuring daily workshops on my manuscript with Stephen Harvey and Robert L. Root, introduction to a variety of modern Creative Nonfiction Forms, readings and lectures from a cast of guest speakers and my participation in a poetry reading has left me with a pile of books, checklists to reach completion, and the need for a tightly planned schedule.

We routed our journey to the Residency visiting family members in Tennessee and Virginia, golf, and on the way home, a stop in Washington, DC.

                                                                     Bob and I at the Lincoln Memorial

Following that trip, we stopped to weed the gardens and then headed off for family visits in Washington state. This was essentially nuts but for a family used to twice monthly visits the one every two years or three years 2 day visit seems pretty harsh.

In Seattle, I took time to collect family documents, collect some books, scan old photographs and hear various opinions about what the family thought. 

I visited some old stomping grounds, like Larrabee St. Park in Bellingham where I went to school at Western Washington University to get my Bachelor of Science in Computer Science.

Spent last night organizing my materials needed during the two weeks residency at Ashland University. We were sent our student workshop packets and our reading list. This year, we were allowed to choose from thematic sessions by the instructors. I chose one focused on memoir theme taught by Steven Harvey, who has published several books of essays, acts as editor at the Humble Essayist and Senior Editor at River Teeth, and taught for many years,and one on a variety of techniques in lyricism or connecting poetry and prose taught by Robert Root, who has published many books and taught for many years.  So these will be my two mentors during the residency and I will continue on in the fall with Steven Harvey.

I learned last year how difficult it is to keep track of a variety of materials. In each 2.5 hour workshop, we discuss student manuscripts, reading materials required by the instructors, we also work on writing assignments featuring various topics covered by the theme. Following the workshop and lunch, we have a lecture from a visiting speaker, followed by readings from the speaker or instructors in the evening. Between these, student oral dissertation presentations occur. Last year, I attended both prose and poetry reviews and found them very helpful. I think it helps the student to have an audience because it shows we think their writing is valuable. It is also a good way to learn respect for your peers because the reading they do and questions they answer have been rehearsed, revised, formulated into a paper, and then feeds back to instructors who prompt the student to answer questions about their work, their process, areas of difficulty and growth, and long term development. It makes it clear from the start that there is a lot of work to do before reaching the point where a student can graduate.

So, to organize, I've got my calendar and my husband's calendar synchronized--we know where we have time off to be spent together or alone, and when there are readings and music that he might find of interest. I know where I need to be and what I need to do to prepare. I have files of material on my PC, but need to print a few things out. I will need to read and prepare my thoughts yet.

This year, my reading is light, two essays required by Steven Harvey, and five essays required by Robert Root, and three student packets for each week, for a total of 90 pages. I've begun to explore some of the writing of the guest speakers during the residency so that I will have an idea of their style beforehand.

What is happening with my work? Well, it's mostly on hold with the memoir for a few more days, at least in terms of writing. I have been working on identifying what each chapter's main ideas are and main emotions I held and how they were altered over time, by writing brief descriptions.

I've been working on the edits to some complicated poems I wrote last semester. An example, I wrote one five stanza poem, where each stanza was thirty lines or longer. These I trimmed back to have a consistent twelve line stanza, although two of the stanzas was broken into two twelve line stanzas for a total of seven stanzas. I offered connections between the stanzas using image and language. I also worked at fixing some of the holes identified during the manuscript review offered by my class mates and by Ruth Schwartz, last semester's mentor in poetry since I signed on to a multi-genre MFA program. The poem was written about a place in Nicaragua and I found since my travels have mostly been to Central and South America, that they were somewhat connected. 

So I decided to try my hand at translating them into Spanish using my course materials from my class in Spanish at UCLA, an English Spanish Dictionary, and the Spanish Dictionary online SpanishDict.com from Curiosity Media. Doing the translation was actually a good practice for me because I had to find verbs that worked in both languages and I had to be more precise about the nouns I used and the tenses. In doing the translation, I tried working it out myself, then used SpanishDict.com to see how they translated the same lines. It was easier to pick up some of the words from the later because of the accent characters used in Spanish, but sometimes they offered alternative verbs, got rid of the pronouns to appear more commanding or active or offered a different connective. It's interesting work but very time consuming. It took me three days to revise and translate the seven twelve line stanzas. I've started a second poem. I do confess it may be avoidance of facing some of the tougher emotions in three of my poems I have still to revise. I've also sorted through my newer work, looking for category types and evaluating whether some could work together as chapbooks and came to the conclusion that several of my poems might work for the emotional statement about each chapter, the immediate reaction at the time that I felt.

My husband and I are working at fixing my second novel, once more checking for any errors that might have found their way into the manuscript--Bob spent three days revising, I spent one reading and noting any changes, then Bob put those in and gave me a copy. 

I've been a long time fan of Impressionist art so I was well read on the lives of artists Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, and others and eager to see the places portrayed in their artwork. Their work was a primary motivation for a visit to France along with my high school studies in French. My high school French instructor Monsieur de Guise said, "Ah, Paris! The most beautiful city in the world. One must see Paris in the spring time when it's at it's most beautiful." I've also read some of the classics--I'll have to revisit them.

I was excited to find out that my MFA program at Ashland University had a residency option spent in Paris, France, so my husband and I started collecting information about going. Since I was pretty new to the program I wasn't sure how the residency would work with my schedule of work I was doing with my memoir and delayed getting signed up until too late so my husband and I decided to go to Paris anyway and then take in the residency program in Ashland that I better understood.

So my reading selections for going to Paris focused on contemporary French writers:

For understanding contemporary French history, I chose Charles Sowerwine's "France Since 1870: Culture, Politics, Society". Many times we run into election activity, news briefs about current events, protests, etc. during our visits so it is helpful to have an idea about who the recent and current leaders of a country are.

For essay's, I chose Roland Barthes' "Mythologies" because I often like to view the mythology of the countries that I visit since the gods, goddesses etc. are often portrayed in the artwork, architecture in the historical artifacts one visits. I also chose Multi-Ethnic France by Alec G. Hargreaves

For short fiction, I chose:
Great French Tales of Fantasy by Stanley Applebaum
Great French Short Stories of the Twentieth Century ed by Jennifer Wagner

For poetry, I chose:
The Penguin Book of French Poetry from 1820-1950 by William Rees
The Yale Anthology of Twentieth Century French Poetry by Mary Ann Caws

My husband did most of the travel planning, using the Michelin Green and Red Guides to France and The Michelin green guide to Paris as well as the Frommer's Easy Guide to Paris, along with two detailed maps of Paris and the Paris Metro. I only read selections from the Michelin Green Guide to Paris that we took along with us on the trip for easy reference.

Classictic.com for Paris was especially helpful since it provided us the means to buy tickets to the ballet, opera, and to a choir at the Notre Dame cathedral before we left. We planned to see "The Magic Flute" and "Paquita".

One other part of our trip focused on finding ways to see Paris accompanied by a disabled person with little recent travel experience.

I've been pretty busy this semester. My activities had ranged from volunteerism, my usual golf schedule, reading and writing poetry, and research on my memoir and brainstorming for a collection of essays. So here it is in summary form:

Volunteerism

I finished up my work as a reader for The Firecracker Award and it helped me gain new perspective on the quality, range of style, coherence, and organization of contemporary prize winning poetry books.

I'm working as a reader at River Teeth Magazine which is teaching me some good lessons about essay writing. What I have like is well-polished essays--if sentence clarity lacks, or the focus is weak, or the essay incomplete, I find them less appealing. The writing styles have varied as has topics. It makes essay writing an interesting aspect of writing.

I continue on with work with the Pacific Northwest Writer's Association for the tenth or twelfth or something like that year in a row. One of the benefits of PNWA membership is the Author Magazine, which recently offered up an interview with Science Fiction writer, Nancy Kress, which I found very interesting and finally encouraged me to buy one of her books, although I have read some of her short stories. 

This is one of the two main craters at Volcan Masaya, see project work description below:

With my concentration on poetry and memoir, it leaves me very little time to read in my primary area of novel writing. But since this concentration builds areas of personal weakness, I find it a useful thing to do.

I continue my participation with Zooniverse, which is a site that allows volunteers to help process scientific data. Typically, volunteers view photos and click on objects inside the photo and identify them. So far this quarter, I've helped identify animals in the Serengeti, wind flow patterns on Mars, egg-laying behavior of worms, and potential supernova's. I'm up to almost 2000 identifications of various types.

My husband and I took my niece to Nicaragua this spring to help out on an Earthwatch Project Exploring a Volcano in the town of Masaya. My niece is a pre-medical undergraduate with a BS in Biology who hopes to become a doctor. We took her as a graduation present to help encourage her into exploration of the world, the needs of people, and the various ways science impacts our understanding. The project took us inside various craters at Volcan Masaya taking microgravity readings, collecting GPS data and witnessing a project to collect comparative level data (from data 20 years previous). 

and sulfur emissions to help scientists understand the impact of volcanic emissions on the surrounding community. We also climbed into a lava tube, spotted bats, and got to see three dimensional renderings of photographs taken during measurement work. I got a bad dose of the flu so I wasn't very inclined to go hopping over rocks in the darkness but I thought the work fascinating.

In line with my usual practice of learning about a country before I go, I collected and started reading some of the literary works from Nicaragua.

I still continue on as a 5th Grade Catholic Religious PREP school teacher, the classes meet every other week and teach children about the seven sacraments of the Catholic faith--Baptism, Eucharist, Penance, Confirmation, Marriage, Priesthood, Healing, while explaining the Catholic calendar (special seasons) and about what it means to be a Catholic.

Poetry Reading and Writing

So far I've completed three packets of material that I have sent in to my mentor, Ruth L. Schwartz, along with an emulation poem for each of the books of poetry we've read so far (see the poetry page, I've started putting out some of my essays about the books) and written an essay about what we can learn in terms of poetry book construction, types of poetry and styles and basic techniques. I've also read several essay books where the author also writes poetry and contrasted the work in the two books. 

Essay Writing

One of the things I mentioned in my application to Ashland University's MFA program is that I hoped to move my writing of book reviews to a higher level by writing essays about reading material I'm using to help build my list of memoir read during the program (50 memoirs suggested) and for my own purposes (50 poetry books). So I've been reading a lot, and doing the same with my nonfiction resources, taking quotes, or poems and sorting them against a proposed essay book outline. I'm hoping to produce a mixed format, poetry and prose book on completion. I find it is very tedious work to collect source material.

Memoir Writing

For my memoir, I've focused on taking the "situational" material (from Vivian Gornick's The "Situation and the Story" where I portray how a family event over the course of thirty years helps explain our family's experience with drug and alcohol addiction and its impact, and sorted these out into chapters. Within the chapters, I'm sorting my research data; basically taking quotes that I can use from source material I'm reading and placing them in context. I'm also brainstorming about how my overall concept of what was going on has changed as well as how historical events in those years affected us. This raw data helps me build the "frame" or context for the memoir. I'm hoping that I can connect some of the improvements in science, knowledge, medicine, and social organizations are affecting those who are impacted by addiction as a resource for others who may share these problems.

After I use the basic texts about different problem areas where our family came into contact with various organizations, I plan to look for recent publications, and entered into ResearchGate as a tool for finding source material.

Social Media and Participation and Submissions

I'm trying to maintain my presence on Facebook, Empire Avenue, Quora, PoetrySoup, and other social media but have slowed down. I tend to socialize online when I am very tired and not able to think about my writing projects. I've started participation on some quorums in LinkedIn, and on a new site called The Prose where a community offers challenges to writers. I've also have been working on Ancestry.com, Newspapers.com, and Archives.com to find out about my family history. 

On our way home from the Ashland Residency, my husband and I took a week to visit my sister and explore some of the East coast of the United States. I grew up on the West Coast and much of the East Coast is unfamiliar to me, so that translates as time for travel adventure. We also had the fun of running into old friends moving to the South on our trip, it was fun to have the chance to sit, discuss Boeing, old times and new times.

Even though I travel, I have learned to make use of the long empty interstate stretches and evenings to catch up on my reading for the MFA Program. Following the residency, I had a bunch of new poetry and memoir selections from guest speakers to read and a set of assigned readings for the upcoming semester. We're reading:

• The Situation and the Story: The Art of Personal Narrative by Vivian Gornick
• The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew by Sue William Silverman
• The Empathy Exams Essays by Leslie Jamison
• Full Body Burden : Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats by Kristen Iversen
• Prairie Silence: A Memoir by Melanie Hoffert
• I selected Fourth Genre: Contemporary Writer's of/on Creative Nonfiction by Robert L. Root Jr. and Michael Steinberg as my optional book because I felt I wanted a better understanding of essay as opposed to memoir (we were told the percentage of narrative played a large part in the definition) as well as a look at some of the variations along the way.

I've completed a first reading of the above books except for the last. I like to reread along with the class curriculum because I find it makes me pay more careful attention and allows me to find the needed references to class discussion questions because I already have a familiarity with the book outline and don't have to rush to finish at the expense of the work.

Besides the reading and cleaning my house so that I now have my reading separated into genre piles and shelves, I have also taken on two new volunteer duties in addition to my upcoming aid to an Earthwatch.org project to help with a global warming study, one as a reader for a contest, the other as a teacher for my church catechism. 

I also have a good idea about how I am going to frame my memoir. Framing, I learned in the residency, is what they call the story line as it varies in time and perspective despite having a single narrator. Although the narration will be by me, the story alters during the twenty year time of events as I age, but also as a result of this project and as a result of lessons learned. Some of what alters when selecting a frame, is verb tense, maturity of voice, time, as well as what is driving the project.

I was given a bit of critique flak because of one scene written as a six-year-old, and one as a twenty year old without any framing. At six-years-old, I often just repeated what I had been told without understanding how it might be viewed, especially in modern times. Our family changed many things down the road of life including how my parents disciplined children, roles and responsibilities and diet.

Bonnie Rough very helpfully provided an introductory set of questions to be answered.

Before my idea about how to frame the memoir, I had developed a list of "situations" or "scenes" that I felt were important to cover in the overall story line. I've worked at drafting the situations and at writing attempts at the frames. I heard loudly what readers liked and disliked. I do stubbornly maintain my view of the style of memoir, one with a future look upon it which I have seen used in writing, and my need to have my perspective for the project grounded in research, although the style is something I am going to have to experiment with along the way. In the residency, I did my book report on Da Chen's "Colors of the Mountain" and just doing that based on my earlier reading assignments I found that I hadn't grounded the book in our family. I didn't really want to write about my family so much as the situation we were all involved in, but I can see that without doing a gossip columnist shark attack on all members of my family (I think this has to be the nightmare all writer's face when considering writing memoir), I could still introduce them in such a way that people could see the complexity of their personae and the dynamics within a family, all which had effects on the outcome of the situation.

I especially liked the rich style of essay/memory Steven Harvey used in one of his pieces we read about his mother. I am not quite certain I am up to that level of writing, but maybe. I do have a slightly different tangent because I very much want to write something helpful, useful, upbeat, even if the topic is quite sad and downbeat. I don't want a chirpy voice that says I've got rose-colored glasses.

I had already started many of my situations as essays and when I discussed it with Bonnie Rough and Kate Hopper, they both indicated that "situations" could be within short essays and reframed into our final project/memoir.

So that brings me back to the need to submit my work. I quit submitting until I was firmly into a writing program that I felt comfortable with, and now that I have done much of the spit and polish sort of requirements I should have the next two weeks for writing, editing and submitting. Wish me luck.

My first residency has ended at Ashland University. I am now recovering. Why? Were we overworked? No. Maybe overstimulated, the pace of the residency was busy but allowed for time for writing, reading, rest, exercise, fun, decompression and lots of learning.

I flew into Cleveland, Ohio airport, rented a car, drove to Ashland by way of the Cuyahoga River National Park in Cleveland (many portions of the area are shared with Cleveland Parks) and arrived just in time to check in. You could spend days in this park and still find things to do. My favorite was Deer Lick Cave (see the photograph).

Then I locked my key in my room requiring a call to security to let me back in. After repeating that stunt, I learned to carry my keys around my neck and never forget it.

I signed up for a room in Andrews Hall, a double person dorm room that I shared by myself. This room was perfectly fine, exactly as advertised and had a sole occupant, but I found it terribly claustrophobic despite the bouquet of flowers I bought to cheer the place up. My husband arrived after a week and used the time to rescue me to the Quality Inn and to visit his sister and see some of the sights.

Our residency schedule had us in workshops in the morning from 9-11:45, but I often woke up at 6 a.m. because for some reason I felt I could write at this time. The showers down the hall were perfectly fine, the young dormers fun to watch (once there were five young men nestled in sleeping bags in the tv room having a movie party). See below my morning breakfast in our workshop setting, pretty rough, huh?

Then we dashed to lunch (I bought the lunch meal ticket) which was often hectic due to the number of summer camp students also dining. We all got fed but it was tight. See the entrance to the dining room above.

After lunch, we had a craft session with the guest speaker from the night before. Afterwards, there were either student defense sessions we could attend, or I could retreat to the tables near the coke machine and quietly pay attention to my reading and writing  or to take a nap (needed during my first week since I felt terribly exhausted).

Before dinner, there were a couple of bar outings to have wine and relax--I usually skipped these since I don't imbibe much. Dinner was usually good but I often just ate salad and fruit or just skipped it or rushed out to Wendy's or Dairy Queen to top up my sugar level and belief that there was a world outside of me. 

At seven we returned to hear a guest reading that would last sometimes to 9 or later. Below is the smaller lecture hall where they held some of the thesis defense sessions.

I managed to attend all sessions but the Orientation which I forgot somehow and to get all my homework in on time and to contribute to the discussions.

My workshops were with Kate Hopper the first week and Bonnie Rough during the second week.

I loved the campus which was small, had really wonderfully comfortable facilities and beautiful gardens. I signed up for the athletic pass to use the huge swimming pool but felt overwhelmed enough to never feel I could slip away. I'll add photos to this when I get home.

The funny thing is, I was a Lindbergh Eagle in high school, now I am an Ashland Eagle:

I feel like I'm moving in slow motion but I read another fifty pages from Packet 2 for the workshops in my MFA program residency at Ashland University, chose my book for my book presentation, and completed several more reviews. I also almost finished reading "The Situation and the Story" by Vivian Gornick. She makes several good points about organizing your memoir based on memory. I've compiled my source materials so far--memoirs, books similar to mine, and writing books and I already have 25 on the list. I've had some ideas to add to my memoir that should help the opening.  I've two ideas for the class exercise. The last thing on the list will be the book presentation. It will be the start of my comparison between 2 or 3 of the memoirs read so far. It will be good to move some of my stack to the shelf again and open up space.

Today I also joined some of the Ashland University sites. I still need to track down a problem with my email and another one with my ticket. I had all the bills paid until a day ago, and also solved some of my banking difficulties. Now just to test the printer and other supplies.

We're still playing get the yard back in order after Germany while also gathering supplies for our trip to the Amazon in Peru. We need rubber boots, protection against mosquitos and expensive rabies shots and new glasses and sunglasses.