Adventures in MFA Land

Welcome back guest blogger Laura Jones. Thoughts this time on Dave McKean's His Story from Pictures That Tick . I thought I was in love with the way McKean combines abstraction and representationalism. But if that's love, then love isn't a good enough word for how I feel about the metaphor he just created for artistic vision. And it's gruesome, yes, but fabulous. In 'His Story,' the story told to the narrator by his father is represented by a piece of broken glass. When confronted with the shard as a child, he mishandles it, or misunderstands it, and is injured by it. He cuts his hand. He puts away the glass for several years. Older, he views the glass again. “It was still clear and cold. / But I was sure there was / more to it than that. / I had to get inside it. / Or let it get inside of me. / I had to look at it / in a different way” (172). And then he takes the shard, and he shoves it into his eye. The narrator, through the simple metaphor of a p...

Welcome back guest blogger Carol Owens Campbell. Carol is an MFA student studying fiction at Pine Manor College's Solstice in Creative Writing program. Her current work in progress explores the turbulent echos of the Kent State Massacre as seen through the eyes of a young college student. In this second of two installments, Carol considers perspective as discussed in the popular fiction writers reference book: The Modern Library Writer's Workshop. *** In Koch’s extraordinary book, he commands, “Whatever feeling you ask the reader to join, let it be strong. If your talent is connected to your passion, it will all find expression in a thousand signs, in turns that will be too multiple in meaning for one simple value judgment. The real issue isn’t whether you love or hate your characters. The real issue, whatever the bond, is the vitality and force of what you do feel.” (111) With almost every sentence highlighted in my copy of Koch’s book, I find his perspective profound....

Welcome guest blogger Carol Owens Campbell. Carol is an MFA student studying fiction at Pine Manor College's Solstice in Creative Writing program. Her current work in progress explores the turbulent echos of the Kent State Massacre as seen through the eyes of a young college student. In this first of two installments, Carol considers a popular fiction writers reference book: The Modern Library Writer's Workshop . The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club merits acclaim in the pantheon of sports as the place where Major Walter Clopton Wingfield invented the game of lawn tennis. Now known as “Wimbledon,” it hosts the only Grand Slam tennis tournament in the world still played on grass. It is also where the term “Centre Court” originated. The Modern Library Writer’s Workshop: A Guide to the Craft of Fiction by Stephen Koch merits acclaim in the pantheon of books about the craft of writing for within this book Koch assembles a lawn full of stellar writers to encourage th...

Welcome back guest blogger Laura Jones. This musing written to her MFA mentor, on Margaret Peterson Haddix's Just Ella .   I must begin by admitting that I never intended to read this book. It's not on my reading list, it probably shouldn't be on my reading list, and I should probably be writing about Isak Dinesen's Winter's Tales which I enjoyed greatly and which is probably overdue because I had it out from the Boston Public Library and forgot it was in my school bag when I left Boston for Central New York. Maybe even I should be writing about The Sandman Papers, edited by Joe Sanders, which is a compilation of critical essays about a very well known graphic novel that was freakishly influential to me. At least The Sandman Papers feigns to be academic. Just Ella does no such thing, which is, in fact, probably part of why I read it. I mentioned in my last missive that I intended to reread books I had enjoyed as a child or teenager, with an eye for what drew m...

Welcome guest blogger Laura Jones, MFA student at Pine Manor College's Solstice in Creative Writing Program. Laura is currently combining her talents for writing and art in a graphic novel. The fascination for me in a lot of writing lies within the balance between the artist and the artistry than in any certainty of what really happened. It delights me more to guess which aspects of the story are invented and which are mined from the writer’s daily life than to know it’s all factual or to assume it’s all fake. It’s a game I like playing, and Neil Gaiman lets me do it.   Gaiman takes easily to this, writing “The Price” in first person, using the voice of his narrator to pull you in, promising that, yes, it really happened. Of stray cats, he writes, “We pay for them to get their shots, and, indignity upon indignity, we have them neutered or spayed” (51). The narrator names the cats, describes them. “We never seem to have more than eight,” Gaiman writes, “rarely have less tha...

Write like academic you--avoiding writing like you think you should write, like your grandmother is leaning over your shoulder. Present in your essays is nice organization, solid thinking and analysis. However, the puffed up, wordy and vague sentences mess everything up. I'm making a big deal out of this because it seems to me if you could get a handle on this your writing will really improve. Hiding among the wordiness is some strong writing and clear thinking. Get closer to your topic. Stand nose to nose with it. "In the world we live in" doesn't really mean much. There is no other place for us to live, it's like saying "Here, on Earth..." What do you really mean - in 2010? In the world of Lansing teenagers? Michigan? "It is my understanding..." "I think" "I believe" - You don't need these because reader knows it is your essay, ergo, those are your thoughts and beliefs. Using this wording is technically called auth...

Although my original hypothesis was not fully supported by my research, I did establish a connection among taboo word use, age, and emotion. The use of taboo words is linked to social and personal development. As children mature into adolescence they become increasingly concerned with social context; indeed, language use becomes significant in negotiating social relationships around age eleven. Jørgensen stated in regard to his research on code switching in middle school age students that young people perceive their language as something that enables them to have fun in social settings and that language use can in fact “be a power tool in conflicts or as a face-saving measure” . Taboo word use can lead to both fun and social acceptance, two very important considerations for young people. Adjusting to the emotional changes of moving from childhood to adulthood is another important consideration for young people. As established in Section III, taboo word use is significantly correla...