What it's like to go to Vermont in the summer...

Let me elaborate: What it's like to be a grad student at the Vermont College of Fine Arts and attend summer residency.

Awesome.

That's one word to describe it.

And exhausting.

And pretty much awesome.

I leave for Vermont in just six days, and yesterday the residency schedule was emailed to us, which makes me extra excited/nervous. Because of Evelyn's birthday and the wedding I have to photograph, I don't have much to think about/mentally prepare for my time away, but I thought I'd share a little about what we writers actually do when we're there.

When I say that I'm going away for school people automatically assume I go there and attend classes. But no, there are no classes in Vermont. There are lectures, usually about an hour long, given by the faculty and graduating students (yes, in the winter I'll be giving a lecture!) And there are readings, also given by the faculty and graduating students (and yes, in the winter I'll be giving a reading!), as well as workshops. These three things make up what I would call the "academic" component of residency.

Here is what a typical day at residency might look like:

8:30-9:30: lecture

9:45-10:45: lecture

11:15: meeting

12-1:15: lunch

1:15-3:45: workshop

4-4:30: reading

4:45-5:45: lecture

6-6:45-dinner

7:15-8:15: reading

8:30: student readings

That's actually what my first full day of residency look likes (if you're super interested you can access the schedule from the VCFA website. It's not private or anything. See here). And if my workshop leaders decide to go through our packet alphabetically, that  means I'll be workshopped on the first day (which means I will sit silently for an hour while the rest of my 11 or so peers and two faculty leaders will discuss the four poems I submitted for workshop. It's as fun as it sounds! Haha). Also, not everything is mandatory. You don't have to go to every lecture, and you technically don't have to go to any readings if you don't want to, but who does that? There are normally two lectures going on at a time, but it's usually divided by genre, so a poetry faculty member will be giving a lecture at the same time a prose faculty member is, but poetry students can attend prose lectures and vice versa. And sometimes lectures apply to all genres, to all writers.

On this first day, I will go to every lecture and reading because the 8:30 AM lecture is by Mary Ruefle (a truly incredible writer and artist--it's the first lecture and it's early but the room will be full, I'm sure); the second lecture is by Rigoberto Gonzalez, who was my amazing advisor for second semester, so of course I have to go! And the third lecture, after workshops, is by the also incredible Jen Bervin. Wow, talk about a day full of brilliance! And, to add to that, the reading at 4 includes Matthew Dickman (one of my favorite poets and hopefully fourth semester advisor!), among others, and the reading at 7 includes Leslie Ullman, the advisor I just had for my third semester. Wow wow wow.

Not every day is always this full, and it just so happens that a bunch of faculty I'm interested in hearing are giving lectures/readings on the first day, but yeah, I might be exhausted. And the student readings are a casual thing held almost each night, where non-graduating students have a chance to read their work out loud, as a way to practice the whole reading in front of a group and hearing yourself in the microphone thing. It's fun to get up there and read some poems, and it's cool to hear what your peers have been working on, but damn, a lot of times by 8:30 people are tired of sitting and listening and thinking, so then it's either time to 1) lie in bed and let your brain rest, 2) go for a walk, 3) crack open the wine, or 4) go downtown.

Sometimes, usually, it's a combination of the four, and sometimes there are things going on through the school, like the Talent Show and the Grad Party, which, because it's graduate school and we're all well into our twenties (and beyond), are really fun events (by which I mean there is usually alcohol involved. Duh.)

And on the 4th of July there is a softball game, prose writers versus poets, and a catered picnic and fireworks and all of that. Good times, good times. And, for me anyway, most nights end in good times, in amazing conversations with talented and unique individuals from all over the place, each with their own quirks and styles and fucked up stories to share, some of them fictional, all of them true.

I've never done much actual writing at residency, but I have a feeling it'll be different this time, since I've been so busy these last few weeks and unable to devote much time to my poetry. But, you never know how you feel when you arrive in Vermont. The place changes you. And after spending the past five months writing in your little corner of the world, the sudden wave of inspiration and information and writerly camaraderie can be a little overwhelming at first, especially if you're like me and somewhat neurotic and socially awkward (see my last post).

Okay, I need more coffee.