SewaneeLetters.com

Current home: Sewanee, TN
Age: 55
Program: MFA
Year in the program: 3 Years; 6 Courses Complete (both arbitrary measures or indices of expected completion – GO Tina!)

Fill us in on your background. Schools attended, work situation, etc.
School: Dixon Kindergarten; Bel-Aire Elementary; West Junior High; Tullahoma High School; University of the South, Sewanee, TN, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN; Auburn University, Auburn, AL; University of Arkansas, Little Rock, AR; University of Arkansas, Pine Bluff, AR; University of Arkansas, Monticello, AR; University of Arkansas, William Bowen School of Law, Little Rock, AR; University of the South, Sewanee, TN.
Work: Dishwasher, paperboy, sack-boy, newspaper pressroom, potato farm, lifeguard, psychology research assistant, cafeteria worker, bartender, waiter, busboy, liquor store clerk, cafeteria cook, bus mechanic, cafeteria line worker, Forestry lab assistant, timber cruiser, firewood salesman, Forestry teaching assistant, Forestry research assistant, Forester, Operations Research Analyst, Timber Sales Assistant, Planning analyst, manufacturing consultant, slumlord, Natural Resource Research Specialist, cook, waiter, bouncer, Law Clerk, Attorney, substitute teacher, & probably some other stuff I have forgotten.
Etc_1: Ex-wives = 2; kids = 3; grandchildren = 3; Dog = 1; Cats = 2; Cars = 14; Trucks = 2; Bus & Winnebago = 1 each. Hobbies: Local politics; International Visitors; building stuff; cars; bicycles; hiking. Locally: Vice pres. Tim’s Ford Environmental Education Association; youth sponsor – Otey Parish Episcopal Church; Denizen of the Blue Chair coffee shop; and host of occasional and recurring themed parties including the new series of porch parties / jam sessions.

What led you to the School of Letters program?
Figured I needed to learn to read & write. Given my transportation situation, it had to be somewhere nearby.

What writing/academic projects are you working on currently?
I am writing occasional appeal briefs. Most of my time now is spent learning and knowing and speaking.

Favorite class so far at Sewanee:
Some folks might call this a tough question. I say it’s a BS question. If your experience(s) can be so easily ordinally ranked and so simplistically evaluated, the problem is with YOU! Yes, if, on the other hand, you continually push the envelope so hard that you are too exhausted for precise quantitative reflection, then you have achieved value. There is no need for: Win; Place; & Show. The true glory is to have made it across the perpetually undulating finish line at all. Seriously, though, how can one compare an Angus course with anything? Yep – incomparable. And John Gatta clutching the table edge like a shipwrecked whaler while ranting excitedly about hundred year old books – can’t touch that either. All three of the writing workshops I’ve had have been both useful and challenging. & getting to rip on some pompous wannabe’s written drivel. . . huh? Complete sentence? What for? Nobody talks that way! KnowwutImean?

What would be your fantasy class or workshop at Sewanee, and who would teach?
Since I prefer new experiences of unknown composition, I cannot answer this question until it has already happened.

What advice would you give to any prospective students?
1) Do not take offense at the crazy people also enrolled – after a couple of years, they’ll grow on you.
2) Be nice to Sammy & he will look out for you.
3) Hike.
4) If the presentation is an academic paper to be read by the author, take No-Doz (or sleep thru it).
5) If, after a couple of years, the crazy people have not grown on you, shed them like a space shuttle tile. You are not suitable habitat
6) Do not follow any advice given by knowitall old timers, they are just dumbasses like yourself with more time invested.

What are you reading these days?
A cheap biography of Kafka, Restored Edition of Ariel by Sylvia Plath, a couple of books by Andrew Lytle, a few TN Wms plays, an Anne Lamont thingy & some free books the library was giving away.

Current home: Chattanooga, TN
Age: 28
Program: MA with a dash of F
Year in the program: 3.5

Fill us in on your background. Schools attended, work situation, etc.
After graduating from Sewanee as an undergrad, I went to Houston, TX, where I taught high school English for four years. There, I met my wife Ashley, and we moved to Chattanooga. We are currently living on campus as dorm parents at the McCallie School, where I teach sophomore and junior English and coach crew. Living and teaching at an all-male school is…well…interesting.

What led you to the School of Letters program?
I had wanted to start my graduate work for some time, and when the program began at Sewanee, the thought of being able to spend my summers on The Mountain was too much to ignore. No better place to be.

What writing/academic projects are you working on currently?
Currently, I pretty much read and grade papers, though I have plans to write something new and revise something old over the upcoming Christmas vacation. I am still questing for the perfect way to describe a Thickburger in words.

Favorite class so far at Sewanee:
Tough question. I can honestly say that I’ve enjoyed all of them for different reasons, but John Sullivan’s “Creative Nonfiction” class really pushed me in a direction I’d never previously gone. I look forward to further exploring creative writing in future summers.

What would be your fantasy class or workshop at Sewanee, and who would teach?
Anything involving Larry Brown.

What advice would you give to any prospective students?
1)    Stay away from Jimmy.
2)    Visit Shenanigan’s at least once a day.
3)    Meet my dog.
4)    Listen to Townes Van Zandt and/or Steve Earle with John Grammer and beer.
5)    See #1
6)    Find my anthology and return it to me.

What are you reading these days?
In the spirit of the election, I decided to read Obama’s first book, so I’m currently working on that, but mostly I read and re-read whatever I’m teaching, which at the moment would be Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and Hemingway’s short fiction.

Current home: West Palm Beach, FL
Age: 27
Program: MA
Year in the program: finished second year

Fill us in on your background. Schools attended, work situation, etc.
I graduated with my BS in Secondary Education Language Arts and a minor in Studio Art from the University of Alabama (Roll Tide!). Prior to college, I attended boarding school at the Culver Academies; a huge influence on my love of literature thanks to Dr. Richard Davies and Candy Koehn. These two remarkable teachers served as my muses to become a teacher myself. Currently, I find myself living in sunny South Florida with my beautiful wife Cortney teaching ninth and tenth grade English at Cardinal Newman High School. On top of teaching, I am a Department Co-Chair and Boys Head Lacrosse Coach.

What led you to the School of Letters program?
I have always had the goal of continuing my education, but I failed to find the time once I found myself in the “real world.” With teaching and coaching during the year, SOL is the perfect program.

What writing/academic projects are you working on currently?
I am heavily involved in trying to keep pace with my students in all of the reading I assign them.

Favorite class so far at Sewanee:
Toss up… Bible as Lit or Spencer.

What would be your fantasy class or workshop at Sewanee, and who would teach?
Anything with the legendary Angus Fletcher, maybe something on Dante’s Inferno or William Blake.

What advice would you give to any prospective students?
Bring your drinking shoes and a set of bocce…kidding. DO NOT plan anything the week after classes end (i.e. getting married or taking twenty-five students to lacrosse camp thirty hours from home).

What are you reading these days?
Bear’s Boys by Eli Gold (what?! It’s football season) and Le Morte d’Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory.

Current Home: Carrollton, GA
Age: 40
Program: MFA
Year in the program: 2009 would by my 4th if I wasn’t so lame

Fill us in on your background. Schools attended, work situation, etc.
B.A. in Liberal Arts, Baylor University 1989
M.Ed. in Educational Psychology, University of Houston, 1992 (I think)
Ph.D. in Educational Research and Measurement, University of South Carolina, 1998

I teach graduate research courses at the University of West Georgia and am in my 11th year there. Also direct the doctoral program in School Improvement.

What led you to the School of Letters program?
A need to be in writing workshop with others serious about writing and who desire to better their craft. And it’s Sewanee. What else is there to say?

What writing/academic projects are you working on currently?
Creative work: creative non-fiction collection of stories; poetry chapbook; couple of short stories (fiction) that will never get to a final stage.
Professional work: ongoing revisions of a textbook on research (now in its 2nd ed) and a variety of research articles.
Favorite class so far at Sewanee:
Loved American Renaissance with Gatta and my writing workshops with Erin and Michael.
What would be your fantasy class or workshop at Sewanee, and who would teach?
Fantasy workshop would be Joyce Carol Oates teaching fiction via the drill sergeant instructional method…a survivor kind of thing where we compete not to get voted off the mountain.

What advice would you give to any prospective students?
Advice: get the reading lists in January and do all your reading before you come in June.

What are you reading these days?
Today I am reading To Kill a Mockingbird. The rest of the month will include some Gabriel García Márquez, Grace Paley, Kay Ryan, Seamus Heaney (Beowulf translation), and whatever else I bought at Atlanta Book Exchange last weekend.

Current Home: Toccoa, GA
Age: 35
Program: MFA
Year in the program: 3rd year in summer of ‘09
Blog/website: loblollie.blogspot.com

Fill us in on your background. Schools attended, work situation, etc.
SUNY Albany ‘01, B.A. Spanish
Spanish teacher in a private high school in Anderson, SC

What led you to the School of Letters program?
Had been plagued to write seriously for years and needed structure ( i.e. a classroom) and flexibility (i.e. a summer program)

What writing/academic projects are you working on currently?
I have a few short stories I am polishing that revolve around mother-daughter relationships and/or the idea of home and what that means.

Favorite class so far at Sewanee:
Literature of the American South

What would be your fantasy class or workshop at Sewanee, and who would teach?
A creative non-fiction class taught by Lee Gutkind

What advice would you give to any prospective students?
Come devoted to your craft. Come green and humble enough to be taught to write better. Come with the willingness to put yourself on a serious schedule.

What are you reading these days?
I recently finished Two Kinds of Decay by Sarah Manguso. (It was in a stack of free books that John Jeremiah Sullivan gave away at the end of the semester.) Right now, I’m absorbing morsels from Letitia Baldrige’s New Manners for New Times. Next I’m leaning towards finishing Gilead and then Home, both by Marilynne Robinson.

Current home: East Point, GA
Age: 30
Program: MFA
Year in the program: Just finished my 2nd summer
Blog/website: strongsilent.com

Fill us in on your background. Schools attended, work situation, etc.
Graduated from Agnes Scott with a BA in English Lit/Creative Writing, spent a few years working in publishing in NYC, started experimenting with interactive media and printmaking, married, moved back to ATL, landed a job with an ad agency, established my garage printshop

What led you to the School of Letters program?
I’ve been kind of dreaming about an MFA since the last days of undergrad. An ad for the School of Letters in the Oxford American made me curious. My mom lives in Sewanee, so it was like puzzle pieces coming together.

What writing/academic projects are you working on currently?
I’m really getting into the history and landscape of the southside of Atlanta. I’m trying to archive vanishing bits of southernness around here. Also, I print all kinds of stuff in my garage and then write about artmaking.

Favorite class so far at Sewanee:
Creative Non-fiction with John Jeremiah Sullivan

What would be your fantasy class or workshop at Sewanee, and who would teach?
Screenwriting with Miranda July

What advice would you give to any prospective students?
Catch up on sleep when the program is over. And then look for ways to integrate the utopian Sewanee experience into your “other” life.

What are you reading these days?
Design blogs mostly. Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy and American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld. (because Prep was so juicy.)

Current home: Atlanta, Georgia
Age: why?  31
Program: MA
Year in the program: finished second year

Fill us in on your background. Schools attended, work situation, etc.
I graduated with my BA in English from the University of South Carolina in ‘99.  I teach World Literature to the sophomores of The Galloway School and have begun my sixth year there. I taught freshmen English at Southside High School (Greenville, S.C.) when I first began. I can’t think of anything better than spending my days talking about books and grading essays.

What led you to the School of Letters program?
Fortuitously, I received the brochure for SOL in my mailbox at Galloway. Many of my colleagues graduated from Sewanee and encouraged me to attend. I could think of nothing better than attending a graduate school in the summers on such a beautiful campus.

What writing/academic projects are you working on currently?
Thanks to the efforts of Hannah Palmer, I am now involved in a continuation of a writing workshop that plans to meet over the year.

Favorite class so far at Sewanee:
1850s American Literature with John Ernest

What would be your fantasy class or workshop at Sewanee, and who would teach?
I would love to take a Modernist Lit. class taught by Ernest.

What advice would you give to any prospective students?
Bring quarters for the washing machine and be prepared to read. a lot.

What are you reading these days?
White Like Me by Tim Wise and my students’ essays

Current home: Nashville, TN
Age: 33
Program: MFA
Year in the program: Just finished first year

Blog/website: No, but if you find me on Goodreads.com we can have fun conversations about books!

Fill us in on your background. Schools attended, work situation, etc.
I graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and lived in New York City for 10 more years, writing, dancing, and performing.  Eventually I got a Masters in Education, became a math teacher, and moved to Nashville, Tennessee.  Now I teach mathematics and philosophy in a public high school and write poetry whenever I can.

What led you to the School of Letters program?
I had wanted to get an MFA for a long time, but doing a full-time two-year program was impractical for me.  When I saw the ad for the Sewanee School of Letters in the Oxford American, there was no question.  I knew I wanted to go.

What writing/academic projects are you working on currently?
My focus right now is getting more poems published, so I am researching journals and sending work out.

Favorite class so far at Sewanee:
I couldn’t possibly determine. I completely adored both classes I’ve taken as the School of Letters so far:  a poetry workshop with Charles Martin and Jenn Lewin’s seminar in The Bible as Literature. My teachers were wonderfully intelligent and informed in their fields.

What would be your fantasy class or workshop at Sewanee, and who would teach?
A survey of modern literature with Charles Martin, perhaps? Honestly, he could teach anything he liked and I would sign up!

What advice would you give to any prospective students?
If you want to come, do whatever you need to make it happen. It is like a fantasy camp: nothing to do but read and write; no distractions but the beautiful Sewanee landscape and passionate conversations with classmates.

What are you reading these days?
Where to begin? I just finished Alan Moore’s graphic novel Watchmen and have begun An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England by Brock Clarke. Also Wodehouse’s Carry On, Jeeves is around here somewhere, probably under the copy of Hermione Lee’s biography of Virgina Woolf I’ve been reading for 6 months!