(Still) An Ambitious Girl

Song: Humble x Kendrick Lamar

*insert prayer hands emoji*

Yes, it's been an entire year since I've let you all know what I was up to. (I've already made it clear how terrible I am at maintaining a blog, right? I'm still going to try, but I just wanted to make sure we're all on the same page...)

Anyways, what's happened since last May:

• Two more semesters of graduate school
• I saw Queen Bey 🙌, Kanye West, Chris Brown, Rae Sremmurd, JoJo (again), Fabolous...
• I've been to a lot of readings!
• Honestly, I went to an entire writer's conference and had a blast (AWP)
• There's a new commander in chief and, well...
• Lots of publications, including the ones I teased about with my last post
• Jordan Year...
• So many pop culture happenings (i.e. Kimye, the Carter Twins are coming, Serena's baby, Kendrick's new album, JoJo's album, Lady Gaga's Tour, Chance the Rapper's tour...)
• I've been to Baltimore/D.C. (twice), Elon, Wisconsin, Philly...
• A lot of things emerging in my writing, and even my writing has started moving off the page...

It's been a year of non-stop hard work. I started out Fall 2016 with a part-time job (#blessed), continued my teaching job, and a full schedule. I took nonfiction workshop (per usual), topics in nonfiction: writing sex, and form and theory: elegy and heartbreak. As you can probably assume, it ended up being an emotionally exhausting and sleepless semester. I also was president of the graduate student organization for the creative department, and continued to co-curate the graduate reading series, and also facilitate the monthly writers' boot camps. That semester included 26 books, not including any that I bought or read for fun. 😧 But I made it, and because I did, I figured I could do anything right?

Fall 2016's Semester Book List

My Top 5 of the Fall 2016 Semester

But then came the results of the election, inauguration, and the downward spiral of the country. To combat all of that--because writing wasn't working, in fact, writing was extremely difficult--I started watching Steven Universe at the beginning of the Spring 2017 semester. And TBH Steven and The Crystal Gems got me through the darkness that was January/February.

In February, I attended my first AWP conference in Washington D.C. (in a very conflicting place for a black female writer), which was really buying books, meeting authors, and attending readings. I went to a reading sponsored by the African Poetry Book Fund, a dance party/poetry reading, a feminist reading (which included Sonia Sanchez, one of the leaders of the Black Arts Movement), and more. I ended up staying within my book budget, but going home with five books and a tote bag from Graywolf Press.

Once I got back from AWP, I was inspired to get back to the grad school grind. I think this past semester was harder than the Fall: my schedule was even more tightly packed (topics in nonfiction: non-narrative thought (elective), nonfiction workshop, topics in nonfiction: film essay), I had even more to read, and even more to write, along with teaching. I simply cut out my social life (sorry friends) and tried to sleep as much as possible.

Even so, I made it through the semester once again, with a few more publications to my belt and projects to continue, mountains to climb. (All will be revealed at the right time!)

My job: I work in the Strategic Marketing and Communications department of my school's administration, meaning that I'm a student, faculty and staff. I'm the student editorial assistant for marketing and communications--I do a lot of writing, proofreading, copy-editing, interviewing, and more writing (sooooo much writing). But I love my job. It's prepping me for what I ultimately want to do, which is now (in case you still though we were on the behavioral neuroscience/scriptotherapy route) publishing. I'd like to be a creative director or EIC of a small press or large publication. Though I prefer literary, I've been leaning towards pop-culture/fashion editorial magazines, which have a little bit of interview/profile and cultural-critical writing, as well as colorful fashion spreads and makeup looks.

So here I am now, Summer 2017. Back to blogging (hopefully remaining consistent), working, gearing up to move forward in my program. I have successfully completed all of the required courses for my MFA, and have one final, gigantic hurdle: THESIS.

Fortunately, I've been blessed with one of the OGs of contemporary creative nonfiction as my advisor: David Lazar. A professor who has intrigued me since I showed up at Columbia College Chicago and found out he created the Nonfiction undergrad and PhD programs at Ohio University prior to coming to Chicago and creating the undergrad and MFA programs for Columbia. (I'm biased as to which program is better, so...) But anyways, I'm really excited to create and conquer this 120 page thesis (hopefully a book) with him. I didn't get to meet David until my third semester (Fall 2017) when I took his workshop because he received a Guggenheim my first year and wasn't teaching (I went to a reading of his, but we didn't meet).

Somehow I made it through my program having had every single nonfiction graduate professor. They're all lovely and different, and I appreciate each one for the forms they've taught me, the advice they've given me, and the encouragement and support they've given me over the past two years.

This MFA life takes a whole different level of ambition.

Summer 2K17 is all about working, getting my life together, writing and preparing for thesis.

"This that Grey Poupon, that Evian, that TED Talk, ayyy"