Weymouth Center: A Reflecting Farewell
[Weymouth board member Elaine Sills and I after tonight’s live music performance in The Great Room of Boyd Mansion. The performers? Esteemed Fred Moyer (pianist) and Nancy Green (celloist), both internationally known classical musicians who also happen to be Paul Green’s grandchildren.]
Whenever I leave a place that’s a part of my two years on the road, I like to take a moment to reflect on what I accomplished during my stay. There are many things that are intangible—such as making time to listen to the birds, to smell the roses, and to watch the clouds shift over the Weymouth Woods. Even more things, I suspect, are buried in my subconscious. But of the quantifiable tasks and accomplishments in the writing life, this much I can say I accomplished during my month-long stay at Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities:
–Revised, assembled, and submitted my fiction manuscript, Personae of War.
–Attended two awards ceremonies and conducted two public readings.
–Submitted stories to: New Ohio Review, CORE Humanities Journal, Smokelong Quarterly, South Dakota Review, Black Warrior Review, The Normal School, War Literature & the Arts, Wake, Kansas City Voices, NPR 3-minute fiction contest, Solstice Quarterly, Electric Literature, Fish One Page Story Prize, Southeast Review, and Future Cycle Flash.
–Submitted applications to: Eastern Kentucky University low-res MFA faculty position, Marymount Manhattan College part-time creative writing instructor, Emerson College lecturer position, University of Louisville Visiting Scholar in Creative Nonfiction position, University of Maine faculty position, and the Alice Hayes Writing Fellowship (Ragdale).
–Received rejections from: Wake, Andy Warhol Arts Writers Grant, Headlands, and Fringe Magazine (personal rejection, though).
–Received acceptances or solicitations from: Future Cycle Flash, WNC Magazine, CORE Humanities Journal, and Interlochen College of Creative Arts (accepted as guest faculty for 2 courses and 1 guest lecture).
–Read more than 40 submissions for journals I edit for. Read 4 books of fiction.
–Designed and then redesigned the general layout and themes for Cheek Teeth, the blog of TRACHODON, which will be launched January 1, 2011.
–Revised 2 nonfiction essays.
–Studied more war documentaries and books, brainstormed a new set of story ideas, geared up for round two of generating new war stories for my upcoming trip to Wyoming.
–Travelled to Columbia, SC to train for 20 hours (over the course of 2 days) in Shuri Ryu Karatedo and meet with my instructor. Promoted to Ikkyu (the final stage of “seasoning” for a brown belt before the black belt test).
Tomorrow I head back to the mountains of Western North Carolina, the only place I can call “home” right now even though I’m on the road. My parents live in Yancey County and I’ll be serving as the McDowell County Artist in the Schools for two weeks and soaking up all the home-cooked, parent-infused, dog-walkin’, good-lovin’, friends-talkin’ time I can get.
Glory be! Mountains, here I come!
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Hey Katey,
Hi, how's it going? Sounds like the past year has been very exciting for you….I was wondering if any of your war short stories are published somewhere, I'd love to read some, and also "Amplitude" I remember that piece from the workshop we took with Shad Marsh and would love to see what you did with it.
Also if you're around the reading series I co-host is having our year anniversary reading on Nov. 18, if you wanna come to Asheville and check it out I'd love to see you