Manuscript Conference

The people who run the program here at K-State bring in visiting writers, and these writers offer to sit and examine the submissions of the graduate students and provide feedback. The grad student sends the manuscript to the writer ahead of time, and then sits down for a chat. I was privileged today to be able to speak with author Ann Pancake, who generally writes short stories, but also has a book out about coal mining in West Virginia, called "Strange as this Weather Has Been." In any event, she actually took the time to line edit the my submission, the first chapter of what I hope becomes a book. It took a bit of bravery to submit it, I'll say, but we've been "workshopping" short stories and chapters in my fiction class, so I took the plunge (if you'll pardon me echoing my previous references to swimming when I started the poetry class last semester.) In any event, Ann was very kind, and encouraging. I guess I'll be staying in the creative writing track and working on this book for my Master's project.