For years I’ve thought about attending one of the many summer writing workshops in the US: Bread Loaf, Tin House, Iowa, Sewanee. I’ve studied their programs and the lists of authors and talks and envied the immersive creative community. Since I grew up (part of the time) in America I knew the college atmosphere from my undergrad days, but I moved to Australia in my early 20s and never experienced a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program. We just don’t have them here.
The Doctorate of Creative Arts which I finished last year gave me a wonderful supervisor who read, advised and guided my project, but never the intensive workshop structure which is available in the US. My scholarship gave me the financial freedom to write, but I never felt part of a community of writers, and even working from my desk at the university the other writers I came into contact with existed in the bubble of their own work. I think there is something to be gained from reading others who are still figuring things out, learning from each other’s mistakes and being pushed by their inventiveness. I love being challenged – critiqued – questioned. Being asked: what’s at stake for you here? What’s your vulnerability? How can you push this further?
So this year I made my plans far in advance to apply to the Tin House Summer Workshop, in part because of their reputation and the quality of the writers they publish, and in part because the timing fit perfectly with my kids’ school holidays. I blocked out two weeks – one to attend the workshop and one to conduct interviews with Australian WWII war brides for the novel I am working on, and visit WWII-era ships on the West Coast (more about this in a later post). Only when I received my acceptance did I start to question my decision. Was I really ready to leave my children for two weeks? What if my workshop hated my writing? What if everyone was so much more meta than me? Although I had taught workshops recently I hadn’t workshopped my own work in so long that it made my stomach flip with fear. Even though I’ve had two novels published, I still feel like every time I’m beginning again.
So it was that my first night on the campus of Reed College in Portland Oregon I lay in my single bed, the plastic mattress squeaking beneath me, the bathroom door across the hall creaking and clicking, thinking “what the fuck have I done?”
Would I just have been better off taking a week alone to write? Was I going to feel comfortable enough with a group of strangers to bear hearing them talk about my work?
I wouldn’t have and I did. I was in the novel workshop with Dana Spiotta, an author I’ve read and admired. This interview with her in the New York Times earlier this year made me think she would be a damn good teacher too (and quietly subversive – right up my alley).
I won’t go into detail of my workshop group here, just that I came to trust them and their judgement, to feel safe with them, to know that they would have insight into things which in my own work I couldn’t see. We all came from such different places, we wrote wildly different kinds of fiction, but we also had many of the same problems and structural challenges. We bonded over oddly descriptive cafeteria food and quite a bit of alcohol. I laughed harder than I’ve laughed in a long time.
But it wasn’t just the workshops every day: it was the seminars, panels and readings which filled me to overflowing. Sarah Manguso talking about the power of omission. Steve Almond talking about how our stories suffer from emotional cowardice – how too often we look away just at the moment of turmoil. Kiese Laymon questioning the act of representation and what our responsibilities are as writers. Alex Chee on what drives our characters and how we make this into plot. Gregory Pardlo reading a poem about his father (“like America his fist only rose on occasion”). I was struck by the joy and vitality Sharon Olds communicated when she talked about her work, about how after graduate school she decided “I will give up all I have learned if I can just write my own poems.”
How important it is to keep our roughness, our “skin in the game”, our voice which communicates our own particular vision of the world.
I took a lot of notes but hardly wrote a thing of my own when I was there. What I did was experience, fill like a sponge until I couldn’t hold another thing. Now I’m wringing myself out, clinging to each drop.
So here is my advice if you are thinking about attending the Tin House Summer Workshop, or pushing yourself into some other unfamiliar territory with your writing. Swallow your fear and do it. For me, just one day would have been worth the trip.
I was able to attend Tin House Summer Workshop thanks to funding from the Copyright Agency Limited Career Fund and the Australia Council for the Arts.
Vanessa Many
You have always been an inspiration in taking a leap of faith. I’m so glad you jumped in.
Eleanor
Thanks V, you are one of the highlights of my trip!
Laura Warrell
Eleanor, I’m so glad you got past your fear and joined us. Your feedback was immensely helpful and smart, and your writing astonishingly good. So glad to have met and worked with you. Until next time…
Eleanor
Laura, thank you and it was such a joy to meet you and get your brilliant feedback – I was lucky to be in your group. Hope that the writing is going well – sorry it has taken me so long to reply. I’d love to read more of your work.
Juanita
Hey Eleanor, good on you. Sounds like the benefits of your trip will keep paying for a long time. You’re writing about Aussie war brides? The ones that married a US serviceman? Sounds intriguing. How have things gone w Long Bay? Big hugs, Juanita xxx
Eleanor
Hi Juanita! Sorry for my slow reply. I am writing a novel about Australian war brides who married US servicemen, it’s nearly finished (I think) and been enjoyable to write. Things have gone well with Long Bay, I’ve had some really interesting responses to it. Hope that things are great in New Zealand, and the tremors have calmed down. Eleanor xx
MST
Wow – that sounds fantastic. And inspirational. Thanks for sharing, and I’d love to read more about your experience (future posts, maybe?) Was there one key thing you’ve taken away from it all?
Eleanor
Hi Michelle – that I need check my blog replies more often! No – I’m embarrassed this has taken me so long to reply though. My key thing I’ve taken away from the workshop is actually technical, I let complex novel structures scare me off because of the scaffolding required, but I’ve realised that as readers we tend to put ourselves in the author’s hands. Not everything has to be explained if we have a convincing enough voice. I can be a little more….experimental…
I’ve also learned that it is okay to leave big chunks of narrative out – that telling everything is impossible and that the gaps in a novel can be just as compelling as the story itself.
Shirley McLean
Eleanor, what a beautiful, sensitive story you have written about Australian War Brides. I have tears in my eyes as I come to the end.
I look forward eagerly to reading your other novels.
As an 83 year old Australian I have vivid childhood memories of several young Australian girls who left here as war brides to face uncertain futures in a new land. I often wonder how they fared in their adopted country, what sort of homes they found themselves in and if their love lived up to their expectations.
Your writing has inspired me put my novel of an Australian Pioneer family up on …writewhatyouknow.net
Eleanor
Thank you Shirley for your kind words. I hope that the Australian girls you knew in the 1940s ended up in happy marriages. I’m so glad you’ve been inspired to write your family’s story. Best of luck!