On Endings, On Writing, on MFA Programs

 This essay was first published by Women Writers, Women's Books: http://booksbywomen.org/sarah-layden-on-writing/

Many years ago, while commuting to my MFA program in creative writing, I made a habit of seeking out an old windmill along my route. It was both a landmark for the distance I had yet to travel, and a reminder that I was back home again in Indiana after years away.

Now that windmill is gone. By spring, Purdue University’s MFA program will be gone, too.

Perhaps the victim of a passing storm, the windmill once stood along I-65 between my home in Indianapolis and the West Lafayette exit to campus. Acres of industrial wind farms loomed further north, but that lone windmill was no more. Out of habit I still searched for it, driving north to Chicago to promote Imagine Your Life Like This, a collection of stories that I started in the first year of my MFA. That was 2003, twenty years before the book would be done and on the shelf.

The road bled into my writing. So did Indiana, experienced anew after a decade away. In my notebook I wrote about connection and disconnection, speeding tickets (I got two), fields of corn and soybean, lonely drivers in search of a life that eluded them. The naked cowboy, a man wearing only a straw hat and boots and waggling his hips at the passing cars and semis. Had he lost a bet? Found a hobby? I didn’t know. I wanted to, from a distance.  

My stories also featured Central New York, which I missed intensely after my husband and I moved. I’d left a reporting job in Syracuse so I could write fiction, something my entire being wanted to do. While difficult to leave, I was thrilled to meet my new community at Purdue.

One of my first MFA professors, Patricia Henley, shared an Isak Dinesen quote that I still think about: “I write a little every day, without hope, without despair.” The work, Patricia told her students, was the reward. With so much out of your control in publishing—agents, editors, reviews, sales—you could control your relationship to the work. Her new novel, A Sad Thought You Can Dance To, comes out in 2024.

At Printers Row Lit Fest in Chicago, I saw another professor, Sharon Solwitz. I was there to present a panel and sign books, and I was honored to have Sharon’s blurbed endorsement on the back of my collection. In addition to three books of fiction, Sharon’s work appears in Best American Short Stories. We hugged. “You didn’t stop after Purdue,” she told me. This was her first year without a graduate workshop. She mentioned her colleagues, longtime faculty members who support each other amid budget and program cuts.

When I was a grad student, I worked on Purdue’s long-running literary journal, Sycamore Review, learning skills that later translated into a co-authored literary editing textbook. Fifteen years after I graduated, Sycamore Review published my flash fiction, “Gone for Good.” I keep years of issues on my bookshelves to loan to my college students, knowing the journal also might be gone for good.

I didn’t know back then how impermanent things could be; I only knew I felt compelled to record the world around me. On one commute, I brought my Polaroid camera to take a photo of the windmill. It was harder than I expected to find the right road to the farm after exiting the interstate. Then the dust from my tires needed to settle. My disturbance alerted the farmer, who drove out in his truck. He waved. It wasn’t friendly. I held up my camera as explanation. He sat and watched me until I drove away.

All I have is the photo. All I have is the memory. The windmill, too, makes an appearance in Imagine Your Life Like This. In “White Hands,” a woman’s car breaks down, along with her sense of responsibility. The windmill appears and disappears as she watches from the tow truck window.

I wasn’t towed, but I once ran out of gas when I misjudged the distance to the next exit. A State Trooper stopped to help and said he guessed that I wasn’t studying math at Purdue. Correct, sir. The work was hard to quantify. The work counted. There is no column on a spreadsheet to show the benefits of understanding the world through another point of view, and how thoughtful critique of your writing can change not only the writing, but you. Studying fiction does that.

Driving home from Chicago, I passed the wind farms that no longer seemed eerie to me. Now I am used to the towering height of these industrial windmills, their mechanical arms like slow and steady punches. On other trips, I took photos with my smartphone. This time, I didn’t.

More miles of cornfields and soybeans, then I reached the campus exit and caught a glint of metal through the trees. Another windmill in a field, waiting for nature to make its blades spin. Of course, it was there all along. My discovery only became possible from a different perspective.

September to remember

Labor Day seems so long ago, and it was not quite a month back that I traveled to Bloomington, IN for a reading of TRIP THROUGH YOUR WIRES at Boxcar Books. Happily, I was joined by IU creative writing professor Elizabeth Eslami (author of HIBERNATE and BONE WORSHOP).

My cousin and his wife had me to dinner, along with two of my dear high school friends who live in town. Laughing, eating, and telling stories with my friends and family made me much less nervous to read. I pretty much always get nervous before I read.

Hard to say what is happening with my forearm muscle in this photo, but I cannot take my eyes off of it. That particular muscle is STRONG. I have no idea why. Maybe from picking up children?

Here is Liz, reading an incredible short story from her prize-winning collection HIBERNATE:

Later in the month, I had the good fortune to travel to Missoula for The Montana Book Festival. It was a jam-packed weekend of readings, panels, and social events.

I just made it to my Friday afternoon panel with suitcase in tow (possible title for something: Things to Do in Denver When You're Delayed),  and had a great session with Montana mystery writers Leslie Budewitz and Christine Carbo. Our panel was titled, "The Writer, the Mirror, the Map: Mystery Writers Reflect on Identity, Murder and Place."

We had a great crowd & great questions during the Q&A, and the author reception after gave us a chance to chat with festival-goers. A very nice audience member with terrific orange glasses stopped me on the street later to invite me for a drink with her crew; she had some Indy ties and we chatted a bit about Jim Jones. Regretfully, I declined, as I was headed to the next event of the evening.

Sarah Hepola (BLACKOUT: REMEMBERING THE THINGS I DRANK TO FORGET) and Kate Bolick (SPINSTER: MAKING A LIFE OF ONE'S OWN) in conversation was a definite highlight for me. These two forty-something women discussed what they called the "bonus decade" of leisure time - remaining unmarried, without children - while figuring their lives out. Their candor inspired me, and they clearly connected over their subject matter, varied though it was.

Here is the back of my head, bottom right, with the featured authors, mid-conversation:

(This photo appeared on the Montana Book Festival's Facebook page. Festival photos were taken by Claire Kelly Fox and Anna Maria Lopez.)

Other highlights: Talking with booklovers and booksellers. Charles D'Ambrosio's reading. A panel on genre/literary fiction with J. Robert Lennon, Ben Parzybok, Shya Scanlon, and Sharma Shields.

I told Lennon how I'd given his book, MAILMAN, to my mailman, and how he'd enjoyed it. Later that evening, Lennon and I chatted about the story he read during his session, and high-fived in the Missoula VFW.

And here is my book, enjoying the beautiful weather, the "M" tiny on the hill in the background...

 ...which I later hiked to on Sunday morning. Pictures or it didn't happen:

 Subtitle for September: Gonna Make You Sweat. 

Will you think I'm a total freakazoid if I mention that I noticed someone at the festival bookfair picking up and buying my book, and I surreptitiously took a picture?

 

(I also have a close-up version. But I'm not THAT much of a freakazoid to post it here. Jeez.)

At the closing beer & music event, someone asked me my connection to the festival. I briefly mentioned TRIP THROUGH YOUR WIRES, which he immediately recognized. "My wife bought it," he said. "I think you met her. Orange glasses? She'll be here in a minute."

So I did get that drink with the kind woman and her husband after all. And after? On a whim, I took a pedestrian bridge across the railroad, and happened upon this lucky shot:

My last event of the month was this past Monday at Purdue University, where I received my MFA in fiction writing. The MFA program brought me and my fellow alum, James Tadd Adcox, to campus for a reading. It was an incredible experience.

Super grateful that program director Brian Leung brought us to campus; coordinator Samantha Atkins anticipated our every planning need. Great conversation at dinner beforehand, and a lovely party afterward at thrown by Roxane Gay.

My former professor, Sharon Solwitz, introduced us and showered us with love, and I was reminded of the power of her mentorship. "Are you writing?" she asks, as if inquiring about my health. In a way, she is. This is a woman lauded in Best American Short Stories with a new novel coming from Random House. "What are you working on?" she asks. "How are revisions? How's the family?"

All my Purdue professors gave me great teaching models to aspire to. They shared such excitement for me and Tadd about our first novels (Tadd's is DOES NOT LOVE), and thanked us over and over again for coming to speak to MFA students and do a reading. I wasn't surprised by their kindness or gratitude, but I do have to say, emphatically, seriously, often: No, thank YOU.

That goes for everyone I had the chance to meet and reconnect with this September. When I was scheduling, three events in four weeks didn't seem like a lot. I had no idea how full -- how fulfilling -- September would be. Thank you.


*Closing credits, cue Earth Wind & Fire*

 

This is it

The apocalypse, that is. In several steps:

The sky tonight was not quite a tornado sky but a butter yellow plus haze (butter smoldering in a pan, smoking but not burnt), along with pink and purple and navy blue. You are supposed to take pictures of these things to post and later to send to local news outlets who need footage, especially if it IS a tornado or pre-tornado and not just murky butter-sky. Instead I stood on the sidewalk and turned 360 degrees to take in the whole sky and wondered if the man driving by in the Jeep with tinted windows was someone I knew, wondering why I was spinning in a circle.

Today I was compelled to get a password reminder so I could log on to MYSPACE, which is a post-apocalyptic scene replete with desert and industrial smog. Some of you were there, un(re)touched since 2007, filterless, showing your eternal love of Death Cab for Cutie. I'm right there with you. I remembered when my profile photo was taken: we'd gone to the Purdue campus for a day trip to take our minds off of fertility treatments. We drank root beer floats at Triple XXX and walked through air so humid you could practically see the water droplets. We were about a week away from finding out those treatments didn't work, that I wasn't pregnant. The day the photo was taken was the same day Michael Jackson died. (Context clue to signal late June 2009, specific date I cannot recall and do not feel like researching, because that was not my particular apocalypse.) I still have the purple tank top I wore in the picture, but not the brown one layered underneath. I ought to delete the profile but it stands like a monument, and history exists whether we delete it or not.

Now we have two kids, almost 4 and almost 2. The things you think will sink you wind up not, sometimes. Now it is the day-to-day. The stress and hustle. The full moon behavior when there isn't a full moon at all. I could tell you stories, but I hesitate: these are their stories, not mine. My desire to protect is stronger than my desire to disclose. I will say that the oldest has taken to doing a very funny routine in which he imitates my husband and me telling a story in which we imitate the baby's speech and actions. We told this story several times recently to several people, and Big Brother is Watching. Hears all, sees all. Takeaway from the comedy routine: my husband and I say "like" a lot. Like, a lot. Now we can tell a story about our son imitating us imitating his brother. And then he can tell the story. Let the circle be unbroken. 

Minor apocalypse: a contractor's coming by tomorrow during a specific window. I've received a reminder message EVERY DAY for a week about this appointment, this window. Tonight the phone rang. I joked that it was the company, thinking, No. It is not really the company, not again. But yes. One last appointment reminder. Unless I get another one tomorrow morning. Unless the world ends before then, on account of the burning butter sky.

This is it:

A funny thing happened on the way to the dinner

So there I am, at the gorgeous Central Library as part of the Indiana Author's Award event. I have two back-to-back sessions during the day, and before the first one starts, I have a minute to duck into the Author's Fair and say hello to Bich Minh Nguyen, one of the finalists for the Emerging Author award (the other finalists were Micah Ling and Aaron Michael Morales.) Bich was kind enough to invite me to join her for the awards dinner at Purdue's table -- she teaches at Purdue, which is where I earned my MFA.

I also see Dick Wolfsie sitting at one of the tables in front of a stack of books. I say hello, and tell him that I had the pleasure of watching a taping of his show with my class more than 20 years ago at Union Station.

"Great!" he says, nice as can be. "Are you still a teacher?"

This is where I had to explain that yes, I am now a teacher, but back then, well, I was in the sixth grade.

Poor Dick Wolfsie was mortified. He clapped his hands over his mouth and apologized. "Wait until my wife hears about this." (Note to Dick Wolfsie's wife: It was totally fine. Funny, in fact.)

My sessions were titled "Get Started," a course I'd taught before for the Writers' Center of Indiana. My first group kicked off with participants asking a number of questions, which helped focus the discussion. We wrote a little, talked a little more, and people discussed the stages of their various writing projects (for some, they had yet to begin, so "Get Started" made perfect sense.) It was a great, participatory group. Afterwards, I watched two attendees introduce themselves, then exchange contact information along with meaningful hugs. Not exactly typical of a short writing session, but hey: I'm thrilled that connections were made.

Have I mentioned that I did not eat lunch, not officially, on this day? It had been a busy morning. My husband had rented an aerator for the lawn, and drove across town to do my parents' lawn, too. When he got home, he looked peaked. "I feel horrible," he said, and collapsed into bed.

Really? I was thinking. I haven't showered, and the baby needs to eat, and he's taking a nap? I looked closer. He was more than peaked, he was green. And he'd have to take care of the baby -- who'd had a bug two days before, which my husband must've caught -- when I left to teach. "Rest," I said, "then call my mom if you need her." Grammy's always on call. Three cheers for Grammy!

So I wheeled the high chair over to the bathroom door and took a quick shower while the baby ate. He whined at first, then kicked his feet and laughed each time I peek-a-booed around the shower curtain. I quickly got ready and grabbed a banana to go. Got through the first session, then realized I'd need a little more sustenance. I bought a granola bar at the library cafe and ducked into the now-empty author's fair room to eat.

A man walks in. "Are you an author?" he asks. "Are you famous?"

"Um, yes?" I say. "And no."

We chatted a bit about his writing, his identity crisis, his career change. I gulped down the granola bar. I only had a few minutes before the next session, and I raced off. I do a lot of racing around these days, which is funny considering my high school volleyball teammates used to call me Eeyore. Because I was slow. Also: grumpy.

The second session went a little differently. People came in and out, sort of trying out the class before deciding it wasn't for them. Or maybe they wanted to hit more than one session before heading home. There was a distracted vibe. I talked about getting messy, creatively, rather than trying to shoehorn ideas into a prearranged format. "But I'm halfway done!" one person argued. "I've got it all mapped out on a spreadsheet, and now you're telling me to start over?"

Was I? I didn't think so. I had been talking about getting started. As the title of the session would suggest. Even so, I began to sweat. Was this nerves? Students offer challenges all the time, and usually it doesn't faze me. I like trying to think on my feet and explain something in a new way. But I was definitely sweating. Maybe I shouldn't have worn a wool sweater.

I was in the middle of a sentence, answering a question about the merits of MFA programs, when I knew that it wasn't nerves. I felt sick.

"I need to excuse myself," I said. "If I'm not back in five minutes, we'll have to cancel."

Deep breathing got me to the bathroom, where I proceeded to retch my meager lunch into the toilet. "Sorry," I said weakly to the person in the next stall, who was nice enough to ask if I was OK.

Actually, now I felt great. "I'm fine," I said emphatically, popped a Breathsaver, and returned to the room to finish the session. A concerned trio of library staff waited for me there, and I reassured them I could finish the remaining ten minutes. And I did. I can still make the dinner, I told myself. That was a one-time thing.

It wasn't. I had to pull over once on the way home, and couldn't even make it to the passenger side to get sick on busy College Ave. Someone, I thought, is going to drive into my open car door, and also my head, and this will be a humiliating way to die. While vomiting on the roadside.

"I can still make the dinner," I said when I got home. My husband eyed me from the couch; my mom shook her head doubtfully. I laid down on the floor. My sweet baby scooted over and flopped his body over mine as if giving me a hug.

"Just a sec," I said, and ran to the bathroom.

Old Faithful, my husband called me, once I was well enough to joke about such things. I stayed in bed until late afternoon Sunday. The bug my son had and my husband nearly had was no joke.

So, I missed the dinner, which, judging by all of your photos on Facebook, was really nice. Congratulations go out to poet Micah Ling, who won the Emerging Author award, and I wished I'd had the chance to talk to her, and to catch up with Bich, and to meet Aaron, another Purdue MFA grad.

Jell-O and soup and saltines and a really great husband (and mom, who came back on Monday to take care of me AND the baby) fixed me up right. Baby's feeling great now, too. Here's hoping I'll keep my clean bill of health for the Gathering of Writers this Saturday. I'll continue my strict regimen of granola bar avoidance, and everything should be just fine.