As part of our faculty interview series,
today we are pleased to feature a Q & A with MFA instructor Kate Whouley, winner
of the New England Book Award for her memoir Remembering the Music, Forgetting the Words. Kate teaches
Mentorship Lab I, II, and III, along with our two-semester professional track
course in publishing. Here Sandy Chmiel asks Kate questions about her writing practice, her music, and her philosophy of teaching.
Will
you tell us about your path to becoming a writer?
My crooked path runs from reader to
writer, with a lot of weird and wonderful attractions along the way. My mother was a high school English teacher,
and when I was a kid, I read whatever was around the house—a lot of great literature
that was not necessarily age-appropriate.
I wanted stories to last indefinitely, and in third grade, I vowed to
write sequels to all of Alcott and Dickens. (Note: Steinbeck, Salinger, Joyce
Cary and F. Scott Fitzgerald are better saved for later years.) My grandmother,
a proud Book-of-the-Month Club member and an executive secretary, wrote poetry
on her Selectric typewriter, and my mother was routinely published in
educational journals. Still, I grew up with
no awareness of writing as a career option.
It took me twenty or so years of writing
radio ads, catalogue copy, custom song lyrics, greeting cards, feature articles, a magazine
column and a handful of professional publications—all, while working in the
book business—before I began to see the pattern—and a path to the first book of
my own.
Readers
learn that you also have a musical life in your second book, Remembering the
Music, Forgetting the Words. Does playing music inform your creativity as a
writer? And what else, besides writing
and music, are you passionate about?
In my mind, passion fuels commitment,
and I would say I am a committed
musician and writer. The musical way is
all about practice and showing up, approaching each session with the intention
to improve, to move toward mastery. That musician’s capacity to repeat a line
or a phrase until the playing becomes effortless is invaluable to me in my
writing practice—and I use my musician’s ear to test for pacing and rhythm in
my prose. Musical performance,
meanwhile, demands a deep immersion in the moment—blocking out past and present
in favor of the now. When I am writing, I
am happiest when I am a human-zoom: with
a close-up focus on the work and a conscious letting-go of the demands of the
world beyond the writer’s room.
As for my other passions, I might list
curious engagement, cats (excellent models of curious engagement), and Cape Cod
in the off-season.
You
are currently teaching two courses: Introduction to Publishing and Mentorship
Lab. Can you give us an example of an
interesting project you are doing in one of these courses?
We’re having a lot of excitement in my
Intro to Publishing course, where we have been hosting distinguished guests
from the worlds of book and periodical publishing. But I think the most interesting project in
that class has been made possible by the gracious participation of Beacon Press.
Each student has been assigned a contact at Beacon who plays a particular role
in the publication process. After prepping for and conducting one-on-one
interviews, students have been sharing their learning in three ways: on blog
posts, in 5-10 minute audio/video presentations called Flash Seminars, and
finally, in edited Q&A’s that would be suitable for magazine publication.
What
do you do to make the online environment more dynamic?
To my mind, the challenge in a “virtual”
MFA program is to create and sustain a supportive writing community that feels
real, tangible, human.
I have always been tuned into the
variety and distinctive cadences of our spoken language, and I love using audio
online. (This may also be related to the musical background.) In my Lab courses, I ask my students to read
their work—and sometimes, the work of others—aloud, as a way of hearing what
they may not see in reading or re-reading silently. I also make a lot of audio announcements,
and ask students to submit certain assignments as audio or video presentations.
As powerful as I believe the written word to be, I feel that hearing each
other’s human voices helps us connect more deeply and to engage more thoroughly
in an online classroom setting.
What
do you like best about teaching in Bay Path’s MFA program?
I love the students! They are inspiring
in their dedication, their enthusiasm, and their readiness to learn and grow as
writers.
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