Excuse me – do you have the time? My week in the Jo Ann Beard workshop

Every afternoon in workshop, Jo Ann Beard scrawled a prompt on the white board and instructed the class to write for thirty minutes without stopping, even if we had to begin the way she said she sometimes did: me no want to. The phrase came to mind when I thought about writing a blog post about the Jo Ann Beard workshop: me no want to. Not because I didn’t adore every nanosecond of the workshop with every nanofiber of my being – I did. Not because I don’t like writing for this blog – I do. Me no wanted to write this blog post because I felt I didn’t have the time to do it. Thesising, grading, class taking, moving, yadda yadda, I got ninety-nine problems and free time ain’t one.

Then I remembered: amid all this – “all this” being life, I imagine you’re familiar– I found the time to, first of all, attend the Jo Ann Beard workshop for two hours every afternoon for five afternoons. Those were ten hours I probably would have assumed I couldn’t spare had there not been a draw like, say, Jo Ann Beard. Then, in the workshop, we wrote for thirty full minutes – a quarter of each session! Yet somehow, each day, there was time to read and to discuss and to share our work and to learn and to learn and to learn. I learned a lot about craft and a lot about myself as a writer, and I learned also that thirty minutes really isn’t all that long and that I’m not really all that busy – not too busy, at least, to spare a little time to do what I’m here to do: write.

So instead of deleting the email requesting a blog post about the Jo Ann Beard workshop, I set the timer on my phone for thirty minutes, and I wrote this blog post about the Jo Ann Beard workshop. I wrote today, guys! And probably this means I could write every day! It’s just about finding the time, and it turns out the time has been right there all along – it was just hard to see behind the me no want to.

Risa Polansky Shiman is set to graduate from FAU’s MFA program this spring, as soon as she finishes her thesis, which only references Chipotle seven times.

Ode to the Community Workshop

For the past three months, there have been eighteen creative nonfiction books scattered on the floor around my desk (oh, don’t worry, I don’t vacuum). There are craft texts and essay collections and memoirs and anthologies, and I want to assign my community workshop students everything. Initially, as I began planning for the class, part of the reason was because I felt I had something to prove. I’m youngish, not widely published outside of the news realm, and I haven’t been teaching long (not to brag or anything). I was terrified the people who signed up for my class would take one look at this face, which has never been on a book jacket, and demand a refund. I figured I needed every last text in my library if I was going to earn their trust and respect.

But I also wanted to assign them everything because creative nonfiction is awesome. I’d read a craft chapter on writing about family and think, They’re going to love this! and then a captivating personal essay and think, Their lives have not begun and will not begin until they read this! And this too! I came to our first session with five readings for the week, and my seven adult students were like, Whoa, slow your roll, we have jobs you know. But they were also like, I love to read and write and learn and I’m really happy to be here! Maybe just give us three of those for now. We talked about all the possibilities of creative nonfiction – the opportunity to tell stories that are both imaginative and true – and I was jazzed and they were jazzed and everybody was jazzed. They had questions, and I had answers, and these answers not only satisfied them, but satisfied me, and I felt relieved and I felt good. We did an in-class writing exercise, and watching them scribble seemed sufficiently exciting until one man looked up and said I thought I knew what I was going to submit for my first workshop, but this is going to be even better!, and then I died of happiness and came back to life so I could talk creative nonfiction with these people again the next week.

We’re six sessions in, and it’s been this way every class – electric with lively discussion about the genre and about the assigned readings and about each other’s work. Each week we all marvel how fast the two hours go by, and each week I do some extracurricular marveling at how astute these fellow writers are, how eager and how talented. During workshop, they offer respectful and constructive feedback that reflects how earnestly they’ve absorbed our craft discussions, and they submit writing that does the same, and beyond that, that moves and inspires their peers, myself very much included. I don’t know that I’d necessarily forgotten, but having the opportunity to facilitate this workshop has reminded me how much I love creative nonfiction and how energizing it is to be a part of a community of writers who feel the same way. I’m not saying it’s not a lot of work. (It is.) I’m not saying it’s not intimidating to stand in front of a room of adults who are depending on you to teach them something they care about. (It is.) I’m just saying that it’s worth it.

Risa Polansky Shiman is an MFA candidate in creative nonfiction. She is a blog hog and she knows it.

Write Like a... Just Write Something

Check out any writer’s thoughts on writing, and you’ll read of procrastination, of blinking cursors and glaring white space, of hours spent composing what amounts to, essentially, birdcage lining. When I left my job to become a full-time student/teacher/writer, I knew I’d be dealing with all of those things, not only because I’d been warned, but also because I’d met me before.

In college, one of my favorite AIM away messages was, “Risa Polansky: Procrastinating since 1983.” (I was born in 1983. It’s funny because babies can’t procrastinate.) My routine, which I have come to understand is not as unique or quirky as I used to like to think, has always been this: wake up early on what I have designated in advance – and therefore left any and all work undone until – a “Productive Day.” Sit at computer only to be confronted by the indisputable realization that I just cannot work in this mess! Neaten my area.

In high school, “my area” was my bedroom in my parents’ house, and, oh yeah, Mom said I had to clean out old clothes to give to charity before I’m allowed to get any new clothes, so now is probably the best time to start. (I always put those less fortunate ahead of writing projects I’m dreading – I can’t help it, my heart’s just so big.)

In college, “my area” was my half of a bedroom in a sorority house. On writing days, one of my forty-six roommates would inevitably be on her way to the store, and I didn’t have a car, so it was only logical that I seize the opportunity and tag along. Grocery shopping is, after all, productive. Especially when you’re out of Swedish Fish.

Post-college, “my area” was my studio apartment in South Beach, which was approximately one-third as nice as my half-bedroom in the sorority house. Because my writing space was also my bedroom and my living room and my kitchen, “neatening my area” could take all day. All weekend, even.

When I left my desk job last year, our guestroom became “my area,” and I knew if I wanted to get anything written in there, I’d need some inspiration. Off to Etsy I went in search of a framed print that would get my creative juices flowing. I’d hoped to find one featuring Cheryl Strayed’s “Write Like a Motherfucker,” but I didn’t, and also my husband said I couldn’t hang anything in the house with the word “fucker” in it. Eventually I settled on a Picasso: “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” The thing was, I didn’t have time to wait for it to be printed and shipped – I had writing to write! – and also it didn’t match my desk’s aesthetic.

So here I sit, looking at my do-it-yourself print (don’t worry, I made sure to decoupage the matting). It took hours to make, took weeks to get it and my room and my act together, and, spoiler alert, Pablo’s words of wisdom don’t always do the trick. His quote is to my right, but so is the window, and outside the window is the pool. To my left is the laundry room, and wouldn’t it be nice to have freshly washed clothes. And wouldn’t it be nice to watch Netflix while I fold! And the napping. And the Facebooking. And the napping.

You get it, not just because I’ve beaten you over the head with it, but because you’ve been there. Maybe you’re there right now. In which case, I’ll leave you alone, and I’ll leave you with this: this morning I sat down at my computer. I checked my personal email, perused a blog (or forty-five), blacked out, came to, and found myself in bed reading Sloane Crosley. But when I finished, I sat back down and I wrote this. It’s not going to win any awards, but it’s a series of letters on a page that could lead to more letters on more pages, and you know what they say: the journey to a thousand Pulitzers begins with a single word. So write one (or forty-five) today! I plan to keep going, too. I just need to run out and get a frame for that Pulitzer saying real quick.

Risa Polansky Shiman is one thesis away from an MFA. She and Chipotle will celebrate their fifteenth anniversary next year.

On Browsing Wisely

Due to time spent in front of a computer that’s over the years led to a vast knowledge of things that matter very little – Taylor Swift is 5’11,” everyone! – I’m known among family as President and CEO of the Internet. I’ve also developed a bit of a reputation in the MFA program for excessive Googling (my classmates’ names, mainly). So I really felt I’d earned it, felt I’d finally arrived, when I received an email from our friendly graduate advisor soliciting a blog entry on blogs. She’d apparently heard from our creative writing director that I “had a good understanding of which blogs are reading-worthy.” My status as blog stalker in residence preceded me, and I was gleeful triumphant proud.

Until I realized she’d heard wrong.

I do follow twenty-three blogs (TWENTY-THREE), and sure, I can point the way if you’re looking for commentary on celebrity children from the perspective of a celebrity child (Suri’s Burn Book). If you’re interested in nonstop hilarity that involves taxidermy more often than not, hit up The Bloggess. Fav resource for all things pop culture? Vulture. Looking for somewhere to revel in feminism and femininity (along with Zooey Deschanel)? HelloGiggles. In need of DIY inspiration? Young House Love. Have a friend/acquaintance/frenemy whose wedding website you can’t seem to find? You just let me know. Have a meme to show me I that I haven’t seen yet? It’s adorable that you think that. I have Googled “Google,” people. I kept webcam vigil over a pregnant giraffe in the days leading up to the birth. I have seen the whole internet.

Oh. Except for all the literary sites, that is. Of which there are many. Of which many are good. And it’s shameful (not as shameful as the giraffe thing, but shameful) that I – that many of us, I’d guess – have not been taking advantage. It’s not that I’m suddenly down on downtime (People.com, I don’t even want to know how to quit you), it’s that I’ve realized that we as writers should be spending a little more of it on literary pursuits.

The beauty of blogs is that they’re a direct line to the lives, thoughts, insights of others. To news, to opinions, to questions that might get us thinking, that could get us writing. There’s nothing wrong with doodling around in less-than-intellectual corners of the internet, but easy access to the wisdom and musings of other writers and readers is something we should not be passing up.

So I made it my mission over the past month to squeeze some blogs of a literary nature into my busy browsing schedule. Here’s the deal:

         -     Many of us are probably aware of Writer’s Digest, but check out the editor blogs for thoughts on everything from craft to publishing.

         -     Another publication you may know of that has a blog you should know of: Brevity. Visit for the self-described “creative nonfiction miscellany,” which is, as promised, miscellaneous, and also helpful or thought provoking or humorous or all of the above.

         -     If you haven’t yet experienced The Rumpus, you, my friend, are in for a TA-REAT. You can peruse blog posts here, but the whole site is like a playground for fans of pop culture and the arts, only with essays, reviews, poems, comics, interviews, etc. instead of slides and swings and stuff.

         -     Bookslut is, first of all, called Bookslut. If that’s not reason enough to visit, in this monthly online magazine/daily blog “dedicated to those who love to read,” you’ll find, as the site says, “a constant supply of news, reviews, commentary, insight, and more than occasional opinions.”

         -     At Writer Unboxed, you’ll find posts on writing and the writing life from countless contributors (I mean, I guess I could have counted them), which means multiple voices, multiple perspectives. Really, no one person has all the answers when it comes to writing, so here you have a shot at finding a voice, or voices, that might speak to you.

         -     OK, so, The Second Pass, brainchild of the New York Times’ John Williams, has been on hiatus for more than a year, but hear me out: it’s really worth clicking around. The content might be ‘old,’ but it’s good. Some of the last blog posts from before the break feature correspondence between writers, and the letters are really neat to read.

         -     In addition to her writing blog, new media guru and editor Jane Friedman (former Writer’s Digest publisher) offers on her site a “Writing Advice Archive” where you can find (wait for it…) writing advice in one easily accessible, user-friendly spot.

         -     Maud Newton, widely published and praised (check out her About page), writes a great blog that offers, as she puts it, “occasional literary links, amusements, culture, politics, and rants.”

         -     I’m not exactly sure who’s behind Moody Writing, but I know I liked the first entry I saw, in which the writer mourns not being able to snoop at what others are reading on public transit because of coverless e-readers… while pulling out a Kindle. The blog is full of lengthy entries on various elements of craft. It’s worth perusing and deciding for yourself which ideas/advice hold merit/resonate.

         -      I stumbled upon Kim’s Craft Blog in doing research for Teaching Creative Writing and find author Kimberly Davis’ craft lessons to be quite accessible and often illuminating.

         -     And clearly I’m not the first person to attempt such a compilation, so here are some “best” lists:

            http://robertleebrewer.blogspot.com/2012/02/best-blogs-for-writers-to-read-in-2012.html

http://writetodone.com/2013/01/07/top-blogs-for-writers/

          -      Also, Twitter, if you’re into that sort of thing*. This is obviously a very brief and kind of random selection, but most publications and a great many authors tweet. Following their feeds is a fantastic way to ingest writing-world goings on in small and timely bites.

@nprbooks

@nytimesbooks

@poetswritersinc

@PublishersWkly

@cnfonline

@IowaReview

@judyblume (Her tagline is “Are You There, Twitter? It’s Me, Judy” – !!!!!)

*I am. @RisaAriel if you’ve a tolerance for nonsense.

Risa Polansky Shiman, who lives on the internet and also in Delray Beach, is in her third year of FAU’s MFA program. You can find her latest published work, a piece on comedy as feminist rhetoric, in Harlot.

M.A. versus M.F.A. – a note to would-be creative writers

I applied to the creative writing Master of Arts program because I was scared. Scared that pursuing the three-year Master of Fine Arts without an English degree was presumptuous, overly ambitious. Scared my excitement over returning to the classroom after four years in the ‘real world’ would burn out after the first few stressful semesters. Scared I’d have a tough time juggling a fulltime job and grad school. Scared my personal life would progress, lead me in a different direction, before I could get through 48 credits. Scared I wouldn’t be any good at creative writing. I chose the 30-credit M.A. program because it was shorter. Safer.

Looking back a year and a half later, even after switching to the M.F.A., I don’t really blame my former self. There have got to be countless would-be students with similar issues – people who have always wanted to try creative writing but don’t have the background and aren’t prepared to dedicate three years of their life to the unknown. People who are interested in graduate study but have personal or professional obligations that don’t allow for a three-year commitment. People who want to write but don’t necessarily intend to teach in the future. For those people, the M.A. is a great fit – and more than that, a golden opportunity. Kudos to FAU for offering an alternative to the M.F.A. that still gives passionate but perhaps busy or apprehensive writers a real chance to learn, to write. It so happens that not too many people take that chance – at one point, I was the only student in the creative writing M.A. track – but it was undoubtedly the right program for me at the time.

To those of you deciding between the M.A. and M.F.A., know that the M.A. is a viable option that, though shorter than the more popular M.F.A., offers the same access to talented and insightful professors and fellow student writers. It’s a less conventional path to take in the creative writing world, but one that may be right for you. And maybe some of you, like me, will start on that path only to realize your initial fears were unfounded. Well, maybe not quite unfounded – it was nerve-racking to take my first workshop with students who had been writing and sharing their work for years. Being back in school after a few years in the workforce was an adjustment, and studying while maintaining a fulltime job continues to be a balancing act. My personal life did progress – I got married last semester.

But as I made my way through the program, as my confidence built and my excitement mounted and I became more inspired than I’ve ever been, I found that none of this threw me off the way I thought it would. Any residual stress seemed – seems – so worth it. Three years became a commitment I was not only willing, but thrilled, to make. I switched to the M.F.A. because my time as an M.A. helped me realize not only how much I love learning and writing, but how much more I have to learn and write. And I’ll always be grateful to have had the chance to ease into that realization on my own terms.



Risa Polansky Shiman is in her second year of the M.F.A. program. She holds a B.S. in Journalism from the University of Florida and reported on Miami’s local governments before moving north to work, study, and write at FAU.