New Season, New Writing

Happy spring! The March equinox brings the usual flood of think pieces and articles about the arrival of spring, our biological clocks, and the curious relationship between weather and writing. One theory posits that writers should refrain from celebrating spring. Frigid, dark weather is good for us, maybe even necessary. Without it, we find ourselves lazing in the sunshine when we should be writing, our books and laptops and notebooks gathering dust on our desks. Would Karl Ove Knausgaard’s six-volume My Struggle have been written if he lived in Palm Springs? There would be no literature without seasonal misery.

This theory falls apart when you look at literature consistently produced in Los Angeles and Miami, in Mumbai and Mexico City and Nairobi—and in our creative nonfiction MFA this spring. It might be warmer outside, the sun beguiling, but our students, grads, and faculty are hard at work on their writing, creating compelling new essays and book reviews that are being published in magazines, newspapers, and journals like Yankee (“Big Night” by Loree Burns ’20); Brevity (Main Street Revisited by Amy Stonestrom ’18); Cleaver (“Adios to My Parents” by Kim Livingston ’20); The Forge (“How to Stay Silent in Twelve Steps” by Heidi Fettig Parton ’17); and the Daily Hampshire Gazette (“Overworked and Underpaid” by Andy Castillo ’19, who placed first in health reporting in the Better New England Newspaper Competition).

Kate Anderson ’19 picked up a first place award from Mythic March short story contest; Kim MacQueen ’18 was noted as a writer to watch in Noteworthy; and L’Tanya Durante ’20 has joined the editorial team of Linden Avenue Literary Journal. MFA faculty member Sophfronia Scott recently appeared at Harvard Book Store in celebration of a new anthology, On Being 40(ish), in which her essay, “I Don’t Have Time for This,” is featured; and Lisa Romeo, MFA faculty and thesis director, recently published an excellent craft essay, “Yes, You Can Write Memoir” in Open Center. Need any more convincing that spring is good for writers? Read graduate Anne Pinkerton’s celebration of early signs of spring, “All Flowers Keep the Light,” at her blog TrueScrawl.

And in the spirit of celebration, please join us for our MFA graduate reading on Friday, May 17, at 3:00 p.m. in the Hatch Learning Center on our Longmeadow campus. The event is open to all, and includes a post-reading reception. We also hope you’ll join us for these upcoming events:

•         Sunday, April 14: Bay Path’s 18^th Writers’ Day, featuring C. Flanagan Flynn, Shanaz Habib, and Jane Yolen
•         Thursday, June 6: A reading and book signing at the Booklink bookstore in downtown Northampton with MFA faculty Karol Jackowski and former MFA instructor and Writers’ Day presenter T. Susan Chang
•         August 3 – 10: Creative Writing Field Seminar in Dingle, Ireland, featuring Andre Dubus III, Mia Gallagher, Ann Hood, Elizabeth Peavy, Suzanne Strempek Shea and Tommy Shea, and yours truly. The seminar is open to all writers.

Finally, there are spring releases to look forward to. On my list are The Honey Bus: a Memoir of Loss, Courage, and a Girl Saved by Bees, by San Francisco Chronicle journalist Meredith May; and Women Talking by Canadian writer Miriam Toews. What’s on your list?