While ESPN may have titillated with its report that the Olympic Village in London is one big bacchanal, many of the world's top athletes have arrived there toting more than just condoms. Wall Street investment banker turned Olympic cyclist Evelyn Stevens brought her lucky blue sports bra that she has worn when competing since 2009 …
Continue reading Is Superstition or Ritual Part of Your Creative Process?
On her seventh day in the United States last week, a 37-year-old woman realized she was on the wrong subway platform at the Shady Grove Metro Station just north of Washington, D.C., and chose to rectify the situation by climbing down onto the tracks to walk to the other side. This is an ill-advised solution …
Continue reading On Not Avoiding Your Creative Work in Progress
I'm not alone in this, I keep telling myself. People take breathers from their creative projects all the time, and come back refreshed and recharged. Right? If I avoid exercise for six weeks, my body does not pick up where it left off. Instead it lets me know how unhappy it is with me through …
Continue reading Are You Avoiding Your Creative Work in Progress?
Today I'm honored to have as a guest blogger PJ Reece, author and writing craft guru. I first discovered PJ through his comments here on The Artist's Road, which stood out even among the thought-provoking and insightful ones this blog somehow attracts. He is the author of the recently published free e-book Story Structure to …
Add a chunk of pork shoulder, spice it, seal it in water, and voilà, you've got yourself some SPAM, the processed luncheon meat. The recipe for my latest published essay was full immersion in my first MFA residency, a few months of marinade in the lessons my instruction provided, a workshop at the writing center …
Continue reading The Truth About Processed Luncheon Meat and Creativity
That headline advertises more than it can likely deliver, but such is the case in the world of blogs. What I can deliver below is a cheat sheet for the 10 blog posts I wrote while here in Montpelier, Vermont, at my third residency in the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA in Writing program. …
Continue reading MFA Nugget: An Entire MFA in Writing Residency in One Post
Vermont College of Fine Arts instructor Douglas Glover has a single question he likes to ask his students, repeatedly. At his lecture here in the MFA in Writing residency Thursday, he said he fills his students' manuscripts with one word: "When?" "Where are the time markers?" asks Glover, a teacher who also finds time to …
Continue reading MFA Nugget: Taking Your Reader on a Journey Through Time
You crack people up at dinner parties. It seems there's no end to your ability to draw a smile with a quick take on a past event. With so much material, writing it should be a cinch. Right? That is what Sarah Braud once thought. Sarah graduates today from the Vermont College of Fine Arts …
Continue reading MFA Nugget: Are You Sharing an Anecdote or Writing an Artful Story?
On July 4th, 2012, I left the campus of the Vermont College of Fine Arts and visited America. I hadn't planned to do this. I had just finished having lunch with one of my favorite faculty members when, walking back to my dorm room, I realized I was done. Or, should I say, full. I …
Continue reading MFA Nugget: Help! I Can’t Take Any More Literary Training!
"You should write about what the social life is like here. That was the thing I was most afraid of before coming." One of my fellow students at my Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA residency made that suggestion last night, and so I'm going to take that on here. Now the first question is, …
The Artist's Road 