“Writing from Here” with the MFA Creative Writing Program
Summers at ChathamU usually mean one thing for the literary-minded among us: the MFA in Creative Writing program’s Summer Community of Writers, a days-long gathering of low- and full-residency MFACW students featuring guest lecturers and innovative workshops in the lush, inspiring surroundings of our Eden Hall Campus. Unfortunately, SCW 2020 was cancelled due to COVID-19, but that doesn’t mean the work—and the fun—of writing has stopped. We chatted with MFA Creative Writing Program Director Sheila Squillante about how the MFACW program is crafting community from a safe distance, and what they’re looking forward to in the fall.
MFA Creative Writing Program Director Sheila Squillante
What does community means to the MFACW program, and how did you respond to the COVID-19 shutdowns?
Community is incredibly important to the MFA community. We typically host three to four in-person events per semester, including a 100-person writing conference in the fall and the Summer Community of Writers in June. The shutdown was really hard on us. We canceled two of our larger spring reading events, plus several sessions from a new professionalism series for grad and undergrad creative writers. We had to cancel our celebration reading for graduating students... well, we moved that to Zoom, and it was actually great! It was a lot of change very rapidly, but everyone got on board quickly and participated in the things we could make digital.
SCW was particularly hard, as I initially tried to convert it into a 7.5 week online course. Once I did, though, students one by one opted to wait until it's back at Eden Hall next summer. I don't blame them. It's such a special part of our program and really not translatable to an online space.
As soon as quarantine began, we started holding weekly or bi-weekly "Coffee Hour/Check-ins" on Zoom with current students, faculty and alums. Just 30 minutes to see faces, sigh together, network a little, and share ideas for how to get through this time. The alums shared books and films that were helping them cope. It felt good and comforting to be together, even if only in a digital space.
The MFACW program is hosting a writing contest called “Writing from Here.” What are the details?
The program was created in collaboration with Dr. Allie Reznik, our colleague in the Humanities. Modeled after the Quarantine Bake Off, we are running three contests—May, June and July—at the undergraduate and MFA level. We've invited current and incoming students, as well as recent graduates to participate. The idea is that a prompt is released and then participants have 48 hours to produce writing—poems, stories, essays—based on it. We are using MFA alums and local writers as judges and will award three winners (one for each genre) each time. Winners receive a gift card to White Whale Bookstore, which is a steadfast friend of the MFA program and the Pittsburgh literary community.
Tell us about the “Keep the Muscles Moving” Summer Workshops.
With the loss of SCW and the uncertainty of the fall, I wanted to offer something that would keep people engaged creatively during the summer months and connected to the MFA and undergrad Humanities programs. There are six sessions in the series, all 90 minutes on Zoom and all free. We are inviting alums, current and incoming students, plus community members to join us. We've had two so far, one on revision and one on writing a query letter to land an agent. They've been fantastic! Really well attended—I think 30 people in each. Next we're offering one on “Tarot and Writing” and there are more than 60 people registered! This series was also a way for me to use the budget money that was left over after canceling spring events. We have an amazing, committed community of adjuncts—some of whom are program alums—and it felt good to be able to pay them to share their knowledge and expertise at a time when so many contracts for contingent faculty are being canceled.
What is the program looking forward to this summer and fall?
The Fourth River literary magazine is working on an online issue for this summer—a first for us. We also received a $15K Big Read grant from the National Endowment for the Arts that will shape our reading series next year around a memoir by Hmong-American writer, Kao Kalia Yang, called The Latehomecomer. The book was chosen by our MFA students for its themes of borders/immigration, trauma, family and identity. More details forthcoming!
Check out some photos of MFACW Summer Community of Writers past! For more information on the Master of Fine Arts Creative Writing program, visit their website.
