Inside Look

By Joseph Nichols, Graduate Assistant, Bluegrass Writers Studio

            Last June, I disembarked from an early morning Portuguese airplane.  Two hours and a trip through customs later, my feet hit the cobblestoned streets of Lisbon, Portugal.  Temporal and spatial regularities ceased to exist; the city seemed timeless, the air felt, oddly, both British and Spanish at the same time. 

            I had arrived. 

            Six months prior, I had arranged that arrival to precede my fellow graduate students by a day, maybe two at the most.  I wanted a chance to acquaint myself with the city; I wanted the opportunity to forget the states.  More than anything, I wanted a cheaper ticket. 

By Derek Nikitas, Director, Bluegrass Writers Studio

    All writers crave feedback.

     Okay, maybe some writers would just prefer we wordlessly bask in their genius, but I’ll guess if you’re interested in pursuing an MFA in creative writing, it’s because you want to be a better writer. And that means getting people to look at your stuff.

     Creative writing workshops come in all flavors, but what they have in common is that it takes a village to raise a writer. You exchange work, read it, and share advice. You’re in it together. You have the benefit of a captive audience, and that’s a rare gift, well worth the attendant jitters.

By Joseph Nichols, Graduate Assistant, Bluegrass Writers Studio

            There is something to be said for understanding your place as a writer. With that “something” almost said, I have never been comfortable with harshly drawn lines between genres or mediums.

            Wendell Berry once discussed his degree program and the horrid nature of having to pick between writing focuses. As far as the universities were concerned, he had to either be a poet or a nonfiction writer. Most programs force you to pick a focus, such as poetry, and the courses from which you choose are within that focus. In the majority of the MFA programs I found, I would have been forced to make a decision: What do I write (or, more importantly, what will I show future employers/publishers as credentials for what I am trained to read/write)?

By Doug Brewer, Bluegrass Writers Studio

            I chose the Bluegrass Writers Studio in no small part because of its low-residency, rather than residency, format. Like most writers, I suspect, I am most comfortable when sitting in my office alone with my computer or a pad and pen. Nobody cares if I haven’t had a shower in a couple days, and there’s very little of that whole eye contact thing.

            On the other hand, what really makes the program tick for me is the annual Winter Residency in Lexington, Kentucky. It’s a magical thing, taking thirty or forty socially awkward people who would rather be flying solo with their words, and throwing them all together in a Hilton without anyone exploding.