This morning, the University of Georgia felt post-apocalyptic. The day after disaster, a lot of folks were regretting too many beers and mason jar glasses of vino verde as they tried to make sense of their team’s unraveling. How did Georgia blow its first chance since 1980 to win the national college football championship?
But we soldiered on.
Even though most of campus showed no signs of life, those of us in the low-residency MFA program in narrative non-fiction gathered in Room 277 of the Special Collections Libraries. It was Day 3 of our weeklong gathering. On Sunday, we will scatter to the winds for the rest of the semester in pursuit of a common goal: to become better writers.
This morning, we had the pleasure of listening to author Denene Millner talk about her highly successful career and how she uses social media to promote her work.
It is another session in which we all learned something. It was a meaningful way to detach from the crushing disappointment of the night before.
The MFA program, a brainchild of my friend, author and distinguished Professor Valerie Boyd, has uplifted me on the most ordinary of days and today, when darkness prevailed on Athens.
I was asked recently to name one thing I have learned from my teaching experience in the UGA MFA program. I can’t remember exactly how I answered but one thing is clear to me. I love being here because I never stop learning.
I work in the high-stress newsroom of a 24/7 network and we rarely have the luxury of time to stop and discuss the work we are producing. It’s refreshing for me to spend the week in a quieter environment that allows all of us to talk about craft.
Our students produce the finest work published as books or in prestigious publications like The New York Times and the Oxford American. It gives me immense pleasure to know that their stories help us understand the world around us; that their stories are such a pleasure to read. And I am proud to have played a role, however small, in helping them make it as writers.
So here’s to all our students. Proud to be here at UGA.
