Winter Residency 2020-2021
December 30 - January 7, 2021
We're excited to launch our first residency session for the Cornell College M.F.A. in Creative Writing. Welcome writers! Here's the schedule at a glance.
Wed. Dec. 30
4:30 Happy Hour Introductions
7:00 Reading with Steven Dunn (“Water & Power”) & Lily Hoang (“A Bestiary”)
Thur. Dec. 31
9:00 Orientation
1:00 Generative Workshop with Curtis Bauer:
Out With the Old and In With What I Want!
This generative session will require paper, fire and space for you to set your ideas alight. We will rummage through those ideas and material that are cluttering our writing and creative practice and glean from that accumulation the valuable matter we didn't know we had, consider how we can organize and identify its greatest potential, and then show our gratitude for what we don't want before we set it on fire and let its smoke and ash linger into the past year.
2:30 Advising
Fri. Jan. 1
10:30 In Conversation with Helen Betya Rubinstein
What Your Draft is Trying to Tell You
When our writing resists us, we often respond with ever more force, pushing it to bend to our will. But what if we looked at our early drafts differently? What if, instead of seeing them as adversaries to be wrestled into submission, we learned to read them as a kind of roadmap, reflective of the unspoken needs and confusions of our writing selves? What if the moments of resistance we encounter in our drafts—and in our drafting process—were trailheads, capable of leading us deeper into the work?
1:00 Generative Workshop with Thisbe Nissen and Jay Baron Nicorvo
'It Was…' and Other Ways to Begin
2:30 In Conversation with Sebastian Matthews
Beginnings: Thinking Beyond Genre
Sebastian discusses his own eclectic work and “genre-defying” work of writers like Geoff Dyer to explore the value in writing hybrid works not limited by the conventions of particular genres.
Sat. Jan. 2
9:00 In Conversation with Andrea Wilson
We the Interwoven
Andrea, founder of the Iowa Writers’ House, will discuss the opportunities and challenges she faced editing and publishing three volumes of the anthology “We The Interwoven: An Anthology of Bicultural Iowa.”
10:30 Craft Talk with Steven Dunn
1:00 Generative Workshop with Lily Hoang
Science + Writing
In this open-genre generative workshop, students will be asked to briefly research a current scientific or technological development (e.g. CRISPR/gene editing, neural networks, COVID vaccine, or the 50% probability that we are living in a simulation) and write something that speculates on a time and place/space where that new-to-us idea is commonplace to your characters. Your piece might be set two years in the future—or two hundred!—but you should focus your speculation on world building and character building, such that what we today might consider a Nobel-worthy breakthrough has become banal, hardly even noteworthy.
2:00 Craft Talk with Kisha Llewellyn Schlegel
Out of Our Time
Conversation based on these lines by Adrienne Rich: “It is not ‘in spite of the times’ that I will write but I will try to write, in both senses, out of my time” (“Arts of the Possible”). What does it mean to write out of our time?
7:00 Reading with poets Amaud Jamaul Johnson (“Imperial Liquor”) and Curtis Bauer (“American Selfie”)
Sun. Jan. 3
9:00 In Conversation with Amaud Jamaul Johnson
An informal discussion with Amaud about his work and process
10:30 Manuscript Consultations with Thisbe Nissen and Jay Baron Nicorvo
1:00 Generative Workshop with Shena McAuliffe (“Glass, Light, and Electricity”)
Un/Conscious Optics: Photographs, Memory, & Imagination
2:30 Panel: Thriving in a Low-Residency M.F.A.
An informal discussion with recent low-residency graduates Anthony Immergluck and Marilyn Duarte about how to make the most of your time in a low-residency program
4:30 Student Happy Hour
A chance for students to meet and discuss their work, challenges and successes in their writing, the program, or whatever else comes up.
7:00 Reading with Rachel Swearingen (“How to Walk on Water”) and Thisbe Nissen (“Our Lady of the Prairie”)
Mon. Jan. 4
9:00 In Conversation with Rachel Swearingen
An informal discussion with Rachel about her debut collection “How to Walk on Water”
10:30 Craft Talk with Glenn Freeman
Right Brain/Left Brain, What’s It All About?
A discussion of how to integrate one’s creative and analytical mind in the writing process.
1:00 Generative Workshop with Steven Dunn
2:30 Craft Talk with Jay Baron Nicorvo
Publishing to Publish: How editors write and writers edit.
Tue. Jan. 5
9:00 Advising Sessions
10:30 In Conversation with Sejal Shah
1:00 Reading with Sejal Shah (“This is One Way to Dance”) and Kisha Llewellyn Schlegel (“Fear Icons”)
2:30 In Conversation with Tyrese Coleman
7:00 Reading with Patrick Rosal (“Brooklyn Antediluvian”)
Wed. Jan. 6
10:30 In Conversation with Curtis Bauer and Patrick Rosal
1:00 Generative Workshop with Kisha Llewellyn Schlegel
Writing Out of Our Time
A workshop based on the following lines by Adrienne Rich: “It is not ‘in spite of the times’ that I will write but I will try to write, in both senses, out of my time” (“Arts of the Possible”). How can we write of our time?
3:00 Craft Talk with Lily Hoang
Politics, Identity Politics, & Political Correctness: Is this Offensive?
This informal conversation will center around the things you do and don’t want to write about, what’s OK and what’s not OK, and who gets to decide.
4:30 Happy Hour Open Mic A chance for students to gather, share their writing, and celebrate
Thur. Jan. 7
Finalize semester study plans and submit
Semester studies begin today!!