 Good evening, everyone. I am Christina McGowan, Dean of the Library and University Librarian. Thank you for attending the Alumni Author Panel, a writer's journey to page and stage. This event is brought to you by the Office of Alumni Relations, the Dementa Nicelius Library, and the Office of Community and Lifetime Education. This alumni panel is one in a year-long series of events that the university is hosting in celebration of the 50th anniversary of women at Fairfield University. Today, October 20th, is the National Day on Writing, and what a fitting day to recognize the accomplishments of our alumni writers. This day is built on the premise that writing is critical to literacy, but needs greater attention and celebration. I am pleased to introduce our moderator for this evening, Carol Ann Davis, Professor of English at Fairfield University and Director of the MFA program. Carol Ann is a poet, essayist, and author of the poetry collections, Psalm and Atlas Hour, both from Tupelo Press. Her newest work, The Nail in the Tree, published by Tupelo this year, is a collection of essays in which Carol Ann narrates her experience of raising two sons in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, on the day of and during the aftermath of the shooting there. Carol Ann is the former longtime editor of the literary journal Crazy Horse and founding director of poetry in communities, an initiative that brings writing workshops to communities hit by sudden or systemic violence. Carol Ann. Thank you, Christina, and welcome everyone. This is so exciting to see so many familiar names and faces in the in the audience and to be here with these extinguished alumni to celebrate their work on this important day of the year and any kind time we get together. I'm just so excited nowadays because what writing can be solitary work and community is the key to keeping us going. So thank you so much for being here. We're going to go, we're going to go through our four writers in alphabetical order, Elena Dillon going first, Meredith Kaser going next, Lone Lee going after that, and Melissa Tantequigen-Zoval going last. But throughout this we're going to also leave a little time at the end for your questions and I'm totally happy for you to put them in the chat either to me privately or I'm going to, I'm going to be watching the chat also while I'm moderating. So feel free to put your questions in either ahead of time or when I ask for them. So thank you so much for all of you being here and for I have wonderful proud mama feelings even though I don't really have claim, you know, ownership of any of your wonderfully distinguished careers but it, but I get to be that person tonight as the director of the program. So without further ado, I will introduce Elena Dillon, who is the author of Mercy House, which is in development as a CBS all access television series, and the forthcoming the happiest girl in the world, which will be forthcoming from Harper Collins in April 2021. Her work has appeared in publications including lit hub, river teeth, slice magazine, the rumpest and bustle. And as so many of us do she teaches creative writing, and she lives on the beautiful North Shore of Boston. Elena, welcome. Thank you so much for having me it's an honor to be here. And it feels particularly relevant and special to be celebrating women at Fairfield University. My debut novel mercy house is about fierce and enthusiastic women who band together. And it was launched by a group of fierce and enthusiastic women so my two agents are female my, my film agents are female my editor copy editors publicist marketing professional there for all female and then Amy Schumer, who is producing it and the screenwriter so it's just a lot of collaboration by awesome women so. So, like, I'll guess I'll start where my brain in Fairfield you, I graduated the MFA program in 2011 as a nonfiction writer actually, and I wrote a memoir through the through the program and I revised it and I tried to submit it. And I was told repeatedly which maybe a lot of writers here have have heard that with nonfiction you need a very strong platform, either as a celebrity or you very neat you need a big following or you need a very significant story, personal story. So I was like, How do I build a platform maybe I'll just write some novels that will be easy. So I switched to fiction, and luckily for my third semester project where you get to kind of explore outside of your concentration. I studied screenwriting with Bill Patrick so I kind of had a foundation of how story structure might work. So I developed that and I wrote a bunch of different novels and it turned out it wasn't as easy as I thought it might be. So I wrote a novel and I got a representation which is a put like a huge feet in itself. She submitted it all around it didn't get much traction so I wrote another book she submitted it all around didn't get much traction wrote a third book. And at that point I switched agents and I wrote another book. So now I have four novels stacked as in addition to my nonfiction work. And the fourth novel was mercy house so it's my debut but it's certainly not my first book. And at the time I was represented by a male agent who read mercy house after reading my other books and found the main character so unlikable that he said if you're going to write books like this we can't work together. So I was just so attached to sister Evelyn who is the main character that I said I guess we can't work together. So that's when we parted ways. And I kept working at it I kept doing different versions where I fleshed out different aspects of the book. I got to know my characters much better. And then I got this representation about two years ago in 2018 and I had kept extending these deadlines where I thought to myself okay now I'm in my late 20s. I don't have I have all this part time works piece together my opportunity to have a career is kind of slipping through my fingers. If you look at you know my resume like what were you doing these last 10 years it's becoming so I kept making this deadline I'm going to I'm going to give up after this. If I don't have it by the end of this year if I don't have it by the end of next year and we kept extending the deadline and I swear this is the last time we were going to extend it. And then, yeah, then I got, I got another agent in May, and by August we had a publication deal and film interest. So it was just this like absurd thrill of a lifetime, especially after 10 years of it seeming like it was never going to happen so I was incredibly grateful for that and then the book came out in February right before a global pandemic. So, that has been interesting. You know, I've been wanting to see my book on a bookstore and then all bookstores are shuttered down. But it's it's been an unexpected gift that people have done these creative connective events like we're doing right now, where I get to to join readers in their living rooms, you know, virtually where they have their book clubs and maybe there's like more of a personal connection in that way so that's been a real gift. So, the book Mercy House. I forgot I didn't actually see what time I started here but very quickly, it was inspired by, since the Jesuit college was inspired by my time at St. Joseph's College in Long Island, where I met these awesome nuns. So the book is about Sister Evelyn who runs a woman shelter in Brooklyn and is investigated by the Vatican for breaking church doctrine at her women's shelter. And she is breaking church church doctrine so when the Bishop comes to visit. She has something to hide and all the residents of the house, kind of band together and share their voice and and work together to keep the the shelter open and it's kind of a me to movement. So, um, yeah, again I didn't see what time I started so I think that's probably about my time. Um, so thank you again so much for having me and if you anyone has any questions I'm happy to address them at the end. Thank you Elena that was wonderful and I didn't keep up with your time either but I promise I'll do better with the other three. Um, but it was wonderful. It was probably a little short but we will get to some questions at the end. And I look forward to seeing your book on a shelf one fine day. You too. An actual bookstore. When I brought a shelf. Yeah. So now we turn to Dr Meredith Kaiser, who is a 2001 PhD graduate of New York University Steinhardt School, and a 2015 graduate of Fairfield University's MFA program. In between those two things she became the Dean and still is the Dean of Fairfield University's top ranked, Egan School of Nursing and Health Studies. She does by day and in the margins or by night, I don't know she sneaks her creative writing into the margins of her busy life, including dedicating lots of time during residencies to her writing during the MFA. Prior to pursuing fiction, she published 11 professional nursing books and earned four American Journal of Nursing book of the year awards. So her journey to page is various and I'm looking forward to hearing more Meredith. Thanks Carolyn. Hi everybody. It's so great that you were able to join us tonight. I love nothing more than talking about my novel and my journey there so and Elena and I did not plan our comments but my journey actually was shockingly similar to her so I'll share a little bit about especially when it comes to the agents and all of that and yes please time me because I'm going to try to stay within my time. I tend to be a little on the tercer side so I could always add some stuff in the margins as you say. So as you, as you had said, I'm a nurse and I had been in academia for many, many years as part of the academic role, many of you know, you write a lot. And I had written a lot of professional nursing books and I actually was getting pretty good at it, you know, had won a couple of awards, it was looking really good. And just so you know, I love fiction I devour novels like a week ago by I could read two or three novels a week and constantly I was a Nancy Drew fan when I was really little always had a book in my hand and even now I'm reading this Kate Morton book from the library and I just just love reading. And so you know here I was so I write well professionally, I love to read novels, I should be able to write a novel right it's just and and I also had a story I lived in this house in New Haven. It was a Queen and Victorian. It was very unusual architecture for that area, most of the houses were built about 20 or 30 years later. So when I moved into the house I did some research about the bones of the house and found myself a good story so I said okay, I'm going to write a book I'm I have a story, I know how to write. I like to read novels that should all come together really nicely like that right. Well, like Elena is not quite as easy as it looks. So I, you know, I sat down and I wrote about the house and wrote wrote wrote and I thought okay I really nailed this this is just a dynamo story that's going to be on New York Times that's all over by the end of the week no doubt about that gave it to a few friends and you know people are very kind, but yeah, it was very clear that they're thinly they show that the book probably wasn't very good so I wanted to be honest with you this is probably 2010 2011 didn't I'm like okay well I guess I can't write I'm going to go back to reading books and writing professional novels. And then it occurred to me well not if you know you've had situations in your life before where you really didn't know what you were doing and somehow you figured it out what did you do well, you think because I was an educator that it occurred to me to go get some education, but after a couple years that's exactly what happened and I remember that Fairfield had an MFA program, and I made a few phone calls and just research. And I applied and I was very fortunate to be admitted to the program, which is on so this is back in I think 2012 2013 so was just took my story into this program and I was so very blessed to work with amazing faculty who taught me how to be a poet. But I did learn a few things about poetry, and I see Karen Osborn is on the call Karen and I wrote an article about the experience of older adults through dementia. And we looked at some novels. And it was just really and some of that ended up in my novel so through the course of the program also met amazing friends to who I'm not sure if they're on the call now but wonderful wonderful women I got to work with who helped to inspire me and drag me through this. At the beginning of the program I was not the dean and then through the program I became the dean so there was a little bit of a transition there. And then finish the novel shortly after the program and did the same thing. I tried to get an agent I remember one of the workshops I went through with the MSA said you know you think you send it to one or two agents and you get one but now you have to send one that I ended up finding with. And we, she sent it out to a lot a lot of people and eventually I got a small press that ended up publishing the novel it came out. So in 2019 I got an amazing editor through that program who really shaped it up and made it look a lot better. And here is my novel, The Keeping House which I'm so very very proud of. It is a fraction of the novel that I wrote it's you know it's only like 250 pages there but I wrote like thousands of pages before. There's about a fearless nurse, a fearless young woman who is kind of down on her luck novel open as she's sitting on the front steps of this house. And waiting for their own party real estate agent to come and show it to her she's really down on her luck and her husband recently died left her with a ton of debt. And she talks to mother and to buy in this house with her, and over the course of the moving in they start to discover all of the house's secrets. And the house weaves back and forth between this contemporary story and the original owners and builders of the house who planted some of these secrets. And there's a lot of little intermingling and twists and turns of the plot and it's a little surprise ending at the end and yeah so that's pretty much it. It's not going to win any great Pulitzer prizes or anything but I'm proud of it. And it's an easy read it's a fun easy read it's got some good reviews and that's pretty much my story. How'd I do. You did great you did five minutes. Yeah, but it was, it's exciting and I'm getting all kinds of good ideas for questions I hope that people and the people are people out there are thinking of questions for all of our writers that was wonderful Meredith and I didn't I didn't remember that you actually became now I do I remember the dean, you becoming a dean, like during it but. Yeah, so I started the program in 2013 I think and I became the dean in 2014 so and I didn't think you and I had worked together. Yeah, it was, it was a lot become the dean so we worked out the different you're very flexible I think. One, life requires flexibility if we didn't know that before this year we certainly do now right. Yes. Yeah. Thank you Meredith. You're welcome thanks. Now, Lone, lonely holds an MFA degree in fiction from Fairfield, a push cart prize nominated writer, her short stories have appeared in craft literary mud season review and Angel City review. Lone is an editor at this is terrible loan is it atria books. Yes. Okay, atria atria atria books which is an imprint of Simon and Schuster. Atria is in Manhattan. A fo love story is her first novel. And you can visit her website. I'll put them in the chat for you, put it in the chat for you but it's visitor website at writer lonely dot me and find her on Twitter at loan loan. Um, so I'm really excited to be here. So yeah so a fall love story is my debut why you're on come. It's about two Vietnamese American teenagers, whose parents own rival restaurants, and they end up falling in love and also figuring their life path because you know they're expected to follow a certain a certain path but they're also exploring creative paths and they want to figure out how to have to do that so yeah it's it's, I think it's a heartwarming story about family about love about dedication. It's actually my, you know, my first YA kind of work. So from the very beginning, I guess, what made me a writer I think I'm definitely an introvert. I definitely have an overactive imagination and I just remembered my childhood always just being inside my head, making up stories. But I didn't really think that it could amount to anything until maybe college college is when I was began to be really serious about writing. I love the English department at Fairfield I took a bunch of the regular English courses but also fiction nonfiction poetry which is mind boggling Caroline like poetry is just another level. And, but my major was journalism and I think that was my first career path I wanted to do. Initially, I was part of the mirror for my whole four years from being a writer to editor in chief, and I was pretty serious about journalism and considering it as a career path until I got my first first internship at Simon and shoots to where I'm currently working and I got a really close look at how books work and how writing works and how I just wanted to be one of those authors, you know, who whose books are like taken care of by these people who are pretty easy passionate about about writing. So, I guess, I was really serious but then after after college, I graduated in 2014, and a week later I went right to work at seven juicer as an editorial assistant. I think I decided to go into the MFA program because I was feeling stuck. I think I was like two years in as an editorial assistant and I felt as if I was like losing my passion and writing itself in the act of writing and I never wanted to do that I always wanted to keep this like I wanted a career obviously because those two are sometimes they are mixed together but sometimes they need to be separate. You can't you can't be defined by career like I, I love the idea of being defined by your passion as a person. So, I went to the MFA program, I applied and I, it was like the only, it was the only MFA program I applied to because I heard such great things about it most of the professors I've already learned from that as an undergraduate. And it was really a life changing experience for me because I don't I think I always like structure when I'm being taught and MFA really taught me structure taught me to really love, fall in love with the craft of writing, not just learning how to write but why I'm learning. I just learned so many things from the different mentors and the one on one aspect of this program where a writer and educator writer and educator in one, they get paired up with the writer. They teach you along the way they see your work as it's developing. I always love this aspect of writing where you're constantly improving yourself and to see that, you know, improvement over time, I just, I just really enjoyed it. And in the program I was mostly doing, I was only doing short stories really. And it was more of adult, bleak, traumatic stories, I think, which I still write. And then towards the end I got more interested in the supernatural like ghostly kind of stories, especially with Vietnamese folklore, which I really enjoyed and I still write that. But, but after I graduated in 2017 I was, I didn't think I had a clear publishing plan like I think I wanted to just keep on writing keep on improving and writing and then gradually placing my short stories and that's what I did I took my time to please short stories. I was on the web on imprint as well. And then I think in 2018. So this is where like this journey I think is a little interesting it's unusual but it actually happens more often in a mix. I'm really excited to share it because it's something that I think writers could consider doing. I got an email out of the blue from an editor, who's my current editor, and she said hey I know you write. I've seen you work online. I have an idea. And she, this is the idea that is now the book. She was like, would you be interested in auditioning for the story that has these American teenagers, a restaurant kind of bribery, something heartwarming about family. And I was like okay tell me more like this is amazing. So she sent me a very brief outline and asked for some pages. And for me, I was, I think I've done one of these before it's it's essentially an intellectual project property project, meaning the idea is formed in house. And it's just an idea, and then people hire writers to write it. And sometimes IP is where the writer is very kind of silent the writer is just writing it it's not their identity it's not their kind of career on the line. And this one's a little different because, because I have the copyright I was able to negotiate for copyright for my book and it's essentially my book and the outline, I was able to kind of break it apart so that it was longer than the intended. I think it was 15 pages of what I envisioned for this novel and during this process, I think, I was trying not to get my hopes up because I auditioned before for IP. And IP also, there's Nancy Drew babysitters club gossip girls that's IP. A lot of the comics and for Marvel, for example are also IP. So when I was auditioning I didn't want to get my hopes up because I had auditioned before and not for this one but for another think tank and it didn't work out and I was like, Oh, no no I tried so hard and then nothing happened so I just tried to put my heart into it I tried to be very honest as well this was the first time writing about someone from my background, my age into the story I used to beat me is my beat me is language, this experience with my mom as well. And then a week later after submitted materials, the outline and the first 15 pages. I heard, you know, they loved it and they wanted to offer on it, which was the best news ever because I was, I was in a spinning class and I almost fell off my bike. But yeah, from there, it's a little backwards but I was able to interview with three agents, and I picked one of them, who's, who's amazing has he's just, he's he's a guy to but he's been just come like extraordinary. But he came in and he like a negotiated a better offer and things like that. So I really love my agent. But yeah, it's in that so it took like about two, like a year and a half to write the full novel. And my editor was actually really hands off with it she was just like right, because she was trusted the outline I wrote and she just said just write it just write the whole entire thing doesn't make sense for me to come in when you're writing something fresh at all so had a lot of fun. I was torturing myself because I'm not good at deadlines. And I was also working full time I'm still working growth full time as an editor which is means my brain is going to explode one day, because of the words and everything. But, but yeah, and then it got, you know, it was such a great journey. I learned the art of editing as well from, you know, my editor and we have arcs so now arcs is it's being sent out it's already sent out to indies and media and books to Graham and it's starting to crop up on, you know, like websites, and it was in buzzfeed recently So the marketing and foolishly my plan is just Oh, thank you Carolyn. It's just starting to begin like I'm chatting with them next week about pre orders and and things like that so So yeah so I think one of the questions that we had was, are there things you wish you had known or had done differently and for me I wish I was better with deadlines, giving myself more time to write Because I think I was stressed out a lot of times. And I guess another question was, do you have advice for anyone who's thinking of starting a journey. I have so many. So many things that I would say to any writer be excited about it be passionate always be committed to learning, all the time, all the time like you can't you're there's nothing. There's nothing that there's no perfect writer. So, so I think you should just remember that because it's constant improvement. It's deadening yourself to craft and understanding what you're writing. I encourage writers to submit and peel and always and celebrate the rejections celebrate the, you know, the winds but rejections are amazing too. It hardens you to the rejection that you'll have all throughout your life. And, and I think surround yourself to with writers and just good people that people celebrate you who lend you a listen at an ear whenever you're you're kind of crazed kind people I think that makes that really I love. And then the last one about sorry I'm actually going through the 50 50 fear of women at Fairfield being woman. I'm really proud to be a woman I'm proud to come from a family of very strong women very very strong. My mom is definitely my like idol, and she's this four foot nine Asian woman who looks nice but then when she can on her pad side, you're done, you're done forever. So, but yeah, I think, I think this whole journey. I've never been held back as a woman. I don't think it's right for people do that I know it happens and I really hate that it happens but I think it's, I don't know, it's for me it's been such a power powering journey. And I think I went over overboard. Sorry. Well I was mesmerized. So, you know, the timekeeper was happy. And I actually thinking about your mother I remember one of your very first poems for my class was was a beautiful poem about her I think, yeah many years ago now, maybe seven years ago now. So, last but certainly not least we have Melissa Tanta quidgin zobel, and she is the medicine woman of the Mohegan tribe of uncle's in Uncusville, Connecticut. Tanta quidgin zobel's first book publication was a biography of her met mentor medicine woman Gladys Tanta quidgin titled medicine trail with, and it was published by University of Arizona Press in the year 2000. In writing her MFA from Fairfield in 2012 she moved into fiction, writing the young adult murder mystery Wabanaki blues, published by poison pencil press in 2015, which I think I that's where I became aware of you, Melissa. At the request of director Steve Nash, she began writing screenplays in 2017 and her screenplay flying birds diary about the woman who saved the Mohegan language has won dozens of dozens of awards, but has been slow to receive funding. In 2020 she entered the full length stage play version of flying birds diary in Eugene O'Neill theaters, national playwrights conference and together she and Tara Moses who is from the seminal Indigenous people became the first to Native American playwrights to advance to the finals. In the same year I think which is kind of exciting. So Moses and Tanta quidgin zobel's plays will both advance to the finalist round which is exciting because it's happening now. At the request of the national playwrights conference in 2012 zobel's collaborative stage project up and down the river with her daughter stage director and playwright Madeline say yeah, say yeah, say yeah, say yeah was commissioned by Hartford's heartbeat ensemble. It's a five part radio drama, and it will be broadcast in its entirety soon during the week of November 20, and it chronicles the struggles of Mohegan leaders from the 17th century through the 20th along the river we call home. One of the things I just like to say reading all that is to say that one of the marks of a writer and what something we encourage is the variety, and many people have spoken about moving genre. And you are, you are a great example of that as our, I think everybody here, but like really like moving among three genres just in that bio so welcome Melissa and tell us about your journey. Thank you so much. This is really thrilling to me to be at this celebration of women here with you today. For many reasons, but the series you just talked about up and down the river is about Connecticut at a time when Connecticut was a matriarchy, because the indigenous people of Connecticut, you know the women here we all really kind of ran the show. So, what's really interesting about about that piece, I think from an outside perspective is that it looks at how those women lost their power in the colonial era, how that power just appeared, and how they spent the next four centuries trying to get it back, because it happens over time. So it's, it's kind of apropos to everything that you're doing here. But I did want to do a real shout out to the NFA program and thank them because one of the things that I've noticed some other folks talk about is turning I guess Meredith mentioned that you take you take your weaknesses and turn them into your strengths right the place is where you really are failing. And when I entered the program. I had a real hard time with seed. I don't know what it was about seed, you know, and I'll give you an example so I wrote, I wrote these two books which like, I don't really want anybody to look at or look for anywhere except they have great covers, gorgeous covers right, but the scenes are terrible. They're just terrible. This one just got a shout out in the New York Times this week because it's like a founding mother of Native American sci fi and I was thinking oh God please don't please don't read that. But in any case, the rest of them, after my MFA program, I started to learn a little bit about seeing these two, especially this one. And so much so that, as I told you, a Hollywood director said you know, I read your book, and I think you can write screenplays, and I'm thinking. Oh, dear God it's all seen, right. That's my first thought is, this is my ultimate nightmare. There's nothing else but seeing. It's just seeing after seeing after seeing after seeing. He said oh no it's there you can you can do it but I did have some, some great professors who helped me was seen, and I guess that would be, you know, would be Da and Da Chan and Karen Osborne and Eugene Kim. Shout out to Da on the other side, you know, always saying give it your whole. And so you, you, you give it your whole right you go back you get educated as Meredith said you get you learn a little bit more about what you need to do. And then you learn to overcome your biggest obstacle in this case which is seen, and seen is now to the point where, after I finished writing the screenplays, I started to move into stage plays. And I thought, well, I might as well try it I mean how different can that be. And my daughter is a play right. And it's sort of irritating for her because I think people think she got it for me but actually I got it from her which is sort of a reverse, you know thing. But Flying Bird's diary did exceptionally well and again I credit my greatest weakness which is seen, because you know there's not a lot of description in place really. It's all just dialogue and scene. So, I kind of don't understand now why I didn't understand it, but I found it, you know, super challenging so I know we're getting close on time so I guess we know we're not we're okay. Other things that you wanted to talk about, you know things that you would do differently. I would have liked to learn scene first before I wrote the other two novels I'll be completely honest about that so that would, I would say if you do have a major weakness. That's a really good reason to go into an MFA program even if it's just one. And I think for a long time what I felt was, I'll just work through this. And now that was not the answer. So I guess that's all I've got I really am admiring of the other, the other writers because I've never had an agent. I've never had any kind of representation. I still don't have any other place. Yeah, I just don't know what that is I'm just so excited for you I'm thinking it must be a beautiful thing. And, and yet I just kind of you know I'm just kind of a plotter, but but it is a little different with stage right because you're looking for workshops, you're looking so you're the fun thing that I think you all would enjoy if you haven't done stage places. Other people help you make them better on a regular basis you know you, you workshop plays and so the places in your stories where maybe they're a little rough. You're working through them as a team, and I, I think that's a very different process than most of us I know loan talked about having friends. And Meredith talked about having people who read her her works and all but it's very different to actually have people speaking the words and saying, can I say it this way. Can I try this. And, and I'm finding that a lot of fun for anyone who enjoys that process, you know working with actors who are engaged in it and, and I think for me that's a different kind of writing that really works. Thank you. That was wonderful. All of you were so wonderful I'm I'm applauding for everyone here, because it was really inspiring and the themes and the threads were clear, you know, celebrating rejection. Meaning into weaknesses, taking your time, seeking out community, I mean it was amazing how much it all went together, given how much, how little, how lightly we planned it all. And I think we have all fall together because writing is about those, those very essential sort of exercises that are almost spiritual in nature. So, yeah, Meredith. I didn't answer any questions in my, in my couple minutes but I will share one other thing if we have a minute that I did learn from the whole process and that was to check your ego at the door. One thing that I felt was very helpful was to just be vulnerable to be open to the feedback from your friends to learning new things, which is hard for all of us I think but it was a decision I had made consciously in becoming a student. I was an academic administrator to just, just, this was probably going to be my last experience educational experience and I wanted to it to be an educational experience so I really felt I had to, to just really just be open to all of the feedback that people were so generous and kind to share with me. Making that sort of along with the celebrating rejection right. That kind of goes with that. We are starting to get a few questions in the chat. Diane asks, she has a personal essay about 2000 words or so on a positive spin on Alzheimer's and Alzheimer's journey with her mom and she's wondering about any tips I think she may be any tips and getting published maybe. It sounds like it's done 2000 words or so. Any thoughts about placing it. I mean I know about poets and writers there's like a really good on poets poets and writers.org you can search out different magazines with different specific interests and find one Meredith did you have your hand up. Yeah, so we would be happy we have a journal that one of my colleagues who's also a nurse enrolled in the MFA program. Dr Susan Bartos is the editor in chief of a journal that fear field publishes through our library here with Dr. Susan Bartos and all of our wonderful staff up there. It's called sauna which is self actualization through self actualization through nursing arts but it we do focus on different diseases and those kinds of experiences. So feel free to reach out to me or my colleague Susan, and we'd be happy to take a look at that for you or advise you in any other way but good for you good job writing that that I'm, I'm sure that was a very helpful process. Thank you for the challenges coming from a gerontological nurse practitioner perspective. And I can understand that that must have been a really difficult experience for you and I'm hoping that it was somewhat healing to write that so happy to work with you on that if that's helpful. Great, thank you. And now we have another question for the group it sounds like everyone came in wanting to be a writer or pro or with prior writing experience. I think you found most helpful for you by joining the formal MFA program and what did you learn about yourself you didn't expect. And Elena, I'll jump in. So what I found to be super valuable and I think I've heard this a lot, talking to other MFA alums is the community that you create that you continue to lean on after graduation. So I for one am a terrible self editor, like developmentally speaking so if I'm looking at a novel, I know that it's weak, but I can't quite identify why. And I really benefit from readers. So I still kind of tap on my friends from my MFA program like you want to swap, or can I owe you a favor. And then their their feedback is just incredibly valuable. And, and as soon as somebody points something out, like, I zoom in and I'm like, of course that was it how did I not see that all along. And just kind of discussing character motivation or how the plot should go just let that kind of conversation helps me understand my story better. And then in addition to that that mentor relationship that you have with your faculty mentor, where they kind of go back and forth on your work in a really practical way mirrors your relationship with your agent and then your editor. And that kind of sets a kind of an example of how you'll operate later when you're when you're, you know, moving forward in the publication process so it's nice to have that foundation and to know how to work with somebody's feedback and how to have those conversations, when you're really applying it in the in the public in the publishing process. I absolutely agree with that. That's, that was such a great way of explaining it, especially the community aspect I think, I think people, I think what Carolyn was saying that writing with is solitary and that's very true and then people forget that we need people, we need other people we need that warmth we need that community. I'm still very close with my MFA cohort and and we have our own separate, you know, writing group that we, you know, it's been on pause because the pandemic but that has helped so much. I really appreciate the mentorship aspect as well like you mentioned it's very it's it is very true like it's someone who is focusing very like zooming so closely into your work and viewing it as as as yours. Versus like when you're like in a classroom or something. Or I mean, like a general workshop, where it's like one person trying to look at multiple people's work for the mentorship it's like this one mentor that's maybe doing at most three students at a time and they really look at your journey and they. I love the aspect of writing craft essays especially I know that's a little odd to say but the craft part. It's just identifying pieces, like sometimes things that you're using your writing or techniques that you're using your writing and, and thinking about it more. That really helped a lot, because it's like the foundation for your writing it's stuff stuff that lessons that you learn from this mentor and these essays and applying it to your life, life work of, of, of things. It doesn't apply to one specific novel or something it's all writing for a lifetime so. Yeah, Melissa or Meredith I don't know if you wanted to answer that or comment. Go ahead Melissa if you want to go first I feel like I've been talking a lot. I would definitely concur with Elena and loan the experience of community within the MFA program was a really unanticipated and really wonderful benefit. The first day of the program so here I am kind of this older woman walking into a new master's program thinking there'll be a lot of young people and, and there was a key there was a really great age range so. I met two of the best friends of my life in the program we continue to get together all of the time and got a zoom schedule session scheduled for next week, and celebrate each other and support each other, and help each other writing moving along our writing so I think that's really one of the really great benefits of the program the community of writers and also just as you said staying in touch with our mentors. It has been just such a wonderful experience. I, outside of the MFA program I have not been able to find that same type of community of writers. So I'm so grateful to continue to have that community I know one of the next questions that came through is how to find that. And I can't give any great advice on that unfortunately but very grateful for my continued involvement with the MFA program. Melissa, or Melissa, did you want to chime in. So yeah my story is a little different than that because in terms of community it was really interesting when I was growing up there weren't a lot of Native American writers, the Native American writing Renaissance kind of took place as I was growing up. And so I, I knew a few people and they were iconic to me, you know they weren't really my community they were just these luminaries and some of you may have heard of Joseph Bruschak has written several hundred books about the native northeast and he's a personal friend and was, was really a mentor. So there was no community in terms of finding other native writers except the one or two here and there and in 1992 when I went to the first ever Native Writers Conference in the country. I just had no idea they're all these other people and that was kind of wonderful. But, but because our subject matter is so hard to write about and so different. I was just really grateful for the diversity of professors at Fairfield, who could at least kind of zero in on some of that and I found that, particularly with Eugenia and da to professors who really had a very international experience, and, you know, really had such a great awareness about them that they could really embrace something that was so different than than what they had actually experienced and, and that that is in that sense that was a community connection that I did find. Thank you Melissa Elena did you have something to add. I think I saw you. You know, I was just moving on to the next question. Yeah. Please go. So the next question is asking about social media and how and what that that plays, or how that factors into finding community as writers. And so I don't know how many of you are part of the binders full of women group on Facebook. So it's, it's kind of a playoff of Mitt Romney's binders full of women, but it's just a huge community of thousands of female writers. So you can ask, and then they have subdividers for all different genres. So like there was one that was forth like forthcoming 2020 so there we were able to discuss a lot of the problems we were facing as being debuts during the pandemic and different ideas for promotion and because like a lot of bookstore events even virtually have preferred authoring conversations so it's been a good way to kind of team up and find people that want to have a conversation. So that's been really helpful but the general binders full of women is has been a place where I asked like these really obscure random questions but the community is so huge that somebody is relevant. Like, for instance, with the book that's forthcoming in April, which I have an arc is, yeah, is about a gymnast who's training for the Olympics and all of the losses that that that people have to sacrifice in order to achieve greatness and I'm not a gymnast, I've never practiced gymnastic gymnastics but that was going to be a huge aspect and so I needed an expert who was a writer and a gymnast to be my to be a reader. So I asked and I, you know, offer, I was going to offer payment and I actually ended up landing the ghost writer for Ali Raston's memoir. So it was a huge win for me that I had this like extremely qualified writer and gymnast to be my authenticity reader and she was absolutely invaluable so. So there are communities like that and that that give you access to a lot of different kinds of people. And then, as far as like connecting with readers and things Instagram has been very valuable because that's, you don't have to be connected to people with them, they can just tag you when they've read your book and offer a review. And in that way you connect with readers and you see your your book in the hands of people even when you're inside. So that's been really fun and connecting with hashtags and things like that to different writing groups to try to get yourself flagged on to other people's feeds even if you're not connected with them as a strategy that I'm still learning but the resources have been have been particularly helpful for me. And earlier on. Sorry, earlier on in people's writing I'm not sure whether Paul's question had to do with one of books or the seeking of affinity groups which you covered both of those, Elena but the third major community of writers is the one that we were talking about happens at the MFA program and I think that I mean as a director of an MFA I've seen people, you, a few of you talked about sort of topping out in terms of what you could learn inside community writing groups. Right so like, you know, and I think when we, we can even get to the point where we have figured out a craft issue at that level like that. So community writing groups are really amazing kind of step for people I think like the Westport writers group or I mean there's, you know, so just to say not only on social media but in the world there are there are not MFA programs. In my mind, that can be a step when you when you really get to the end of the utility of those but you still have craft things you're trying to learn. Or as Melissa was saying I can't do scene and you're just very aware of something like that. I think that can often be the step at which an MFA program is the next step. I don't know if any of you can speak to that kind of seeking of community loan you had it as an undergrad you had a community of undergrad, you know, writers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was, I was, I think I didn't realize it until like senior year where capstone. The capstone was really fun it was great to be exposed and there is like a some this writer Lee who I'm I still talk to it's from time to time created this whole like a different kind of magazine it was like it folded up into eight pieces and it was like ton of art. Why did I just forget the name I feel so bad Wagner, Wagner is the name of the magazine. Yeah, the name of the student though. Yeah, it's just so good because it's just it. You have you remember, you remember why you write when you're in a community they share their passion with you and you can celebrate them. I think I'm a tool another tool that writers can. Well, I go back and forth sometimes because there's Twitter, I feel like I sometimes I'm in a vacuum, where there's I feel like book polishing is all on Twitter and I just follow a bunch of. I have all my friends and stuff we follow like you know agents and other editors and, and things. It could be a good tool because it's a way to kind of celebrate small celebrations like you know this author tweets they finished their draft great like that's amazing congrats. They placed it at this magazine great awesome. At the same time, it does kind of open up this thing where you're like oh what like you're kind of measuring yourself against this person on Twitter, that's unhealthy. So I think there's a point to social media where you probably should step away. And that's why the in person things. Like I had an undergrad and also my favorite program and there's Westport writing I've heard great things there's in New York, you're based there there's Gotham writers group. 90 second why as well. But yeah. Does anybody have any closing we're just about out of time we want to respect the zoomness of things it might have gone over but on zoom people are. You know, it's very incredible to, you know, have one hour of someone zoom time so we're very grateful Karen saying congratulations and Karen's one of our wonderful faculty. If you are interested in learning more about this wonderful community of writers and find out more you could email me at see Davis at fairfield.edu as I'm the I'm the director of the MFA program. I couldn't be more grateful for the community that has sustained each other and myself over this this long year. And I just, I loved hearing from all of you congratulations and thank you so much and thank you to the Christina and everybody behind the scenes who hosted alumni affairs and have a wonderful evening everyone and definitely email me if you want to know more about the MFA. Thanks everyone.