Here’s what I brought to my first workshop at Stony Brook:
Here’s what I left with:
Hard to believe, but I have a student ID again. It didn’t really hit me until I held my new shiny card in my hand and looked at that awful picture — “I’m a student again.” I couldn’t help but burst out laughing at the thought. The 20-somethings waiting in line all turned to look at the crazy lady old enough to be their mother.
The snow got in my way of going to the official orientation and getting my ID, so yesterday I drafted my son Justin to come with me on the four hour excursion. We managed to travel on the only day I’ve seen the sun shine around here for weeks, so the drive and the ferry ride were actually very pleasant and even fun. After we left the University campus, Justin insisted that we celebrate by going to a local pub and having a beer. Two unique things happened there: 1) he wasn’t carded (he looks very young for 22) and 2) he bought the beer. A very special day indeed.
And special for me in other ways. Going back for my MFA has been on my mind for a few years, and choosing to do it now feels like I’m thumbing my nose at time, deciding that I do have more time to hone my craft, to be more, to reach for more. It will be a part-time endeavor that will take me longer than most, while I also keep up my marketing work, but the time is going to go anyway–why not work toward something that I value.
I went online last week and ordered books I’ll need. Classes start next week. Stay tuned.
You would think I had enough reading and writing after all these years, but no! I just enrolled in an MFA program with Stony Brook Southampton. Last summer I went to their summer workshop and came home energized and ready to tackle more writing projects of my own in addition to my marketing writing for my business.
But there was more. Once I was home and back into my routine I realized that I missed having that writing community. At one time, I had found a group of writers nearby that encouraged each other, critiqued one another and were in each others’ corner no matter what. That kind of group is invaluable and every writer should be lucky enough to find such a workshop, or create one, near them as their cornerstone. After this summer, though, I also wanted to study with the kind of extraordinary teachers I had found at the workshop.
Finding the right program isn’t easy. At first I thought I would want a low-residency program where you communicate primarily online most of the time and come together for 10 days at the beginning of each semester for a residency. I looked at schools in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont. But, I always had a nagging feeling that being online most of the time would be too removed from the personal contact of a group sitting together to talk about their work on an ongoing basis. So, I looked again at Stony Brook Southampton and found out that they had a Manhattan track that had some courses on weekends in the city. That sounded doable to me, so I applied.
I thought it would make sense to keep you all up on my journey, so check back to see how I’m doing. Maybe I’ll even post some of my assignments on here.
So, I’m getting excited about classes starting in February and feel a little like I did every September when I was a kid. I’m heading out to get a new notebook and a pencil case, errr—laptop case.