The 2021 Rainier Writing Workshop

Ready for Orientation!

Woohoo! It’s finally here! After all these months the residency has begun! It’s the mid-residency break tonight (and tomorrow morning) and I thought I’d share my experience so far. 

First off, the space. The residency is taking place online this year, in light of COVID. I still wanted to give myself the feeling of going away, so I booked a farm stay at an awesome studio on an organic farm. I’m only about 20 minutes away from home, but I’m far enough into the country that it feels like I’m far away. The studio is on the top of a hill overlooking the field where they grow crops. It’s warm, and smells like lavender and fresh grass. It feels pretty perfect for creativity. Also there’s chickens. As a city girl, I’m thrilled by the chickens!

I’m part of Cohort 18, and we all met with Rick Barot, the director of the MFA program at Pacific Lutheran University, for orientation on Friday morning. It was so nice to see the people who would be going on this journey with me. We discussed technical aspects of the three-year program, and the upcoming first year. Every year begins with an intensive 10-day residency where we are paired with a mentor who will help us with our study throughout the year. The spirit of the program is collaboration, we collaborate with our mentors to create a study plan and goals for our writing. Right off the bat I was excited and anxious to be paired with my mentor, which has not happened yet, but Rick has assured us that he will pair us (if we’re willing to trust him) with the perfect mentor to help each of us. I decided to trust him. 

I couldn’t do my residency without Anne

On Saturday, the residency kicked off. Every morning we have a morning talk led by a faculty member (so far they’ve been amazing and inspiring) followed by writing workshops. We have an hour break for lunch, and then afternoon classes followed by a grad presentation. The evening is wrapped up with a reading, and then we are released into our separate spaces to prepare for the next day. 

Inspiration is everywhere. I’m learning all day, from the moment I sit down for morning talks to the moment I finish my homework (yep, there’s homework!) and fall into bed. I’m in awe of the talent, and all of the faculty are so knowledgeable and accomplished. The workshops during the first half of the residency were genre-specific, so I was grouped with other fiction writers from all cohorts. Every day we had a different faculty member lead our workshop, with a different workshop style and different tips and techniques. I learned so much about my own writing from my (humbling) workshop day, but I learned just as much from workshopping the other writers. The classes are amazing, and I have so many ideas for stories I want to work on and styles I want to try. It feels so wonderful to be among other writers, and I really feel like my creativity and skills are being nurtured. 

I’m not going to lie, the pace and intensity can be grueling. The amount of talent I’ve witnessed has made me question my own abilities. The zoom format is challenging, and at the end of the day I’m in a space that is beautiful, but not home. I’ve been at home nonstop for eighteen months, it’s a little stressful to be away, and to be interacting with humans again. Reading people is difficult via zoom, knowing when to speak and when I’m hogging the talkspace is difficult both in this format and because I’ve really only interacted with about six people for eighteen months. When you interact with six people you get to know those six people very well, but it also makes it easy to forget that other people are different from your bubble of society. Everything put together makes the perfect condition for a breakdown, and I fell apart yesterday after a disappointment in class. Luckily, Rick was there to give an excellent pep talk and encourage me to return to class, despite my embarrassment. I feel more than a little foolish, but apparently it’s not uncommon to fall apart during the residency. I’m glad I went back, the class ended up being one of my favorites (it’s so hard to pick a favorite!) 

I had a great day today, but boy am I excited to sleep in tomorrow morning! My sister, Dominique, came to visit for the night, and we are watching Schitt’s Creek and enjoying some delightfully flaky pastries. I’m also lazily plotting a fairytale and rethinking whether my novel should be written in first-person dramatic monologue or not.

Time for some rest so we can start Part 2 tomorrow!