The tradition has become that the mid-point day of the residency is a bit lower-key than usual. We have the morning free for our own reading and writing, although I managed to be far less productive this residency than last. After lunch I led the first of two synthesis sessions. Last residency, this was done with the full student body present and some sort of collaborative information collection (places to submit, books to read, etc.). Since we were given no guidance or direction, I decided to take it instead in a bit more of what I wanted to get out of such a time, with us discussing the seminars that had previously taken place. After a bit of redirection, letting the participants know it wasn’t a bitch session, we had a productive discussion, although I need to work a bit more on getting everyone to participate.
The afternoon seminar was Mikhail Iossel’s Discovering the Story, where he looked at some of the details of how three stories worked.
The evening reading consisted of Jessica Anthony reading excerpt from her novel The Convalescent and Jason Ockert reading his story “Still Life” which had originally appeared in One Story.
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