2017, Archives, August 2017, The MFA Years

Becoming the Killjoy: Confronting Academic Spaces

Finishing up my final semester at University of Wyoming’s MFA felt tumultuous, though I suppose it couldn’t have ended any other way. Many faculty seemed to be leaving UW amidst the school’s large-scale budgeting overhaul due to the collapse of Wyoming’s coal industry last year, nothing new for the state considering its legacy of booms… Continue reading Becoming the Killjoy: Confronting Academic Spaces

2016, Archives, December 2016, The MFA Years

Contractual Community: Minority Students’ Place in the Creative Writing Program

Image: Conal Gallagher A lot has happened since the events of last semester as detailed here. I thought about what it might look like for me to give an update on promises given, what has improved, what hasn’t. And yet, I feel like it’d be unnecessary, in a sense, to give another somewhat in-depth barometric… Continue reading Contractual Community: Minority Students’ Place in the Creative Writing Program

2016, April 2016, Archives, The MFA Years

Challenging the Whiteness of MFA Programs: A Year in Confrontations at UW

Image: Rene Mensen 1: UW vs. POC Last weekend, our program held its annual recruitment weekend, which means that a bunch of acceptees were flown out here to Laramie, on our program’s dime, in order to see for themselves what the town and program are all about. It was lovely meeting the few prospective students… Continue reading Challenging the Whiteness of MFA Programs: A Year in Confrontations at UW

2016, Archives, January 2016, The MFA Years

Writing Prompts: Navigating Personal Process

Image:Navy Blue Stripes Earlier this month, I attended a writers’ conference called The Home School. This specific iteration was located in Miami, FL (which was an amazing change of scenery from Laramie). The Home School is a fairly new writers’ conference having had its first conference, I believe, in 2014. Its co-founder, and also my… Continue reading Writing Prompts: Navigating Personal Process