A lot of the Inkpotters–well, all–are on campus now at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota. It’s time for the residency portion of our MFA program. Which means we’re sort of at summer camp. Yesterday Anne Ursu gave a terrific lecture on THEME. Get a bunch of writers in a room and ask them about themes in their work and you’ll hear a lot of disclaimers. But Anne made it all concrete. Sorry I don’t have details … maybe one of the students will comment.
In about an hour I’ll be talking on “Reading as a Writer.” When I was planning my talk I decided there was an inherent problem with talking about it, so I’ll be forcing the students to read stuff and then come up with responses to some challenges I’ll pose. In other words–they’ll be doing the work. Which is why I’m blogging right before curtain time. Everything’s cool.
Sunday July 11 (tomorrow as I write) the fabulous Elizabeth Partridge will be doing a reading. It’s open to the public. 103 Law school building at 4:30 PM. Please join us.
MQ
Yes, I'm excited about theme, it seems to be the missing link to all I've been thinking about my critical thesis. Yay for ironing out a hash of notes and questions…
Elizabeth Partridge is fabulous! Lucky people!
MQ: your talk was fantabulous, too … thank you.
Marsha, I loved your session. Creative, and made my brain pan swirl with effort. (Georgia B., aka greenlinnet)
Listening to Anne's talk on theme mad eme analyze my own work, and as I am turning in the first 95 pages, and had my epiphany moment during Anne's lecture. I nearly ran out of LAW 103 yelling, "I have a THEME!" When one truly consider the actual TEXT, after one writes the words, it is an amazing experience. I had just re-read my thesis the night before, and thought it was about how girls aren't the only ones who can be used in a relationship and kind of thought it was about how we use each other in different ways, but it is REALLY about perception, and how we mis-perceive things (even as adults sometimes) and how we deal with them. It is also about second chances, something I had not realized before. Interesting stuff, Anne, Thank you for your talk, and to you, Marsha Q, for proving that the Prologue is not dead! 🙂