Once I defended my thesis, the graduation process was far from over. I was elated to be done with the oral defense of my thesis. It was a wonderful experience, and one that prepared me for future job interviews. But the saga of the thesis copies had yet to begin. As a graduate student, your […]
Category Archives: Thesis
A Name Against the Nothing
Artax in the Swamp of Sadness, from The Neverending Story A few times at Clarion West, on the Sunday evenings when we met our instructor for the week, we would be asked to go around the table and describe the kinds of stories we wrote. Occasionally, I’d be asked the same question at the Friday night […]
The Story of the Story
I defended my thesis on Friday, and it went swimmingly. I now have an MFA from the University of Alaska Fairbanks (woot!), and just need to submit some paperwork in order to make it official. The whole affair lasted about an hour: 45 minutes of questions, a few minutes for the committee to deliberate behind […]
Resistance Manifesto
As I prepare for my thesis defense, I’m going back through my materials from the classes I took at UAF. In particular, I’m reading through my binder from Forms of Fiction, taught by the amazing David Crouse. David assigned a writing project during this course that I particularly loved. We each had to write a […]
Studying for the Thesis Defense
Every true work of art – and thus every attempt at art (since things meant to be similar must submit to one standard) – must be judged primarily, though not exclusively, by its own laws. If it has no laws, or if its laws are incoherent, it fails – usually – on that basis. ~ […]
Writing Rhythms
I’m up to my neck in short story revisions at the moment. Which means less of the fun “I’ll fix this problem later!” typing, and more “Crap, how do I fix that problem?” staring at my computer screen. I have twelve stories I’m mending at the moment, making sure that the stories have forward movement […]
