This guest post is part of our ongoing web series MARGINALIA about all things writing, reading, & learning. To submit your own experience, please read our guidelines.

This week, we feature a piece of art composed of poems by e.e. cummings and ask the artist, Jason Arnold, about his process.

About the piece of art, from the artist
I used only e.e. cummings’ Dial Paper Poems (1919-1920) and other random early poetry that was originally unpublished as the setting/background for this painting. As I rarely feel connected to paintings as real artistic statements anymore, I view my paintings as almost sculptural objects. This painting I set and dried with particles and sand embedded in the surface. The final artistic act was the recording of the action of throwing paint like a sexual explosion over the canvas. Continue reading →

This guest post is part of our ongoing web series MARGINALIA about all things writing, reading, & learning. To submit your own experience, please read our guidelines.

When I was in the process of getting my MFA, there was just one thing that really gave me a lot of trouble, and that was: the talent show. This was at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, a low-residency program, and VCFA had talent shows twice a year, one per residency. When someone first mentioned the tradition, I remember being baffled; since (presumably) nobody had any talents aside from writing, would the show just be a bunch of people reading poems and stories, like they had at the student reading the night before? As it happened, though, my fellow students were good at a lot of things. People danced; they sang and played guitars—guitars that they had brought with them to the residency because they were so into them—they did stand-up comedy; they did skits. It was a shock. I had basically enrolled in the program because writing was the one and only interest and talent I had; I hadn’t expected to be asked for more.

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This guest post is part of our ongoing web series MARGINALIA about all things writing, reading, & learning. To submit your own experience, please read our guidelines.

Melanie talks all the time in class. I ask her to stop. She continues even when I stand right next to her. She would continue if I put my hand over her mouth. She doesn’t say anything important, and she never stops. Continue reading →

This guest post is part of our ongoing web series MARGINALIA about all things writing, reading, & learning. To submit your own experience, please read our guidelines.

I once wrote an entire chapter of a novel where nothing new happened. One of my mentors in my MFA program bluntly pointed out that nothing in the chapter added any new information to the story or to my character.

“Stagnant,” she said. Then she found another chapter to delete. How could I not have known I was writing in circles?

It took a while, but I realized that when I was unsure what should happen next, or if I knew what I wanted to happen but was afraid of putting characters in emotionally wrenching situations, I procrastinated on the page. Clearly, I needed to ditch this unproductive habit. Continue reading →

This guest post is part of our ongoing web series MARGINALIA about all things writing, reading, & learning. To submit your own experience, please read our guidelines.

Your draft story is your unborn baby. A writing workshop is your baby shower. You don’t know the sex of your child. It’s a surprise. You’re going to be a single parent, so if you’re male, congratulations! You’re pregnant!

I had 14 babies this past fall. One baby each week for my flash fiction workshop. We played a few party games during my showers, like What Is Going On In This Paragraph, I Don’t Know What This Means, and Cut All Of This Out.

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