Inside Look

By Kelley Davidson, Graduate Assistant, Bluegrass Writers Studio

“I’m getting my MFA in Creative Writing.”

The old woman at table 61 looks up from her coffee and asks me, “Well, what are you going to do with that?”

She’s asked me what I’m studying, an ordinary question. Most of my customers ask me the same thing during our interactions. Sometimes I lie and tell them that I’m going to be a nurse, and they ooh and ahh about what a lucrative profession that is, and that I must be really smart.

But it’s too early in the morning for me to lie today, and I’ve decided that I don’t care what she thinks of me. I don’t want to be waiting tables right now and I don’t have the mental strength to dig up the basal nursing school knowledge I remember from my sister’s time in that degree program. So I tell her the truth.

By Kristen Roach Thompson, Associate Coordinator, Bluegrass Writers Studio

     Writers aren't usually famous for their fitness routines. At least, I don't know of any (besides our very own Jen Parks). But, before I committed myself to my thesis and  this corner of the couch with pen, paper, and laptop, I used to run. My longest distance was a half marathon, and after that I swore I would never do a whole one. It was probably an empty promise from my ego; my body would not have cooperated anyway.

By Kristen Roach Thompson, Associate Coordinator, Bluegrass Writers Studio

     As we come to the close of Week Three of the fall semester, most Bluegrass Writers Studio participants have experienced the thrill of having their writing workshopped. They've sat quietly as their class talked about their words - what was memorable and what was questionable. They've gotten written feedback from their peers on what was inspired and what should be retired. And they've gotten comments from their professor, with praise, prescriptions, and potential outlined.

     The list of everything they've learned from critiquing others and being critiqued is starting to grow - so many things to consider! Dialogue, point of view, action, sense of place, pacing, voice, figures of speech, audience. And kaplooey! their brains split wide open.

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By Kristen Thompson, Associate Coordinator, Bluegrass Writers Studio

The only thing better than announcing that your visiting faculty for the spring semester is Maureen McHugh, and that James S. A. Corey is her special guest in workshop, is being able to announce that she's returning for the fall semester.

So it's my lucky day: Maureen McHugh is back for the fall semester and leading another workshop! 

In addition to being an award-winning speculative fiction novelist and short story writer (China Mountain Zhang, After the Apocalypse, The Lincoln Train), Maureen has also speculated things right out of fiction and into the world.