I nearly dropped Sherwin Bitsui’s poetry class before it even started. I was in my final semester, and I figured, why start something new at the very end? I didn’t plan on writing poetry. Ever. It seemed like another world—an easier world—than the kind of writing I do, the kind of writing I did. But…
Category: Blog
The Locked Door: My Unlikely Path to an MFA in Creative Writing
About seven years ago, I stood on a sidewalk in Iowa City staring at the front door of the Dey House—the home of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Not walking in, just staring. I had moved from Arizona after watching a video about the Workshop and reading an article about one of my writing heroes, Kent…
Where My Voice Went: A Meditation on Revival and Truth
I didn’t lose my voice all at once.
It was slower than that, like erosion, not collapse. I kept writing. I stayed productive. I was in the right rooms, doing the right things. But gradually, the writing stopped sounding like someone I knew.