MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 1
MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 1
Antioch University Los Angeles Creative Writing Department 400 Corporate Pointe, Culver City, CA, 90230 Phone: (310) 578-1080 x202 fax: (310) 822-4824 https://www.antioch.edu/los-angeles/degrees-programs/creative- writing-communication-studies/creative-writing-mfa/
RESIDENCY AND SEMESTER STUDENT HANDBOOK TABLE OF CONTENTS
MFA Academic Calendar/Upcoming Semester Dates ...... inside cover Mission ...... 2 Instructions for Reading this Handbook ...... 3-4 Program Options and Requirements ...... 5-16 Residency Requirements by Cohort ...... 17 Reading Material ...... 18 Mentor Selection ...... 18 MFA Program Documentation Timetable ...... 19-20 Post-MFA Program Documentation Timetable ...... 21-22 Residency Schedule ...... 22-27 Seminar and Presentation Descriptions ...... 28-47 Faculty and Guest Artist Biographies ...... 48-56 Residency Accommodations ...... 57-60 Local Transportation ...... 60 Weather ...... 61 Emergency Numbers ...... 61 Tuition and Fees ...... 62-64 Financial Aid ...... 65 Registrar Policies and Procedures ...... 66-68 Academic Policies and Procedures ...... 69-73 Hardware and Software Requirements ...... 74-75 Blank Page for Notes ...... 76 “How to Get to Antioch” Map…………………………………………………………...back cover
2 MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019
ANTIOCH UNIVERSITY LOS ANGELES MFA IN CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAM
MISSION
The MFA in Creative Writing program is designed to develop writers who work well in professional, academic, and/or community settings. Its two main goals are to train writers in the skills of their craft and to educate them about the role of the arts in society. The MFA program has a specific commitment to help develop awareness of and appreciation for culturally diverse writers and traditions.
MFA graduates will demonstrate:
Proficiency of creative writing skills of at least one of the following genres: fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and writing for young people.
Critical reading, writing, and thinking skills required of a literary artist.
Knowledge of ethical dilemmas and social values of the literary arts.
Commitment to a broad range of issues and activities associated with a literary writer engaged with the societies in which the writer lives and works.
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INSTRUCTIONS FOR READING THIS HANDBOOK
This handbook contains important information to help you prepare for the residency, which begins on Friday, June 14, 2019. This handbook should be read in conjunction with the AULA General Catalog, which may contain more detailed information on the topics covered here. Students may access the General Catalog at any time via this link on the website: aulacatalog.antioch.edu. In addition, entering MFA students are required to attend the New Student Orientation on Thursday, June 13 at 5:30 p.m. Continuing MFA and Post-MFA students should plan to arrive on campus on Friday morning, June 14, 2019. Please consult the residency schedule to determine the first activity for your color cohort. For scheduling purposes, each student is considered part of a color-designated cohort, based on your progress in the MFA program, which are as follows:
Final Residency MFA students: Azure Cohort (blue) Fourth (4th) semester MFA students: Aubergine Cohort (purple) Third (3rd) semester MFA students: Cardinal Cohort (red) Second (2nd) semester MFA students: `Akohekohe Cohort (orange) First (1st) semester MFA students: Meadowlark (yellow) Post-MFA students: Post-MFA Cohort
(Dual Concentration and/or Professional Development Semester students in their 5th or 6th semesters do not fall into a specific group.)
Read carefully through the seminar descriptions in this handbook. In addition to helping you plan which learning activities to attend, the following information details the assignments to be done before you arrive on campus.
MFA students are required to attend a minimum of seven learning activities and first-semester Post-MFA students are required to attend a minimum of six learning activities. A learning activity can be a seminar, panel, or Q & A taught by a faculty member or guest presenter, or a series of graduating student presentations. (Note: Graduating student presentations are grouped into series of two, three, or more presentations. Students are required to attend a full series of presentations in order for it to count as one learning activity.) Participation in your assigned MFA genre writing workshop or Post-MFA workshop— which meets four times—counts as one learning activity. Beyond the requirement, you are welcome and encouraged to attend as many seminars and lectures as you wish.
In addition, students must attend two community activities (at least one “brown-bag” lunch-time student reading and one graduating student reading) every residency.
Various orientation meetings and group discussions are also held throughout the residency, some of which may be required for students in your color cohort. A complete listing of events required for all cohorts appears on page 16.
Note and complete any assignments that are required before attending seminars. These are identified in each seminar or presentation description under “Required Readings.” Though all students are welcome to attend any seminar, please do not participate in class discussion if you have not completed the reading, so that the discussion does not get off track. It is unlikely that you will have time during the residency to do much reading, so we strongly suggest you complete this reading before your arrival.
During each residency, time is set aside in the schedule for MFA students to read their work to fellow students. These are noted as “Brown Bag Student Readings.” Students generally request a ten-minute slot by email and are selected through a lottery. Student volunteers or faculty members host these readings 4 MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 and keep time for each student. Continuing students, new students, and Post-MFA students are all encouraged to participate, as these student readings are an excellent way to practice presenting your work. For those interested in reading aloud, please come to the residency with an idea of the work you’d like to read.
Antioch’s MFA program attempts to help new students feel welcome and comfortable by pairing each new student with one or more continuing student “buddies” as the transition is made to life as a graduate writing student. Buddies are asked to be available to entering students, by phone or by email, before students arrive on campus for the first residency, and then in the early days of the first residency. A “buddy lunch” is organized for the first Friday of the residency for entering students to have the opportunity to share a meal with their buddies and discuss their experiences in the program.
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PROGRAM OPTIONS AND REQUIREMENTS
The Basic Program
The MFA in Creative Writing program is a two-year program. Students enroll for four semesters, entering in December or June. Each semester is comprised of a ten-day intensive residency on campus in Culver City, California, followed by a five-month project period, during which each student works on an individualized learning plan, called a Project Period Contract, under the mentorship of a faculty member. The schedule of the final semester (fourth semester for most students, fifth for dual concentration students) differs from the first three (or four) in that it includes a residency at both the beginning and the end of the semester. At the student’s final MFA residency (fifth for most students, sixth for dual concentration students), each student presents a 20-minute graduating student presentation and performs a reading of their creative work.
Following are some alternatives to the basic two-year MFA program:
Mixed Concentration ("Genre Jumping")
During the residencies, all students are invited to participate in seminars across all genres. Students are not limited to seminars in their primary genres of study. Furthermore, during their second or third project period, students may request to study with a mentor in a genre other than the one that is their main focus of study. Upon returning from a project period spent in an alternate genre, the student participates in a writing workshop in that alternate genre.
MFA students may also request to study with a mentor at our Santa Barbara campus in our MFA in Writing & Contemporary Media program (TV/screenwriting, playwriting, or emerging media). These students would attend the Santa Barbara residency and, upon returning from that online project period spent working with a Santa Barbara mentor, the student would participate in a writing workshop on the Los Angeles campus in that alternate genre (possibly a mixed-genre workshop).
Dual Concentration
Students choosing this option spend three terms in one genre and two terms in a second genre, thus spending two and one-half years in the program instead of the customary two years. Before the beginning of their fourth residency, students seeking this option: 1) must have spent their second or third term in the second genre; and 2) must have declared their intent to pursue a Dual Concentration. Students who complete the requirements for this track will have “Dual Concentration” officially designated on their transcripts.
Dual Degree MFA/USMA
The dual degree provides the opportunity for students to earn both a Masters degree in Urban Sustainability and an MFA in Creative Writing within a 3-year period, reducing the time and cost of completing these degrees separately. The dual degree is optimally structured as a six-semester endeavor with the first three semesters spent in the USMA program and the final three, in the MFA program. At the beginning of Semester 4, dual degree students enter the MFA program. Dual degree students come into the MFA program with advanced standing, and thus have the same three-semester requirements as any MFA student who comes in with that status. The fieldwork done in USMA fulfills the MFA field study requirement and the capstone fulfills the critical paper requirement. All other MFA requirements remain for dual degree students.
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Professional Development Semester
The MFA Professional Development Semester (PDS) is an optional fifth (or, in the case of dual concentrations, sixth) term of work toward the MFA that offers further development of each student’s particular professional interests, in addition to the option of receiving mentoring in any of the following genres: fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, Writing for Young People, or literary translation. Options for the PDS term include the following:
Option A: Additional Mentoring (5 units) Option B: Online Teacher Training (5 units). Please note that PDS Option B is on hiatus in Summer/Fall 2019.
Students and alumni who enroll in a Professional Development Semester may choose option A, B, or A and B during the same Professional Development Semester.
The PDS consists of a single MFA project period that may be taken for a range of 5 or 10 units of credit, and is limited to currently enrolled MFA students who have already completed all requirements for the MFA except the final manuscript, and to Antioch MFA alumni. Continuing MFA students may take only one Professional Development Semester but may also return for additional PDS terms as alumni.
MFA students enrolled in their final semester must declare their intention to pursue a Professional Development Semester by either September 1st for a Winter/Spring PDS term or March 1st for Summer/Fall. MFA alumni may enroll in as many Professional Development Semesters as they desire. However, alumni pursuing the PDS do not qualify for financial aid.
Post-MFA Certificate in the Teaching of Creative Writing
A Post-MFA Certificate in the Teaching of Creative Writing is available with an additional semester beyond the attainment of the Antioch MFA degree. In this post-graduate term, students participate in supervised teaching of creative writing, read broadly about the teaching of writing, and write a paper directed toward some aspect of the pedagogy of creative writing. In the residency preceding the project period, Post-MFA Certificate students participate in a workshop on creative writing pedagogy and fulfill other Certificate requirements. In their final residency, Post-MFA Certificate students either present a lecture related to the teaching of creative writing or participate in a pedagogy panel. A student may choose to pursue the Certificate at any point after earning their MFA in Creative Writing. Writers holding an MFA in Creative Writing from other accredited institutions besides Antioch may apply to pursue the Post-MFA Certificate.
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MFA IN CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAM DEGREE REQUIREMENTS
What follows is an overview of the required activities leading to the MFA in Creative Writing degree at Antioch University Los Angeles. The requirements are to be completed at various points throughout the program and are listed here in roughly chronological order:
Genre Writing Workshops
Students meet in small groups during each residency with a faculty workshop leader to critique student work, to discuss and define personal aesthetics, to develop critical faculties, and (when appropriate) to participate in writing exercises. All genre writing workshop groups meet four times during the residency: The first meeting is a one-hour introductory session, and the remaining three sessions meet for three hours each. This requirement is waived for graduating MFA students in their final residency who are immediately entering the Post-MFA Certificate in the Teaching of Creative Writing program. These graduating MFA/new Post-MFA Certificate students will take a workshop in creative writing pedagogy instead.
Prior to the residency, students should prepare typed critiques for each fellow author and hand these to the author immediately after the writer’s work has been discussed.
The purposes of a written critique are: 1) to practice critiquing and analyzing the creative work of others and 2) to provide fellow writers with a robust response in writing that they may find useful.
The critique should be a minimum of 200 words for each separate work (story, essay, poem, 20-page section of a novel or memoir, etc.) submitted for discussion.
Arts, Culture, & Society I and II
These foundation seminars introduce the writing student to a discussion of the roles of artists and the arts in culture and society. Arts, Culture, and Society I (ACS I) examines the intersections of historical, political, and literary movements and focuses on the importance of an understanding of the circumstances under which creative work is produced. ACS I is taken during the student’s first residency. Arts, Culture, and Society II (ACS II) may be taken at any point during the program, and may be taken multiple times, as each residency offers new ACS II topics, theorists, and guest artists.
Monthly Packets
During the project periods, students are required to submit packets of their writing to their mentors on a monthly basis. Students may negotiate page lengths and projects undertaken directly with their mentors. Additionally, due dates and format of delivery, etc., are determined by students and their mentors, and this information is included in the Project Period Contract, which is signed by both the student and the mentor before the conclusion of each residency.
Wide leeway is given for students working on final manuscripts. However, the following is contained in a typical packet:
Prose: 20 pages of creative writing, or up to 30 pages of creative writing if it’s a rewrite of work seen previously by the faculty mentor, plus two book annotations. If a student is working on a critical paper, the critical paper pages count as part of this total, though typically, an entire third-term critical paper will be turned in during the month it is completed, thereby exceeding the above page numbers. 8 MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019
Poetry: Five to ten pages of poetry (up to half of which can be revised poems), plus two to three book annotations.
Annotated Bibliographies
During the project periods, MFA students are required to submit monthly book annotations to their mentors. The length and style of these annotations will vary according to genre and mentor. At the end of every term, students must combine the annotations into a single short annotated bibliography, which will comprise brief versions of the annotations with Modern Language Association (MLA) formatting for the citations. The bibliographies include all books read as part of their project period work. Students may also include material read in preparation for the residencies in order to have as complete a documentation as possible of readings done during the program, but including material read for residency faculty seminars and 20-minute graduating and PDS student presentations is at the discretion of the student. The short annotated bibliographies are submitted to the mentors at the end of each semester.
At the end of the program, students must combine the short annotated bibliographies from the four (or five) semesters into one final cumulative annotated bibliography. This final version is submitted to the Creative Writing Department Program Office at the same time as the final manuscript. For guidelines and formatting requirements for all annotations, please refer to the annotated bibliography requirements document in the Resources section of Sakai.
Field Study
The MFA field study distinguishes AULA from other MFA programs by requiring students to use their knowledge and abilities as writers to serve at least two of the three goals of the program learning outcomes of the MFA in Creative Writing program: the education of literary artists, community service, and the pursuit of social justice. The field study is an experiential learning activity that allows students to serve this purpose in their local communities or some other place beyond the campus of AULA. The MFA field study also enhances student awareness of different possibilities in a writing life, such as editing, publishing, teaching and assistant teaching, working in media, developing websites, making books, or participating in a variety of supervised internships in which writing is a component.
Students design and complete this non-classroom learning experience sometime during their first two terms in the program. Students are required to attend the Orientation to the Field Study—which is offered at each residency—during their first or second residency, and prior to beginning their field study.
The project, including the planning stage, should take no less than four months and no longer than a year to complete, and it can extend from one term to another. While students notify their project period mentors of the nature of their field studies, the project period mentor neither supervises nor evaluates the field study. Instead, the field study is approved, coordinated, and mentored by a member of the MFA core faculty (faculty who are on campus year-round) and completed under the local supervision of an on-site field study supervisor, who also serves as evaluator. MFA students are assigned a core faculty field study mentor based on the nature of their proposed project. The MFA core faculty field study mentor must review and approve the student’s field study contract, which must include a paragraph describing how the project serves at least two of the three goals of the MFA program’s mission, as described above.
It is also the student’s responsibility to locate an on-site field study supervisor for their project, to negotiate the particulars of their field study with that person, and to provide the Creative Writing Department Program Office and the core faculty field study mentor with copies of the supervisor’s MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 9 curriculum vitae or résumé (the on-site field study supervisor is often not a writer but a teacher, artist, or administrator of some sort). The student’s MFA core faculty field study mentor must approve the selection of the on-site field study supervisor, as well as the field study contract.
Please refer to MFA Field Study Procedures in the Sakai Resources > MFA Student Forms > Field Study Forms folder for step-by-step instructions on how to implement your field study.
The Art of Translation: Seminar and Online Conference
It is the intention of this seminar and conference to introduce writing students to the workings of language and how individual writers make language choices. At their second residency, students are required to participate in a translation seminar, which is offered at each residency. During their second project period, students are required to actively participate on a weekly basis in a 10-week online translation conference, discussing writing issues that arise through the practice of translation, including theories of translation and any learning applicable to the process of writing in general. Two 10-week conferences are offered during each semester; second term students sign-up for one of the online conferences during the seminar at the residency. It is not necessary to know a foreign language in order to take the seminar or participate in the conference.
The Practice Critical Paper: Second Term
During the second project period, each student writes a practice critical paper (five page minimum) to prepare for writing a longer paper during the third term. This paper is based on scholarly research methods and is a critical reaction to a topic agreed upon by the student and mentor. Students must submit the completed practice paper to their mentor by the end of their second project period. Students are not required to submit their practice paper to the Creative Writing Department Program Office or the format review.
Note: The practice paper may or may not form the basis for the third term critical paper, depending on the student’s preference and, ultimately, the judgment of the student’s third term mentor, who must approve the content of the critical paper.
The Critical Paper: Third Term
Each student completes the research and writing of a critical paper during their third semester in the MFA program. This paper is based on scholarly research methods and typically examines a literary, cultural, or craft issue relevant to the student’s pursuits as a writer. Papers must be a minimum of 15 pages, excluding documentation. There is no maximum. Third-term students must include plans for the critical paper in their Project Period Contract. The mentor evaluates and approves the completed paper’s content, using a Creative Writing Department-designed rubric. The paper’s formatting must be reviewed and approved by a format reviewer assigned by the Creative Writing Department during the designated format review period. Both the paper’s content and its formatting must be approved by the final day of the project period. Once the paper has received approval from both mentor and format reviewer, and the student has had it bound according to program guidelines, it is submitted to the Creative Writing Department Program Office during the fourth residency.
The following evaluation criteria will be applied by faculty who assess these papers:
ability to formulate a thesis ability to conduct research to explore this thesis ability to blend the student’s own thoughts on the topic with the research encountered 10 MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019
A Word About Point of View for Critical Papers Use of third person point of view is typically employed in academic discourse and/or literary criticism. While third person point of view is preferred, a student may choose to write the paper in first person if the subject matter and approach dictate. Discussion with the mentor will help establish the best point of view for each student’s approach.
For further information about critical papers, please consult the document titled “Critical Paper Guidelines” in the MFA Formatting Guidelines (How-to’s) folder in the Resources section of Sakai.
The Final Manuscript
At the end of at least three successful semesters (four for Dual Concentration students), and with faculty mentor approval of the long critical paper, the student proceeds into the MFA capstone projects. This semester’s work focuses primarily on the preparation of the final manuscript, an original manuscript of creative nonfiction, fiction, poetry, Writing for Young People, or translation (pending approval). While preparing the final manuscript, students collect, revise, and reflect on work written during their semesters in the program. This process is intended to provide students with the opportunity for shaping a volume of their own works. The minimum length for single genre concentrations is 40 pages for poetry, and 100 pages for prose (creative nonfiction, fiction, or Writing for Young People). Works of translation may be poetry or prose.
Students continuing into the Professional Development Semester must receive approval from their mentors on the content of their final manuscript during the term that precedes their PDS semester.
Students with a mixed genre concentration (3 semesters in one genre and 1 semester in another) submit a manuscript that combines material from their primary and secondary genres, with the following minimum page requirements: For students who choose poetry as the primary genre and prose as the secondary genre, the final manuscript should include at least 30 pages of poetry and at least 25 pages of prose. For poetry as the secondary genre of mixed concentration, the ratio should be at least 75 pages of prose and at least 10 pages of poems. For a mixed concentration that has two different genres of prose as primary and secondary genres, the minimum page counts are 75 pages in the primary genre, and 25 pages in the secondary genre.
For the Dual Concentration option (3 semesters in one genre and 2 in another), students must submit final manuscripts with the following page count requirements: For prose in a combination of creative nonfiction, fiction, or Writing for Young People, a minimum of 125 pages (at least 75 pages in the primary genre and no less than 50 pages in the secondary genre) is required. For creative nonfiction, fiction, or Writing for Young People as a primary genre combined with poetry, at least 75 pages of prose and not less than 20 pages of poetry. For poetry as a primary genre combined with creative nonfiction, fiction, or Writing for Young People as a secondary genre, at least 30 pages of poetry and not less than 50 pages of prose are required.
Dual Concentration students complete their final manuscript during their fifth project period. Students must include the final manuscript in their Project Period Contract and must submit their completed manuscript to their mentor before the end of their fourth project period (or fifth project period for Dual Concentration students). After the mentor approves the content and the student has formatted the paper according to Antioch University and MLA guidelines, the student must submit the paper for a formatting review before the end of the project period (see section below about the formatting review; PDS students will complete the formatting review during their PDS semester). Once the paper has received approval from both mentor and format reviewer, and the student has printed it according to program guidelines, it MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 11 is submitted to the Creative Writing Department Program Office during the fourth (or fifth) residency. For further information about final manuscripts, please consult the document titled “Final Manuscript Guidelines” in the MFA Formatting Guidelines (How-to’s) folder in the Resources section of Sakai.
The Formatting Review
Approximately four weeks before the first day of every residency, third-term, graduating, and PDS students will be prompted to email their mentor-approved third term critical papers (third-term students), final manuscripts, and cumulative annotated bibliographies (graduating and PDS students) as Microsoft Word documents to a specially assigned staff person called a format reviewer for an online format review. Students may only submit papers for the format review after receiving approval on the content from their mentors. The format reviewer(s) will check the formatting for MLA and Antioch University style requirements electronically and advise students via email as to any formatting errors that must be corrected. Fourth or fifth-term students who are continuing into the Professional Development Semester (PDS) must receive approval on the content of their final manuscripts and cumulative annotated bibliographies from their final MFA term mentor. PDS students must also receive format approval on their signature page before submitting an original version of it to the Creative Writing Department Program Office during the residency subsequent to their 4th (or 5th term, for dual concentrations). PDS students will complete the formatting review for the remainder of their final manuscripts during their PDS semester.
The format reviewers will not proofread the papers or provide instruction on how to make corrections. Students are expected to refer to Antioch University MFA in Creative Writing guidelines (available on the Format Review site http://bit.ly/MFA-Format-Review and Sakai in the Resources folder), and other professional resources such as the MLA Handbook to learn about MLA formatting. Students must also fully proofread their papers prior to submitting them for the format review.
It is therefore advised that students have a final version of their manuscripts, approved by their mentor, ready for the format review approximately 6 weeks prior to the residency, or three weeks prior to the end of the term.
Students must receive approval from their assigned format reviewer prior to submitting papers to the Creative Writing Department Program Office during the residency.
Once the student receives final approval on the paper from the mentor and format reviewer, the student may then prepare the papers for submission in accordance to the guidelines posted on the Format Review site http://bit.ly/MFA-Format-Review and in Sakai Resources. Students will also be prompted to email electronic (PDF) copies of third term critical papers and final manuscripts to the Creative Writing Department Program Office.
For more information about formatting, please refer to the Critical Paper Guidelines, Final Manuscript Guidelines, and Annotated Bibliography guidelines posted on the Format Review site http://bit.ly/MFA- Format-Review and in Sakai Resources (Sakai Resources > Formatting Guidelines).
Graduating and Professional Development Semester Student Presentations
Graduating MFA and PDS students are required to deliver a 20-minute presentation during their final residency.
Students may choose to give a 20-minute talk about their field study and how it heightened their understanding of the writer as agent for social change or community engagement; or give a 20-minute 12 MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019
“writer’s talk” on some aspect of writing and/or craft, thus simulating the format of a panel presentation at a professional conference (an activity that many MFA find themselves performing regularly as part of their literary and/or academic careers). All topics must be reviewed and approved by MFA core faculty.
These 20-minute lectures will be offered primarily in the first two hours of the day on given residency mornings, with students grouped by topic/genre into panels of two or three per each hour to hour-and-a- half. For students attending these presentations, please note that your attendance for the entire panel of presentations, covering two or three successive 20-minute lectures, will be required.
Graduating and PDS Student Reading
During the final residency, each graduating or PDS student delivers a 15-minute public reading of their creative work. MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 13
POST-MFA CERTIFICATE IN THE TEACHING OF CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS
Note: Some of the Post-MFA Certificate residency requirements listed below may be waived if previously completed as part of the student’s MFA program of study.
Readings in the Pedagogy of Creative Writing
This two-hour seminar taken during the student’s first Post-MFA Certificate residency introduces and surveys contemporary theories, practices, textbooks, and professional organizations that support and inform the teaching of creative writing, with special attention to the evolution of discourse among theory, literature, and writing as uniquely defined areas of academia. A goal of this survey is to help students perceive developments in education, especially higher education, one of which includes outcomes-based assessment and the ways it has changed contemporary education. The seminar will conclude with informal discussion, during which time attendees can hone their interests toward specific areas of further reading, professional development, and research.
Teaching Academic Writing
Designed for students who aspire to teach composition, this seminar, taken during the student’s first Post- MFA Certificate residency, will include a history of writing instruction, current textbooks and figures in the field, thematic course design, writing across the curriculum, teaching different academic discourses, connecting critical reading to writing, and teaching writing as a process. Substantial bibliographies are provided.
Post-MFA Certificate Residency Workshop in Writing Pedagogy
This workshop examines the ways creative writing and composition may be taught. Examples include types of existing creative workshops, such as learner-centered versus teacher-centered workshop models, and ways to read and respond to manuscripts, including: personal responses, diagnostic responses, evaluative responses, interpretative responses, contextual responses, and envisioning responses. The class will examine each of these approaches and discover their distinctive strengths and weaknesses. They have the opportunity to draft and discuss professional documents such as sample assignments, syllabi, teaching philosophy, and curriculum vitae. The ultimate aim is to help aspiring or experienced teachers construct or revise their own informed approaches to the teaching of writing.
Paper on Writing Pedagogy
This requirement is fulfilled during the five-month project period, during which the student reads widely in the field of creative writing and composition pedagogy, and writes a paper (8-15 pages in length) that examines a pedagogical issue related to their reading and perhaps to their experience during the on-site supervised teaching placement.
Annotated Bibliography of Readings in the Field of Writing Pedagogy
Like the pedagogy paper, this bibliography is turned in at the conclusion of the student’s second and final Post-MFA Certificate residency. The annotated bibliography is compiled of required readings in pedagogy, as well as sources students read in the writing of their critical papers.
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Online Conference on Creative Writing Pedagogy
During the project period, Post-MFA Certificate students participate in an online conference on creative writing pedagogy that includes discussion of required texts, as well as various classroom-inspired issues related to teaching methodology.
On-Site Supervised Teaching Experience
During the five-month project period the student gains teaching experience in a supervised setting in their home community. The Chair of the MFA program assists the student in arranging a placement with an experienced instructor at a school or other forum where creative writing and/or composition are taught. Generally, the student should expect to teach at least ten weeks, the equivalent of one academic quarter. The On-Site Teaching Supervisor must provide a CV and be approved by the Creative Writing Department Chair.
Final Residency Pedagogy Presentation
At the student’s final residency, each student gives a presentation—a stand-alone lecture or panel presentation—that examines some specific aspect of the student’s reading, research, and supervised teaching during the Post-MFA Certificate project period. MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 15
REQUIRED ORIENTATIONS
Many different orientation seminars are offered at each residency to provide students with a working knowledge of specific required and optional aspects of the MFA and Post-MFA Certificate programs.
New Student Orientation, Parts I and II
These orientations provide an introduction on how to complete the degree or certificate program and information about the forms students use throughout the program.
Introduction to the Certificate Program and Readings in Pedagogy
In this seminar, general information is given about how to plan for and take appropriate course work, field study internships, and supervised training in the teaching of creative writing in order to obtain the Post- MFA Certificate in the Teaching of Creative Writing.
Orientation to Sakai and Antioch Gmail
Hands-on training is provided to acquaint new students and faculty with email and learning management systems that enable students, faculty, and the program office to communicate with one another and to construct an online community.
Q & A with Program Coordinators
New students are provided with an opportunity to discuss the logistics of the MFA program and the upcoming project period with Program Coordinators. Ethical guidelines and program rules for interacting in a positive and productive manner in an online community are also discussed.
Library Orientation
During the library orientation, students will be introduced to helpful AULA library research resources and support. The library provides resources and support for the following MFA and Post-MFA requirements: annotated bibliographies, the critical paper outline and bibliography, the critical paper, and the pedagogy paper. The librarian will also highlight additional library resources such as the Teaching & Learning Center, which provides tutoring services.
Orientation to the Field Study
This seminar provides students with information regarding how to conceptualize a field study project, choose an evaluator, and fill out the appropriate forms. Also, students use this time to propose and discuss their ideas for field studies.
Lunch Ticket Orientation
This is required for all new and continuing students who wish to serve on the staff of Lunch Ticket, the MFA literary and visual arts online journal. Lunch Ticket offers one option for fulfilling the MFA field study requirement.
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How to Prepare and Teach a 20-Minute Presentation
This is a required seminar for MFA students entering their final term and new Post-MFA students, and will detail how to prepare to give a 20-minute graduating student presentation. This seminar will offer helpful insights about time management on pedagogical strategies in preparation to present the graduating student lecture.
Orientation to the Final Term
This orientation is required for students about to enter their final term. Requirements for the final term and graduation will be detailed, including final manuscript length and formatting requirements, as well as directions for preparing for the graduating student presentation and graduating student reading. MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 17
RESIDENCY REQUIREMENTS BY COHORT
Required for Azure Cohort Required for Meadowlark Cohort Genre Writing Workshops* Genre Writing Workshops Arts, Culture, and Society II (if not yet taken) Reading As a Writer Delivery of graduating/PDS student presentation New Student Orientation, Parts I and II and graduating/PDS student reading Orientation to Sakai/Antioch Gmail Two community activities (at least one “brown- Group Meeting with Assigned Mentor bag” student reading and one graduating Individual Meeting with Assigned Mentor student/faculty/guest reading) Arts, Culture, and Society I *waived for students immediately entering the Orientation to the Field Study Post-MFA Certificate in the Teaching of Orientation to Lunch Ticket if student is Creative Writing program considering working on the MFA online journal as a field study Required for Aubergine Cohort Q&A with Program Coordinators Genre Writing Workshops Two community activities (at least one “brown- Group Meeting with Assigned Mentor bag” student reading and one graduating Individual Meeting with Assigned Mentor student/faculty/guest reading) How to Prepare and Teach a 20-Minute Presentation / Orientation to the Final Term Required for incoming PDS Cohort Arts, Culture, and Society II (if not yet taken) Genre Writing Workshops Group Meeting with Assigned Mentor Group Meeting with Assigned Mentor Two community activities (at least one “brown- Individual Meeting with Assigned Mentor bag” student reading and one graduating Arts, Culture, and Society II (if not yet taken) student/faculty/guest reading) Delivery of graduating/PDS student presentation and graduating/PDS student reading Required for Cardinal Cohort Two community activities (at least one “brown- Genre Writing Workshops bag” student reading and one graduating Group Meeting with Assigned Mentor student/faculty/guest reading) Individual Meeting with Assigned Mentor * only for PDS students enrolled in Option B Critical Paper Seminar (if not yet taken) Arts, Culture, and Society II (if not yet taken) Required for Post-MFA Cohort Two community activities (at least one “brown- Pedagogy Workshops bag” student reading and one graduating Post-MFA Certificate Check-in student/faculty/guest reading) Post-MFA Writing Pedagogy Lecture Panel(s) Orientation to Sakai/Antioch Gmail * Required for `Akohekohe Cohort Group Meeting with Assigned Mentor Genre Writing Workshops Individual Meeting with Assigned Mentor Cardinal Cohort First Term Circle Introduction to the Certificate Program and Group Meeting with Assigned Mentor Readings in Pedagogy Individual Meeting with Assigned Mentor How to Prepare and Teach a 20-Minute Critical Paper Seminar Presentation* The Art of Translation Seminar Teaching Academic Writing* Arts, Culture, and Society II (if not yet taken) Methods of Teaching Creative Writing Online Orientation to the Field Study (if not yet taken) Q&A with Program Coordinators* Two community activities (at least one “brown- *waived if taken at a previous Antioch residency bag” student reading and one graduating student/faculty/guest reading)
18 MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019
THE READING MATERIAL
The required and recommended reading for the residency is listed after each seminar, panel, and presentation description. Students may purchase books at their local booksellers or from online vendors. There is no bookstore on campus.
Selected materials listed as being contained in the “Reader” are available on this Google Site: https://sites.google.com/antioch.edu/june19reader.
You can also type this short link in your browser (case sensitive): bit.ly/Jun19Reader).
MENTOR SELECTION
Early in each residency, all MFA students attend genre-specific "Meet the Mentors" panel discussions to interview faculty members about their practices as mentors. Students then submit their top four mentor choices for the next semester to the program office. Although every effort will be made to place students with the mentors of their choice, it may happen that a student will be assigned to someone not listed on the form. Please note that students who are further along in their program are likely to receive higher priority in the assignment of mentors.
In addition to student preference and seniority, other variables are also considered. Students are advised to read the work of faculty mentors to gain a better understanding of their styles of writing and their range of topics. Students work with a different mentor each project period; however, students may request once to work with the same mentor for two semesters during their time in the program.
During the residency, students meet individually and in groups with their faculty mentor to discuss and design their learning plans for the project period. New students are oriented to the program model at these meetings and counseled in how to meet degree requirements. High value is also placed on students being resources for one another.
MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 19
MFA PROGRAM DOCUMENTATION TIMETABLE
Each student’s progress in the MFA program is largely self-documented. You are required to submit completed documents at various intervals throughout the semester, as detailed below:
Title of Document Graduating Students All Other Students Final Manuscript (Azure cohort Surnames beginning A-I: only) Due 9:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on n/a • Signed by mentor, original(s) and Tuesday, June 18, Program Office electronic copy to Creative Writing (4th Floor) Dept. Program Office • New PDS students turn in signed Surnames beginning J-Z: title/signature page only Due 9:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Cumulative Annotated Wednesday, June 19, Program Bibliography (Azure cohort only) Office (4th Floor) • Original to Creative Writing Dept. Program Office Critical Paper (Aubergine cohort Surnames beginning A-I: only) n/a Due 9:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on • Signed by mentor & bound Tuesday, June 18, Program Office original and electronic copy to (4th Floor) Creative Writing Dept. Program Office Surnames beginning J-Z: Due 9:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday, June 19, Program Office (4th Floor) Project Period Contract Hard copy to Program Coordinators’ • Signed original or scanned copy of n/a mailbox in Campus Services the signed original to Creative (A1030) or a scanned copy of the Writing Dept. Program Office signed original by email • Copy to faculty mentor [email protected] as a PDF attachment due by 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, June 22 Residency Learning Analysis Hard copy due to Program Due as a PDF or Word attachment • Due by email as a PDF or Word Coordinators’ mailbox in Campus to [email protected] attachment to Services (A1030) or as a PDF or by Monday, July 7, 2019 [email protected] Word attachment by email to • Copy to faculty mentor [email protected] • Include all seminars, writing before 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, June workshops, orientations, and 22. readings • No more than five pages Residency Review Survey posted by Program Office Survey posted by Program Office • Is not part of student’s permanent due Monday, July 7, 2019 due Monday, July 7, 2019 academic record • For information purposes only
20 MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019
Title of Document Certificate Completion Students All Other Students Midterm Self-Evaluation Survey posted by Program Office • Is not part of student’s permanent n/a around September 15, 2019 academic record (Deadline will be posted on Sakai ) • For information purposes only • No form used Project Period Student Learning Due as a PDF or Word attachment Analysis n/a to [email protected] • Due by email as a PDF or Word by Sunday, November 17, 2019 attachment to [email protected] • No more than three pages • Copy to faculty mentor (email)
Annotated Bibliography Due by Sunday, November 17, • List of all books read during n/a 2019, directly to faculty mentor. project period cited in MLA format • For your mentor only
Student Evaluation of Mentor Survey posted by Program Office Faculty n/a due on or before Friday, December • Not part of student’s permanent 5, 2019 academic record • Confidential Field Study Submission #1 Submitted together by email or by • Signed original of Field Study n/a mail to core faculty preferably Contract before 2nd month of student’s 2nd • Field Study Evaluator’s Résumé semester
Field Study Submission #2 Submitted together by email or mail • Signed original of Field Study n/a to core faculty field study mentor Student Learning Analysis preferably before end of student’s • Field Study Evaluator’s final 2nd semester evaluation Genre Workshop Submission Submitted (properly formatted, via for December 2019 residency n/a Antioch Gmail attachment) no later than October 1, 2019 Post-MFA Certificate Program Submitted to Admissions Office on Application (Graduating MFA or before March 15, 2019 (deadline n/a students only) is flexible)
Dual Concentration Form Due to Program Office by midpoint (if applicable) n/a of student’s 3rd semester
Format Review of critical papers, Review runs approximately 4-5 Review runs approximately 4-5 final manuscripts, and cumulative weeks prior to end of project period weeks prior to end of project period annotated bibliographies Mailing address: Creative Writing Department Program Office Antioch University Los Angeles 400 Corporate Pointe Culver City, CA 90230 Email: [email protected] MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 21
POST-MFA CERTIFICATE PROGRAM DOCUMENTATION TIMETABLE
Each student’s progress in the Post-MFA program is largely self-documented. You are required to submit completed documents at various intervals throughout the semester, as detailed below:
Title of Document Certificate Completion Students All Other Students Pedagogy Critical Paper n/a • Signed by mentor, original(s) and Due at the Post MFA Exit Meeting electronic copy to Creative Writing Saturday, June 15, 2019 Dept. Program Office
Cumulative Annotated n/a Bibliography Due at the Post MFA Exit Meeting • Original to Creative Writing Dept. Saturday, June 15, 2019 Program Office • No signature required
PLACEHOLDER Project Paper “placeholder copy” due before Period/On-Site Supervised n/a 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, June 22, 2019, Teaching Contract to the Program Coordinators’ • Signed original to Creative Writing mailbox in Campus Services (A1030) Program Office • Copy to faculty mentor
FINAL Project Period/On-Site Final version due one week after the Supervised Teaching Contract n/a approval of an on-site teaching & Curriculum Vita of Approved supervisor by the Creative Writing On-Site Teaching Supervisor Dept. Chair • Signed original to Creative Writing Dept. Program Office • Copy to faculty mentor
Residency Student Learning Due as a PDF or Word attachment to Analysis None due [email protected] by • Due by email as a PDF or Word Monday, July 7, 2019 attachment to [email protected] • Copy to faculty mentor • Include all seminars, writing workshops, orientations, and readings • No more than five pages
Residency Review Survey posted by Program Office Survey posted by Program Office due • Is not part of student’s permanent due Monday, July 7, 2019 Monday, July 7, 2019 academic record • For information purposes only
22 MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019
Title of Document Certificate Completion Students All Other Students Midterm Self-Evaluation Google Form posted by Program • Is not part of student’s permanent n/a Office around September 15, 2019 academic record (Deadline will be posted on Sakai ) • For information purposes only • No form used
Project Period Student Learning Due as a PDF or Word attachment to Analysis n/a [email protected] by • Due by email as a PDF or Word Sunday, November 17, 2019 attachment to [email protected] • No more than three pages • Copy to faculty mentor (email)
Annotated Bibliography Due by Sunday, November 17, 2019, •List of all books read during project n/a directly to faculty mentor. (Please do period cited in MLA format not mail a copy to the Program • For your mentor only; not Office.) submitted to Program Office
Student Evaluation of Mentor Survey posted by Program Office due Faculty n/a by Friday, December 5, 2019. • Not part of student’s permanent academic record • Confidential
Mailing address: Creative Writing Department Program Office Antioch University Los Angeles 400 Corporate Pointe Culver City, CA 90230 Email: [email protected] MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 23
SUMMER/FALL 2019 RESIDENCY SCHEDULE June 2019 Residency: June 13 through June 22 All activities in bold are required. Dates and times are subject to change. Seminar locations are posted at the residency.
Thursday, June 13, 2019
3:00-3:30 Faculty Nosh ‘n’ Chat 3:30-5:15 All Faculty Meeting 3:30-4:30 Financial Aid Meeting for New Students (Optional) 5:00-5:30 Campus Tour for New Students (Optional) 5:30-7:30 New MFA Student Orientation, Part I, with Faculty (Required for Meadowlark cohort)
Friday, June 14, 2019
8:00-8:45 12-Step Meeting 8:15-9:15 Arrival and Student Check-in 9:00-11:00 Reading Like a Writer: How Writers Read in Order to Learn How to Write, with Bernadette Murphy (required for Meadowlark cohort) 9:00-11:00 The Power of the Quiet Poem, with Blas Falconer 11:00-1:00 Drop-in Late Registration (Integrated Student Services) 11:30-12:50 Buddy Lunch (for new students and their assigned buddies)
Meadowlark Cohort (See handout in residency folder given during New Student Orientation Part I to determine your group) First Meadowlark group: 1:00-2:00 New Student Orientation, Part II, with Program Coordinators 2:25-3:40 Orientation to Sakai and Antioch Gmail, with Ken Pienkos
Second Meadowlark group: 1:00-2:15 Orientation to Sakai and Antioch Gmail, with Ken Pienkos 2:25-3:25 New Student Orientation, Part II, with Program Coordinators
Required for `Akohekohe cohort (Optional for Cardinal cohort, recommended for Post-MFA students): 1:00-3:00 Critical Paper Seminar, with Curt Duffy
Aubergine Cohort 1:00-3:00 How to Prepare and Teach a 20-Minute Presentation/ Orientation to the Final Term, with Bernadette Murphy (required for Aubergine cohort and new Post-MFA Certificate students)
3:45-4:45 Introduction to Genre Writing Workshops 5:00-6:00 Dinner and Welcome (all students and faculty), hosted by Victoria Chang and Bernadette Murphy 6:15 Azure Readings (3): Gabriella Souza Emmett, Diane Gottlieb, Jasper Henderson Faculty Reading: Tananarive Due and Maggie Smith
24 MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019
Saturday, June 15, 2019
8:00-8:45 12-Step Meeting 9:00-10:00 MFA Library Orientation, with Ken Pienkos, Reference and Instruction Librarian 9:00-10:00 Post-MFA Writing Pedagogy Lecture Panel (required for Post-MFA students; open to all students) (2), evaluated by Tammy Lechner How to Interview a Room, with Kelly Ian Hobkirk Ways to Help Millennial Students be More Engaged: Social Media and the Creative Writing Classroom, with John Charles Reedburg 9:00-11:00 Scene-Building Tactics, with Tananarive Due 9:00-11:00 Then and Now: On Time and Tense in Memoir and Fiction, with Ana Maria Spagna 9:00-11:00 The Art of Translation, with Dan Bellm (required for `Akohekohe cohort) 10:10-12:10 Arts, Culture, & Society I: The Writer at Work—The Writer as Literary Citizen, Natashia Deón (required for Meadowlark cohort) 12:10-1:20 Lunch Break 12:15-1:15 Brown Bag Student Readings (5), hosted by Carol Potter 12:15-1:15 Post-MFA graduating students exit meeting with Tammy Lechner (required for graduating Post-MFA students) 12:15-1:15 Lunch Ticket editorial debriefing (Strongly recommended for Winter/Spring 2019 Lunch Ticket staffers; Antioch will provide lunch) 1:20-2:20 Lunch Ticket orientation (Required for students who wish to serve as staff of the MFA online journal Lunch Ticket, and are new to the journal. Lunch Ticket is one option for fulfilling the MFA field study requirement.) 2:20-3:10 `Akohekohe Cohort First Term Circle, with MFA Faculty and Staff 2:20-3:20 Introduction to the Certificate Program and Readings in Pedagogy, with Tammy Lechner (required for students interested in pursuing the Post-MFA Certificate in the Teaching of Creative Writing) 3:30-5:30 WYP Guest Seminar: Inspiring Radical Creativity Empowering Young, Diverse Voices to Tell Their Own Stories, with Gabby Rivera 3:30-5:30 Rescript Recast, Revamp, Resuscitate, Rescue, Render, Rewrite: The Art of Re-vision, with Carol Potter 5:45 Azure Readings (3): Jahzerah S. Brooks, Rosemary Contreras, Sara Voigt Guest Reading: Gabby Rivera, hosted by Victoria Chang 7:15-8:45 Citron Cohort 10th Anniversary Reading
Sunday, June 16, 2019
8:00-8:45 12-Step Meeting 9:00-10:30 Azure Graduating & PDS Student Presentations, evaluated by Alistair McCartney (3): Pride, Pretty Looks, and Pocket Change: How Mr. Darcy Has Managed to Remain Relevant for Over 200 Years, with Rosemary Contreras Haunted Fiction – Beyond the Epistolary Novel, with Jasper Henderson Is That Female Character in Your Creative Work a Fully Realized Woman or Really Just a Sexy Lamp?, with Sara Voigt 9:00-10:30 Azure Graduating & PDS Student Presentations, evaluated by Gayle Brandeis (3): From Genre to Genre: How Different Mediums Influence and Transform Each Other, with Juan Esteban Cajigas The Dead Girl, Urban Legends, and Other Unobtainable Grails: How Women Get Pushed to the Margins of Our Own Stories, with Kori Kessler MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 25
Great Expectations, Tartan Plaid, and Anarchy: How the Victorian Age Inspired Punk and How to Look to the Past to Determine Our Creative Future, with Gabriella Souza Emmett 10:40-11:40 “Meet the Mentors” Panels 12:00-2:00 Lunch Break and Mentor Office Hours 2:00-5:00 Genre Writing Workshops 5:00-6:00 Break 6:00 Azure Readings (3): Vanessa Baden Kelly, Stephanie Jaeger, Lisa Lepore Faculty Reading: Blas Falconer and Sarah Manguso, hosted by Alistair McCartney
Monday, June 17, 2019
8:00-8:45 12-Step Meeting By 9:00 Mentor selection forms due to Program Coordinator’s office or MFA Program Coordinator’s mailbox 9:00-11:00 Essaying the Essay Form, with Gayle Brandeis 9:00-11:00 The Poetic Tradition and the Woke Generation, with Jaswinder Bolina 11:00-12:30 Lunch Break 11:20-12:20 The Art of Translation Brown Bag Student Readings, hosted by Dan Bellm 1:00 Mentor Assignments Posted 12:30-2:30 Fiction Guest Seminar: Failing Better: On Revising, with R.O. Kwon 12:30-2:30 Media & Information Literacy: Critically Engaging in a Global Environment, with Ken Pienkos 2:40-3:40 Group Meeting with Assigned Mentors for Summer/Fall 2019 3:50-5:50 Life Writing: The Nothing That Is a/k/a Writing About Almost Nothing, with Sarah Manguso 3:50-5:50 Tackling Tragedy In Young Adult Fiction With Different Mediums, with Lilliam Rivera 5:50-6:20 Break 6:20 Azure Reading (4): Kristi Ericson, Sara Miller, Tyler Pierce, Daniela Rossell Guest Reading: R.O. Kwon, hosted by Victoria Chang
Tuesday, June 18, 2019
8:00-8:45 12-Step Meeting 9:00-1:30 Final Manuscript, Annotated Bibliography, and Critical Paper check-in (required for Azures and Aubergines: surnames beginning with A-I) 9:00-10:30 Azure Graduating & PDS Student Presentations, evaluated by Francesca Lia Block (3): The Real Fantasy in Black Romance, with Jahzerah S. Brooks The Role of “I” in Narrative Nonfiction, with Diane Gottlieb Why Wouldn’t You? Fiction as Academic Source Material, with Lisa Lepore 9:00-10:30 Azure Graduating & PDS Student Presentations, evaluated by Gayle Brandeis (3): Writing the Other Part 1: Not So Pure Imagination - Examining Whiteness in Contemporary American Creative Nonfiction, with Kate Carmody Writing the Other Part 2: Whose Lens Matters –The Burden of Authenticity and Reception When Ethnic Minorities Write “Others, with Vanessa Baden Kelly Co-Laboring: the Creative Cross-Disciplinary Practice, with Erica Charis-Molling 10:40-12:40 The Agony and Ecstasy of Dialogue, Wrestling Character vs. Plot, with Gary Phillips 10:40-12:40 Structure as Architecture, with Ingrid Rojas Contreras 12:40-2:00 Lunch Break 12:50-1:50 Brown Bag Student Readings (5), hosted by Ana Maria Spagna 26 MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019
1:00-1:30 20-Minute Guided Meditation with AULA MA in Psychology Core Faculty Matthew Silverstein (open to students and faculty) 2:00-4:00 Writers at Work Guest Seminar: From Writer to Author: Creating a Roadmap to Publication, with David Groff 4:10-5:00 Orientation to the Field Study, with Bernadette Murphy (required for Meadowlark cohort, optional for `Akohekohe cohort) 4:00-5:10 Break 5:10 All Cohort Open Mic Reading Faculty Reading: Lilliam Rivera, Ana Maria Spagna, hosted by Alistair McCartney
Wednesday, June 19, 2019
8:00-8:45 12-Step Meeting 9:00-1:30 Final Manuscript, Annotated Bibliography, and Critical Paper check-in (required for Azures and Aubergines: surnames beginning with J-Z) 9:00-11:00 Arts, Culture, & Society II: Ignoring The End Of The World: Why We Are Not Writing About Global Warming, with Sharman Apt Russell 9:00-11:00 Show Your Thinking: Wonder and (Re)Discovery in Contemporary Poetry, with Maggie Smith 11:00-1:00 Lunch Break 11:10-12:50 Lunch Ticket Brown Bag Training #1 (required for students appointed to work on the next issue of Lunch Ticket; bring your lunch) 11:30-12:50 Brown Bag Student Readings (6), hosted by Carol Potter 1:00-4:00 Genre Writing Workshops 5:00-7:00 “Antioch MFA Night Out” Jamaica Bay Inn
Thursday, June 20, 2019
8:00-8:45 12-Step Meeting 9:00-10:00 Azure Graduating & PDS Student Presentations, evaluated by Ana Maria Spagna (2): Writing Credible Characters Without Exposing Genitalia, with Kristi Ericson The Tension Curve: Somatic Experiencing, Tension Management, and Dramatic Tension in Storytelling, with Tyler Pierce 9:00-10:30 Azure Graduating & PDS Student Presentations, evaluated by Carol Potter (3): The Hybrid Novel: Why Writers for Adult Readers Might Choose to Incorporate Graphic Devices in Narrative Text, with Stephanie Jaeger Writing the Young Adult or Middle Grade Graphic Novel: Understanding Sequential Art, Script Format and Structure, with Sara Miller Write to See: The Interplay Between Images and the Written Word in the Age of the Internet, with Daniela Rossell 10:40-12:40 House on Mango Street: Writing A Coming of Age Novel in Poetic Vignettes, with Francesca Lia Block 10:40-12:40 Nothing is One Thing: Hybrids in Creative Nonfiction, with Chris Feliciano Arnold 12:40-1:30 Lunch Break 12:50-1:30 Brown Bag Student Readings (3), hosted by Francesca Lia Block 12:50-2:50 Lunch Ticket Brown Bag Training #2: Web Training (required for students appointed to work on the next issue of Lunch Ticket; bring your lunch) 1:40-2:40 Life after Antioch: A Brown Bag Lunch Discussion for Graduating Students and Visiting Alumni, moderated by Victoria Chang. MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 27
1:40-2:40 Microsoft Word Formatting Review, with Ken Pienkos, Reference and Instruction Librarian 2:00-5:00 Lilliam Rivera’s genre writing workshop 2:50-4:50 Reasons to Slow Down Your Narrative and Ways to Do It, with Jim Krusoe 2:50-4:50 Creative Nonfiction Guest Seminar: The Story Keeps Changing: Writing a Narrative Amid Shifting News, with Isha Sesay 4:50-5:30 Break 5:30 Azure Readings (2): Esteban Cajigas, Kori Kessler Faculty Reading: Ingrid Rojas Contreras. Guest Reading: Isha Sesay, hosted by Bernadette Murphy
Friday, June 21, 2019
8:00-8:45 12-Step Meeting 9:00-10:00 Q&A with Program Coordinators (Required for Meadowlark cohort and new Post- MFA cohort) 9:00-9:30 Azure Graduating & PDS Student Presentations, evaluated by Ana Maria Spagna (1): On Character, with Josephine Fogle-Rain 10:10-11:10 MFA Library Orientation, with Reference and Instruction Librarian 10:10-12:10 The Inaugural Scene: The Birthplace of Writing, with Alistair McCartney 10:10-12:10 The Role of the Lyric Mode and Segmented Structure in Social Justice Activism Essays, with Christine Hale 12:20-1:20 Mentor/Mentee Brown Bag Lunch (bring your lunch) 1:30-3:30 Writers at Work Guest Seminar: Behind the Scenes of Book Publishing: How to Navigate the Next Steps to Getting Your Book Out Into the World, with J.L. Stermer 1:30-3:30 The Benefits and Perils of Interweaving History and Fiction: or Tips for Writing Historical Fiction, with Victoria Patterson 4:00 Azure Readings (3): Kate Carmody, Erica Charis-Molling, Josephine Fogle-Rain Faculty Reading: Jaswinder Bolina and Chris Feliciano Arnold, hosted by Francesca Lia Block 5:30-7:00 Faculty Night In
Saturday, June 22, 2019
9:00-12:00 Genre Writing Workshops 12:00-1:30 Lunch & Closing Circle (lunch provided by Antioch) 1:30-3:00 Farewell to Steve Heller 4:00 Project Period Contracts due to Program Coordinators’ mailbox in Campus Services (A1030) or as PDF or Word attachments by email to [email protected] before 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, June 22 (RSLAs due from Azure Cohort).
Sunday, June 23, 2019
10:00 a.m. MFA Commencement Ceremony and Reception (UCLA Royce Hall, 10475 Dickson Court, Los Angeles, CA 90095)
28 MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019
SUMMER/FALL 2019 RESIDENCY LEARNING ACTIVITY DESCRIPTIONS June 2019 Residency: June 13 through June 22
Seminars and student panel presentations are listed in chronological order. Orientations, which do not count as learning activities, are described on pages 15 and 16. Dates and times are subject to change. Room locations are posted at the residency.
Reading Like A Writer: How Writers Read Friday, June 14, 2019 In Order to Learn How to Write 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. Bernadette Murphy
This seminar, strongly recommended for students in their first two terms, will focus on three areas of reading like a writer. Part one will consider all the ways we can read critically and learn more about what we read by being conscious of word choice, sentence structure, characters, paragraphs, etc. In part two, we’ll consider how to use these tools to prepare for our genre writing workshops, including how to mark up a text, how to offer helpful comments, and how to address the issues you see in the workshop format. And in part three we’ll explore in a general way the writing of annotations – how a careful and critical analysis of what you read can serve you as a writer. Bring an open mind and a critical eye!
No Required Reading. Handouts will be provided.
The Power of the Quiet Poem Friday, June 14, 2019 Blas Falconer 9:00 to 11:00 a.m.
As an editor and as a teacher, I read a lot of poems that insist on my complete attention because of their great urgency, poems inspired by narratives operatic in scale, poems in a voice of justified outrage or grief, every cell on edge. These poems are often necessary, having a meaningful and profound impact on readers; however, as important as these poems are, this sounding of alarm can become a mannerism, a writer’s go-to. When this happens, the heightened state can come across as self-serving, ego driven, leaving even the sympathetic reader feeling manipulated. Readers who have come to expect the drama, the booming voice, the fireworks, can become desensitized to range, to nuances, skimming over the small gesture. In this seminar, I’d like for us to draw our attention to the quiet poem, its reach and power. I want to explore what happens to us as poets and as readers when we lean into the poem that comes, not as a thundering storm, but as a whisper.
Critical Paper Seminar Friday, June 14, 2019 Curt Duffy 1:00 to 3:00 p.m.
The critical paper can be a challenging degree requirement. It can be an immobile walrus, an ant colony with mass hysteria, or a rapidly distending Latin-speaking amoeba. It doesn’t have to be any of those things. Here are some basic heuristics I have found helpful with academic writing:
MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 29
1. Don’t try to be Nietzsche. Nietzsche wrote some pretty groundbreaking stuff. But then he went mad. 2. Pick a direction and go with it. At this point in the game (graduate school), your method of inquiry is more important than the inquiry itself. 3. Limit your scope. You could probably get five critical papers out of the opening paragraph of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. 4. Avoid Freud. Freud was right about a few things; he was wrong about a lot more. 5. Seek to discover rather than judge. Pretend you are Darwin. Your topic is your Galapagos. Keep a research journal and blend your findings into your paper. 6. Consider first-person research and writing. I just did. 7. Don’t forget ICE (Introduce, Cite, Explain). 8. Hire an MLA editor if necessary. Really.
In this brief but essential orientation, each of you will propose a few critical paper topics and generate research questions for one of them. I will introduce you to the critical paper’s writing process, research expectations, and project flow. Each of you will leave with a plan for making your critical paper a manageable, and perhaps even slightly enjoyable, endeavor.
Required Reading (in Reader): Mendelsohn, Daniel. “A Critic’s Manifesto.” The New Yorker, 28 Aug. 2012, www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/a-critics-manifesto.
Williams, Jeffrey J. “The New Modesty in Literary Criticism.” The Chronicle Review, 05 Jan. 2015, www.chronicle.com/article/The-New-Modesty-in-Literary/150993/.
Recommended Reading: Modern Language Association. MLA Handbook. 8th ed., Modern Language Association, 2016. Print. ISBN 978-1603292627.
Post-MFA Writing Pedagogy Lecture Panel (2) Saturday, June 15, 2019 Kelly Ian Hobkirk, John Charles Reedburg 9:00 to 10:00 a.m.
How to Interview a Room Kelly Ian Hobkirk
How many specific rooms can you recall from works of fiction? Try a web search for “famous rooms in fiction,” and you’ll find precious few. Why is that? We spend the vast majority of our lives in rooms! The tremendous opportunity to connect with readers using sensory details in rooms is often squandered. Heard the phrase, if these walls could talk? Well, they can, especially if you speak their language.
In this workshop demonstration, you will participate in an active learning exercise providing a method to quickly create realistic sensory details that involves having a productive Q&A with a room or place (even if you’ve never been there). By class end, you will be able to teach students how to perform this exercise themselves, so they can create a tightly focused nucleus of real elements for building sensory details in scenes. Prepare to observe, think, and connect.
No readings required.
30 MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019
Ways to Help Millenial Students be More Engaged: Social Media and the Creative Writing Classroom John Charles Reedburg
In this fast-paced cyber world mediated by on-line social networking, the method of content delivery employed by writing teachers in the classroom can either bore or excite today's millennial generation students.
This presentation will illustrate how educators can bring a multimodal approach into practice by using social media as content delivery platforms for activities, exercises and assignments. We'll examine how specific cyber platforms – such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Google, Skype, blogs and content management systems – can develop a dynamic student-centered learning community while elevating individual student's authority, motivation and engagement.
No Readings Required
Scene-Building Tactics Saturday, June 15, 2019 Tananarive Due 9:00 to 11:00 a.m.
Before writers can master great stories or novels, they must learn to consistently create sturdy and intriguing scenes to stair-step their way to a completed work. Longer works are only as effective as their individual scenes. Due, the instructor, will highlight tactics meant to bring scenes quickly to life and create narrative momentum, especially through choices in setting, visual symbols, actions and dialogue. Instead of scenes that only establish settings or dutifully convey information, Due will describe scene- building tactics to help build or deflate tension, pull double or triple duty, teach us more about the characters, and reflect the overarching theme of the story. Each scene has to earn its place in a story. Students will gain tools to learn how to enliven their writing through improved scenes.
This lecture will include a brief writing exercise based on a lecturer prompt.
No required reading.
Then and Now: On Time and Tense Saturday, June 15, 2019 in Memoir and Fiction 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. Ana Maria Spagna
Not every narrative—fiction or nonfiction—moves through time chronologically, but telling a story “out of order” runs the risk of confusing or frustrating readers. To make a non-linear story work, we need at least two things: a clear purpose for each time leap and effective strategies for cuing the reader as to both where we are in time, and why. A tall order! Luckily, in verb tense, we have a malleable tool, one that can be employed in a variety of creative ways. In this seminar we’ll read and discuss examples from contemporary memoir and fiction paying close attention to verb tense choices (what’s the effect of present tense vs. past tense? what about future or past perfect or conditional?) and switches in search of specific ways to move more seamlessly through time. We’ll intersperse discussion with short writing prompts to try out different techniques.
No required reading. MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 31
The Art of Translation Saturday, June 15, 2019 Dan Bellm 9:00 to 11:00 a.m.
Literary translation is a fine art that combines the skills of close reading and disciplined writing - an excellent skill for any reader or writer to develop, and an incomparable way to encounter the world of words that extends far past our borders. This seminar, recquired for students whi will be taking the 10- week online “Art of Translation” conference during the coming project period, will serve as an introduction to that conference. At the seminar, we will briefly review some translation theory; discuss our own multilingual experiences; try our hand at translating a brief text ourselves; and as time permits, compare multiple translations of a literary text or two. It is not necessary to know a foreign language in order to take the seminar or participate in the conference.
Over the course of the 10-week conference, we will translate brief works of poetry or prose from such languages as French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Nahuatl, Polish, Portugese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, and/or Zapotex. (Yes, we can!) Each week, along with the text in question, students will receive a basic glossary or line-by-line trot that will help them create a “literal,” rough-draft, first translation. Then, in conversation with fellow students in the online forum, each will develop a second, more refined version of the text. Since translation is an art of interpretation, no single version will be the “right” or “correct” one: engaging in dialogue online,, and learning from how others have tackled the same assignment, will be a central part of the course.
Recommended Reading: Don Ball, ed. The Art of Empathy: Celebrating Literature in Translation (National Endowment for the Arts, 2014), http://arts.gov/sites/default/files/The%20Art%20of%20Empathy%20Translation.pdf. Bellos, David. Is that a Fish in your Ear? Translation and the Meaning of Everything. Faber & Faber, 2011. Print. ISBN 978-0865478763 Biguenet, John & Rainer Schulte, eds. The Craft of Translation. University of Chicago Press, 1989. Print. ISBN 978-0226048697 Grossman, Edith. Why Translation Matters. Yale University Press, 2010. Print. ISBN 978-0300171303. Steiner, George. After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation. Oxford University Press, 1992. Print. ISBN 978-0192880932 Weinberger, Eliot & Octavio Paz. Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei: How a Chinese Poem is Translated. Moyer Bell, 1987. Print. ISBN 978-0911226202.
Arts, Culture, & Society I: Saturday, June 15, 2019 The Writer at Work—The Writer as Literary Citizen 10:10 to 12:10 p.m. Natashia Deón
As writers, as artists, as teachers, we do not merely consume and/or create content. We participate in culture-making. We traffic in images, characters, lyrics and stories that help shape how we understand and think about ourselves and those around us. We unearth histories, clarify the present and imagine futures. With all that in mind, what does it mean to be a literary citizen, to think about writing as both a matter of individual expression and part of a larger discussion of culture? What is our responsibility to the literary community—to one another as human beings and as colleagues? Must we hold that responsibility? If so, how does that affect not just how and what we write but also other activities, such as reading, reviewing, teaching, and how we conduct ourselves in public spaces, especially in professional 32 MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 capacities? In this seminar, we will discuss the nature of literary citizenship. In part, the class will address how writers build careers: teach, lecture, review, participate in and critique the cultural dialogue, as well as write. We will also discuss how such activities fit together in a cohesive approach to literature as practice and art, no matter what our subject matter. Such a process, of course, is different for everyone, depending on our interests and concerns. And yet, we share an understanding that literature is about empathy; when it is working, it allows us to inhabit (and understand) a multitude of worldviews. But, as importantly, how do we protect our wellbeing (and our writing!) when citizenship demands are placed upon us? How can we find joy and purpose in work that feels adjacent to writing, and how are those adjacencies related to our work? What social justice concerns do you spend time and/or resources addressing? Which journals, magazines, organizations and/or websites do you regularly support? Such relationships (reader/publication, writer/editor, etc.) are at the core of literary citizenship. Students should come prepared to share and discuss their own readings, ideas and actions (Seminar description written by Khadijah Queen).
WYP Guest Seminar: Inspiring Radical Creativity Saturday, June 15, 2019 Empowering Young, Diverse Voices to Tell Their 3:30 to 5:30 p.m Own Stories Gabby Rivera . To Gabby Rivera, it’s vital to encourage people of all backgrounds to create, daydream, and tell their own stories—and in so doing, open a radical space for creativity. Now, in this affecting talk, Rivera unpacks how she navigates the world as a queer, Latinx, millennial woman; how she incorporates her heritage into her writing; how she strives to be a thoughtful ally for others, and how she celebrates the healing power of community. This is a talk about privilege and power, and what we can do to support the ideas of diverse artists working with progressive politics. It asks difficult questions: What if this country made everyone—people of all colors, cultures, orientations, abilities, and genders—feel at home? What if the traumas experienced by marginalized peoples could be reconciled and incorporated into a broader, richer definition of America? What if our non-white ancestors weren’t erased, but represented in pop culture, in our textbooks and classrooms? And what if we could privilege difference as a site of wonder, laughter and celebration, and not as something to fear?
Rescript Recast, Revamp, Resuscitate, Saturday, June 15, 2019 Rescue, Render, Rewrite: The Art of Re-vision 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. Carol Potter
In this seminar we will explore the art of re-vision--how to operate on your poems to make them stronger, sweeter, tougher; how to avoid killing them as you dig into them; when to revise, how much to revise; whom to listen to; what to listen for.
We will sample famous and not so famous revisions and we’ll explore strategies, concerns, and some of the hazards to avoid. Included in this will be discussion of P.O.V., line break, meter, form, voice, tone, titles, endings, font, white space on the page—all of it.
And at the end, if there’s time perhaps we’ll perform a group revision.
No required reading.
MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 33
Azure Graduating & PDS Student Presentations (3) Sunday, June 16, 2019 Rosemary Contreras, Jasper Henderson, Sara Voigt 9:00 to 10:30 a.m.
Pride, Pretty Looks, and Pocket Change: How Mr. Darcy Has Managed to Remain Relevant for Over 200 Years Rosemary Contreras
Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy ranks amongst the most favored of favored literary heroes. Pride and Prejudice has inspired dozens of adaptations, sequels, prequels, dating books, and films. Why and how has Mr. Darcy captured female reader’s attention for over two centuries?! And would the reasons female readers admired Mr. Darcy in the 1800’s still ring true in modern times? Trying to seek a connection between two centuries of readers, this seminar delves into the reasons for Mr. Darcy’s long-lasting appeal based on human evolutionary psychology and Darwinian principles. This lecture/discussion tests some of those principles to try to scratch the surface of Mr. Darcy’s je ne sais quoi, and find the salient features in a strong and memorable protagonist.
Recommended Reading: Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice. Modern Library, 1995.
Haunted Fiction – Beyond the Epistolary Novel Jasper Henderson
Writers often talk about narrative voice, but in this presentation we will discuss the traces of an imagined reader that haunt some fictions. When fictional narrators tell stories through letters to friends—or a series of interviews in an oral history project, an unusual employee handbook, a commentary on a fictional poem, an article in a peculiar science journal, or a series of poems commissioned by an authoritarian state—readers get the experience of snooping on something that (supposedly) isn’t intended for us. According to the texts’ internal logic, they were written by one party and intended to be read by a specific audience. Instead we find ourselves reading them. As readers of these texts we find ourselves part voyeur, part detective. And it’s fun! Works like Frankenstein, The Savage Detectives, World War Z, Pale Fire, The Color Purple, and “The Call of Cthulhu,” all use this narrative device to great effect.
This literary technique has long been called “the epistolary novel.” But there’s no reason we should restrict ourselves to letters or limit its use to novels. In the age of Found Footage (think The Blair Witch Project or “Petscop”) and Creepypasta (like Slenderman), we’re ready for a new generation of literary texts, from poems and stories to memoirs and beyond, haunted by their missing imagined readers. In this presentation we will define the new term “haunted fiction,” examine a broad spectrum of examples and edge cases, consider the technique’s place in the age of “fake news,” and use it to explore new projects and possibilities.
Recommended Reading: “The Author of the Acacia Seeds” by Ursula K. Le Guin
“Black Box” by Jennifer Egan https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/06/04/black-box-2
“Petscop” (video, 9:07) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6e6RK8o1fcs
Handouts will be provided.
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Is That Female Character in Your Creative Work a Fully Realized Woman or Really Just a Sexy Lamp? Sara Voigt
Kelly Sue DeConnick came up with the Sexy Lamp Test in 2012 in which she posits, “If you can replace your female character with a sexy lamp and the story still basically works, maybe you need another draft.” Her test is still relevant today. As writers we always want to write the best story possible, full with amazing and well-developed characters, but what happens when they fall flat? The characters are the heart and core of the story; if they fall flat, so does the story. This simple test is a quick way to determine which characters need more work and which you might want to think about erasing all together. Through lecture and discussion, we will go over the different types of sexy lamps and how to fix them in your own writing.
Suggested Exercise: Think about movies, television shows, and books you really enjoy. Are there any characters who just seem to be there for no reason, other than perhaps diversity points? What about in your own writing? Come with a few examples.
No required reading.
Azures Graduating & PDS Student Presentations (3) Sunday, June 16, 2019 Juan Esteban Cajigas, Kori Kessler, Gabriella Souza Emmett 9:00 to 10:30 a.m.
From Genre to Genre: How Different Mediums Influence and Transform Each Other Juan Esteban Cajigas
This seminar discusses how different mediums of art have the ability or potential to influence each other in order to demonstrate how different approaches to art can influence the writing process. The lecture/discussion will closely examine historical examples of artistic influence in previous literary movements. Particularly, we will examine how Neue Sachlichkeit was exported from Austria and Germany, blended into Surrealism, and was then applied in literary circles by Latin American writers. We will examine and discuss the origins of Magical Surrealism as a result of this migration in order to gain a better grasp of how varying art mediums can help the vantage point of a writer.
Recommended Reading: Gabriel García Márquez: One Hundred Years of Solitude. Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 1990. ISBN-13: 9780060883287 Franz Kafka and Stanley Corngold: The Metamorphosis. Modern Library, 2013. ISBN-13: 9780805210576
The Dead Girl, Urban Legends, and Other Unobtainable Grails: How Women Get Pushed to the Margins of Our Own Stories Kori Kessler
Urban legends are influential in the way we build stories, characters, and the boxes we create to contain them. This course reviews the role of urban legends and the dead girl in American literature. Exposing the role of women as unattainable grails, students will examine the margins of modern and contemporary literature through the analysis of the dead girl character, her pain, and who it benefits. Using exemplar texts with a focus on magical realism and speculative fiction, MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 35
students will discover alternative approaches and discuss ways to construct women characters, answering key questions about violence, death, and the value placed on trauma ownership
Required Reading (in Reader): Urban Legend Check List
Recommended Reading: Machado, Carmen Maria. “Husband Stitch.” Her Body and Other Parties. Graywolf Press, 2018. Print.
Great Expectations, Tartan Plaid, and Anarchy: How the Victorian Age Inspired Punk and How to Look to the Past to Determine Our Creative Future Gabriella Souza Emmett
This seminar explores the perhaps surprising connections between the culture of the Victorian Age and the Punk Movement. Highlighting examples from literature, music, as well as fashion and design, the lecture will consider how the events of both eras shaped their respective societies and provoked artistic response. The lecture will compare instances from both time periods to showcase the similarities—Charles Dickens and Kathy Acker, Gilbert & Sullivan and the Sex Pistols, corsets and bustles and Vivienne Westwood. An ensuing discussion will examine why these cultural echoes occurred, thereby providing context from writers and scholars to help engage the class. Students will then be challenged in a writing exercise to consider what time periods have served as inspiration to them, and how cultural elements from those times have affected their work.
Recommended Reading: Acker, Kathy. Excerpt from Great Expectations, Grove Press, 1982. Bomb Magazine, bombmagazine.org, https://bombmagazine.org/articles/great-expectations/. Accessed 11 February 2019. Dickens, Charles. Great Expectations. Chapman & Hall, London, 1861. Doctorow, Cory. "Love the Machine, Hate the Factory." Make Magazine, 10 March 2009. makezine.com/2009/03/10/make-free-love-the-machine-hate-the-factory. Accessed 17 February 2019. "Patti Smith: Ask the Angels." YouTube, uploaded by Gabbaeay Home, 28 February 2010. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dU0yg2ep1Tc. "PolyStyrene and X Ray Spex." YouTube, uploaded by PolyStyreneOfficial, 18 November, 2010. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYoiCStDTQg "Sex Pistols - God Save the Queen." YouTube, uploaded by AgoraVoxFrance, 28 April 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02D2T3wGCYg.
Essaying the Essay Form Monday, June 17, 2019 Gayle Brandeis 9:00 to 11:00 a.m.
To “essay” literally means to “attempt” or “try.” In this seminar, we’ll look at different forms the essay can take—lyrical, braided, collage, hermit crab, and more—and will “essay” our own hand at these forms with in-class writing exercises. While geared toward creative nonfiction writers, this seminar will benefit anyone interested in expanding and deepening their relationship with form.
No required reading. Handouts will be provided.
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The Poetic Tradition and the Woke Generation Monday, June 17, 2019 Jaswinder Bolina 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.
In 2019, the global proliferation of social and conventional media fed by an increasingly reactionary and hyper-partisan political climate has inundated our daily lives with news stories, commentary, essays, and even poetry, all of these a portion of a growing culture of critique, protest, and counter protest. In the midst of this, politicians, celebrities, and writers, both, living and dead are being held to increasingly rigorous standards of ethics and conduct. As such, once venerated members of the literary canon are now under fire for their manifold failings as people. We'll study some of those highly questionable figures and their work in an attempt to negotiate the relationship between our present context and past ones. We'll question whether we are going too far in our dismissals of certain members of the poetic tradition, and we'll interrogate whether our work and our world is better off without them. If not, we'll try to understand how we might learn from those who came before us even if we disagree with their beliefs and behaviors. Most importantly, we'll attempt to save ourselves and our poems from boringly preaching to our favored choirs when we take on political subject matter in our work.
Fiction Guest Seminar: Failing Better: On Revising Monday, June 17, 2019 R.O. Kwon 12:30 to 2:30 p.m.
This seminar will delve into revision strategies, possibilities, options, and leaps of faith. What does it mean to revise, and how can you figure out what works best for you? I tend to avoid generalizations, but it’s pretty safe to say that every writer revises, and often heavily: Kerouac bragged that he’d written On the Road in one go, but after he died, they discovered the drafts. Please print and bring the first page of two works in progress, whether they’re stories or books.
Media & Information Literacy: Critically Engaging Monday, June 17, 2019 in a Global Environment 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. Ken Pienkos
This session boons a literacy framework for research and resources to support the MFA Critical Paper and Graduate Presentations with relevant and credible outcomes for references in literary scholarship and conversation. We will take a deep dive into the structures of Information Literacy including: multiliteracies, new literacies, and popular literacies. The goal of this session is to unpack the parts and pieces of peritextual content surrounding information: such as the images and textual elements which frame, or are secondary to, the main body of a published work—details like an introduction, notes, front covers, values, the relationship of works to their genre, popular culture etc.
The information literate student: Determines the nature and extent of the information needed Accesses needed information effectively and efficiently Evaluates information and its sources critically Uses information to accomplish a purpose Understands many of the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information and accesses and uses information ethically and legally.
Before the session: Please email [email protected] a Topic Proposal for lottery selection of the LIVE search for discovery and critical research learning. MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 37
Required Reading (in Reader): Gross, Melissa, and Don Latham. “The Peritextual Literacy Framework: Using the Functions of Peritext to Support Critical Thinking.” Library and Information Science Research, vol. 39, no. 2, 2017, pp. 116–123., doi:10.1016/j.lisr.2017.03.006. Print.
Life Writing: The Nothing That Is a/k/a Monday, June 17, 2019 Writing About Almost Nothing 3:50 to 5:50 p.m. Sarah Manguso
Why are there so many boring memoirs about ostensibly rare and exciting experiences? What makes a human life worth writing about, and what makes its account worth reading? This seminar attempts to answer those questions. The instructor will present a brief slide show, introduce work by various authors, and conduct a writing exercise designed to attune students to noticing what’s interesting. Students will practice writing about “empty” time and use their accounts of that time as entryways into the yet unknown self. The lecture/exercise format provides both in-depth instruction and practical application of techniques.
Required Reading (in Reader): Bernhard, Thomas. Excerpt from Concrete, Vintage International, 1982. Translated by David McClintock. Print. ISBN 1400077575. Bishop, Elizabeth. “The Monument.” The Complete Poems, FSG, 1983. Print. ISBN 0374518173. Davis, Lydia. “This Condition” and “Go Away.” Almost No Memory, Picador, 2001. Print. ISBN 0312420552. Dyer, Geoff. Excerpt from Out of Sheer Rage, Picador, 2009. Print. ISBN 0312429460. Fusselman, Amy. Excerpt from 8 All True Unbelievable, Counterpoint, 2007. Print. ISBN 1582433682. Popa, Vasko. Excerpt from Collected Poems, Anvil Press Poetry, 1997. Translated by Anne Pennington. Print. ISBN 0856462373. Stevens, Wallace. “The Snow Man.” https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/man-carrying-thing Unferth, Deb Olin. “Deb Olin Unferth.” Minor Robberies, McSweeney's Books, 2007. Print. ISBN 193241682X.
Tackling Tragedy In Young Adult Fiction Monday, June 17, 2019 With Different Mediums 3:50 to 5:50 p.m. Lilliam Rivera
How can children’s writers approach tragedy in an original way without succumbing to cliché? This seminar will discuss structural choices in tackling traumatic events (bullying, death, natural disasters) while giving examples of ways these applications can break boundaries and add perspective in articulating story. Students will study various mediums authors have used to convey tragedy including graphic elements, pulling story straight from the headlines to playing with point of view. Students will also generate work with tailored writing prompts. By tackling tragedy in young adult novels, this seminar will open the discussion on how all writers can approach writing difficult subjects through the use of different mediums.
Azure Graduating & PDS Student Presentations (3) Tuesday, June 18, 2019 Jahzerah S. Brooks, Diane Gottlieb, Lisa Lepore 9:00 to 10:30 a.m. 38 MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019
The Real Fantasy in Black Romance Jahzerah S. Brooks
The seminar will examine the roots and effects of the three common tropes found in black romance novels. These tropes include urban/thug romance, black sexuality and interracial dating, as well as beauty and colorism. Students will explore what these tropes mean for readers, black and white alike.
Required Reading (in Reader): Edmondson, B. (2007). The Black Romance. Women's Studies Quarterly, 35(1/2), 191-211. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/
Recommended Reading/Viewing: Hine, D. Black Beauty and Stereotypes. The Popular Romance Project https://vimeo.com/159856541#at=29 Allen, B. I Wrote the Accent: A Black Writer Considers. The toast. http://thetoast.net/ 2016/01/04/i-wrote-the-accent-a-black-writer-on-urban-romance/
The Role of “I” in Narrative Nonfiction Diane Gottlieb
While the use of “I” in traditional memoir is a given, employing the first-person pronoun in a work of narrative nonfiction is a choice. Does the “I” belong? If so, what is its place? Narrative nonfiction always involves an author’s immersion in the subject, but how much—if any—of that process should appear on the page?
Through both lecture and discussion, this seminar will explore the role of “I” in works of narrative nonfiction. We will examine authorial choices, with an emphasis on the differences between immersion memoir and immersion journalism, both in terms of goals and of focus. Is the objective of the work self-discovery through engaging with a topic of nonfiction, or is the focus external and self-discovery a by-product? We will take a brief glimpse at familiar and not-so- familiar works in the genre to see how others have balanced the “I”. Students will be provided a framework for critical evaluation of the genre, for evaluating the type of immersion work that they might like to produce, and for balancing the “I” in their own writing.
No required reading.
Why Wouldn’t You? Fiction as Academic Source Material Lisa Lepore
This course examines the potential of and resistance to fiction works as evidence in academic inquiry. We’ll think about why fiction is undervalued as source material, taking a look at ‘truth’ in fiction vs nonfiction, and quick looks at the diminished role of reading literature in academia, and library classification systems as possible motives.
Recommended Reading: Mendelson, Andrew L., and Zizi Papacharissi. “Reality vs. Fiction How Defined Realness Affects Cognitive & Emotional Responses to Photographs.” Visual Communication Quarterly, vol. 14, no. 4, Dec. 2007, pp. 231–243.
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Carver, Raymond. “A Small Good Thing.” Cathedral: Stories. New York: Vintage Books, 1989. Print. Elliott, Alicia. “Unearth.” The Best American Short Stories 2018, Ed by Roxane Gay, New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018. 76-82.
Azure Graduating & PDS Student Presentations (3) Tuesday, June 18, 2019 Kate Carmody, Vanessa Baden Kelly, Erica Charis-Molling 9:00 to 10:30 a.m.
Writing the Other Part 1: Not So Pure Imagination - Examining Whiteness in Contemporary American Creative Nonfiction? Kate Carmody
We live in a society of socially constructed hierarchies where different values are given to different groups. Membership in the various groups grants or denies a person’s access to power and resources. Furthermore, membership in the various groups dictates a person’s perception of themself and others. Members of dominant groups are socialized to deny the significance of their membership. This seminar will focus specifically on how whiteness affects white writers. After a brief historical overview of the construction of race in America, the lecture/discussion format will provide in-depth instruction on the tropes white writers often fall into when writing about race and a framework white writers can utilize to avoid the tropes and address whiteness.
Required Reading (in Reader): Cooper, Yamonte. “Intersectionality.” The National Career Development Association, 1 June 2017,www.ncda.org/aws/NCDA/pt/sd/news_article/139052/_PARENT/CC_layout_detail s/false. McIntosh, Peggy. “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” Peace and Freedom, 1989. Rankine, Claudia, and Beth Loffreda. “On Whiteness and The Racial Imaginary.” Literary Hub, 3 May 2017, lithub.com/on-whiteness-and-the-racial-imaginary/.
Recommended Reading: “David Mura on Race, Identity, and MFA Diversity.” Brevity's Nonfiction Blog, 27 Nov. 2018, brevity.wordpress.com/2018/11/27/david-mura-part-two/. Jones, Kenneth, and Tema Okun. “White Supremacy Culture.” White Supremacy Culture, Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change Groups, 2001, www.cwsworkshop.org/PARC_site_B/dr-culture.html. Morrison, Toni. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. Vintage, 1993. Pearson, Luke, and Sophie Verass. “10 Things You Should Know about White Privilege.” SBS News, SBS News, 7 Jan. 2019, www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/2016/10/13/10-things-you- should-know-about-white-privilege. Pelster-Wiebe, Angela. “White Artists Need to Start Addressing White Supremacy in Their Work.” Literary Hub, 28 Aug. 2018, https://lithub.com/white-artists-need-to-start- addressing-white-supremacy-in-their-work/
Writing the Other Part 2: Whose Lens Matters?—The Burden of Authenticity and Reception When Ethnic Minorities Write “Others” Vanessa Baden Kelly
This seminar presents an overview of the “White Imaginary” as it pertains to the creative work of ethnic minorities and their own ability to write characters unlike themselves. Further, this seminar 40 MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019
will explore the burden (real or perceived) of ethnic minorities to write “what they know” within the context of the white imaginary. The lecture/discussion format will call on all writers to ask themselves the critical questions of whose and what viewpoints they deem authentic and why when discussing/reading/watching works of fiction that differ from their own lens. Students will be tasked with learning to ask themselves critical questions about what creates an “authentic” viewpoint.
Required Reading (in Reader): Rankine, Claudia. “Introduction.” The Racial Imaginary. Albany, NY: Fence Books, 2015. Print. Jin, Gracie. “The One Thing White Writers Get Away With, But Authors of Color Don't.” Mic, Mic Network Inc., 26 Oct. 2015
Co-Laboring: the Creative Cross-Disciplinary Practice Erica Charis-Molling
This presentation will consider the rich potential for artistic collaboration across disciplines by examining the topic through the lens of dance-poetry projects. The discussion will include a broad look at collaboration as a process as a whole, as well as a practical exploration of the opportunities and challenges collaboration brings. We will examine contemporary examples of dance-poetry pieces and interviews conducted with poets and dancers who have produced such projects, noting ways real-life projects exemplify, or run counter to, theoretical models of partnered creative processes. Through this presentation, writers will have a framework and inspiration they can use to approach their own artistic collaborations that cross traditional disciplinary boundaries.
No required reading.
The Agony and Ecstasy of Dialogue, Tuesday, June 18, 2019 Wrestling Character vs. Plot 10:40 to 12:40 p.m. Gary Phillips
“Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.”
“There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain.”
Does dialogue service plot, illuminate character, propel the narrative by hiding the exposition or can it do all three, and more, all at the same time? Or does it matter as long as he dialogue is crisp and sharp and keeps the reader engaged? Using the lecture, discussion and example format, participants will explore what differentiates one character from another in dialogue and can it be tamed to meet our needs in constructing our stories?
Recommended Reading: Inglis-Arkell, Esther, “Some of the Greatest Writers of Dialogue (And What We Can Learn from Them),” i09 9/8/15 (http://tinyurl.com/yxuagheq) Hamill, Pete, “Poet of Pulp,” The New Yorker, 1/10/00 (http://tinyurl.com/y3z2xyaf)
MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 41
Structure as Architecture Tuesday, June 18, 2019 Ingrid Rojas Contreras 10:40 to 12:40 p.m.
When we think of narratives as physical shapes, we open ourselves to the most counter-intuitive work of crafting a story. In this seminar, we will study how different authors visualized the architecture of their work, and how they arrived at such visions. Students will choose a story, novella, or novel and will take it through a series of exercises designed to lead to a working shape or architecture.
Writers at Work Guest Seminar: From Writer to Tuesday, June 18, 2019 Author: Creating a Roadmap to Publication 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. David Groff
This seminar, led by a longtime independent book editor and writer in the mainstream publishing world, gives you the tools you need to chart a path from being a writer seeking to publish individual stories, poetry, articles, and essays to becoming the author of a published book. We’ll explore the vast changes occurring in the publishing business and how, as a proactive writer with a sense of your own mission and identity, you can make those changes work for you; how to answer the five questions every agent, editor, and publisher will ask about your book; how to query an agent compellingly; how being a literary communitarian can benefit your book, your career, and the culture; and how you can captain your own journey to getting your words between covers and into the hands of readers.
Arts, Culture, & Society II: Wednesday, June 19, 2019 Ignoring The End Of The World: Why We 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. Are Not Writing About Global Warming Sharman Apt Russell
According to the most recent UN Intergovernmental Report on Climate Change, what we do in the next ten years will determine the next ten thousand years. The policies that support global warming do not just ignore the rights of other animal and plant species to exist; they target the poorest and most vulnerable of our own species—with the potential of destroying much or all of humanity. Arguably, this issue eclipses all others. Writing about global warming is primary. Writing about global warming is urgent. And writing about global warming seems to be really hard. This lecture/discussion will talk about why. In that analysis, perhaps we will find ways to break through the paralysis that so many of us feel, as artists as well as citizens of the planet.
We’ll talk about different approaches to writing about the impending apocalypse, from “cli-fi” stories to journalism to poetry. We’ll talk about our personal fears, denial, and hypocrisies. We’ll talk about the mission of social justice at Antioch that is so strongly related to global warming. We’ll talk about the feathered thing called hope. We’ll get excited, I hope, and dream up future writing projects that might shake up and wake up ourselves and our readers.
No reading material required. There will be handouts.
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Show Your Thinking: Wonder Wednesday, June 19, 2019 and (Re)Discovery in Contemporary Poetry 9:00 to11:00 a.m. Maggie Smith
Poems help us see anew; they invite us to (re)discover the world we live in. But how? In this seminar, we’ll explore how a variety of contemporary poets use line, syntax, metaphor, and anaphora to “show their thinking” on the page, not only embracing wonder and discovery but also formally enacting it. In the first part of the class, I’ll discuss poems by Ross Gay, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Oliver de la Paz, Matthew Olzmann, and others. We’ll also discuss as a group why poems that lean toward wonder— toward questioning rather than knowing, sincerity rather than irony—feel essential at the current moment. In the last part of the class, students will experiment with “showing their thinking” in a new poem.
Azure Graduating & PDS Student Presentations (2) Thursday, June 20, 2019 Kristi Ericson, Tyler Pierce 9:00 to 10:00 a.m.
Writing Credible Characters Without Exposing Genitalia Kristi Ericson
This course introduces the students to nature, vice nurture, differences in sex. The lecture/discussion, with use of PowerPoint presentation, provides science-based information to better understand how to write authentic male and female characters beyond issues of reproductive function. Brain scans and physiological data will be introduced. Using examples from popular culture to reinforce scientific study, the writer will better understand how characters of a gender other than their own may react differently in a scene, beyond existing stereotypes and biases.
No required reading.
The Tension Curve: Somatic Experiencing, Tension Management, and Dramatic Tension in Storytelling Tyler Pierce
This presentation will focus on a description of Somatic Experiencing (SE), a therapeutic modality developed to help people process trauma while learning to regulate nervous tension through body-specific techniques. The tension curve used by SE is surprisingly similar to the one used by storytellers to increase dramatic tension in narrative. We’ll briefly explore these two tension curves and see why one reflects the other. The presentation will end with a short relaxation exercise called ‘orienting’ used by SE practitioners to decrease nervous tension.
No required reading.
Azure Graduating & PDS Student Presentations (3) Thursday, June 20, 2019 Stephanie Jaeger, Sara Miller, Daniela Rossell 9:00 to 10:30 a.m.
The Hybrid Novel: Why Writers for Adult Readers Might Choose to Incorporate Graphic Devices in Narrative Text MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 43
Stephanie Jaeger
W.G. Sebald, Jonathan Safron Foer, Dave Eggers, Stefan Hermanns. These well-known authors, and many more, incorporate graphic devices into their narratives to create hybrid novels. Why? This interactive presentation will guide participants through a critical analysis of how and why these and other modern authors integrate images in their novels. What is the relationship of the text and the image(s)? What aspects of context do the images bring into the narrative? How does the imbedding of images impact reader reception and narrative development? How do photographs work differently in hybrid novels compared to other types of graphic devices (charts, maps etc.)? This class will close with a short exercise challenging participants to explore how incorporating graphic devices might open up and create layers of meaning in their own writing. Participants are asked to bring a printed page from their own work with them.
Recommended Reading: Harris, Stefanie. “The Return of the Dead: Memory and Photography in W.G. Sebald's Die Ausgewanderten.” The German Quarterly,74.4, 2001, pp. 379-391 Paton, David. “The imagistic text in Jonathan Safran Foer: Tracing unconventional texts from Kerouac to the artist’s book.” De Arte, 81, 2010, pp. 4-22. Gibbons, Alison. “Multimodal Literature and Experimentation.” Rutledge Companion to Experimental Literature. Rutledge 2011, pp.420-433.
Writing the Young Adult or Middle Grade Graphic Novel: Understanding Sequential Art, Script Format and Structure Sara Miller
You don’t have to be an expert on superheroes to write a successful graphic novel. In fact, the fastest growing markets in publishing today are Young Adult and Middle Grade graphic novels– no capes required. During this lecture, students will learn the basics of sequential art and the tools an author needs to collaborate effectively with an artist. We will also examine the comic-book manuscript format and the ways in which the Blake Snyder Beat Sheet from Save the Cat can be used to structure a graphic novel. By the end of this seminar, students will have a foundation to write graphic novels of any kind by exploring what makes the bestselling Young Adult and Middle Grade graphic novels so successful.
Recommended Reading: Telgemeier, Raina. Smile. Graphix, 2010. Tamaki, Jillian, and Mariko Tamaki. This One Summer. First Second, 2014. Walden, Tillie. Spinning. First Second, 2017.
Write to See: The Interplay Between Images and the Written Word in the Age of the Internet Daniela Rossell
Good writing potentiates our vision; it may invigorate our capacity to think, recall, train, embody, laugh and imagine. We need to hone these abilities to grapple with new languages. With the rise of the web has come the promise of easy communication, connection, universality and accessibility, yet from it is emerging a complex language with unknown possibilities, addictions and demands, a new language where images are inseparable from words. And with a new language comes new art. What does that mean for us artists who write?
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This seminar examines the difference between looking and seeing. By examining pertinent artworks, such as Sophie Calle’s Take Care of Yourself, that play both with the written word and images, we will see the complex type of literacy, not only linguistic but visual, that is most needed today to navigate the hundreds of images with which we are bombarded hourly. Living soaked in images doesn’t mean we know what to do with them. Or what they are doing to us. It does not mean we know how to “read” them. We will come up with alternative terms and actions for what to do with images, for how to orchestrate them, contain them, translate them, parse them, poach them, resist them, or unflatten them.
No required reading.
House on Mango Street: Thursday, June 20, 2019 Writing A Coming of Age Novel in Poetic Vignettes 10:40 a.m. to 12:40 p.m. Francesca Lia Block
In this seminar we will discuss the coming of age novel in general. Then we will look closely at House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, and use a “Life Map” and vignette writing exercise to generate ideas for a vignette-style coming of age novel of your own.
Required Reading: Cisneros, Sandra, The House on Mango Street. New York: Vintage Books, 2009. ISBN 978-0-679- 73477-2. Print.
Recommended Reading: Angelou, Maya, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. New York: Ballantine, 2015. ISBN 978-0-345- 51440-0. Print. Baldwin, James, Go Tell it On the Mountain. New York: Vintage Books, 2019. ISBN 978-0-80654-3. Print. Lee, Harper, To Kill a Mockingbird. New York: Harper Perennial, 1960. ISBN 978-0-06-093546-7. Print. McCullers, Carson, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. New York: Mariner, 2000. ISBN 978-0-618-52641-3. Print. Salinger, J.D., The Catcher in the Rye. New York: Little Brown, 1991. ISBN 978-0-316-76948-8. Print.
Nothing is One Thing: Hybrids in Creative Nonfiction Thursday, June 20, 2019 Chris Feliciano Arnold 10:40 a.m. to 12:40 p.m.
This seminar will explore how creative nonfiction can blend genres and forms in mysterious, illuminating ways. To begin, we will discuss brief samples from a few daring books, focusing on intersections of memoir, lyric essay, journalism, history, poetry, criticism and more. From there, through generative writing exercises and small group discussions, students will deconstruct one of their own nonfiction ideas, examining their subjects from a multitude of angles to discover new potential shapes that defy quick categorization. Our goal is for all students to leave with a heightened sense of possibility—and an energizing idea for a new piece.
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Reasons To Slow Down Your Thursday, June 20, 2019 Narrative And Ways To Do It 2:50 to 4:50 p.m. Jim Krusoe
In this seminar we will examine the many reasons to slow down your narrative and discuss the ways in which this can be achieved. Repetition being one.
No required reading.
Creative Nonfiction Guest Seminar: Thursday, June 20, 2019 The Story Keeps Changing: Writing 2:50 to 4:50 p.m. a Narrative Amid Shifting News Isha Sesay
When I sold the book I was working on, “Beneath the Tamarind Tree: A Story of Courage, Family, and the Lost Schoolgirls of Boko Haram,” it was a ‘cold’ story, pretty much static. Two hundred and seventy- six girls had been stolen and the Nigerian government was doing little to track them down. At that time, only one girl had escaped, so I thought I knew what the story was about. But within six weeks, 21 girls were released, and then, well into the writing of the book, another 81 girls came out. This seminar will explore how the shifting news-on-the-ground had to be incorporated into the book as it was developing. I will also touch on the nuts and bolts of pulling together a book that required hundreds of hours of interviews, serious reportage, and also tied in elements of memoir within the larger international story.
Azure Graduating & PDS Student Presentations (1) Friday, June 21, 2019 Josephine Fogle-Rain 9:00 to 9:30 a.m.
On Character Josephine Fogle-Rain
The punchline of the story relates to an American academic saying of Samuel Beckett, “He doesn’t give a fuck about people. He’s an artist.” At this point Beckett raised his voice above the clatter of afternoon tea and shouted, “But I do give a fuck about people!” I do give a fuck!”
So here we are as authors, and we must give a fuck about people. They are our dear characters. And there is nothing harder than the fictional character, the creation of such, flat or round. Be it your protagonist, or the very briefest of a figure. We will discuss some of the ways to get a character up and running, to get a character in. For example, who can resist this quick but all- telling description: “He was a gentleman with red whiskers who always went first through a doorway.”
No reading required.
The Inaugural Scene: The Birthplace of Writing Friday, June 21, 2019 Alistair McCartney 10:10 to 12:10 p.m.
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"The first book I wrote rose from my father's tomb." Helene Cixous
This seminar will explore Helene Cixous's concept of "the inaugural scene," the idea that each writer, regardless of genre, has a moment or scene in their life which is the birthplace of their writing.
Through lecture, discussion and in-class writing, we will explore this concept, how other writers have used it in their books, and how it might apply to our own work, both in terms of content and form. We’ll discuss how awareness of one’s own "scene" can serve as a reminder of why we came to writing in the first place and a guide to what we want to achieve on the page, especially on those days when we feel like giving up.
No Required Reading; there will be handouts.
The Role of the Lyric Mode and Segmented Friday, June 21, 2019 Structure in Social Justice Activism Essays 10:10 to 12:10 p.m. Christine Hale
We may assume that CNF techniques like lyricism and braided or collaged structure are appropriate only in the territory of personal essay or memoir. But, when writing narrative nonfiction or literary journalism where the author is present in the essay primarily as lens, and the overall thrust of the essay is to raise in readers awareness of and empathy for a social justice issue, segmented storylines and bursts of lyricism contribute importantly and perhaps counter-intuitively to nuanced, psychologically accurate portrayals of complex social and political issues. The objective of this seminar is to provide students with in-depth instruction on and practical application of the deployment of the lyric mode and segmented structure in CNF other than memoir and the personal essay. The material will be addressed in lecture/discussion format and includes a writing exercise, thus providing a framework within which students may decide how knowledge of these techniques can contribute to their own social justice activism writing. To prepare for the seminar, students should read as writers the required reading (approximately 20 pages, available in the reader) and come to class prepared to discuss.
Required Reading (in Reader): Holmes, Anna and James Parker. "Who Gets to Tell Other People's Stories?" New York Times. 24 May 2016. Sharlet, Jeff. "The Invisible Man: The End of a Black Life That Mattered." GQ, 7 July 2015.
Recommended Reading: Verzemnieks, Inara. “The Last Days of the Baldock.” Tinhouse: Wild , Fall 2013, pp.41-61.
Writers at Work Guest Seminar: Friday, June 21, 2019 Behind the Scenes of Book Publishing: How to Navigate 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. the Next Steps to Getting Your Book Out Into the World J.L. Stermer
After toiling away on your manuscript for what feels like an eternity, you're finally at the place where you are ready to reach out to agents and/or publishers. But where do you even begin? Who are the players? What is the process? What is the proper etiquette when submitting a query letter? What is a query letter? This seminar will pull back the curtain to reveal the inner workings of the publishing industry by taking you through: MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 47
How to find an agent Who works at a literary agency and what can you expect from them Who works at a publishing house and what can you expect from them What makes a strong query letter The process from signing a publishing contract to being on the shelves ..and so much more...
Bring your questions and be ready for an informative, honest look at how to approach this next exciting phase of your career as an author.
The Benefits and Perils of Interweaving Friday, June 21, 2019 History and Fiction: or Tips for Writing 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Historical Fiction Victoria Patterson
“Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why,” Kurt Vonnegut wrote. Writing narrative prose (fiction or memoir) we create a moment and trap it in the amber of the writing; and like setting, time can ground the reader in the story and keep the reader tracking with the events in the plot. Our objective will be to gain a firmer grip on how to use the element of time to make your narrative prose more compelling, as well as to make it easier for the reader to follow. In the lecture portion of this seminar, we’ll look at the uses of magnification of certain moments and compression of others in in-class readings, and we’ll consider the uses of a solid timeline or calendar. We’ll also discuss how a ticking clock can ratchet up the tension. Time permitting, we’ll do some writing exercises using writing you’re already working on.
No required reading.
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FACULTY AND GUEST ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES
Chris Feliciano Arnold (creative nonfiction (American Poetry Review, 2009); The Legend of visiting faculty) has written essays and the Wandering King, a young adult novel by journalism for The Atlantic, Harper's, Foreign Laura Gallego García (Scholastic, 2005); and Policy, Outside, Vice News, Sports Illustrated, Angel’s Kite by Alberto Blanco (Children’s The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Book Press, 1994). He has published four books Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco of poetry: Deep Well (Lavender Ink, 2017); Chronicle, Folha de S. Paulo, Salon, Practice (Sixteen Rivers Press), winner of a McSweeney's, The Millions and more. His 2009 California Book Award and named one of fiction has been published in Playboy, The the top ten poetry books of 2008 by the Virginia Kenyon Review, Ecotone and other magazines. Quarterly Review; Buried Treasure (1999), His work has been noted in The Best American winner of the Poetry Society of America’s Alice Sports Writing and The Best American Short Fay DiCastagnola Award and the Cleveland Stories. The recipient of a 2014 creative writing State University Poetry Center Prize; and One fellowship from the National Endowment for the Hand on the Wheel (Roundhouse Press, 1999). Arts, he resides in northern California and His poems have appeared in Poetry, teaches writing in the MFA programs at the Ploughshares, Tin House, The Threepenny University of San Francisco and Ashland Review, Best American Spiritual Writing, Word University. His first book, The Third Bank of of Mouth: An Anthology of Gay American the River: Power and Survival in the Twenty- Writing, and The Ecopoetry Anthology. He has First Century Amazon, is a work of narrative been awarded residencies at Yaddo and Dorset nonfiction published by Picador USA in June Colony House, an Artist’s Fellowship in 2018. Literature from the California Arts Council, and a Literature Fellowship in Translation from the Jaswinder Bolina (poetry visiting faculty) is an National Endowment for the Arts. American poet and essayist. His poetry www.danbellm.com. collections include The 44th of July (2019), Phantom Camera (2012), Carrier Wave (2006), Francesca Lia Block (fiction and writing for and the chapbook The Tallest Building in young people faculty) has published over America (2014). His poems and essays have twenty-five works of fiction, non-fiction, short appeared widely in the U.S. and abroad and have stories and poetry for adults and young adults been included in several anthologies including including the Margaret A. Edwards Lifetime The Best American Poetry and The Norton Achievement Award-winning and best- Reader. He teaches on the faculty of the MFA selling Dangerous Angels, a Time Magazine, Program in Creative Writing at the University of NPR and Booklist Best Book For Young Adults. Miami. She has also been the recipient of a Rainbow Award, a Spectrum Award, a Phoenix Award, an Dan Bellm (translation and poetry faculty) is a American Library Association Best Book Award poet and translator living in Berkeley, and awards from Publisher's California. His translations of poetry and fiction Weekly and Booklist. Her work has been from Spanish and French include Speaking in translated into Italian, French, German Japanese, Song, by Mexican poet Pura López Colomé Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish and (Shearsman Books, 2017); two works by Portuguese. Francesca has also published stories, Mexican poet Jorge Esquinca, Description of a poems, essays and interviews in the Los Angeles Flash of Cobalt Blue (Unicorn Press, 2015) and Times, the L.A. Review of Nostalghia (Mexico City: La Diéresis, 2015); Books, Spin, Nylon, Black Clock, The Fairy Tale several works by French poet Pierre Reverdy, Review and Rattle among others. She has taught including The Song of the Dead (Black Square at Antioch since 2013, at UCLA Extension, Editions, 2016) and Sun on the Ceiling Writing Workshops Los Angeles, Writing Pad, MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 49
Fine Arts Work Center, Idyllwild Arts Nevada and teaches at Sierra Nevada College. Academy, and as a Writer-in-Residence at Her kids were born in 1990, 1993 and 2009. Pasadena City College. Recently she was nominated as Professor of the Year at University Victoria Chang's (poetry faculty) fourth book of Redlands where she taught undergraduate of poems, Barbie Chang, was published by creative writing as a visiting professor. She has Copper Canyon Press in 2017. The Boss written a screenplay based on her novel Weetzie (McSweeney's) won the PEN Center USA Bat for Fox Searchlight. Literary Award and a California Book Award. Other books are Salvinia Molesta and Gayle Brandeis (fiction, creative nonfiction, Circle. She has poems forthcoming in Tinhouse, writing for young people faculty) is the author, Poetry, Kenyon Review, A Public Space, most recently, of the memoir, The Art of American Poetry Review, and elsewhere. Her Misdiagnosis: Surviving My Mother’s picture book, Is Mommy? (Simon & Schuster), Suicide (Beacon Press) and the poetry was illustrated by Marla Frazee and named a collection, The Selfless Bliss of the Body New York Times Notable Book. She was (Finishing Line Press.) Other books awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and a include Fruitflesh: Seeds of Inspiration for Sustainable Arts Foundation Fellowship in 2017 Women Who Write (HarperOne); Dictionary and an Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award from the Poems (Pudding House); The Book of Dead Poetry Society of America in 2018 for her Birds (HarperCollins), which won Barbara manuscript-in-progress, OBIT. She also serves Kingsolver's Bellwether Prize for Socially as contributing editor of Copper Nickel and as a Engaged Fiction; Self Storage (Ballantine), a poetry editor at Tupelo Quarterly Review. She Target Breakout Book; Delta Girls (Ballantine); also serves on the National Book Critics Circle and her first novel for young readers, My Life Board. You can find her at with the Lincolns, a statewide read in Wisconsin. www.victoriachangpoet.com. Her novel-in-prose-poems, Many Restless Concerns: The Victims of Countess Bathory Natashia Deón (guest, Arts, Culture, and Speak in Chorus (A Testimony) will be Society) is a 2017 NAACP Image Award published by Black Lawrence Press in 2019. Her Nominee and author of the critically-acclaimed poetry, fiction and essays have appeared in novel, Grace (Counterpoint Press), which was numerous magazines and anthologies (such as named a best book of 2016 by The New York The Washington Post, Salon, The Rumpus, and Times, The Root, Kirkus Review, Book Riot, The Nation) and have received several awards, and Entropy Magazine, and has been featured in including the QPB/Story Magazine Short Story People Magazine, TIME Magazine, and Red Award, a Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Book. Grace won the 2017 American Library Award, a grant from the Barbara Deming Association, Black Caucus Award for Best Memorial Fund, and a Notable Essay in The Debut Fiction. A practicing attorney, mother, Best American Essays 2016. Gayle was named and law professor, Deón is the recipient of a 2018 Multi Genre Maverick Writer by the PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellowship Willamette Writers. Her essay on the meaning of and served as a 2017 U.S. Delegate to Armenia liberty was one of three included in the Statue of in partnership with the University of Iowa’s Liberty’s Centennial time capsule in 1986, and International Writing Program, for a in 2004, The Writer magazine named Gayle a reconciliation project involving Armenian and Writer Who Makes a Difference. Gayle holds a Turkish writers. BA in “Poetry and Movement: Arts of Expression, Meditation and Healing” from the Tananarive Due (fiction faculty) is an University of Redlands and an MFA in Creative American Book Award winner and NAACP Writing / Fiction from Antioch University. She Image Award recipient and the author of twelve served as Inlandia Literary Laureate from 2012- novels and a civil rights memoir. In 2010, she 2014. Gayle currently lives in Incline Village, was inducted into the Medill School of Journalism’s Hall of Achievement at 50 MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019
Northwestern University. Due’s novella Ghost Conservation Association and on the steering Summer published in the 2008 anthology The committee of the Los Angeles Bi Task Force. Ancestors, and received the 2008 Kindred Award from the Carl Brandon Society, and her Blas Falconer (poetry visiting faculty) is the short fiction has appeared in best-of-the-year author of three poetry collections, including anthologies of science fiction and fantasy. Due Forgive the Body This Failure, and a co-editor is a leading voice in black speculative fiction; a of two essay collections, The Other Latin@: paper on Due’s work recently was presented at Writing Against a Singular Identity and Mentor the College Language Association (CLA) and Muse: Essays from Poets to Poets. He has Conference. Her first short story received numerous awards, including a National collection, Ghost Summer, was published by Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and the Prime Books in June 2015. Due collaborates on Maureen Egen Writers Exchange. He is a poetry the Tennyson Hardwick mystery series with her editor for The Los Angeles Review and teaches husband, author Steven Barnes, in partnership in the MFA at San Diego University. with actor Blair Underwood. Due also wrote The Black Rose, a historical novel about David Groff (poetry visiting faculty) is a poet, the life of Madam C.J. Walker, based on the writer, independent book editor, literary scout, research of Alex Haley–and Freedom in the and teacher. His book of poems, Clay, was Family: A Mother-Daughter Memoir of the chosen by Michael Waters as winner of the Fight for Civil Rights, which she co-authored Louise Bogan Award for Artistic Merit and with her mother, the late civil rights activist Excellence and was published in 2013 by Trio Patricia Stephens Due. Freedom in the House Press. His previous collection, Theory of Family was named 2003’s Best Civil Rights Devolution, was selected by Mark Doty for the Memoir by Black Issues Book Review. (Patricia National Poetry Series, was published in 2002 Stephens Due took part in the nation’s first “Jail- by the University of Illinois Press, and was a In” in 1960, spending 49 days in jail in finalist for the Lambda Literary and Publishing Tallahassee, Florida, after a sit-in at a Triangle awards. With Jim Elledge he coedited Woolworth lunch counter.) In 2004, alongside Who’s Yer Daddy?: Gay Writers Celebrate such luminaries as Nobel Prize-winner Toni Their Mentors and Forerunners, from the Morrison, Due received the “New Voice in University of Wisconsin Press; with Philip Clark Literature Award” at the Yari Yari Pamberi he coedited Persistent Voices: Poetry by Writers conference co-sponsored by New York Lost to AIDS (Alyson); and with Richard University’s Institute of African-American Berman he coedited Whitman's Men: Walt Affairs and African Studies Program and the Whitman's Calamus Poems Celebrated by Organization of Women Writers of Africa. Contemporary Photographers. He completed the book The Crisis of Desire: AIDS and the Fate of Curt Duffy (Critical Paper seminar) teaches Gay Brotherhood for its author, the late Robin English at Los Angeles Pierce College and has Hardy (Houghton Mifflin/The University of provided educational design and administration Minnesota Press). David’s poetry has appeared services to a number of clients, including West in American Poetry Review, Barrow Street, Coast University and Southern California Chicago Review, Court Green, Georgia Review, Edison. Dr. Duffy has conducted creative Great River Review, Inkwell, The Iowa Review, writing workshops on ground, online, and even Margie, Mead, Phat’itude, Poetry, and other on a Star Trek–themed cruise. His short fiction magazines. He has received residencies and has been published in The Journal of fellowships from The Anderson Center for Experimental Fiction and Storyglossia. Dr. Interdisciplinary Studies, The Hall Farm Center, Duffy lives in Los Angeles, where he is a Hidden River Arts Foundation, the Kimmel community activist working toward social, Harding Nelson Center, Ragdale, the Santa Fe economic, and environmental justice. He serves Art Institute, the Saltonstall Foundation, the on the advisory board of the Morongo Basin Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Wildacres Retreat. David received an A.B. from MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 51
Princeton, an M.FA. from the Iowa Writers have appeared in the Antioch Review, Bomb, Workshop, and an M.A. in English/Expository Denver Quarterly, Iowa Review, Field, North Writing from the University of Iowa. He teaches American Review, American Poetry Review, in the M.F.A. creative writing program of the Chicago Review, and Santa Monica Review, City College of New York. which he began in 1988. His essays and book reviews have appeared in the New York Times Christine Hale (Fiction, Creative Nonfiction) is Book Review, the Los Angeles Times Book the author of A Piece of Sky, A Grain of Rice: A Review, the Washington Post, Manoa, Brief Memoir in Four Meditations (Apprentice House, Encounters, The Norton Anthology of Short 2016) and a novel, Basil’s Dream (Livingston Fiction, and in the Tin House Writers’ Notebook. Press, 2009). Dinty Moore says of the He is the recipient of a poetry fellowship from memoir, “A Piece of Sky, A Grain of Rice is an the National Endowment for the Arts and a exquisite engagement with those tough human reading fellowship from the Lila Wallace questions that must be asked even if they can Reader’s Digest fund. He teaches at Santa never be answered.” Praising the novel, National Monica College as well as in Antioch Book Critics Circle Award winner Joan Silber University’s MFA in Creative Writing Program. says, “Basil’s Dream …seems to prove fiction He has also published five books of poems. He can go where other forms can’t.” Ms. Hale’s is currently working on a novel. prose has appeared in Hippocampus, Arts & Letters, Prime Number, Shadowgraph, and The R.O. Kwon (fiction guest) is the author of The Sun,among other literary journals. She has been Incendiaries, published by Riverhead (U.S.) and a finalist for the Glimmer Train Short Story Virago (U.K.). The Incendiaries was an Award for New Writers and the Rona Jaffe American Booksellers Association Indie Next #1 Foundation Writers’ Award. Her work in Great Read and Indies Introduce selection, and it progress includes linked short stories set in a is being translated into four languages. Her small town in western North Carolina as well as writing has appeared in The Guardian, Vice, essays on wisdom. A native of the southern BuzzFeed, Noon, Time, Playboy, and elsewhere. Appalachians, as were her parents, She has received awards and fellowships from Ms. Hale lives in Asheville, North Carolina, and the National Endowment for the Arts, Yaddo, grew up in Bristol, Virginia. She received an MacDowell, the Bread Loaf Writers' MBA from University of North Carolina at Conference, and the Sewanee Writers' Chapel Hill and an MFA from Warren Wilson Conference. Born in South Korea, she has College. She worked in investment banking in mostly lived in the United States. New York City in the 80s, began teaching writing in 1996 at the University of Tampa, and Tammy Lechner (pedagogy faculty) is an worked as a freelance writer and editor in award-winning photojournalist for more than business communications in New York and thirty years, she was a staff member of four Tampa. From 1989 to 1992, she lived in newspapers, including the Louisville Courier- Bermuda. A former Beebe Teaching Fellow at Journal and the Los Angeles Times. During Warren Wilson College, she now teaches in the these decades her work in both writing and Antioch University – Los Angeles Low- photography was widely published, including Residency MFA Program and the Great Smokies three long-term documentary projects that each Writing Program in Asheville. received Pulitzer Prize entry nominations. With the Jackson (MI) Citizen Patriot she won best Jim Krusoe (fiction faculty) has published two feature writing (all circ.) from Michigan UPI for books of stories, Blood Lake and Abductions. a documentary project about displaced Goodyear His first novel, Iceland, was published by workers (1984); with the Louisville Courier Dalkey Archive Press. Since then he has had Journal she was the Kentucky Photographer of five novels published by Tin House Books: Girl the Year (1985); and with the Los Angeles Times Factory, Erased, Toward You, Parsifal, and The she shared Pulitzer Prize staff honors as an Sleep Garden (2016). His stories and poems editor for coverage of the Los Angeles riots 52 MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019
(1992) and the Northridge earthquake (1994). Editors’ Choice titles, and have appeared on Also recognized as an accomplished chronicler numerous book-of-the-year lists including those of professional baseball, she has published the of The Atlantic, The Irish Times, The London books Our Team-Our Dream: A Cubs Fan’s Independent, The National Post, and The Journey into Baseball’s Greatest Romance and Telegraph. Manguso's other projects include In The Cal: Pastime Goes Primetime In several collaborations with the composer California’s Minor League. Since 1994 she has Sebastian Currier on pieces for orchestra and been a partner in a freelance media company, voice, most recently Re-Formation, the premiere STILL Productions, Inc., producing of which was named one of the best classical photography, writing and editing for numerous music performances of 2017 by the New York editorial and corporate clients. Lechner earned Times. Her recent criticism includes the an MFA in creative non-fiction and a Post-MFA introduction to the 2017 reissue of The Journal pedagogy certificate from Antioch University– of Jules Renard, published by Tin House. Los Angeles (2013), where her critical paper Manguso is the recipient of a 2003 Hodder “Making Order of Memory” won the inaugural Fellowship from Princeton University, the 2007 Library Research Award. She is an honors Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize Fellowship, and a graduate of the University of Missouri majoring 2012 Guggenheim Fellowship in General in both magazine writing and photojournalism Nonfiction. She holds degrees from Harvard (BJ: 1980). Currently she is an adjunct professor College and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her of English at Chapman University, an affiliate writing has been published in Harper's, The professor of creative writing pedagogy at London Review of Books, The New York Review Antioch University-LA, and teaches both of Books, The New Yorker, and The Paris creative writing and photo-documentary Review, among many other publications. Her narrative in community workshops in Laguna books have been translated into six languages. Beach, CA where she has resided since 1991. She has served on juries for the National Book Award in Nonfiction, the New York Foundation Sarah Manguso (creative nonfiction visiting for the Arts Nonfiction Fellowship, the PEN faculty) is the author of seven books. Center USA Literary Prize in Poetry, the 300 Arguments (2017), a work of aphoristic Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, and the autobiography and “a pocket-sized foray into the Young Lions Fiction Award, among many frontier of contemporary nonfiction writing,” others. She served on the Freedom to Write was named a book of the year by more than committee at PEN America for several years. twenty publications including NPR and She has spoken at Alte Schmiede (Austria), the Buzzfeed. Her other nonfiction books include American Academy in Rome, the Banff Centre Ongoingness: The End of a Diary (2015), an for Arts and Creativity, the Bay Area Book essay on self-documentation, motherhood, and Festival, the Brooklyn Book Festival, the time; The Guardians (2012), an essay on Hammer Museum, the Los Angeles Times friendship and suicide; and The Two Kinds of Festival of Books, the Southbank Centre (UK), Decay (2008), an essay on living with chronic the Stuttgart Städbucherei (Germany), and many illness, which was shortlisted for the Wellcome colleges and universities. She was the 2015 Trust Book Prize and longlisted for the Royal commencement speaker for the Bennington Society Winton Prize. Manguso's story College Writing Seminars, the 2016 Dedmon collection, Hard to Admit and Harder to Escape Writer in Residence at the University of (2007), was published by McSweeney's as part Chicago, and the 2016 Drake Lecturer at of 145 Stories in a Small Box and was preceded Hendrix College. She served as a 2016 by two poetry collections, Siste Viator (2006) Distinguished Visiting Writer at St. Mary's and The Captain Lands in Paradise (2002), College and the 2017 Mary Routt Chair of poems from which won a 2003 Pushcart Prize Creative Writing at Scripps College and has also and appeared in four volumes of the Best taught creative writing at Columbia, the New American Poetry series. Her books have been School, NYU, the Otis College of Art + Design, named Indie Next picks and New York Times the Pratt Institute, and Princeton. She currently MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 53 teaches in the MFA program at New England Huneven), following the lives of six women College. She lives in Los Angeles. (herself included) as they put Tao principles to work navigating the red-hot real estate market Alistair McCartney (fiction faculty) is the (Bloomsbury USA, 2007); The Knitter’s author of The Disintegrations: a Gift (2004), an anthology of creative nonfiction, Novel (University of Wisconsin Press, 2017). poetry and fiction; and the bestselling Zen and The story of a man obsessed with death, the the Art of Knitting (2002) in which she uses novel blurs the line between fiction and memoir and reportage to explore the connection nonfiction, story and eulogy, poetry and between fiber arts, creativity, and spirituality. obituary. The Disintegrations was named one She is now completing a first novel The Artane of 2017's best works of fiction by The Seattle Boys Band, an early version of which was a Times and Entropy Magazine, and won the finalist for the Heekin Group Foundation’s Publishing Triangle's Ferro-Grumley Award for James Jones Novel-in-Progress award. She has LGBTQ Fiction. His first novel, The End of the been a contributing book critic for the Los World Book (University of Wisconsin Press, Angeles Times and has published hundreds of 2008) took Rimbaud’s method of systematic reviews there. Her personal narratives and derangement and applied it to the form of the essays on literature have appeared in Salon, The encyclopedia. TEOTWB was a finalist for the Rumpus, Climbing Magazine, The Observer, PEN USA Fiction Award 2009 and the Literary Hub, BOOK Magazine, Ms. Publishing Triangle’s Edmund White Debut Magazine, LA Weekly, San Francisco Chronicle, Fiction Award 2009, and was in Seattle San Jose Mercury News, Los Angeles Times Times Best Ten Books of 2008. McCartney's Magazine and elsewhere. She has taught at the writing has also appeared in 3:AM, Hotel, The UCLA Extension Writers Program and National Nervous Breakdown, Fence, Animal University’s MFA program, as well as in Shelter (Semiotexte), Bloom, Lies/Isles, Gertrud private writing workshops. A proud graduate of e, 1913, Scott Heim's The First Time I the Antioch Los Angeles MFA program, she Heard series, Karen Finley's Aroused, and was a member of the inaugural year’s class, elsewhere. Born in Perth, Western Australia, he graduating with the Orange cohort. lives in Venice Beach, California. A graduate of Antioch University MFA's Victoria Patterson’s (fiction faculty) story inaugural year class, he also oversees AULA's collection The Secret Habit of Sorrow is undergraduate creative writing concentration, forthcoming from Counterpoint Press in July and has presented at institutions throughout the 2018. She’s the author of the novel The Little country, including CUNY Grad Center, PEN Brother, which Vanity Fair called “a brutal, Center USA, Teacher's and Writer's deeply empathetic, and emotionally wrenching Collaborative New York, and UW Madison. examination of American male privilege and You can learn more about his writing at rape culture.” She is also the author of the www.alistairmccartney.com novels The Peerless Four and This Vacant Paradise, a 2011 New York Times Book Review Bernadette Murphy's (Associate Professor, Editors’ Choice. Her story collection, Drift, was creative nonfiction faculty) newest book, Harley a finalist for the California Book Award and the & Me: Embracing Risk on the Road to a More Story Prize and was selected as one of the best Authentic Life (Counterpoint Press, hardback books of 2009 by the San Francisco Chronicle. May 2016, paperback May 2017) explores She lives in South Pasadena, California with her female risk-taking through the lens of her own family. experience learning to ride a motorcycle at age 48, and weaves together memoir with Gary Phillips (fiction faculty) has written psychology and neuroscience. She has published various novels, novellas, radio plays, short three additional books stories and graphic novels such as The Be-Bop of creative nonfiction: The Tao Gals’ Guide to Barbarians where one reviewer Real Estate (with LA novelist Michelle remarked, “Phillips and Dale Berry [artist] have 54 MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 collaborated on a book for adults that is sensual Vermont, and the UCLA Writer’s Extension. as well as colorful.” He has edited several After five years in California, including living anthologies including the bestselling Orange part-time on a boat in Marina del Rey, Potter County Noir and the Anthony award- returned to New England. Most recent winning The Obama Inheritance: Fifteen Stories publications include poems in Green Mountains of Conspiracy Noir. Recently Phillips was a staff Review, Ekphrasis, and Sinister Wisdom. She writer on “Snowfall,” a television show about has poems forthcoming in Hotel Amerika, The crack and the CIA’s involvement set in ‘80s Kenyon Review, River Styx, Hayden’s Ferry South Central, and is at work on a graphic novel Review,and The Massachusetts Review. She was re-imagining real life African American Arctic the winner of the 2015 Ekphrasis prize for explorer Matthew Henson. poetry. For more information: cwpotterverse.net
Ken Pienkos (Media Literacy Seminar/Library Gabby Rivera (W4YP guest) is an outgoing, Orientation) is a former public library director outspoken creator invested in fostering better from rural Pennsylvania with BS and MLS dialogue, inspiring radical creativity, and degrees in Library Science. He completed the improving our most vulnerable communities. MFA in Creative Writing Program at Antioch The author of Juliet Takes a Breath, she’s also University Los Angeles where he is currently the the writer of the new Marvel series America— Reference & Instruction Librarian. Ken and his featuring the first queer, Latinx teen-girl family live among the potatoes in a lettuce superhero, ever—that’s catching headlines from crisper at their Los Angeles home. He performed The New York Times, CNN, Vogue, and a solo one-act and a recent six week run in beyond. Gabby Rivera is a young, charming “Shades of Disclosure” at Skylight Theatre and speaker dedicated to empowering women and regularly joins Queerwise LA in spoken word improving our marginalized communities. She’s readings. currently making major waves for her new Marvel series starring America Chavez: a queer, Carol Potter (poetry faculty) is the 2015 winner Latinx superhero who’s been written and of the FIELD Poetry Prize from Oberlin College designed, crucially, by a queer Latinx. And Press for her book, Some Slow Bees. Her fourth while the series is “definitely going to tackle book of poems, Otherwise Obedient (Red Hen America’s ancestry and ethnicity,” Rivera tells Press, 2008) was a finalist for the Lambda The Washington Post, it’s also a comic book Literary Award in GLBT poetry. Her book of aimed at wide appeal: committed to snappy one- poems Short History of Pets won the 1999 liners, blowing stuff up, and beating up the bad Cleveland State Poetry Center award and the guys, naturally. Rivera is also the author of Balcones Award. Previous books are Upside Juliet Takes a Breath, a YA novel listed by Mic Down in the Dark, 1995, and Before We Were as one of the 25 essential books to read for Born, 1990—both from Alice James Books. women’s history month. It’s a critically Potter’s poems have appeared in Field, The Iowa acclaimed coming-of-age story starring a queer Review, Poetry, The American Poetry Review, puertorriqueña who leaves her native Bronx The Massachusetts Review, The Journal, Prairie behind to intern, over one transformative Schooner, The Women’s Review of Books and summer, with one of her literary heroes: the many other journals and anthologies. Potter was feminist author Harlow Brisbane. “I strongly awarded a Pushcart Prize in 2002 for her poem encourage you to read Juliet Takes a Breath,” Three Crows. Other honors include residencies writes Roxane Gay. “It’s quite dazzling, funny at MacDowell, Yaddo, Fundacion Valapariso, as hell, poignant, all the things.” Witty, Millay, Centrum, and Cummington Community authentic, and humming with the full of the Arts. Besides teaching for Antioch since complexities of modern life and radical politics, 2002, Potter has taught at Indiana University, the book was called the “dopest LGBTQA YA Redlands University, Los Angeles Community book ever” by Latina magazine. As an activist, College, Santa Monica College, Holyoke Rivera also gives back. She’s the Youth Community College, Community College of Programs Manager at GLSEN (pronounced MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 55
“glisten”): a leading national education immigrant high school students as part of a San organization focused on ensuring safe and Francisco Arts Commission initiative bringing affirming schools for LGBTQ students. That artists into public schools. She is the book means fewer incidents of bullying and columnist for KQED. harassment, and more students treated with respect. She’s also worked with Sharman Apt Russell (creative nonfiction Autostraddle.com for over five years as the faculty) is the recipient of the 2016 John QTPOC Speakeasy editor and A-Camp staff. As Burroughs Medal for Distinguished Nature a film and multimedia teaching artist, she’s Writing for Diary of a Citizen Scientist (Oregon worked with social justice organizations like State University Press, 2014), which also won DreamYard Project, Inc. And she’s appeared as the WILLA Award and was named by The a featured panelist and counselor at the annual Guardian as a top ten nature book. The Autostraddle Queer Women’s Conference, and Burroughs Medal was first given in 1926 and has presented at the Allied Media and Digital recipients include Aldo Leopold, Roger Tory Media and Learning Conferences. Peterson, Rachel Carson, and contemporary writers like John McPhee and Barry Lopez. Her Lilliam Rivera (W4YP visiting faculty) is an forthcoming Within Our Grasp: Feeding the award-winning writer and author of The World’s Children for a Better and Greener Education of Margot Sanchez. The novel Future (Pantheon Books, 2020) combines her was nominated for a 2017 Best Fiction for longtime interest in the environment with her Young Adult Fiction by the Young Adult longtime interest in hunger. She is now working Library Services Association (YALSA). Named on the next nonfiction--a memoir project on test a "2017 Face to Watch" by the Los Angeles pilots and the Mojave Desert--that she loves and Times, she is also a 2016 Pushcart Prize winner doubts in equal measure. Recent work in fiction and a 2015 Clarion alumni with a Leonard Pung include Knocking on Heaven’s Door (Skyhorse Memorial Scholarship. She has been awarded Publishing, 2016), an eco-sci-fi set in a fellowships from PEN Center USA, A Room Of Paleoterrific future, winner of the Arizona Her Own Foundation, and received a grant from Authors Association and New Mexico/Arizona the Elizabeth George Foundation and the Book Award for Science Fiction, and her award- Speculative Literature Foundation. Her short winning YA Teresa of the New World (Skyhorse story "Death Defiant Bomba" received Publishing, 2015), a story of plagues, were- honorable mention in Bellevue Literary Review's jaguars, and the dreamscape of the sixteenth- 2014 Goldenberg Prize for Fiction, selected by century American Southwest. Sharman’s author Nathan Englander. Lilliam's work has Standing in the Light: My Life as a Pantheist appeared in Tin House, Los Angeles Times, was one of Booklist’s top ten books in religion. Latina, USA Today, and Los Angeles Review of Her Hunger: An Unnatural History was written Books, to name a few. Lilliam's second novel, with the help of a Rockefeller Fellowship. Her Dealing in Dreams, is forthcoming from Simon work has been translated into nine languages and and Schuster, March, 2019. Lilliam lives in Los her essays published in many magazines, Angeles. journals, and anthologies. Sharman has also been awarded a Writers at Work Fellowship, a Ingrid Rojas Contreras (fiction visiting Henry Joseph Jackson Award, a Pushcart Prize, faculty) is the author of Fruit of the Drunken and a Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award. Tree (Doubleday, 2018). She was born and She has thrice judged the PEN Award in raised in Bogotá, Colombia. Her essays and Children’s Literature. For more information, go short stories have appeared in Nylon, Los to www.sharmanaptrussell.com. Angeles Review of Books, Electric Literature, Guernica, and Huffington Post, among others. Isha Sesay (creative nonfiction guest) is an She received fellowships from Bread Loaf award-winning journalist who has covered Writer's Conference, and the San Francisco global events and major breaking news with a Writer's Grotto. She currently teaches writing to focus on stories of social injustice and their 56 MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 impact on women and girls. She is the author of the 2016 Rachel Carson Book Award from the the forthcoming Beneath the Tamarind Tree: A Society of Environmental Journalists, the Story of Courage, Family, and the Lost memoir/history Test Ride on the Sunnyland Bus: Schoolgirls of Boko Haram (HarperCollins, July A Daughter’s Civil Rights Journey, winner of 2019), the first definitive account of Boko the 2010 River Teeth literary nonfiction Haram’s abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls, prize, 100 Skills You’ll Need for the End of the their years in captivity, and why this story still World (as We Know It) a humor-infused matters. Sesay led the CNN team that won a exploration of how to live more lightly on the 2014 Peabody Award for coverage of the planet, and two previous essay missing Chibok girls, hosted CNN NewsCenter collections, Potluck and Now Go Home. Her with Isha Sesay, and headed the network’s first novel for young people, The Luckiest Scar Africa reporting for ten years. She received a on Earth, about a 14 year-old snowboarder and Gracie Award for Outstanding Anchor for her her activist father, appeared in 2017. Ana coverage of the Chibok girls story, in addition to Maria’s work has been recognized by the other accolades during her tenure at CNN. She is Nautilus Book Awards, the Pacific Northwest the founder of W.E. (Women Everywhere) Can Booksellers Awards, and as a three-time finalist Lead, a nonprofit organization dedicated to for the Washington State Book Award. Her nurturing and empowering teenage girls to essays have recently appeared in Fourth Genre, become Africa’s next generation of leaders. Of Creative Nonfiction, The Normal School, Hotel Sierra Leonean descent, Sesay grew up in Amerika and elsewhere, and her work-in- Britain and holds a BA with honors in English progress about Chinese miners along the from Trinity College, Cambridge University. Columbia River in the late 1800s has received She lives in Los Angeles. support from Washington Trust Grants for Artists Program. She currently serves as Maggie Smith (poetry visiting faculty) is the Assistant Editor at Brevity and on the editorial author of three award-winning books of poems: board of Wandering Aengus Press. After Lamp of the Body, The Well Speaks of Its Own working fifteen years on backcountry trail crews Poison, and Good Bones, named by the for the National Park Service, she turned to Washington Post as one of the Five Best Poetry teaching creative nonfiction in the MFA Books of 2017. The title poem of her most program at Northwest Institute of Literary Arts, recent book was called the “Official Poem of at Whitman College, and now at Antioch. 2016” by Public Radio International and has been translated into nearly a dozen languages. J.L Stermer (Writers at Work guest) is a Smith’s poems have appeared in the New York literary agent at New Leaf Literary and Media, Times, Tin House, The Believer, The Paris inc. and a non-fiction author in both young Review, Kenyon Review, Best American Poetry, adult and adult categories with smart pop- and on the CBS primetime drama Madam culture, comedy/satire, fashion, health & Secretary. A Pushcart Prize winner, Smith has wellness, self-help, and memoir. J.L looks for received fellowships and awards from the voices that reflect the world as it changes, stories National Endowment for the Arts, the Academy that share the human experience of life, love, of American Poets, the Ohio Arts Council, and growth, and achievement. Some of her favorite the Sustainable Arts Foundation. reads include: The Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll, Redefining Realness: My Path to Ana Maria Spagna (creative nonfiction faculty) Womanhood by Janet Mock, Bad Feminist by is the author of Uplake: Restless Essays of Roxane Gay, French Milk by Lucy Knisley, Less Coming and Going (University of Washington Than Zero by Brett Easton Ellis, and Love Press, 2018) and several previous nonfiction Warrior by Glennon Doyle Melton. A born and books on nature, work, community, and civil, bred New Yorker, J.L. has lived in Manhattan indigenous, and LGBTQ rights, her whole life and is a lover of all things arts & including Reclaimers, stories of elder women culture, people watching, and doughnuts. reclaiming sacred land and water, a finalist for MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 57
RESIDENCY ACCOMMODATIONS
Students are responsible for their own accommodations. Some students stay with family or friends, or find local short-term rentals through VRBO or Airbnb or similar sites. For those interested in hotel accommodations, we have listed several options below, and we have secured special student discount rates (limited availability) at a few locations. In choosing your location, it may help to know that although not all days will be long, most days begin at 9:00 a.m. with seminars and other learning activities generally ending by 5:00-6:00 p.m.; on-campus readings typically run no later than 8:30 p.m.
Antioch does not endorse any particular accommodations. The following information is provided solely for convenience. Rates are subject to change.
CLOSE TO CAMPUS:
Courtyard Marriott Los Angeles Westside 6333 Bristol Parkway, Culver City CA 90230 (310) 484-7000 (hotel) 1-800-736-0698 (reservations)
Rates: $174 plus tax per night for a room with one king with a pullout sofa or two queen beds.
Group rate is for rooms only. You may purchase a breakfast buffet at a discounted rate of $12.00 (includes tax and gratuity) at their restaurant. Self-parking is available for a discounted rate of $10.00 per night (regular rate is $25.00 per night).
To reserve and receive the “Antioch MFA Students” group rate: Call 1-800-736-0698 (Courtyard by Marriott Central Reservations Department). Advise the reservationist that you are calling to make reservations at the Courtyard by Marriott Los Angeles Westside in Culver City, CA. Ask for the “Antioch MFA Students Group Block.”
To book online, go to: https://www.marriott.com/meeting-event-hotels/group-corporate- travel/groupCorp.mi?resLinkData=Antioch%20MFA%20Residency%20- %20Students%20Block%5Elaxcv%60mfsmfsa%7Cmfsmfsb%60174%60USD%60false%604%606/13/1 9%606/24/19%605/20/19&app=resvlink&stop_mobi=yes or type this short link in your browser (case sensitive): bit.ly/MarriottJun19Student
Note: Website/Confirmation email will show overnight parking at $25.00/night, but you’ll receive discount rate upon check-out the front desk.
To guarantee this rate, you must reserve by 3 pm PST on May 20, 2019. After that date the hotel will accept reservations at the group rate on a space-available basis.
Amenities: • Mid-size hotel on a side street just off of a main thoroughfare, and 405 Freeway • Payment requirements: Need credit card in advance to hold room • Proximity to Antioch by foot or public transit: .8 mile on foot; about 1/2 of this distance can be traveled by a #3 or #4 bus. • Proximity to groceries, restaurants, etc.: There’s a Trader Joe's and Sprout's Market about 20 minutes (walking) from hotel (on the other side of the mall); and a CVS and a couple of fast food 58 MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019
places next door. Howard Hughes Promenade with restaurants, movie theatres and shopping is within walking distance. • Self-parking: $10.00/per night/per car; rate is available for reservations made through group block only. Note: Website/Confirmation email will show overnight parking at $25.00/night, but you’ll receive discount rate upon check-out the front desk. • All rooms are non-smoking and include in-room mini-fridges, laptop safe, speakerphones, coffee maker, hair dryer, iron and ironing board, voicemail and dataport, mp3 compatible clock radios • Spacious work desk with ergonomic desk chair • Two 2-line telephones with voicemail, speakerphone and data ports • Complimentary high-speed Internet access • Flat-screen 32” plasma TV with expanded digital line-up • 24-hour market selling fresh sandwiches, salads, beverages, snacks, etc. • Complimentary wi-fi and business center in lobby, and 24-hour fitness center located in lower lobby • Outdoor heated pool and jacuzzi • Valet Dry Cleaning & Guest Laundry • Courtyard Bistro, serving breakfast and dinner daily. Room service available during dinner hours. Lounge, providing a casual atmosphere for cocktails, light fare and a separate seating area with complimentary wireless Internet access.
DoubleTree Hotel by Hilton 6161 West Centinela Ave., Culver City, CA 90230 (866) 819-5320 / (310) 649-1776
Rates: $179 plus tax per night for a room with (2) double beds.
Group rate is for rooms only. Self- parking is available for a discounted rate of $14.00 per night (regular rate is $28.00 per night).
To reserve and receive the “Antioch MFA Students” group rate: Call 1-866-819-5320 (DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Los Angeles - Westside). Advise the reservationist that you are calling to make reservations at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Los Angeles - Westside.
Group name: Antioch University MFA Program Group Code: 6oV
To book online, go to: https://doubletree.hilton.com/en/dt/groups/personalized/L/LAXCCDT-60V- 20190613/index.jhtml?WT.mc_id=POG or type this short link in your browser (case sensitive): bit.ly/DoubleTreeJun19
To guarantee this rate, you must reserve by May 23, 2019. If you would like to reserve rooms pre- & post- of the block dates (June 13-23) please contact the group coordinator, Mr. Sandor Tsui via email at [email protected] or directly at 310-348-4569.
Amenities: • Payment requirements: Need credit card in advance to hold room • Self-parking: $14.00 a night • Proximity to AULA by foot or public transit: 11⁄4 miles on foot; about 1/2 of this distance by #3 or #4 bus. MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 59
• Proximity to groceries, restaurants, etc.: There’s an Albertson’s supermarket and a CVS drugstore around the corner; Howard Hughes promenade with restaurants, theatres and shopping is within walking distance. • Description: Large, somewhat upscale hotel on a main thoroughfare near a busy intersection. • Mini-refrigerators in all rooms • Quiet rooms available: Yes; be sure to ask for a quiet room • Shuttle service to and from LAX: limited. Ask at desk. • Gym/pool/Jacuzzi • Other features and things to know: Espresso bar, full service restaurant; complimentary wi-fi in rooms and lobby; TV with cable and pay-per-view.
DoubleTree Hotel by Hilton 6161 West Centinela Ave., Culver City, CA 90230 (866) 819-5320 / (310) 649-1776 www.losangeleswestside.doubletreebyhilton.com Rates: There are no special Antioch rates. Rates are subject to change. Book early to secure lowest rates.
Extended Stay Hotel 6531 South Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90045 (800) EXSTAY/(310) 568-9337
Rates: There are no special Antioch rates. Rates are subject to change. Book early to secure lowest rates.
Amenities: Payment requirements: Need credit card to hold room Complimentary wifi Parking: On-site parking for $15/day 1-6 nights and $5/day for 7+nights of parking Description: Mid-size corporate apartment facility with fully equipped kitchens on a main street and near 405 Freeway Proximity to AULA by foot or public transit: 1 1/4 miles from Antioch; about 1/3 of this distance can be traveled by a #3 or #4 bus. Proximity to groceries, restaurants, etc.: There’s an Albertson’s supermarket and a Sav-On about 1/4 mile from hotel; Howard Hughes Promenade with restaurants movie theatres and shopping is within close walking distance. Kitchen: Yes; fully equipped Quiet rooms available: Yes Shuttle service to and from LAX: No Shuttle service to and from Antioch: No · Gym/pool/Jacuzzi: No Other features and things to know: Vending machines but no restaurant; TV with cable, laundry room, free Wi-Fi in all guest rooms, pet friendly rooms (extra fees), free grab-and-go breakfast; check for rates
60 MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019
OTHER ACCOMMODATIONS: The following hotels/motels are relatively close to campus, but we do not know enough about them to offer detailed information and have not negotiated student rates. Call for rates and amenities.
Travelodge Hotel Culver City 11180 Washington Place Culver City, CA 90232 310-839-1111
Super 8 Motel 12664 W Washington Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90066 310-306-8243
Ramada Culver City 3930 Sepulveda Blvd Culver City, CA 90230 310-390-2189
Sunburst Inn and Suites 3900 Sepulveda Blvd Culver City, CA 90230 310-398-7523
TRANSPORTATION TO AND FROM CAMPUS Popular lore that Los Angeles is a “car city” is true. Although a car isn’t strictly necessary, many students find it beneficial. If you stay at a nearby hotel, it is possible to get by without a car. We recommend walking in pairs when walking at night from Antioch to your hotel. To attend events that are held off campus, students without cars often carpool with other students, or choose their own alternative methods of transportation. Those who come by air should plan to fly into Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), which is a ten-minute taxi or shuttle ride from Antioch. Rental car agencies are located near the airport and at some hotels; rental rates are usually lower if you book ahead online and pick up the car at a site not located at the airport.
WALKING It is possible to walk to and from nearby hotels from campus. Most hotels are 15 or 20 minutes from Antioch on foot. Although we always advise being cautious, walking during the daytime along these routes is as safe as in any major urban community. At night, we strongly advise that students buddy up for walks or carpool with students and faculty who own or have rented a car.
BUSES AND METRO LIGHT RAIL LINES Bus service is available in L.A. and within walking distance of campus, and although limited, the Expo line of the Metro Light Rail system, which has a station in Culver City, has extended its line to Santa Monica. From the Culver City station, riders may catch a ride to the ocean in Santa Monica, or go to downtown Los Angeles for cultural sites and events. You can find routes on GoogleMaps or Metro.net.
MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 61
RIDE-HAILING SERVICES Ride-hailing services are popular with Angelenos, tourists, and business travelers. You can access these services through apps on a smartphone. We do not endorse one of these services over other modes of transportation and urge you to prioritize your safety at all times.
RENTAL CARS Downtown Los Angeles, Hollywood, Universal City and the San Fernando Valley are all a half-hour to one hour or so away by car, depending on traffic (it’s usually best to plan for an hour). Ocean communities such as Venice and Santa Monica are approximately ten to twenty minutes away by car. If you rent a car, you will need to order an Antioch parking pass for the residency, which costs $25. Please be aware that if you book rental cars on the Internet, chances are the prices will be less than if you booked by phone or in person.
JUNE WEATHER: The Culver City/Los Angeles Westside area gets some sun, but can also be overcast nearer to the coast and in other parts of the city. Los Angeles has been known for its “June gloom,” caused by the marine layer effect, but whether June is sunny or cloudy and overcast depends on the year. Highs average in the upper 60s, with temperatures often rising into the 70s. Lows average 60 degrees, and can go down to the 50s. Evenings can be chilly. Bring a jacket and clothes to layer. Check weather sites on the Internet for updates.
EMERGENCY NUMBERS
• Culver City Emergency Police Department (310) 837-1221 or 911 • Marina del Rey Hospital (310) 823-8911 4650 Lincoln Blvd., Marina del Rey • Antioch Campus Services Center (310) 578-1080 x301 62 MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019
REGISTRATION AND TUITION INFORMATION Tuition (Tuition subject to change for 2019-20)*
MFA Tuition per Semester Full-Time (12 units) First, Second, and Third Semesters------$8,701.00 Fourth Semester (includes two Residencies)------$12,959.00 Optional Fifth Semester (for Dual Concentration or Post-MFA) ------$8,701.00 Sixth Semester (for Post-MFA)------$8,701.00
Post MFA Certificate Tuition per Semester------$8,701.00
Professional Development Semester Tuition Option A Only / CRW 560: Additional Mentoring (5 units): ------$3,775.00 Option B Only / CRW 561-562-563: Online Teacher Training (5 units): ------$3,775.00 Options A and B combined ------$7,400.00
* Please note that there will be 4% tuition increase starting Winter/Spring 2020.
Antioch University has established a minimum fee schedule to cover administrative and student services costs associated with the delivery of services. As a matter of policy, Antioch University does not waive any of the fees described herein under any circumstances.
Fees (Fees subject to change for 2019-20)
Admission Application Fees: Matriculating Students ------$50.00 Antioch Alumni Fee Rates: Per Unit Tuition (Non-Matriculating Students) ------200.00 Per Unit Audit Fee ------50.00 Enrollment Maintenance Fee (MFA Program) ------900.00 Late Payment Fee ------50.00 Returned Check Fee ------50.00 Special Services Fee ------250.00 Tuition Payment Plan Fee ------40.00 Transcript Fee (per copy) ------10.00 Fee for Transcript with Evaluations ------25.00 Fee for Transcript with Evaluations, Student Learning Analyses and Logs ------35.00 Unofficial Grade Equivalency Letter ------15.00 Materials Fee ------155.00 Technology Fee ------150.00 Student Activities Fee------25.00 Parking Fee------25.00
MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 63
Application Fee ($50) This fee must accompany the Application for Admission. Consideration for admission will not be given until the fee is paid. Students who completed their undergraduate degrees with Antioch Los Angeles and are applying for graduate programs and those who transfer from any other Antioch campus must follow all regular admissions procedures, including the payment of the Admission Application Fee. Admissions application fees are non-refundable. Currently enrolled Antioch Santa Barbara students who apply for transfer to Los Angeles pay a reduced fee of $25.00.
Enrollment Maintenance Fee ($900) The Enrollment Maintenance Fee is $900. For more information regarding this enrollment status, please see “Enrollment Maintenance Status” under the Registrarial Policies and Procedures section of this handbook.
Special Services Fee ($50) The Special Services Fee is a charge that is imposed in various registrarial or administrative situations which require special service for the student. Examples include, but are not limited to, situations when a special request for a late registration is approved by the Registrar, situations in which a petition is approved that requires a special review of a student’s file or processing of student paperwork beyond stated deadlines, or in the case of an applicant’s file requiring extensive review by the faculty or the Registrar in order to determine whether a special set of degree requirements is in order for the readmitted student.
Materials Fee ($155) The Materials Fee covers costs associated with the publication of course materials.
TUITION PAYMENT INFORMATION
New MFA students are required to register and to pay their tuition following online registration. Continuing students going into their second, third, fourth, or fifth term (for Dual Concentration students), register online as prompted by email by the AURegistrar, and may pay online or contact Student Accounts directly. Those students who instead opt to register when they arrive on campus for the residency are restricted to certain registration hours on the first day of the residency and are charged a $100.00 Late Registration fee. All students must register by the first day of the residency to avoid being withdrawn from the MFA Program.
Several tuition payment options exist and are detailed in the registration information. They include:
1. Full payment: Pay the entire amount for the semester when you register. Antioch accepts personal checks, money orders, cashier’s checks, and credit cards (Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express). We do not accept cash. A $50.00 fee is assessed when checks are returned to Antioch by the bank due to insufficient funds.
2. Payment plan: It is possible to pay your tuition on a payment plan, with a 40% down payment at the time of registration, followed by three scheduled installments. Registration materials allow you to choose this option.
• Pay 40% down when you register.
64 MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019
• If you choose to sign up for a Payment Plan, you will pay the balance in 3 equal payments on 7/1/19, 8/01/19, 9/04/19. All tuition balances must be paid by September 3, 2019. Antioch charges a $40 fee to sign up for a payment plan.
• There is a five-day grace period for receipt of payment plan payments and we charge a $50 late fee for each late payment received. We also charge a $50 fee for bounced checks. If you choose to sign up for a payment plan, you may authorize us to charge your credit card for your payments on the due date. If using a credit card which belongs to a parent, you must bring a letter with written authorization for use of the card.
• Payment plans and financial aid are not available to students on Enrollment Maintenance.
3. Financial Aid is available for qualified students. If you are interested in applying for federal financial aid, it is essential that you apply early so that your award can be processed in a timely manner and that funds can be available to pay your tuition when due. At the time of registration, students are required to sign a promissory note stating that they are aware that they are ultimately responsible for tuition payments. The Financial Aid staff is available to answer questions regarding this process. Contact the Financial Aid office at (310) 578-1080 ext. 419 or ext. 410 or email them at [email protected].
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FINANCIAL AID (also refer to the AULA General Catalog)
Our Financial Aid Office makes every effort to see that students admitted to Antioch are awarded a “package” of aid to enable them to enroll and continue their enrollment. Graduate students are eligible for several different kinds of student loans. Information and application forms are available from the Financial Aid Office. Applying for financial aid in no way affects admission decisions. Students are urged to apply to outside financial sources as well. For complete information and application forms, please contact the Financial Aid Office.
COMMONLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT FINANCIAL AID
Q. How are loan proceeds disbursed? A. Loan proceeds are directly wired to Antioch’s federal fund account through the Electronic Fund Transfer process. Once your enrollment is verified, the Student Accounts Office will credit your tuition account.
Q. What if I have a credit balance on my tuition account after my aid is applied? A. Financial Aid refunds will be made available before the residency. If you have signed up for Direct Deposit, the funds should be in your account before the first day of residency. This is the preferred method to ensure you have access to your funds quickly. Paper checks are mailed to the address we have on file the week before the residency. Please contact the Financial Aid office at x216 or Student Accounts at x405.
Q. What if my financial aid award is not enough to cover my tuition? A. You can sign up for a payment plan for the balance or a Grad PLUS loan.
1. Log in via http://www.studentloans.gov with your FSA ID and Password 2. Select Apply for a Direct Plus Loan 3. Choose Direct PLUS Loan Application for Graduate/Professional Students, and click Start
Q. Will I receive reminders of payments due? A. Yes. Also students can view/pay their account by logging into AUDirect under AUView. It is the student’s responsibility to make payments by the dates due.
Q. What if I can’t pay my account balance prior to the next residency? A. You will not be allowed to attend subsequent residencies until your balance for the previous semester is paid.
Q. My employer will be paying my tuition, but not until the term has started. Can I defer payment until then? A. No. You are responsible to make sure the down payment gets paid at the time of registration. With written authorization from your employer, the subsequent payments can be deferred, based on your having signed up for a payment plan with the Student Accounts Office.
66 MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019
REGISTRARIAL POLICIES AND PROCEDURES For comprehensive guide to registrarial policies and procedures, please refer to the AULA General Catalog, available online at: http://aulacatalog.antioch.edu/
Please refer to the Student Conduct Policy on Sakai Resources for important information on matters relating to student conduct. For additional University policies and procedures please refer to http://aura.antioch.edu/au_policies/ where you’ll find a comprehensive database.
Reasonable Accommodation for Students with Disabilities Antioch University is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified students with disabilities in accordance with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 2008. Students with disabilities may contact the Disability Support Services office to initiate the process and request accommodations that will enable them to have an equal opportunity to benefit from and participate in the institution's programs and services. Students are encouraged to do this as early in the term as possible since reasonable accommodations are not retroactive. The Disability Support Services office is available to address questions regarding reasonable accommodations at any point in the term. For more information, please contact DSS coordinator Yaru Wang at 310-578-1080 ext. 209 or email [email protected].
Enrollment Maintenance Status The Enrollment Maintenance Status (EMS) is designed for students who, while not enrolled for new course work during the current term, wish to maintain enrollment status in order to: • complete degree requirements, including documentation; • complete incomplete work from the previous semester; • work with the Antioch advisor or mentor; • complete any administrative processes necessary for graduation. Enrollment Maintenance Status entitles the student to a reasonable level of advisement, as opposed to a Leave of Absence (LOA) status, where no advising is provided. Enrollment Maintenance Status does not contribute to meeting the minimum residency requirements to graduate. Students should also be aware that Enrollment Maintenance Status does not defer financial aid loan repayment, as federal financial aid is premised on at least part-time attendance.
MFA students who receive an Incomplete for a project period must go on Enrollment Maintenance Status to complete the work of the Project Period Contract. Students on Enrollment Maintenance Status pay the MFA Enrollment Maintenance Fee, entitling them to work with a mentor, participate in online conferences, and receive assistance from the MFA Program Office. Students must complete the work of the Project Period Contract before being permitted to register for the following semester. After being on Enrollment Maintenance Status, a student may take a Leave of Absence for an additional semester, if they choose, before returning full-time to the program.
Students wishing to take a term on Enrollment Maintenance Status must consult with the Program Chair and, if given approval, obtain the Chair’s signature on the official Enrollment Maintenance Status Form, submit the form by the Registration deadline, and pay the Enrollment Maintenance Fee. Students may not take two consecutive terms on Enrollment Maintenance. If incomplete work is not completed during the Enrollment Maintenance Status term, the student will be withdrawn from the Program. Students on financial aid are required to have the signature of a Financial Aid Officer as well. Students who do not file this form are withdrawn from Antioch and cannot re-enter without reapplying for admission.
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Leave of Absence Status A student may request an authorized Leave of Absence (LOA) from Antioch for personal reasons at any time, subject to limitations and the approval of the Program Chair. This allows the student to leave school for a term, while still maintaining an official connection with the University.
Any student desiring a Leave of Absence must file an official Leave of Absence Form during registration every term in which a Leave of Absence is requested. Students on financial aid are required to have the signature of a Financial Aid Officer as well. Students who do not file this form are withdrawn from Antioch and cannot re-enter without reapplying for admission. A new form is needed each term if the Leave of Absence extends for more than one term.
While on authorized Leave of Absence, the student has access to their program e-mail account and on- campus mail file, stays on the University mailing list, and receives official announcements and notice of next semester’s registration.
A student on Leave of Absence does not receive academic advising, and the faculty mentors and Registrar do not process student work. However, all University deadlines, as well as academic and administrative policies, remain in effect for a student on Leave of Absence. It is the student’s responsibility to plan accordingly, prior to their leave, to ensure that all academic and administrative deadlines are met.
Students enrolled in the MFA in Creative Writing Program may request an authorized Leave of Absence from Antioch and shall be granted no more than two consecutive Leaves of Absence from the Program. Two Leaves of Absence place an MFA student on Progress Probation and may lead to a student being withdrawn from the program by the Office of the Registrar.
After a Leave of Absence, a return to full participation in the Program is based upon a written request by the student no later than 60 days prior to the residency that initiates the semester immediately following the leave (provided that the student is still in satisfactory academic standing). A student returning from their Leave of Absence must register for the subsequent semester’s residency period.
Withdrawal Students who intend to withdraw from Antioch should discuss the decision with their faculty mentor and the Program Chairperson. Withdrawal from the university means that student status is discontinued. Any learning activity for which credit is still pending at the time of withdrawal is no longer eligible for credit, and the student must reapply formally for admission if they wish to re-enter Antioch. A student must notify the Registrar, in writing, of their intention to withdraw, and may do so in a letter or on a withdrawal form. Students on financial aid must also consult the Director of Financial Aid. Students who have received Federal Student Loans must arrange with the Financial Aid Office for an exit interview.
Students in the MFA program who withdraw during the periods stated below are subject to a percentage refund of tuition which will be calculated based on the date the Office of the Registrar received the student’s written notification of his/her intention to withdraw:
1. Prior to the third day of residency = 100% refund of the semester’s tuition
2. After the third day of residency, a pro rata refund of tuition will be applied to unearned institutional charges up to completion of more than 75% of the term
3. On Friday of the 5th week of class, a 75% refund will be applied
4. On Friday of the 11th week of class, a 50% refund will be applied 68 MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019
5. On Friday of the 17th week of class, a 25% refund will be applied; and thereafter no refund
It is the student’s responsibility to ensure that written notification of withdrawal reaches the Office of the Registrar directly. Withdrawal from the University should not be confused with registering for a Leave of Absence.
Any student who fails to register every term, or who takes a leave of absence or any other status without completing the official paperwork at registration, is subject to withdrawal by the University. Students who do not maintain good academic standing, or who do not maintain satisfactory academic progress, may also be withdrawn from the University.
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ACADEMIC POLICIES AND PROCEDURES This section identifies general academic and student policies and procedures for the MFA in Creative Writing Program. Students are advised to review this information carefully.
For a comprehensive guide to academic and student policies, please refer to the AULA General Catalog, available online at: http://aulacatalog.antioch.edu/
Reservation & Registration Prior to the actual registration period for the upcoming semester, and upon receipt of the Statement of Intent to Register Form, new students are automatically reserved (not registered) in the appropriate residency and project period sections by the MFA Program Office. This process does not apply to students who are filing for a Leave of Absence or Enrollment Maintenance Status.
All students register online as prompted via email by the Office of the Registrar. Registration information includes deadline information by which the student’s paperwork must be received in order for the student to avoid incurring late fees, and in order for the student to remain enrolled in the program. Students who do not register by the stated deadlines are subject to late registration fees. Students filing for a Leave of Absence or Enrollment Maintenance Status must also submit the appropriate form with any necessary fees by the deadlines indicated in the packet of registration instructions. Students who do not register for any status by the stated deadlines are subject to withdrawal from the program.
Holds Note that a registration “hold” may be placed on a student’s record for academic or fiscal reasons. Students with holds must receive proper clearance from all department(s) that placed the hold(s) on the student’s record. All holds must be cleared in order for students to register for any status, including enrollment maintenance, leave of absence, or coursework. All holds must be cleared in order to receive any registrarial documents including transcripts, letters of verification, diplomas, etc.
Once admitted to the program, all MFA students must register for each semester. Failure to do so will result in withdrawal from the University by the Office of the Registrar.
Awarding of Credit MFA Students are awarded 12 units for a completed semester. Partial awarding of units is not possible under any circumstances for any learning activity. Professional Development Semester (PDS) students are awarded 5 or 10 units, depending on the option(s) in which they are enrolled.
Advanced Standing in the MFA in Creative Writing Program Students who have been enrolled in and completed units in an MFA in Creative Writing program in an accredited college or university before matriculating in the Antioch MFA in Creative Writing program may request Advanced Standing after having completed their first term in the Antioch program. In rare cases, completion of another advanced degree featuring creative writing (PhD or MA) may also result in Advanced Standing. Advanced Standing qualifies a student to complete the standard MFA in Creative Writing program in three terms rather than four. Advanced Standing moves the student “forward” only one term, i.e., 12 units.
Unless waived, any and all other MFA in Creative Writing program requirements must be met for the student to receive the MFA degree from Antioch.
In order for the student to fulfill the requirements for Advanced Standing, the following steps must be taken: 70 MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019
•The student must submit a letter requesting Advanced Standing, describing how their prior coursework corresponds to offerings in the Antioch MFA in Creative Writing program;
•The Chair of the Creative Writing Department and the Registrar review the student’s transcript: a) to verify attendance in another MFA in Creative Writing program or other graduate creative writing program and, b) to certify that the course work sufficiently parallels the program offerings in the MFA in Creative Writing program at Antioch University Los Angeles;
• The Chair of the Creative Writing Department notifies the student’s mentor of the Request for Advanced Standing and solicits the mentor’s positive or negative evaluation regarding the student’s work in the program and the advisability of awarding Advanced Standing;
• The Chair of the Creative Writing Department issues a final decision regarding the student’s status and directs the Registrar to award Advanced Standing if the candidate meets the standards set by the program. This decision is reflected on the “Program Authorization for Advanced Standing” form.
Incompletes In all cases, the student is responsible for maintaining reasonable progress toward the degree. However, an Incomplete for the semester is occasionally awarded for good reason and with permission of the faculty mentor and the department chairperson.
Faculty members are not obligated to award Incompletes or to agree to evaluate student work after the end of the term (although some faculty may agree to do so). Credit Awarded is not guaranteed.
All residency work should be completed before the end of the residency; all project period work must be completed prior to the end of the project period and submitted in a timely fashion. Failure to do so may result in an Incomplete for the semester. A student will not receive any of the semester’s 12 units until all work for the semester is completed in a satisfactory fashion. NOTE: The recently revised University Satisfactory Academic Progress Policy (SAP) stipulates that Incompletes are counted as attempted credits toward the student’s SAP completion rate.
The student has up to one semester to complete the prior semester’s Incomplete. The student will need to register for Enrollment Maintenance Status (EMS) and pay the appropriate fee. If the incomplete work is not completed within one semester, the Incomplete is converted to a No Credit for that semester, the student is withdrawn from the University, and would need to reapply for admission, should they choose.
Upon satisfactory completion of the prior semester’s work, the student will be awarded the 12 semester units (5 or 10 in the case of the PDS) and will be able to enroll for the next semester. In terms of SAP completion rate, this means the student will take 12 months to complete a single 6-month semester.
Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) The full text of Antioch University’s Satisfactory Academic Progress Policy is accessible online at http://aura.antioch.edu/policies_600_1x/9/. Described below are some important points MFA students need to know about maintaining Satisfactory Academic Progress. In order to maintain Satisfactory Academic Progress, an MFA student must:
• complete the degree within four calendar years (five for Dual Concentration students), which allows for no more than two semesters on Leave of Absence (LOA) and two semesters on Enrollment Maintenance (EMS), cumulatively MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 71
• complete 12 semester units with Credit Awarded each semester.
In the event that a student fails to maintain Satisfactory Academic Progress, the Creative Writing Department and the Office of the Registrar will proceed as follows:
A. Letter of Concern: If at the 3/4 point of the semester (during the Project Period) the faculty mentor reports that a student is at risk of receiving an Incomplete or a No Credit for the term, the Chair of the Creative Writing Department will issue a letter of concern by email. A registration hold may be placed on the student’s account until a proper course of action (enrollment for the subsequent term, re-enrollment in a failed term, EMS, emergency LOA, or withdrawal) is determined. B. Academic Progress Warning If a student receives an Incomplete or a No Credit for the term, they will be placed on Academic Progress Warning for the following term, and receive a letter from the Office of the Registrar. A student on Academic Warning may continue to receive Financial Aid, but is expected to complete the 12 units attempted in the previous term either by repeating the term (in the case of a No Credit) or enrolling in EMS (in the case of an Incomplete). C. Academic Withdrawal Students who fail to meet SAP by either not completing the attempted 12 units on EMS or failing to earn those units after re-taking the course will be recommended for Academic Withdrawal. Withdrawal prohibits students from registering and receiving financial aid. Students may appeal a recommendation for Academic Withdrawal. If an appeal is successful, the student will be placed on Academic Progress Probation. D. Academic Progress Probation If a student fails to meet SAP at the end of the Academic Warning term, and successfully appeals Academic Withdrawal, they will be placed on Academic Progress Probation, and remain eligible for registration and financial aid. Students who earn credit for the specified semester(s) while on Academic Progress Probation will be removed from Probation. If a student fails a semester while on Academic Progress Probation, they will be recommended for Academic Withdrawal.
The Evaluation System
Narrative Evaluations Narrative Evaluations, in contrast to grades, are at the core of Antioch’s educational philosophy and a foundation of its pedagogy. All Antioch undergraduate and graduate courses and other learning activities are evaluated through narrative assessments written by instructors at the end of the academic quarter.
Antioch is strongly committed to narrative evaluations rather than grades in order to minimize competition between students, to foster student self-direction in learning, and to provide students with more meaningful feedback on their learning. We believe the absence of grades fosters increased student ownership of learning, rather than students working for external validation as in traditional grading systems. Thus, narrative evaluations hold an important place in Antioch’s educational philosophy, and instructors are expected to provide thorough and substantive comments. Some strengths of the narrative evaluation process include:
faculty may identify the unique attributes of the student’s learning rather than describe the learning relative to an arbitrary scale; faculty may identify a student’s effort and commitment to the learning process; 72 MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019
faculty and students are brought into the assessment as whole persons; and, faculty advisors have a detailed summary of advisee’s progress and patterns.
Narrative evaluations are part of students’ official transcripts and are sent out to other institutions and employers, upon student request, such as graduate schools or funding institutions. Finally, narrative evaluations are a concrete representation of Antioch’s academic standards as seen by the external community.
The Learning Evaluation Process Graduate students are evaluated using the Graduate Programs Learning Assessment, which varies slightly between the various programs. The form includes an Evaluator’s Specific Rating of Student’s Learning that lists a series of learning objectives. The evaluator provides the learning objectives specific to each learning activity, and a narrative assessment of the student’s learning in relation to program objectives and/or the Project Period Contract, and describes strengths in student learning and areas for future growth. The evaluator also provides a narrative assessment of the student’s overall progress in the degree program and in relation to the term’s residency and project period.
On the final narrative evaluation form, the evaluator must check Credit Awarded, No Credit, or Incomplete for the learning activity.
Students who do not complete the work specified in their Project Period Contract and therefore receive an Incomplete must go on Enrollment Maintenance Status, taking the next term to complete their work.
MFA students receive their learning evaluations in AUView (audirect.antioch.edu). All students are encouraged to keep personal copies of all assessments and other official academic materials until after graduation.
The Student Learning Analysis For each MFA residency, project period or field study, the student provides the evaluator with a Student Learning Analysis. This is a self-assessment of learning. Antioch believes that for independent learning activities, this self-evaluation is a crucial part of the student’s learning experience. The objectives are to provide an opportunity for the student to participate in the evaluation process and to encourage students to be critical and reflective about their learning.
The Student Learning Analysis is an original statement by the student based on their reflection upon the learning. This should be a meaningful personal statement that considers:
• what aspects of the learning are well developed; • what aspects of the learning are less complete; • what further study and development is needed; • how the learning has affected previous attitudes, beliefs and understandings; and, • strengths and weaknesses of the learning experience.
The Student Learning Analysis should be well-written, concise, detailed, and balanced, referring both to strengths and to areas for improvement. Because so much of the student’s learning in the MFA Program is self-assessed, the student is asked to address each objective of the Project Period Contract or Field Study Contract and to comment on progress toward all the stated goals. For the Student Learning Analysis of each residency, the students must address the objectives provided for each seminar, class, or genre writing workshop they participate in, and they must describe their progress toward the explicitly stated goals of the learning activities. The Student MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 73
Learning Analysis for a residency is limited to five typewritten pages, and the Student Learning Analysis for a project period or a Field Study is limited to three typewritten pages.
Unofficial Grade Equivalents Students must approach their mentor faculty member at the time of agreement of the Project Period Contract (during the residency) and request an unofficial grade equivalency if they so desire. As in other Antioch programs, some faculty may agree, although they are free to refuse.
Student Evaluation of Faculty Students at Antioch contribute to the maintenance of academic quality through the evaluation of the quality of their seminars and the teaching performance of their instructors, using an anonymous evaluation procedure. The results are passed on to the instructor, program chairperson, and provost. Faculty members do not see this information until after they have turned in evaluations of student work. Results of these evaluations are taken seriously by the faculty and are influential in decisions about rehiring and retaining faculty members.
Antioch also encourages students to communicate directly with their instructors, mentors, and/or the Chairperson about concerns with instruction and/or learning activities. If students have concerns about the content or methods of instruction, they are encouraged to discuss the concerns with the instructors as they arise. Antioch instructors generally welcome feedback on their work, and the Program Chairperson and the faculty strongly support student expression of concerns. Instructors are often able to make changes to meet student needs. However, whether or not the instructor makes changes in response to the feedback, student communication is strongly valued.
Semester system MFA students evaluate each residency at its close, as well as provide an evaluation of their faculty mentor at the end of each semester. 74 MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019
HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS
Internet Connectivity: Consistent and reliable access to a high-speed (i.e. cable/DSL/fiber) Internet connection with a minimum of 1.5Mbps up/down is strongly recommended, particularly for distance, hybrid, and heavily computer- mediated courses. Dial-up connections have insufficient bandwidth and are not supported. Satellite connections may provide enough bandwidth but often suffer from excessive latency and may not work well for real-time applications such as Zoom meetings.
Note on Hand-Held and Tablet Devices: Most handheld and tablet devices (i.e. Samsung Galaxy, Apple iPad) capable of displaying web pages will allow you to view the content of AU websites. Capabilities of these devices vary widely; particularly in their ability to interface with some AU content (i.e. iPad cannot view Flash content without an additional app).
Computer Hardware / Operating System: - Mac, Linux or Windows PC with a minimum of 4GB of RAM; 8GB preferred - PC Operating System - Windows 7 or higher - Mac Operating System - MacOS 10.11 or higher - Dual-core processor or better - Hard drive capacity 250GB or higher - Ethernet or WiFi card/adapter - Computer speakers or headphones, microphone, and a webcam. Our friends at Zoom have some suggested options here: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362023-System-Requirements-for-PC-Mac-and- Linux
Additional suggested hardware includes a printer/scanner, USB flash drive, and an external hard drive or cloud storage subscription for backup. Older operating systems and computers with less memory (RAM) and processing power may function and meet your basic needs for computing. However, they may not be adequate to access Antioch’s online resources.
Office Productivity Software: Antioch requires a word processing program that saves and opens text files in multiple file formats (DOCX is recommended). We suggest an office suite that includes word processing, presentation, spreadsheet, and other useful software. Some new computer purchases have this software already installed. Microsoft Office suites are currently used at AU campuses.
Here are a few options: - Office 365 Education (Free, online only) https://products.office.com/en- us/student?ms.officeurl=getoffice365 - Open Office 4: The free and open productivity suite, available at: http://www.openoffice.org - LibreOffice: Another free and open productivity suite, available at: http://www.libreoffice.org - Google Apps: Free online document creation capabilities which also allows you to create, store, and share a variety of file types is available by clicking ‘Drive’ icon in AUDirect, or by clicking the ‘Google Apps’ icon near the top of page of your Antioch Email account. - Apple Pages, Numbers, and Keynote (Free, also available online at www.icloud.com)
MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019 75
Internet Browsers: Most of Antioch University’s technologies are accessible through a web browser, so having a supported browser on your home computing system is critical. Antioch supports the following browsers: - Internet Explorer 11 or Microsoft Edge - Firefox 60.0 or higher - Google Chrome Version 51 or higher - Safari 8.0 or higher
Browser Plugins / Players: Below is some free software that you may need for viewing certain types of media as part of your coursework: - Adobe Acrobat: For viewing PDF documents http://get.adobe.com/reader - Adobe Flash Player: For playing animations and Adobe Flash web content (multimedia) http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer - VLC media player https://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html - Puffin Web Browser Free: Web browser that allows you to view Flash-based content on your iOS device https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/puffin-web-browser/id472937654?mt=8
Anti-Malware / Computer Protection: AU urges you to take steps to prevent viruses and other malware from infecting your educational home computing environment. It is critical that you keep your anti-malware software up to date. Free programs provide basic protection but may fall short against more advanced attacks. Paid programs have more robust protection at different price tiers, with the more expensive packages offering options that go beyond traditional malware detection. Examples of these features include blocking websites known to host malware, phishing alerts, spam filtering, password management, and more. AU recommends reading current reviews to help find the best program for your needs. Here are a few that we have read good things about:
Free - BitDefender Free Antivirus https://www.bitdefender.com/solutions/free.html - Avast! Free Antivirus https://www.avast.com/en-us/free-antivirus-download - Kaspersky Free https://usa.kaspersky.com/free-antivirus - Panda Free Antivirus https://www.pandasecurity.com/usa/homeusers/solutions/free-antivirus/ - Sophos Home Free https://home.sophos.com/download-antivirus-pc - Microsoft Security Essentials, Free for Windows 7 https://support.microsoft.com/en- us/help/14210/security-essentials-download - Windows Defender is included for free with Windows 8 & 10
Paid - Bitdefender https://www.bitdefender.com/solutions/ - Norton by Symantec https://us.norton.com/student-discount - Webroot https://www.webroot.com/us/en/home - ESET https://www.eset.com/us/ - F-Secure https://www.f-secure.com/en_US/web/home_us/home - Kaspersky https://usa.kaspersky.com/home-security#all - Panda https://www.pandasecurity.com/usa/homeusers/
76 MFA Residency and Semester Student Handbook June 2019
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