Tag: cwmfablog

By Jake Friedman It’s been over ten years since I was in the academy. Though I’m beginning to remember now. The last couple of days I’ve been sick. I’d forgotten how hard the end of semester is—the Sisyphean incline of a final assignment, the unchanging angle of ascent. How there…

I promised myself I was done writing about my father. What feels like a lifetime ago, I took my first Creative Writing class to satisfy an elective for a Masters in education. Nearly all my stories were about a young girl who happened to be around whatever age I was…

One of the things that most separates my MFA experience from the workshops I’ve taken before, from undergraduate to conferences to private classes at literary centers or what have you, is voice. At all of the places but the MFA, your writing is either a thing that supplements the rest…

I knew getting an MFA would entail, well, writing a lot — and that this would hopefully make me a better fiction writer. (I mean, duh.) Maybe it’s because I don’t come from an English background, but what I didn’t realize was how much I’d be impacted by moments of…

Somehow, it is spring. The branches wear shriveled green promises. The undergrads have, for the most part, abandoned pants. The birdcalls along the Spring Creek trail have swelled to cacophony. Somehow, in a few short weeks, the first year of your MFA will be over. Maybe it’s true— what it…

To 2021 recently graduated me (one year ago): You get a phone call from Harrison letting you know that you got into this program. It is wild, I know: you get the opportunity to focus on your writing, your craft, your calling, your passion! What a dream. After graduation, the…

It’s been winter for a long time now. It’s been winter in the insistent way of Colorado, snow weighing over the earth like the X-ray apron at the dentist. I crunch to the bus stop over thick, complicated patterns of ice: rivulets frozen solid, chance made immortal. The ice resists…

You’re living with a poet who is also in the MFA program. She taught you how to make ice cream out of peanut butter, frozen bananas, cocoa powder, and honey when you’re craving something sweet late at night. You’re making the ice cream and you look at her. You realize,…

In Fort Collins, the mountains usually mean west. As I walk to campus, I walk north, west, then north again. True north is usually Eddy Hall – home of the English department. I suppose I will not yet stop having the thought as I walk to campus, I am in…