This program is made possible through a generous gift from Ruth and Russell Bolton
in conjunction with the Eberly College of Arts & Sciences.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

What a great reading!


This past Sunday's Bolton reading was our best yet. How can I be so sure? All those knowing looks I got from the workshop leaders. They know good writing when they hear it and they were impressed. So congratulations to all our readers and MFA instructors (some of whom are pictured above) and thanks to them and to all our helpers in the residence halls and to Mr. and Mrs. Bolton. See you next semester!

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Writing with Our Eyes Closed

Fresh back from Thanksgiving Break, that tease of a break too late in the semester, Arnoldites met this past Monday to write about home. No, not the home the dorms rushed them off to two Fridays ago. Here. Morgantown. Yes, that feels a little like home now.

Remember the infamous line Dorothy repeats while clicking her glittery, red heels? "There's no place like home." She said it over and over again with her eyes closed. Another famous writer, Tennessee Williams, said something like, I see better with my eyes closed. Or maybe their eyes are closed because it's the tradition of a wish or helps them visualize better. Nonetheless, when home is home you know it with all your being.

This week, Arnoldites wrote about their new-found homes that they kinda missed while they were away at, well, their other homes. They wrote about Morgantown using everything but their eyes. In the visual age, sometimes it's easy to overlook those sensory details of taste, smell, hearing or touch, but when we resurrect them sometimes they're fresher than ever!

A little taste (haha) of the writing that went down this week:

"As soon as you turn off the highway your car hits bumps, cracks, potholes. You hear your car scream to go in the opposite direction. . . . At night the city awakes, streets full of clacking heels. . . . Sirens fill your ears." (Caitlin Cooper)

After a semester of fun, I asked for some comments and suggestions and from what I collected they liked me, they LOVED Bolton, and they wish for more food and freestyle rap. (I think I can do that.)

So, thank you for this opportunity and for keeping tabs on the Bolton Writing Workshops throughout the semester. Make sure to check back with us next semester! Until then, join us at Honors Hall this Sunday at 6PM for the End of the Semester Bolton Reading and brownies!

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

End-of-Semester Reading This Sunday!

Join us this Sunday, December 4, at 6:00 p.m. in the Honors Hall for the Bolton Workshops end-of-semester reading. This event is when we sit around eating lots of desserts, and some veggies, and listening to what everyone has been writing these past few months. Hope to see you there!

Friday, November 11, 2011

Homeward Bound

It could have been a night of nostalgia -- a group of WVU students talking about home, our eyes growing misty with each passing sentence. Instead, us Honors Dorm Boltoneers discussed what makes our old hometown and our new adopted home, Morgantown, unique. We discussed how concrete details really help cement a picture in a reader's mind. One student's hometown had six gas stations; another had 4 stops signs and his family had lived there since 1820; another talked about how each family member represented home to her (she moved around a lot as a kid). What came across in each of the descriptions, though, was just how well we knew home. Home may not seem like something to write...well, home, about, but each hometown was distinct and unique.
We all agreed though, that when it comes to uniqueness, our adopted home as Mountaineers doesn't need any help. The Jekyll and Hyde effect of High Street soon got brought up. The hidden establishments that suddenly become invisible at night. The eery darkness of High Street after the MAC. The cheery shops during the day. The beauty of the campus. High Street seems to be part of quintessential Morgantown, and let me say, that the Honors Dorm Boltoneers were able to capture it quite well in their writing. Instead of a night missing home, the night became filled with tales that we all could relate to: what it's like to be a Morgantownian.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Campus Monsters... and Not One Story About Halloween Costumes?

On Tuesday at Fieldcrest, it turns out that rather than taking the easy way out and talking about Halloween, it ended up being a group therapy session about the stresses of academic life. Sure education is great, but when there's a stack of paper to grade (Doc and Me) or when that one group of students in Philosophy class just won't stop talking or that one person with the laptop who is compulsively checking social media rather than taking note for class, it really does get under the skin... clawing at our attention span and moods like a monster...

We all wrote some flash length non-fiction about our recent monsters (see above), and at the end of the night bonded very much over our various miseries. We still have one workshop left, and I certainly hope our spirits are a little lighter and we don't have our own version of Where The Wild Things Are... In the Classroom for our final night for the semester.

Oh and can't forget, even Isaac was suffering from the "Rack Monster"...


Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Preview

For our last Bolton Workshop meeting, we'll be joining forces with Braxton Tower's hall council. This means there is an increased probability of food! Come to the Jean Benson Lounge at 8 pm. tonight! All the cool kids are doing it.

Preview: Poetry! Six words that describe you.

Monday, October 31, 2011

Morgantown, Home Sweet Home?

Morgantown first felt like a home to me during my first fall. Coming from Southern California, a land of homogenous seasons, I was pretty stoked to see the colors on the trees. I had to restrain myself from kicking up piles up leaves. I'd never had the chance to see a pile of leaves before, let alone kick them. It was something as simple as driving down Don Knotts to the Walmart. I saw the hills polka-dotted with color, and I thought, yea, I could stick around here for a while.
What about you? When did Morgantown first feel comfortable? Come to the Honors Dorm tomorrow at 7 pm (11/1) as we write about what makes a house (or in this case, a dorm) a home.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Lightning Crash Flash Fiction

It seems as if it was just last Monday that I was talking to the Arnoldites about their transitions into college. Three Bolton Workshops later, the leaves are turning, the temperature is dropping, and they are fluent in Morgantown. Not only do they know where to get the tastiest pizza slices, inexpensive gear, and to always watch their step on High Street, but they are one-strong in a campus of 29,000 plus.

Of course on a campus of thousands and thousands, there are bound to be one or two people these brave Bolton Workshoppers don't want to friend on Facebook. So with Halloween as an excuse, six of us wrote flash fiction pieces about a campus monster we've encountered in our time here. Our requirements to fulfill: at least one character, setting, conflict, and some kind of resolution in one-hundred words or less. Impossible? No. Ernest Hemingway wrote that ever-famous super-short-short-short story, "For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn." But with Hemingway on the table, the task sure was intimidating.

But the Arnoldites, with pen weapons and paper shields, faced their monsters: one-word texters, serial texters, clubrats, house partiers, and the parking meter Po-Po. Not only did they leave victorious, they left with smiles and tummies full of Oreos and Skittles.

Join us on November 28 at 7:30PM for Arnold Hall's next Bolton Workshop!

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Fieldcrest and the PRT

Last Tuesday in Fieldcrest, we found out a rather unexpected bit of information about our Mountaineer experience. While we focused on flash fiction pieces about PRT mishaps and breakdowns, we found out something else. With our workshoppers using language like "the prt gods" and the "all seeing eye" in the controller building, we found that no matter how much we may hate the PRT when it breaks down, or are appalled by what we experience while riding it on gameday, we share a common thread that it's sacred.

I know, it sounds crazy.

But think about it... how many other campuses in the US have anything like it? How much do we rely on our little blue and gold cars to get us to class or downtown to High St.? We respect it's ability to do... whatever the hell it does... and that we can only choose to ride on it and deal with all of its idiosyncrasies, or not. And when parking costs are outrageous and open spots are still hard to find... this is how we deal. And no matter what we do, we can't stop it from breaking down, or getting us to our destination any faster than it wants to take us. And so, we submit ourselves to it, much like faith, and hold it in a place of high regard.

So much depends upon,
a blue and gold car....

Monday, October 17, 2011

Campus Monster Mash

Do the pantless girls parading High Street freak you out? Do the omniscient eyes of the PRT give you the heebie-jeebies? Have you ever wondered what hides in the Cold Hole in the Towers' basements? Have you had a Mothman run-in?

Join us at Arnold Hall at 7:30PM on 10/24 to rant about campus monsters!

Spooky

I had some trouble walking back to my car in the dark after the Bolton participants at the home of Stalnaker/Dadisman RFLs Debbi and David Pariser on Wednesday wove their tales of horror.

After a brief exchange of real ghost stories in the Pariser’s quaint den and then a delicious dinner of steak (yeah, steak), potatoes and green beans, the students got down to business writing about a setting that scares them in Morgantown and peopling that setting with an "innocent" and a monster locked in some kind of confrontation. The monster was either to be an amalgam of their fears related to being a student at WVU, or just an exaggerated version of some creep that really moves around this town.

What they came up with was chilling. A monster named “Fub” who harasses people in the dorm, a faceless, shadowy figure lurking in a darkened Monongalia County Courthouse plaza, a killer who lures his victims outside by playing a tape recorded scream of a child ...

Whooooo’s got my golden arm?

Indeed.

Good stuff. The next workshop is Nov. 9. I think lasagna's on the menu.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Very Scary Sonnets

It was a dark and stormy night last Tuesday. Okay, not really. After a weekend of abysmal weather, things were finally clearing up. The temperatures were no longer flirting with frost, and you could walk outside without wanting to run right back on in. But that didn't matter because the weather inside the RFL Apartment in the Honors Dorm was downright cheery, and cheer seemed hard to come by last week with everyone steeped in midterm madness.

We celebrated October with scary stories that night. We kicked off the night with freewriting about our scariest experiences, focusing on how centering our writing around realistic details and the five senses makes a scary experience stick with the reader. And man, did those scary experiences stick: a haunted elevator in the Downtown Library, walking home to discover a shattered window, the slow realization that a man is staring at you as he lays along the rail trail, and an organic chemistry professor that actually teaches you how to drug your friends. Embellishment was encouraged.

A few students had to leave halfway through -- did I mention it was midterms -- but for those brave souls that stuck around, we tackled the scariest of all poetry forms: the sonnet. The students' courage paid off, though, because these sonnets were good and scary. Read below...if you dare.

"Untitled" by Ben Stansbery
I had to get a book from the library;
But rumor had that an old ghost lived there.
This made my motivation lead toward the contrary.
I decided to go, courage like mine was rare.

My book was in a hallway, old and lean,
My courage began to falter, just a bit.
The hallway was dark, looked in all ways mean,
And my confidence had just about quit.

The air conditioner growled like an old beast,
The bookshelves crammed, making it hard to see
If a ghost waited to make me his feast.
Then I heard a sound that frightened me;
An elevator bell, with no floor to find,
And I ran away, a laughing ghost behind.


"Untitled" by Chris McBride

I strolled my way into the lecture hall;

This was not my first match with chemistry.

I made my way down the steps and fall.

Knowing me, this couldn’t have been a mystery.

My eyes were set upon the board.

Could I see from this distance?

The professor walks in, oh Lord!

Knowing him, I will need some persistence.

He welcomes the frightened class as they enter

He seems a bit gruff but I think I can handle

Approaches the board and writes his name in the center

I look at the floor and notice he’s wearing one sandal.

Although appearances may give your first impression,

I would only use them at your highest discretion.



It turns out that the only thing scary that night was how good their sonnets are.
Stop on by next time for a post-Halloween writing fest. November 8th at 7:30. RFL Apartment. Honors Hall.

Preview

Happy Halloween! We're celebrating in Braxton Tower! We know it's early, but we just couldn't contain ourselves. We're meeting tonight in the Residential Annex at 7 p.m. See you there!

Here's a preview of tonight's festivities: The first year experience--Monsterized! Your teachers have become zombies. The janitors are werewolves. Your roommate is kissed by a vampire (not the shimmery kind). Terror spreads across a state funded college campus. Will you call your mommy?

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

The Horror

Do you have a PRT horror story? Do you suspect that your professor’s really a werewolf? Does your roommate seem vampiric? Come share your very scary WVU stories tonight (10/4) at the Honors Dorm RFL Apartment.


Tuesday, September 27, 2011

What Arnoldites Talk About When They Talk About Love

At Arnold Hall’s second Bolton Workshop, we talked about love. We talked about the new loves we discovered in Morgantown and the old loves we left behind in our hometowns. (I took the liberty of compiling lists.)

Morgantown loves: independence, weekends, diversity, new friends, all-you-can-drink Icees in the cafeteria, the locals, acceptance, seasons, college atmosphere, pepperoni rolls, Eliza’s , mountainscape, daily access to NY Times (small town and strict father), Bolton, the Rec, free sporting events, pedestrian lifestyle, Chick-fil-A, opportunities, free activities, the Meal Plan, view of Morgantown from room, the architecture of the old buildings, FOOTBALL, semester long library checkouts, Ogawa

Hometown misses: big and comfy bed, parents picking up the bill, the beach, pork rolls, cats, family, oldie-but-goodie friends, flat roads, AC, homecooking, cable, reliable mail, feeling safe (current shooting at the nightclub Karma), gigantic TV, car, mom’s food, free time, backyard, the lake, museums

After sharing our heart pangs and longings, we fit our love inside fourteen lines which took a lot of deleting because we’ve got big hearts over at Arnold. How does your love measure up?

Come join us on October 24 at 7:30PM for a Halloween themed workshop.

Did I mention cookies?

Monday, September 26, 2011

Pepperoni Rolls or Momma?

What makes you gaga about WVU? What do you miss about home? Spell out your love with a sonnet tonight at Arnold Hall, 7:30PM!

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Fieldcrest's First

After much anticipation, our first workshop at Fieldcrest went off without a hitch. We had just enough students to fill the dinner table at the RFL apartment and to have a close knit experience relating home life to Morgantown life. While there's always room for more, we were content in our close group.

Doc ordered some pizza for all of us as a small treat for those who answered the call-- whether it was out of interest, requirement, or just because the RAs made such a good sales pitch. We had some good discussion about the seedy late-night life of Morgantown and how there really is no cooking like home cooking. While we all were tired at the end of our session, Isaac included (see below) I think we all would have stuck around for more socializing if it wasn't for the fire alarm going off for an unexpected drill...


(Isaac at the end of the night...)

I already can't wait for our next workshop.

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Workshop Schedule...

Here's our fall line-up of workshops. Check with your RA & RFL for more info. Hope to see you there!

Bennett with Lisa Beans: Sept. 29, Oct. 27, Nov. 3, Dec. 1

Fieldcrest with Ben Bishop: Sept. 20, Oct. 11, Nov. 8, Dec. 6

Brooke with Matt London: Sept. 8, Oct. 20, Nov. 10, Dec. 1

Braxton with Andi Stout: Aug. 30, Sept. 13, Oct. 11, Nov. 1

Dadisman/Stalnaker with Justin Anderson: Sept. 7, Oct. 12, Nov. 9, Nov. 30

Arnold with Connie Pan: Aug. 29, Sept. 26, Oct. 24, Nov. 28

Honors with Rebecca Thomas: Sept. 6, Oct. 4, Nov. 1

Summit with Melissa Atkinson: Sept. 14 & tba

Monday, September 19, 2011

Calliope

This just in from Mark Brazaitis, Director of Creative Writing:

A meeting of all students interested in working on Calliope, WVU's award-winning undergraduate literary magazine, will be held on Tuesday , October 4, at 7:30 in room 130 of Colson Hall. Students interested in the top editorial positions (editor-in-chief, managing editor, fiction editor, poetry editor, etc.) as well as students interested in contributing in other ways to the editorial and publication process are encouraged to attend. No experience is necessary! Enthusiasm is a plus!

Students who are not able to attend the meeting but would like to be on the Calliope staff should email or call the magazine's faculty sponsor, Mark Brazaitis, at Mark.Brazaitis@mail.wvu.edu/304-293-9707.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Preview

We're kicking off our second workshop for Braxton Tower tonight, Sept. 13! We'll be in the Residential Annex. 7-8pm. See you there!

Preview: Have you experienced the PRT? The bus? What's your transportation story?

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Flashy Nonfiction

I’m not going to lie; I was nervous as I walked up to Honors Hall on Tuesday. This being my first Bolton, I didn’t know what to expect. What if no one showed up? What if everyone hated the prompt? What if everyone was just plain mean?

My fears were quickly put aside as I stood in the RFL’s book-lined living room. A girl walked in, holding a notebook to her chest. “I can’t wait to write,” she said. I knew then that everything would be fine.

Six students put their homework aside for an hour and joined us at the dining room table. Eating cake and cookies, we wrote in between bites. The topic: dorm life. The rules: 50 words or less. Flash nonfiction. We discussed the importance of each word in writing, and I reminded them how flash fiction or nonfiction makes the writer pay attention to each word. When dealing with only a few words, each word has to carry its own weight. Frivolous words get thrown out quicker than a bowling ball in a sinking canoe.

The time came to share, and after the first student read, I wondered if they even needed any reminders on writing. They covered it all: roommate admiration, budding romance at an open mic, the enticement of chanting coming through open vents, the description of a flyer on a wall, the wonderment of living alone, the dangerous ground of hair spray in bathrooms amongst girls. Each of them reminded me of something that I forgot to mention in my mini-lecture: the importance of a final line. All of them had one final poignant sentence. Yes, I know, the whole students teaching the teacher something has been done, but at times clichés are true.

I left that night almost skipping out of the dorm. After all, any night that combines writing and cake is a pretty successful night in my book.

Next up: Fiction on October 4th.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Thankfully, It Didn't Backfire

It was a dark and stormy night during the first Bolton Workshop at the quaint Dadisman/Stalnaker RFL House on Wednesday. No, wait. For the first time in days, it wasn’t a dark and stormy night. Quite pleasant, actually. Thanks for taking the night off, Irene.

It probably would have had nothing to do with the weather anyway that RFL Dr. David Pariser and his wife, Live/Learn Community Specialist Debbi Pariser, were able to round up eight students, mostly freshman, for the evening.

Now, maybe it was the promise of the free food that made them so enthusiastic to be there, but I’m going to say they were just excited about the prospect of writing. Who isn't? And, they just seemed like a good bunch of ambitious students. After a meet-and-greet in the Pariser’s comfortable, wood-trimmed living room, we adjourned to the dining room for a wonderful spread of herb chicken, ziti (?), and other accoutrements. I know. It sounds like typical wedding food. But it was a cut above, catered by the university.

We ate and wrote and talked about writing and ate and read our writing with our mouths full and ate some more. It felt like a Parisian gathering of expatriates. Speaking of which, our writing topic was home. And we talked about Hemingway’s notion that a writer cannot truly write about “home” unless he/she is far away from it. Most of the students are pretty far away from it, and I was worried for a moment that bringing this Hemingway thing up might have backfired and only serve to roil up homesickness. But it didn’t.

True to Hemingway’s theory, they each turned out beautiful, true, panoramic meditations on the subject. They weren’t meditations of longing. And I was impressed by their natural writing talents and their seekers’ creativity and I look forward to reading their pieces once they’ve got them in finished shape (they only had ten minutes).

I think at the next workshop (Oct. 12 at 6:30 p.m.), we’re having steak and writing fiction. So come on over.

Monday, September 5, 2011

Dorm Chic is not an Oxymoron

It's hard to make dorm rooms seem classy, but my sophomore year I made it happen. Sitting in the middle of my dorm room, my roommate and I had a mini living room complete with two chairs and a coffee table. We even had a coffee table book about early 20th Century circus folks. It was high class living. Granted, the chairs were beach chairs with sheets thrown over them, and the coffee table was an overturned milk crate, but man, did we make it look good. It was the perfect place to watch America's Next Top Model after a long day of classes.

Tomorrow night at 7:30 in the Honors Dorm we will be sharing similar tales of wonder (or woe) about dorm life. Topics may include: moving day feats of glory, roommate woes or hilarity, midnight fire alarms, and other such joys. Just like milk crate coffee tables, this event is going to be magnificent. Be there!

London Sessions

Hello!

It's about that time:

this week marks the beginning of workshops with Matt London.

In the dorms.

Your mom isn't invited.

Here are the dates and times:

Sept. 8
Oct. 20
Nov. 10
Dec. 1

All times @ 5 pm.

Whether your mom is invited is open to debate.

Okay. See you there.

Email me (mlondon@mix.wvu.edu) with questions.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Nah Nah Nah Non-fiction

Being a first-time Boltonite, I had a nagging fear walking up the hill from Colson to Arnold Hall as I passed the gaggles on porches and the gaggles primped for parties: I thought I might be writing non-fiction exercises by myself. To my delight, three already talented writers (English and Journalism majors) showed up, and Arnold RAs didn't even have to pay, bribe, or lure them with pizza! Little did they know, they were in for a treat (English, of course. No, not scones). For our ice breaker workshop, we combined the forms of the six word memoir (the name pretty much explains itself) and hint fiction (a story of twenty-five words or less that suggests a larger story) to make literary history!

We started the workshop by writing as many six word memoirs as our brains would allow inspired by the theme of transitions. We each picked three of our favorites to share with the group and explained what they meant. A few gems:

"Went for a walk, started running." (Jordan O'Brian)
"I need more trees around here." (Mariah Painter)
"This situation only happens to me." (Chad Kriss)

Then we picked our favorite of the three and expanded on it in twenty-five words or less. Here, Bolton Writing Workshop friends and fans, is the first ever piece of hint non-fiction to grace the web (I think). Drum roll regardless!

"I Shouldn't Have Any Married Peers"
by Mariah Painter

I remember how she wanted to be a vet and help animals.
Now she thinks only of housekeeping.
We wanted to go to college together.

And they say creative people can't add. Pfffsh.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Jitters

Can’t sleep. First writing workshop tomorrow!

*My short blog will make a little more sense as soon as you read my corresponding post workshop blog. Consider this a little preview of the fun Arnold Hall participants and I will be having tomorrow night during our first Bolton session!

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Meet Our Fall 2011 Workshop Leaders

... or Boltoneers, as we like to call them. And stay tuned for more info about workshop dates and times.

Justin D. Anderson, of Weirton, WV, graduated with an English degree from West Virginia University in 2000. He primarily writes fiction and admires many authors but returns most to the work of Raymond Carver, Lydia Davis, Anton Chekhov and Cormac McCarthy. Prior to coming back to WVU to pursue his MFA, he covered the West Virginia Legislature as a reporter for the Charleston Daily Mail. Justin will be working with writers in Dadisman/Stalnaker.

Melissa Atkinson is a second-year poet. Melissa will be working with writers in Summit.

Lisa Beans is from rural Nebraska. She received her Bachelor's of Arts in English at Nebraska Wesleyan University. She is a poet. Some authors she likes are Thomas Hardy, James Wright, Christine Garren and Jeffrey McDaniel. She can knit scarves and only scarves. Lisa will be working with writers in Bennett Tower.

Ben Bishop is a native Kentuckian from a suburb south of Cincinnati called Burlington, and studied English with a creative writing emphasis at Kentucky Wesleyan College, also minored in music. He is a poet of the American confessional stream, but also delves into flash fiction and electronic poetry-- yes, you read that correctly. He loves classic Transcendentalist authors, as well as Christian mystics and scholars (Emerson, Annie Dillard, Thomas Merton) for brain food, and Carver, T. C. Boyle, and Lewis Nordan for gems of fiction. His biggest hobby is easily consumer tech/personal computers; he speaks Linux, Windows, Android, and generally runs a pro bono tech support service for friends and family. Ben will be working with writers in Fieldcrest.

Matt London is a 3rd year MFA student in WVU's poetry program. He has taught English 101 here for 2 years and looks forward to teaching 102 this fall. A graduate of Waynesburg University, Matt's background in writing includes poetry, fiction, and dramatic writings, both electronic and print. Publications in Muse & Stone, past simple, Connotation Press, and Zero Ducats. Matt will be working with writers in Brooke.

Because of divorce Connie Pan has two hometowns: Lahaina, Maui, and Grand Rapids, Michigan. She’s not bitter —it’s just a premeditated explanation because most people ask why she would ever leave Hawaii. She got her Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing at Grand Valley State University. She’s dabbled in all genres but fiction is her love. She adores Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Junot Diaz, Sherman Alexie, Janet Fitch and Kate Braverman. Her name is twenty-four letters long. If she ever gets married, she’d be tempted to hyphenate her name just to make it longer. She likes long names. Connie will be working with writers in Arnold.

Andi Stout hails from Belington, WV, and received her undergraduate degree in English with a minor in Philosophy from WVU. Her focus is poetry, but she writes in creative nonfiction, fiction, and screenplay as well. Andi is a fan of great writers and three of her favorites teach right here at WVU: Jim Harms, Mark Brazaitis, and John Ernest. In an attempt to combat issues related to social anxiety, Andi has dyed her hair purple. Andi will be working with writers in Braxton.

Rebecca Thomas is from Orange County, California (the land of Disney, The OC, and Arrested Development). She received her undergraduate degrees in creative writing and screenwriting. She is a fictioneer who has writerly crushes on Salman Rushdie, Sandra Cisneros, Flannery O'Connor, Carson McCullers, Daniel Handler (and his alter-ego Lemony Snicket), Dave Eggers, Mark Twain, Arthur Miller, and David Sedaris. She was married in Yosemite National Park. The first house she lived in with her husband was a re-purposed 1920s community center and church for the fruit packer community. Rebecca will be working with writers in the Honors Hall.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Planning Meeting for Workshop Leaders

There will be a meeting for this year's Boltoneers—that is, the program's MFA students who will lead the workshops—on Wednesday, July 27, at 2 p.m. in the 2nd floor meeting room in Colson Hall.

If you're an MFA student and interested in participating in this year's program, send me an email (maryann.samyn@mail.wvu.edu) and come to Wednesday's meeting.

Friday, July 1, 2011

Welcome to our blog!

As we get ready for our fourth year of Bolton Workshops, we're excited to launch our blog where we'll post info about workshops, offer writing prompts, and, best of all, showcase student writing.

For now, though, here's a group pic from this past spring's reading at the Honors Hall... and remember to say tuned: there's lots more to come!