Becca and Conor
DDalton GreeneFeb 27, 2021 at 4:56 pm38min
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00:00Conor Broderick
I don't know how else to say it, but like we are all baby...like just like writers as like poets or whatever, because we haven't been doing this for very long.
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00:17Anna Chu
Hello and welcome to The Ramblings, a podcast for and by English majors. This week we sit down with Becca Lewis and Connor Broderick to talk about why they chose the English major route and their advice, hopes, and fears about the capstone process.
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00:38Teddy Holt
Hello, my name is Teddy Holt. I am a junior English major, a bass in the caster's Concert Choir, and I am also desperately in love with Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks. I work in the English department on The Ramblings, the podcast you're listening to right now. This week, I have two of my very dear friends as guests, Connor Broderick and Becca Lewis. If either of you would like to introduce yourself, go ahead.
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01:06Conor Broderick
Cool, I guess I can take that first. This is Connor speaking. I am a senior English and chemistry double major. And some of the things that I do at Macalester aside from that is I'm one of the seniors on the improv team at the college Fresh Concepts. And I do research in the laboratory of Dennis Cao, working on organic materials along with my writing career, which I guess we're mostly going to be talking about here.
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01:35Teddy Holt
Probably, yeah.
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01:37Becca Lewis
Awesome. Hi, my name is Becca Lewis. I'm a senior Creative Writing major, and psychology minor. I am an alto with Macalester Concert Choir. And I like to cook to the Ratatouille soundtrack.
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01:52Teddy Holt
Wow, that's inspired. I want to try that sometime, actually.
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01:57Becca Lewis
You should I highly, highly recommend it.
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02:00Conor Broderick
Do you also just have a small rat that is controlling your cooking? Or is it just to like feel sort of....
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02:06Speaker 1
rubbish?
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02:06Becca Lewis
I can't answer that.
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02:10Teddy Holt
That's classified Connor. Stop now. Well, thank you so much for joining me today on this episode of The Ramblings. I want to talk to you I think a lot about creative writing today. Because as I said, you're both my dear friends and I have interacted with both of you a lot in the context of creative writing. Becca, we had the class with Marlon, his fantasy class together and Connor, I mean, we just were just like that. We just swap stuff all the time, which is lovely. What does being a creative writing major mean to you? And, maybe, why is that the major that you chose?
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02:49Becca Lewis
Yeah, so I actually have kind of a funny story as to how I came to become an English major. So both of you guys know this. But I was originally a psych major and then declared an English minor. And then the first semester of my junior year, I decided to switch them. So now English is my major and psych is my minor. Yeah, but being an English major, since I made the switch has just been really wonderful. And I, I'm someone who has always liked telling stories, writing stories, and now that I get to do that, for my degree, it's just amazing. And yeah, it's, it's like, you know, just being required to do the thing that you would want to do in your free time anyway. I mean, you can't really get a better deal than that.
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03:48Conor Broderick
Yeah, I echo a lot of what Becca said, I had a somewhat different trajectory coming into the major, I knew coming into college that I wanted to double major in the things that I was doing. Um, so yeah, I was also sort of somebody who just read a lot when I was like, all through like, elementary, high school, etc. I didn't actually ever write anything until like my junior year of high school. And then I was like, Oh, this is a thing you can do, just like writ large. So in terms of what being a creative writing major actually means to me...I think a lot of it is what Becca said, it's just like a sanctioned space to do the thing that like I would probably be doing anyways, and just having that be part of my academic calendar is really helpful. And like, along with that, just having access to, like faculty who have been doing this way longer than any of us have, is a really, really great way to sort of get a leg up in terms of just like the craft of the work we're doing because I think there can be sort of a thing where it's just like...You can just go and check out a book and read it and be like, Oh, I can attempt to imitate this or, like, listen to a bunch of podcasts with writers with sort of like craft tips and stuff. But there, there is definitely something about like sitting down in a class with the same like 16 people and the same professor who is like...and you're all working together to make the work that you do, like better and more interesting. That makes this specific portion of the degree a really a really valuable one for me.
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05:32Teddy Holt
Aw, yeah, I love that. I mean, it's the English department is like a little community, and especially when you're workshopping pieces, like classes really start to feel like cohesive units in a way that is special, I think, to the English degree. Although you can get that in other classes. I...was thinking about where you're saying about faculty, and agreeing. And then I was thinking about last last week's episode with Eric and Amy and how we just talked a lot about Matt Burgess. Now I'm curious, what is like a favorite memory of an English department professor that you have?
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06:13Becca Lewis
I gotta say, it's also Matt Burgess. I mean, I don't know what to tell you. The guy's just really cool. One of my favorite moments with Matt, that I will frequently tell people about while I'm recommending him, or just if I'm deciding to politely embarrass myself is I one time wrote just like a writing exercise assignment for him that was due the next day, and this was in his International Storytelling class, which I took a year ago. Amazing, amazing class, I could not recommend it enough. But we had these little writing exercises that were low stakes. And I wrote one, hit Submit on Moodle, and then 15 minutes later decided that it was the worst thing I'd ever written and was like, Oh, my God, I shouldn't have sent this in this is garbage, and again, this assignment really did not have any real weight to it. There was no grade it was just to do. And that whole night, I just I couldn't sleep, I was thinking about it for no reason was just like, oh my god. And then the next day, I went to his class, felt gross in class all day, immediately after was like, Hi, I need to go to your office hours. And then I sat in his office and just kind of word vomited stress at him for like 5 minutes straight. 12 hours' worth of stress, just bam. And he looks me dead in the eyes, and he goes, so? And I just I melted onto the floor of his office. And the thing is, he was right. It was I don't want to say it's the best advice I've ever gotten from a professor cuz I don't know if it's advice, but like, yeah, so what?
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08:06Teddy Holt
I just heart reacted to that on Zoom.
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08:11Becca Lewis
Thank you for that.
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08:13Becca Lewis
Yeah, but no, no. In all seriousness, he's wonderful.
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08:19Teddy Holt
Conor, what about you?
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08:21Conor Broderick
Yeah, I think for me, it's sort of hard to pick. I guess I will also stick with creative writing faculty for now, because that's the vibe of the episode. Um, I basically, as Teddy said at the beginning, I mostly write poetry now, but that definitely wasn't the case um, honestly, even just like a year and a half ago. The entire reason that I like mostly write poetry now is because I took a class with Michael Prior, who is a really, really wonderful poet in the department. And I, due to just a weird series of events with how my major worked and my double majors interacted, I ended up having to take the creative writing capstone as a junior with Michael, and I had never taken like a sanctioned poetry class in college, and the capstone was you write a chapbook of poetry, and a chapbook is like a short generally, like 15 to 25 pages worth of just like poetry and like a themed collection, essentially. And so I met with Michael, like, before the class had even started, and I was like, Hey, I don't really know what I'm doing um, in this form. Um, and I was like, very stressed because I wasn't sure how I was going to be able to keep up with folks that had like a year more experience with me and obviously, like years more of experience writing, um, poetry. We basically just like talked about some poetry that I'd previously read and, like, what my interest in terms of writing were, which are like in my case, a lot about, like, nature writing and class and how, like, science and poetics intersect. And he gave me like three recommendations for different things to read. One of which is, I cannot remember the...Oh, yeah, that's it. And he gave me an essay called Fractal Poetics: Adaptation and Complexity by Alice Fulton. Poetry works as, like, a structure to access information that you can't in prose, and it was just like, the perfect essay for the time and, like, place I was in in terms of writing poetry. And that has always been my experience um...going to Professor Prior's office hours, it's basically like, I am in trouble and I don't know what to do. And then I go, and I talk to him for like, 30 minutes about what the craft problem is, or like, what issue I'm having getting started writing, and he's like, oh, here are like four other poets doing the exact same thing. And also, here's an essay if you'd like to read it. And I'm like, thanks, Michael. And it almost invariably, like helps me get out of like the rut that I'm in. Um, that's really what I mean about, like, the advantage of having a professor who's been doing this for such a long time. I don't know how else to say it but like, we are all baby. Like, as, as just like writers, as like, poets, or whatever, because we haven't been doing this for very long and like, just like, assuming that we don't have to reinvent the wheel every time and we can just like go to office hours and be like, Hey, I have this problem. Um, and that's just been sort of the defining feature of interacting with faculty, is feeling like I have an insurmountable issue with my work and then talking to them and realizing it is deeply surmountable.
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11:44Becca Lewis
We are all baby.
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11:45Teddy Holt
I love that. We are all baby.
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11:48Becca Lewis
I want that on a shirt: we're all baby.
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11:53Teddy Holt
Well Conor, I love that anecdote. And I remember when you were in his Capstone, and I remember going to his office hours and knowing that you were stressing out and like, like, not so suddenly, like building you up a little, being like wow, Conor's really excited. I love his poetry. He's a great poet.
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12:14Becca Lewis
Aw, that's so nice.
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12:11Teddy Holt
But hey, you proved me right. So...why creative writing? What interests you about creative writing? What interests you in, like, what do you like to write about? What are you...what are you fascinated with? What are you obsessed with? What do you just keep...keep writing and you can't stop writing every time?
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12:35Becca Lewis
I think, as cheesy as it might sound, I think I've been writing stories in some way or, or in some way or another, um...for most of my life, um, when I was a kid, I used to do um... Do either of you know what a Magna Doodle is? It's like...no? Okay, you guys are both giving me confused faces. I'll just explain it. So yeah, it's this little magnetic sort of whiteboard-looking thing. And there's a magnetic pen, and you can draw on the screen. And then there's a little slider at the bottom that you can use to erase all the marks you make. So essentially, it's a reusable thing you can write on, draw on, whatever. And when I was a kid, I used to sit on the floor with this thing for hours on end and just draw like, one frame at a time, and just make stories. And I would draw stick figures. So I would draw like a person walking to the left, and then erase. And then the next frame would be the person getting to a building, and then erase. The next one: they're opening the door and just sit there for hours to the point where my mom would be like, Oh, my God, go outside, watch TV, do something else. But yeah, I think that this year, especially, I've been going back to that in my mind, for whatever reason, and it...I like to think of that as my little humble beginning of writing stories. But even later on in later elementary school and middle school, I would write stories for fun when I got home from school, and, you know, it was always something that I did in my free time. And I never really considered the fact that I could do it in a more professional way or setting. So choosing this as my major, especially later on in the game in college, was really exciting to me, and it was just kind of a way to like to pay homage to that and, yeah, really just do what I love. But to answer the second part of your question, I primarily write speculative fiction and speculative short fiction is what I've done the most in college and it's become my favorite thing to do. I do experiment with poetry here and there. And I really love doing it but for the most part fiction is my thing. I love magical realism. I think it's amazing. I love reading it, I love writing it, I think it's great. Or the thing that I guess I'm obsessed with in writing or one of the things, I might have a couple if that's okay...I love writing a story in which everything is realistic, except for like, one thing that's just super weird. So, for example, one of my favorite stories I've ever written, everything is standard, normal, realistic. It takes place in the late, or sorry, the, the early 80s. So I actually did a lot of research for accuracy in terms of like...brands of cars, products that were out, bands that were popular. But then there's a supernatural weather phenomenon where you have rocks falling out of the sky. So I just...yeah, that's my favorite thing to do, and that's actually a nice segue into another one of my fascinations in giant air quotes that I discovered by accident. I love rocks. And it's completely unintentional. So I have this story where rocks fall out of the sky, I have a story that I wrote, I believe for the same class back in 2018, with Professor Emma Torzs, who I'm actually in a class with now. In this story, there's a boy who finds a sort of magical-ish stone in the bottom of a river, so another rock, and that becomes very important later on in the story. And then my most recent story that I wrote for Marlon in the class that I was in with you, Teddy, was a story in which there's this monster at the bottom of a gorge and he picks up a big rock. What a surprise. And throws it at a human to get their attention. And I actually got a comment from Marlon James being like really, question mark, at the size of the rock because he thought it was too big. So yeah, I love rocks, I guess.
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17:12Teddy Holt
That makes the former geology major in me very happy.
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17:16Becca Lewis
I'm really glad.
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17:18Teddy Holt
I recently, actually, just...I have to share this. This is not related to the English department. But I went to Ol-Ri recently and stole some rocks out of where the geology students dumped the rocks underneath Ol-Ri, and now they're holding all of my children's books on my mantle in my house. Conor, how about you?
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17:41Conor Broderick
I think I've, as...I used to be like, my two...I'm doing my two majors for separate reasons. I do chemistry for chemistry, and creative writing for creative writing. And they don't, they don't touch, um, but I have really been realizing a lot of it is like, they're both ways, sort of, at the base of it to, like, understand more about how, like, the world around me works. Um, at least for me, personally, like chemical research is a very, like, specific and particular way to, like, understand like, a lot about, like, one, like, very specific molecule, etc, etc. But a big reason I write, like, poetry or prose a lot of the time is to, like, figure out how to represent things that I'm interested in, whether that's, like, a landscape or an emotion, etc. As just like, a way sort of towards, like, understanding more about, like, what I'm thinking, because a lot of the time, if it's just sort of, like, vibes inside my head, I can't actually, like, articulate that in a specific way, and just sort of working through that on the page is, like, a really enjoyable way for me to be like, how, how or why is this, like, experience working for me? Or how or why does like this, like, I don't know, um, specific portion of, like, California, like, why is this stuck in my head? Um...just like, a way of writing, like, toward understanding, I guess, is like, a big reason why I do it. Um, also, I just think writing is fun. It's nice to string words together. And then if they sound nice, you're like, hey, that's, that's pretty cool. I'm a big fan of that.
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19:22Becca Lewis
Hell, yeah.
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19:23Conor Broderick
Yeah, no, it's just like, it's always been something that I have sort of wanted to do. And I think I am one of those people who was, like, a reader before I was a writer. And the experience of reading things and how much that impacted me has always been something that I am hopeful I will be able to do with my own writing, um, whether I can actually do that is sort of up for the people reading my work, um, so big sharp there. But that is sort of the core of why I'm interested in writing is, like, as a way to understand, like, the way I perceive things, the world around me, and then also because words are just cool, and it's fun to play with them. Yeah, in terms of obsessions or fascinations. The biggest one, and this is just sort of deeply cliche. I grew up in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in inland Northern California. The town I grew up in is, like, very small, it's like about 5000 people, an hour or so east and south of Sacramento, which is the capital, um...and especially in the poetry that I've written, I am like, really deeply obsessed and interested in the ways that nature works in that particular landscape. Because where I'm from in California was sort of, like, the hotbed of the gold rush, um... Sutter Creek, which is where I went to high school is one of the first places that, like, gold was discovered in a substantial way in the Sierra Nevada foothills, so my community writ large is, like, based in large part on these old mining towns, and you see sort of evidence of that in the hills and in, like, these old, like, rusted-out, um, like, mining equipment. I mean, where I live basically, from my house, you can see the the tower of the Kennedy Mine shafts, which was a mine that produced gold from, like, the late 1800s up until, like, the 1950s or so, um...in like a land trust, where I often go hiking, like, right behind my house, um, there's like an old, like, munitions container, with, like, danger, like, TNT written on it, that's just, like, this sort of, like, concrete shack, and thinking about the ways that, like, this landscape, which sort of to somebody who is coming to it for the first time is, like, beautiful and pristine and, like, stereotypically, like, rural, but is actually, like, really, really substantially impacted and shaped by this particular human activity, um, is something I've been thinking about a lot is, like, how do I interface with the fact that, like, this is the section of nature that I know the most and know the best, but it is simultaneously something that has been, like, really heavily damaged by human activity? Um, and the way that that intersects with, like, class in my particular part of California, um, are just ideas that bounce around in my head a lot. Um, just, like, the intersections of nature and human activity. And um, like, what that means for existing as a person in a place, which in practice means I write a lot about landscapes and trees and frogs and shit like that, basically. I mean, Teddy can attest because I think that he may have read the vast majority of the poems that I've written, yeah, a lot, a lot of stuff about nature and how to live in it as a person.
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23:06Teddy Holt
Very nature-y vibes. Got some rocks and twigs and stuff going on here in our writing. That's why I'm such good friends with both of you. Because I think that's also one of my fascinations in writing. Because, you know, nature is just something that is so present in everyone's life, no matter how actually connected to nature you are, like, if it's not there, that's a presence, too. And I just think that some of the best poetry and some of the best prose writing is on nature. But maybe that's just me. I want to ask you one last question, or I guess sort of open the floor for more questions. Becca who, you are taking your capstone next module, correct?
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23:53Becca Lewis
Yes.
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23:54Teddy Holt
Okay. I am...I'm in a capstone right now, but I'm not the expert here. Conor is kind of the expert. As we heard earlier, he has already taken his creative writing capstone for his major, but he's also at the same time as me right now, taking the literature capstone for a time period requirement. LOL. Conor, do you have any advice for Becca in terms of creative writing capstones, or doing a capstone during a module? Anything like that?
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24:28Becca Lewis
Yeah, hit me.
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24:30Conor Broderick
Yeah, I think...I guess I'll take doing a creative writing capstone in general as the first one because I'm still in the process of figuring out how to do a capstone during a module. But the other one I have maybe some more concrete answers for, um, and this might be a little different for you, Becca, because from what I understand, you'll be in like a projects course where you get to pick specifically what genre you're working in, whereas the class that I was in was specifically on chapbooks and poetry. They often feel more like work among peers than the sort of typical vibe of, like, you are working for a professor. Like, because everybody is working on their own specific projects that are so independently driven, it feels a lot more like you are coming to the class as, like, sort of the expert in the topic that you're working on, because it is your project and you're, like, leading the way in terms of its direction. And something I had to realize is that, like, one of my, my good friends in the capstone that I was with is an incredibly prolific writer, I think she probably had, like, two or three chapbooks worth of poems by the end of it, there were other folks who were, like, also writing a ton of stuff. And the way that I work, especially with poetry, is relatively slowly. I think every single poem I wrote in that capstone class ended up in the chapbook, because otherwise it would not have been a chapbook by the end of it, because I only wrote enough to sort of satisfy that. So because you're in a class where, like, all of your peers are also going to be sort of producing really substantial work, um, it's easy, at least for me, to sort of get bogged down and being like, why am I not being as productive as everybody else? Like, what if my project, like, isn't as interesting, or, like, isn't sort of as valuable as the stuff that everyone else is doing? Um, was something that I was, like, very stressed about, particularly around how much just, like, how much poetry I was outputting because it wasn't very much a lot of the time. And just realizing that a capstone is, like a) you're still there to learn, like, we're still in school, it's not like you're trying to get something that is, like, inherently and directly publishable by the time you're done. And just sort of approaching it as a way to learn more about how you function doing an independent project that you are driving yourself. Because once we're sort of, like, out of school, most of the time, we're not going to have, like, necessarily prompts to respond to or, like, direct deadlines that we're working under. So approaching it as a way to, like, learn more about how you work best to, like, learn about what, like, those fascinations and obsessions are and, like, center those in the projects that you're doing.
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27:09Becca Lewis
Yeah.
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27:10Conor Broderick
Because I couldn't have worked for 15 weeks on a project that I was, like, only half interested in, because that would have sucked, and it also would have been a worse project. So, to sort of, like, wrap that up, it's, like, don't feel bad if your work, like, methods are different than the people around you, especially if you're, like, less prolific, because that will just make you feel bad. And then don't feel embarrassed to bring the things you're obsessed with to the capstone. It doesn't need to be, like, fancy literary stuff, or, like, something that you think other people will think are cool. It's a project at its core for...for you to do, um, and if you're doing it for someone else, then it could be a little rough to work on it 15 weeks in or seven and a half, depending on...
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27:53Becca Lewis
Yeah. Just, like, going back to one thing that you said that feeling of "am I producing work that's as...as good as other people's work?" or "am I producing as much work as other people," I think, you know, being someone who hasn't been in a capstone yet, but has been in so many workshop-based classes. And I think that imposter syndrome is really real, as a writer, just to see people writing around you, and especially in a workshop to, you know, sometimes you write things and you, you know, drag yourself to workshop, and maybe you're not really feeling what you're writing, and, you know, you end up getting to discuss someone else's work, and you're like, "wow, this is really good. Am I...am I writing things that are this good?" And as weird as that can be sometimes, I think that's one of the coolest things about doing creative writing in a group setting like that, because everybody's stuff is so different. So it's really difficult, at the end of the day, to be like, "Oh, yeah, this is at this level. And this is at this level." And I think, going into the capstone, I'm really excited to be taking a class that will allow me to choose what form and genre I'm working in. I'm really lucky in that. I think...I think right now, I'm going to be doing fiction. But you know, that could change, I don't know. But that is...that is the plan at the moment to do sort of a novella-length fiction project, which I'm excited about, but you know, it's also daunting. I've never written anything that long before and one of the things you said, Conor, about going in and reminding yourself that it doesn't have to be a quote unquote fancy literature stuff is a really good point. And I definitely think there will be points in this class where I need to remind myself of that, and I may or may not text you at an ungodly hour and be like, Hey, is it okay if I don't do fancy literature stuff? And I will "expect you to say yes, it's fine if you don't," and if you say "no, it's not fine," I will use this podcast as receipts.
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30:11Conor Broderick
Yeah, I think that like, I don't know, that's something that I've had to learn. Um, just like being in all these workshops, because that feeling of coming to workshop and being like, I just am not really feeling what I'm writing. And I don't totally know why, um, and sort of, like, knowing there's that weird malaise of, like, why is this thing not working for me? Um, and I think that, like, I felt that really acutely, sort of, for the first two or so years of being in workshops and doing creative writing-related stuff. Back when I was still writing mostly prose. And again, I am baby. So this is, like, sort of a weird retrospective thing be saying, but that feeling of, like, there is a way that I think I, like, should be a writer, or I should be somebody who writes and it's, like, for me, it's like, I'm writing sort of, like, literary inflected, like, speculative fiction is the thing that I think somebody like me should be writing, or like, I am writing, like, this particular type of poetry that I think somebody in my position should be writing, and I'm going to, like, get some stuff published in, like, a literary magazine, and then maybe I'll be able to do some stuff along those lines. And I think taking the capstone with, um, with Michael ended up really letting me see, like, the different, like, equally valuable and valid ways to be somebody who writes things. Um, and for me, it was being, like, I don't need to, like, sort of outwardly, specifically care about whether I am writing the things that I should, because if I am only doing the, like, writing that I think I should, that will, like, at some point get me, like, published somewhere, I will just start to hate this thing that I really care about. And I've been trying to move toward being like, what are the things that I'm specifically interested in? I can't remember who wrote this, but there's a quote that's been bouncing around in my head where it's like, like, nonfiction is, like, only really successful if, like, the writer is...has a specific question they want to answer in that piece. Um, and I think that can be applied equally to poetry or to fiction is just, like, what are the questions that I want to answer in my writing? So I'm not just, like, sort of writing for writing's sake, I guess. Um, and sometimes it's the stuff that obsesses me, sometimes it's like more particular, but just to becoming, like getting to a point where I'm like, I am writing, because I want to, because I care about these questions, instead of just focusing on that, yeah.
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32:54Teddy Holt
I am so sad to say that we are at the end of our time here. But if there's any sort of last things you want to share with our listeners, feel free to now.
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33:06Becca Lewis
One thing that I'll just say, and I guess, you know, this might seem a bit cliche, but I would really recommend choosing the English department, whether for a major or a minor, or just, you know, taking some classes and seeing what sticks. I'm a really, really strong believer in, in the idea that anybody can do creative writing, and in whatever capacity that is, it doesn't have to be for a class or for a professor to see, a workshop or anything like that. It could just be for you. But I would really advise people to just take an intro class and see what happens. I've known lots of people that have kind of pushed creative writing to the side because it's never something they could see themselves doing. Or maybe they're intimidated by it or, you know, they've tried it before and haven't really had any luck, but then have taken an intro class and have been like, Oh, yeah, this kind of feels like something I would enjoy and whether or not that leads to taking more classes or maybe it just leads to someone starts reading more books or just writes things in their free time and never shows it to anyone, but gets some personal meaning out of it. I think that's...it's a huge thing in my life, obviously, because I'm in the English department. But um, I think it's just a really...a really cool thing that more people should do, I guess, is my little cherry on top of, of the podcast episode. Be in the English department. Do it. It's great.
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33:09Conor Broderick
Yeah, I really echo everything that Becca just said. And I think that's just, like, fantastic advice for people who are maybe, like, writing-skeptical or English department-skeptical. Um, try it. What's the worst that could happen?
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35:01Becca Lewis
You could end up just like us. We turned out great.
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35:06Conor Broderick
Yeah, we're doing so well. In terms of, like, parting stuff, on my end, I might go toward, like, first, like, first years or people who are listening to this considering whether to apply to Macalester, if you're obsessed with writing already or, like, you know, you sort of, like, want to do writing, um...just, like, reminding yourself that, like, you've got, you've got time. Um, and, like, I think there's a weird thing with people who, like, start writing in high school or in college, where you, like, hear stories about people who have, like, gotten, like, book deals, or like, gotten published in literary magazines by the time they're like, sophomores or whatever. And then being, like, Well, why have I have not gotten that? Oh, woe is me, does this mean I've made, like, the wrong career choice or the wrong, like, decision in terms of being somebody who, like, wants to write things? Um, and I think it's just like, if you are here because you want to write, then, like, do that, and don't necessarily get swept up in the idea that, like, you need to, like, get published immediately. Um, I was, like, when I when I was a first year, I had, like, a couple of short stories I'd written in high school, I'd had some stuff that I'd written since I started, and I was, like, sending stuff out to like, some literary magazines, and to, like, sort of, like, young arts or, like, scholastic competitions, or whatever. Um, and I was like, man, I have, like, not received any of these things. I must be, like, a bad writer, or whatever. Um, but I was just like, none of that particularly matters, because if what I want to do is write I am, like, writing things. Um, and I had a conversation, again with Michael Prior, a while ago, because now I'm in a place where I have, like, written a bunch of poetry, and there's some stuff I genuinely would like to see published, and I was like, "What advice do you have when you're, like, somebody who is, like, looking to, like, send stuff out for publication for the first time, etc.?" And he was like, "don't just try and get published to get published." Like, have a piece that you really care about, and, like, just submit it to places that you think, like, you would like to see your work in. And if you, like, get rejected from getting published somewhere, or it doesn't work out, then fine, that is completely okay, you have your entire life to, like, write a thing that will be the first thing that you publish. I think there can be just so much pressure in creative writing programs to feel like, if I want to be a writer, I have to get the validation of a publication credit, or I have to get the validation of, like, being paid for my work before I can consider myself a writer, and I just don't think that's useful. And I think it's better to be like, I am somebody who likes writing and wants to write and that is enough. And once you get to a point where you, like, have something you really desperately want to, like, share with a broader audience, then start looking toward that instead of, like, putting the cart before the horse and, like, trying to get published so you can reach a broader audience or whatever.
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38:14Teddy Holt
Well, thank you both so much for joining me on this episode of The Ramblings. It was really heartwarming to hear all of the wonderful advice that you two have for each other and for other Macalester students.
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38:28Anna Chu
Thank you for listening to The Ramblings. Teddy Holt was the anchor, Dalton Greene assisted in writing, Anna Chu was the editor. Music is "Get Jazz," courtesy of purpleplanet.com. If you're an English major senior and you're interested in being a part of this project, please contact englishdepartment@macalester.edu for more information.
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