Faculty Voices with Claire Rudolf Murphy: March Madness and the Writing Life

Full disclosure: this does not include brilliant insights. It’s just a fun way to celebrate life in all we do. If you are not a basketball lover, take a pass. But if you are, here goes . . .

For as long as I can remember, March Madness has been a family affair. My beloved Zags have made it to eighteen straight tournaments and the Gonzaga women’s team has had some good runs, too. This year the Zags’ men’s team outplayed all its skeptics and made it to the Final Four, the National Book Awards of college basketball.  So I couldn’t resist sharing how it compares to our writing life.

If you are like me, you don’t need much to distract from your writing, especially while in a challenging stage in the process, as I am right now. This year, I kept revising my book project, but kept tuned in to the games, too.

So how is writing like basketball?

• Producing pages and watching games gives us something to cheer about.
• Writing and watching games can distract us from the ongoing distressing news of late.
• Both writing and basketball helps me channel my dad who was proud of Zag basketball and my books.
• Children’s books are sometimes not given the same attention as adult books. The same could be said of my Zags. National sports pundits would say they come from a small college in little Spokane, and a weak conference. Sure they’re going to win a lot of games, but can they play with the big boys? It’s easy to write a kid’s book, right? And not so hard to get one published.
• Gonzaga men’s team has been called a mid-major for years. There’s that category of midlist for writers. So what can we do? Never stop showing up.

Going to the Final Four is like winning a big award. There are no guarantees but if it comes, let’s celebrate. More importantly let’s celebrate another day of practice and writing, even when it’s tough.

I’ve celebrated March Madness with Hamline students and alums for years. Like Randall Bonser and his Michigan teams and Elizabeth Schoenfeld and her Duke Blue Devils. This year I’m having fun with alum Donna Koppelman whose North Carolina team will be at the Big Dance along with her daughters’ college team - South Carolina. Oh, yeah.

I am here at the final four and would appreciate your cheers tonight for the little engine that could against the  if mAchine of North Carolina.

Seize the day and write on.

Alumni Voices with Polly Alice: Changing Lives

Dear MFAC Hamliners and Alums,

It was so great to be at the winter Hamline Residency this year for a few days. I was inspired, encouraged and impressed by all the new faces.  I’m writing to you from my sewing room/ office well really it’s my mother’s office. I have no idea what my computer is in here really. Her doctorate degree is here above my head and a quilt I may never start is folded up on the table to my left; picture of my grandmother on my right-- along with the iron. It’s been out since I put the Boy Scout patches on.  I ironed them in the wrong place and they had to be removed.

So how is writing going for you all? It’s finally come to my late-blooming-attention that writing is something that always happens on the side.  And won’t happen without intention. I am maybe one of the only people I know who loved my Hamline critical thesis. I worked on it from the day I began as a student up until I graduated three years later. I took it from 40 pages to 20 pages. I guess I’m a research paper nut. This all makes sense to me now that I’m in my second semester teaching college freshmen to write term papers. Yes it all makes sense. I get some kind of evil enjoyment out of teaching other people to write essays. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. But I’m glad I fit in somewhere, thank you, God.  (Yes I know last time I wrote you Hamlinites, I was running an art gallery—ahh the life of the artist, things change so fast). Now I’m three blocks up at the community college. Same commute, same neighborhood—different art.

I get to write notes to the students thanks to Blackboard (a new invention since I was 18). I never ever sent a message to a teacher outside of class. hmmm. Now I get messages night and day. I’ve even gotten a call during class so someone could tell me about their intestinal trouble. Student teacher confidentiality has changed a bit since I was in school. One thing, I have the students write me letters at the end of the semester about what they’ve learned as part of their final. So cheers to me. I finally get some letters.

So my crazy need to write to people and have them write back is now fulfilled by being the cooky absent-minded English professor.  Yes, I like it. I also wear silly scarves and thick classes—it makes for the look, too bad everyone still thinks I’m a student. I don’t know what I do wrong there.

And I’ve decided to take my beloved Hamline Thesis and use it again! First I took it from 20 pages to 6 pages and submitted it to a contest and won prize. Then from 6 pages to a 1 page abstract and I got accepted to share at a conference--and went to a conference and shared. That was fun. Now I’ve turned it into a book proposal. One of those books you read on the plane. I think that although I have fun trying to get to my novels I will get to these nonfiction books much faster. Let’s hope.

Besides all that I just got a new summer job. I’m going to be writing for kids. I’m writing and creating art curriculum for summer camps! Who knows how that will go. But let the paint fly.

Being a writer is turning out to be really life changing. I’ve been put on a Title III committee to teach classes that help students get college ready. Our textbook in English 90 and 101 is Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. We watched the new documentary, 13th, about the thirteenth amendment by Duvernay… I’ve never learned so much about the country that I’m living in and what people overcome to just live. Just live. All my students want to be better writers. I’ve got single moms, people from every continent on the globe and several islands, basketball scholarship winners, hopeful ex-cons, baby boomers, survivors, and kids from down the block. We all jump in to writing together. I share with them what I learned from you all.

I can see it changing lives. After each student leaves, I take a small breath. There goes one more person who will now get a better job, have a chance to get an education, someone who will make a difference.  Next fall I’m teaching English 102. The textbook is Hamilton. Profs are fondly calling the class: Find your own revolution. I certainly have. 

POLLY ALICE author and illustrator, opened New Thing Art Studio in 2015 back home in Kansas City-- where she paints, illustrates children’s books, and teaches college writing. Her work is often mixed media. “I create my art to be more like poetry—to have symbolic meanings layered from dream and memories.” Polly won the 2014 Ernest Hartmann award from the International Association for the Study of Dreams from Berkley CA for her research on self awareness for writers and artists through dreamwork. She loves to grow basil and explore the unexpected in her free time.

Alumni Voices with Ellen Kazimer: Writing and Revising While Building a House

An unexpected job relocation landed us in Georgia and, rather than rent or buy; we decided to build a house. A fortunate set of circumstances indeed, but it has eaten up my precious writing time. I usually write in the morning, when I am fresh with ideas. Lately, however, my early morning ideas have more to do with my house-in-progress than my work-in-progress. The two endeavors are rather similar in some ways.

Both building and writing need a basic structure upon which to create. A novel requires a basic plot structure, setting, characters, and a theme. A house needs a foundation, load-bearing walls, plumbing, and insulation before it turns into a home.

Along the path to writing a story and building a home, there are so many choices to be made. It is almost paralyzing. Many days, I have felt unable to make a decision on my house-in-progress or my work-in-progress. In her book, Story Genius: How to Use Brain Science to go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel, Lisa Chron writes, “Myriad studies have shown that the more choices we have, the less likely we are to choose anything. Not only that but limitless choice tends to trigger anxiety.”

I am constantly revising my house-in-progress and my work-in-progress. Like cutting out a darling sentence that no longer works, I’ve had to let go of items I loved that no longer go with the house-in-progress. I’ve also had to strike out my vague, overused nouns from my vocabulary like “whatcha ma call it” and “thing a ma jig” for precise builder nouns like “newel” and “corbel.” Then I wake up at two in the morning with the dreaded realization that a small change I made means a complete overhaul throughout the house. It may even cause a delay in the house being completed. But it must be done. This too, has happened in my “work-in-progress.”

Despite my doubts and anxiety, I move forward one step at a time focusing on what is important to me, to my house, and to my manuscript. What I value is a comfy home and a compelling story that invites you to pull up a cozy chair, sit a spell, and read.

Ellen Kazimer is a 2014 graduate of Hamline MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults. She writes picture books, nonfiction, and middle grades novels. Her full bio can be found on her website http://ellenkazimer.com.

Alumni Voices with Melinda Cordell: The Buddy System - Promotion at its Best

My nonfiction book, Courageous Women of the Civil War: Soldiers, Spies, Medics, and More, came out on August 1. It’s only been a few days since the book’s official release date, but it seems like much longer. 

Long before the book came out, I did something smart: on my Facebook account, I started friending folks from way back in my life. People I went to school with. My parents’ friends. Folks from around town. Writer friends. Hamline buddies (of course). I friended my fourth-grade teacher, my speech therapist from clear back in kindergarten, folks from Nodaway, shirttail relatives, college buddies, professors, the list goes on. Of course it’s nice to have all my old friends and relatives in one place, but I also knew that home folks would be interested in seeing what I did, since they knew me back when I was small and walking around with my nose in a book.

The nice thing was how good it felt to reestablish contact after lo these many years. And when I talked about my book on there, folks actually got excited. This didn’t usually happen in my life, so it felt pretty good.

A few months before my book’s release date, I hit a rough patch due to outside factors. I stopped caring about writing and was profoundly unmotivated to change this. My little family kept me going, and I love those guys for it, but I was low. I’d been a writer all my life, and now this other stuff was going on, and I was worried that I was going to be stuck without writing for the rest of my life. I needed help, but it seemed like wherever I turned for help a door would quietly shut in my face.  

But then, after I got my box of books, some of my buddies (from FB, naturally) wanted to buy a book from me. So I sold one. Then I sold another. Friends – and I just said that in my preacher’s voice – friends, that’s when the light shone upon me. I handed somebody my book. They handed me a $20 bill. After all these years of hard work, I was getting a tangible reward. Instant gratification. And that’s when I got hungry. When I got hungry, I pulled out of my funk. I got so motivated so fast it made my head spin.

So anytime anyone on FB said they wanted to buy my book, I told them that if they buy it from me, I’ll take it to them and sign it right there. Old friends are taking me up on that. The neat thing is, not only do I sell a book, but I get to talk to an old friend I haven’t seen for a while. That’s definitely worth the price of admission.

Other friends are helping out in other ways. Some give me leads about places to sell my book, or they’ll share posts about my book with folks they know. Some friends have invited me to come out and give presentations. You never know who will have a lead for you – so invite ‘em all!

And I’m getting more ideas just from hanging out with these guys. I used to say that I had no interest in self-publishing. Then, after an author’s showcase at the library where I hung out with a bunch of self-published writers with tons of books on their tables, I got hungry again. “Dude!” I thought. “I have so many old manuscripts that agents have passed on – I’m going to self-publish them too!” So now I’ll have more books to sell with my Civil War book. I’m still sending stuff out to agents – but Mama’s tired of waiting over here. She’s going to make her own damn books!

You know, this whole experience has been a kick in the pants – a very welcome one, because I had no idea that promotion could be such a nice thing. My friends’ support has been invaluable, and actually has been one of my favorite parts of this whole journey. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

*Melinda Cordell earned her Master’s in Writing for Children from Hamline University. Her first book, Courageous Women of the Civil War, has been published by Chicago Review Press and is (at this particular millisecond) a #1 New Release in Teen & Young Adult Military History.  Melinda's fiction and articles have appeared in Cricket, Highlights, and The Horn Book, as well as Organic Gardening, Birds and Blooms, and Grit. Visit her author's website at http://www.melindacordell.com/ to learn more or just say hi!

Repairing the Internal Writing Machine

Today's post comes from MFAC alum Ann Quiring*.  She writes to us on the very real problem of losing the urge to write and how she was able to overcome it.

A few years ago, my internal writing machine, the spark we all need to get our butt in that chair, shut down. System failure. I just couldn’t put words together anymore. I quit my writing group. I stopped attending local kid lit and Hamline MFAC alumni events. I hid from questions about my writing, because I felt ashamed of my answer.

Hamline taught me to find the heart in a story, and fortunately, my writing journey has a hopeful ending.

The reason for my writing breakdown was rooted in a critique for a novel I had worked on for a long time. I know what you’re thinking: Ann, we have to be able to hear tough critiques as writers. We need thick skin. I know. But this critique cut into my writing soul like no other response I had heard before. I can’t explain why; it just stopped me from even thinking about a revision, or a new project.

So instead of writing, I read. I devoured literary fiction, mysteries, memoir, and short stories. Reading is a natural way to fight writer’s block, and my reading led me to finding a new genre. I had enjoyed every mystery I read, so last fall I took a Crime Fiction Writing class at The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. This class helped me dissect the mystery novel and inspire my writing in a new way.

I also started tutoring writing at The Mid-Continent Oceanographic Institute, a local non-profit dedicated to supporting young students with writing and homework. Tutoring brings me joy every week; the kids inspire me to work harder on my own writing. Recently a young student of mine wrote two pages about a chair in the room. If she can crank out two pages about a chair, I can surely write two pages a day.  

This month, I’m taking a Gothic Horror Writing class taught by MFAC alum Jackie Hesse (she is a great teacher). Now I really don’t like gothic horror—I faint at the sight of blood—but I thought the class would complement my mystery writing and teach me a few things about suspense, and it has.

During this time of rediscovery, I started writing a young adult mystery novel, and I just shared the first chapter with some fellow writers. I am writing again. Sharing my writing is still as terrifying to me as a gothic novel, but it’s also home. I’ve found comfort in writing again.

If you find yourself stuck, try something new and different. Take a sewing class. Jump on a trampoline. Discover new people in your community. As simple and clichéd as it sounds, it worked for me.

*Ann Quiring likes to brag about being in the very first (and in her unbiased opinion, the very best) Hamline MFAC class of 2009. She lives and drinks a lot of strong coffee in Minneapolis, MN. 

Tending the Garden

In this week's Storyteller's Inkpot post alum Donna Jones Koppelman* talks about how gardening and writing have a lot more in common than one might think.


One beautiful spring day last week, I got impatient about planting my garden. Impatience turned to impulse, as if often does, and I bought a rototiller!  I love it.  It’s petite as a hummingbird but does the job like a bulldog. I love to plan my garden, plant my garden, tend my garden, and harvest my garden, but many of those aspects of gardening are vulnerable to conditions I can’t control—like weather. Tilling up the soil is something I can control, and with my own rototiller, I am unstoppable.

Gardening is a perfect metaphor for writing. I reflect on the parallels as I wait for the seed of an idea to germinate, as I edit out the weeds that impede the growth of my prize plant, and as I pray the hailstorm of my insecurities don’t ruin that last chapter. So what is the rototiller in this metaphor?

A rototiller prepares the soil for a luscious garden. It stirs up all that’s hidden, so I can spot weeds, roots, and shells I couldn’t see before. It makes my garden inviting. It beckons me to come and plant, and I like to think well-tilled soil is a glorious, comfortable place for tiny growing seeds.

In writing, my rototiller is my routine. My daily routine makes my work space a fertile place for ideas to grow and blossom. I have a friend who says she cannot write until her whole house is clean. That is not true for me (or I wouldn’t have written a word in twenty years). I just need a clean surface on my desk. I need white paper and a really good pen. I need brushes and paints or drawing pencils close at hand. I need my favorite craft book, THE WAR OF ART by Steven Pressfield, from which I read a chapter every day. I need a poetry book, from which I read a poem every day, and lastly, I need a scented candle.

Whew. Sounds really neurotic, right? But the process of gathering all these things and placing them just so gives my brain the time it needs to shift from who is driving sports carpool to what story I will tell today. Clearing my desk clears my mind. Setting up brushes and drawing pencils signals my brain that it’s time to get creative. It’s time for fun. Mr. Pressfield reminds me it’s time to WORK, and poetry shows me that work should be lovely. Lastly, I choose a scented candle with a smell that fits my work for the day. Smells are powerful stimulants for my memory and thought process. I like to think E.B. White chose a cotton candy scented candle to write those marvelous scenes at the fair. Or maybe it was a pig scent? Or perhaps he had a completely different routine.

In graduate school, I studied routine in schoolchildren, particularly homework routines. Students who followed the same routine at homework time every day had significantly higher grades than students without routines. They finished their homework much more quickly than students without routines, so I know routines are effective.

What is your routine? Be intentional as you till up the garden of your mind. Get the pesky weeds out of the way, so you can nurture those good ideas. Harvest day will come.



*Donna Jones Koppelman graduated from Hamlin's Masters in Fine Arts in Writing for Children and Young Adults in 2015. She is represented by Alyssa Eisner Henkin at Trident Media, and she adores her new rototiller. 

Avoiding the Demon Wasp

Today, alumni Jackie Hesse* writes about her battle with the Demon Wasp (a.k.a. panic).  Read on to see if the sage advice of a Buddhist monk could also help you deal with your own struggles with victomhood, fear, and saying "no." 

Years ago I suffered from severe panic disorder. I could barely muster the courage to leave my house for fear of a crippling panic attack. I saw several therapists and took medication but couldn't shake the overwhelming fear and sense of impending doom.

A friend counseled me through this rough period. Not knowing how to help, she enlisted the aid of a Buddhist monk whom she sat next to on a trans-Atlantic flight.

"Why does she have panic attacks and how does she get rid of them?" she asked the monk.

He smiled, benevolently I picture, and said, "She's getting something out of them or she wouldn't have them." 

I wanted to punch that monk in the face. Getting something out of panic? Was he mad? I was a victim of panic. I was not relishing in it nor choosing it. What an insensitive, idiot monk.

I thought about that monk recently. You see, recently I began to protect my writing time. Panic and writing. The two are related.

For years I blamed my failure to write on others, on the world. There is something seductive about being the victim, it evokes sympathy which ironically translates into power. Because I was powerless over panic, and over all the things that stood between me and my writing time, I got a pass.

I've gotten over, or possibly through, having panic attacks. I decided that while extremely uncomfortable, panic can't hurt me and anxiety is just a (sucky) part of life. It's okay to feel anxious and still do things. More important is that it's ok to say no.   

The University of California at San Francisco has done extensive research on this idea of saying no. The more difficult it is for a person to say no the more "stress, burnout, and depression" they suffer. Go figure. Probably the less writing they do as well.

My panic was really about me saying not saying no. Panic felt very real and very uncontrollable and I suffered terribly. I really did think I was going to die.

But panic and anxiety were, in a very unconscious sense, benefitting me.

The same is true with not having enough time to write. The truth is that I am afraid. What if I do make the time and what I create isn't good? What if it's rejected, criticized, or worst of all called harmful? But oh! Look at this! If I never finish, never thoroughly revise, I will never have to face the stings of that demon wasp. How nice that I have children, laundry, out of town guests or the upcoming dinner party to avoid the buzzing incubus.

The truth is, I was getting something out of panic. Humans don't do things for no reason. This is the basis of all detective work: Who had a reason to want Johnny dead? We all do things because, consciously or subconsciously, there is something in it for us.

I have finally learned that it's okay to say no, not because I have panic disorder, but because I just don't want to, or because I am writing. It's empowering, actually. I know that what I gain from protecting my writing time and doing the writing, even if it's no good, even if it lacks craft, even if someone, somewhere thinks it's harmful, is far greater than the feeling of safety and comfort (and stagnation) of being a victim. It is better to write and fail than to not write at all. And, if I ran into that monk today, I'd thank him.    

*Jackie Hesse is a January 2013 graduate of the MFAC program. She lives and writes in Saint Paul, Minnesota and teaches at Normandale Community College.

Shout Out to Alumni--Writing After Graduation

Halloooo Inkpot readers! I’ll be joining this forum as an alumni voice for a spell. During the July residency, I had the pleasure of attending alumni weekend. We workshopped together, had special sessions with agent Sarah Davies and Lerner editor Andrew Karre, and visited with faculty. We had the opportunity to sit in on the main program of lectures. And we kicked around ideas for future weekends: i.e. scheduling time to write together, or alumni presenting on special topics amongst our group. (Alumni, watch your emails throughout the year regarding developments.)

The best part of the weekend for me was reconnecting with fellow writers, some of whom I’d only met briefly during the program. We talked a lot about writing after graduation—when the pressures of monthly packets are gone, when you feel like you’re floating alone because who knows when you’ll next hear from an experienced writer/editor/agent to encourage you on, and when you can no longer defend your fortress of writing time by telling friends and family, “Leave me alone, I’m writing my thesis.”

Yet, we do keep writing. Some folks talked about assigning themselves packet-style deadlines. Others make use of writing retreats, have formed online workshop groups, or have one-on-one check-ins with writing buddies. Chime in, alumni! With a new group of grads out in the world, now would be a great time to share what keeps your words flowing.

Distressing Once, Distressing Twice, Distressing Over Chicken Soup With Rice

In 1961 Maurice Sendak painted a mural on the nursery wall for personal friends in Manhattan. This wall was recently carved out and moved to Philadelphia—1400 pounds of wall. I've been teaching outside of Philly this year and read about this in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

As the end of my absolutely insane year of having no real home base (my partner is in Savannah, my house is in Maine, nothing of much is in NJ) I’ve been traveling, working way, way too much for my 44 year-old tired self—I’ve not been writing nearly as much as I ought to, I had to cancel a book-signing event at the hoitiest bookstore in Manhattan because I practically collapsed and landed in the hospital for three days (my publisher had been working on getting me this gig for months.)

And so all this leads to sharing with you my new all-time favorite Sendak quote, and maybe you’ll understand why:

"We're all orphans, and all our friends die. It's the story of life, and it stinks. You go on feeling that you failed. I don't sit here and say, 'I've got all these books, and isn't that nice?' Who cares! I don't care anymore."

Let’s admit it don’t we all want to be suffering to this degree of pen ultimate success? Don’t you feel better about your own misery? I think I do.
(PS. and no sympathy, please)