Italics are mine

My Bennington Year 1 Reading List

Studying in the Bennington Writing Seminars MFA program has been an amazing experience, because of the workshops during residency, the one-on-one exchanges with my term instructor outside the residencies, and the near-constant reading of and learning from books. One of the program's objectives is to make each student read and analyze a total of one hundred books of their choice, preferably relevant to their project, so my goal was to read at least fifty books for the program during my first year. (I actually achieved that goal early but I put the extra books I read on my reading list for Term 3. I don't count books unrelated to my creative writing, for instance biographies, but we are allowed to read outside our genre, so I do have some poetry and nonfiction books on my Bennington reading list.)

Because I started the program in January, Term 1 for me was the shorter winter term that runs from January to May, so my goal there was to read twenty books, and Term 2 was the longer summer/fall term that runs from June to December with a break in July, so my goal was to read thirty books during Term 2. 

Here are my fifty books of Terms 1 and 2 in pictures: 

Term 1 (twenty books)

 

Term 2

First Half (fifteen books)

Second Half (fifteen books)

It is hard to pick favorites, but some books that stood out include: A Thousand Acres, Horse, The English Patient, Nobody's Fool, Bluets, Preston Falls, A Summons to Memphis, The Handmaid's Tale, Revolutionary Road, House of Sand and Fog, The Magician, Giovanni's Room, Red Rover, Housekeeping, Jernigan, Biography of X, Bel Canto, Transit of Venus, Ordinary People, My Brilliant Friend and Lost in the City. 

 

 

Year 2023 in Review

It's this time of the year... let's do a year 2023 in review. Here are some highlights:

1. I sold the novel I had been working on for the past ten years (I am so excited to have Holly Ingraham as my editor at Crooked Lane Books/Alcove Press for a publication this fall! her comments and edits have really pushed me to become a better writer and the book has benefited greatly) At some point I am going to share more details about my path to publication, but it deserves a post of its own. For now, I'll just say: what determines success in this business (as in many/most/all? creative endeavors) is not talent, although I like to think I am talented, but staying power. I decided many years ago I'd become a published novelist and I never let go of that goal. Do I wish I'd achieved that milestone sooner? Sure. Am I proud I never gave up? Of course. Do I have enough ideas now to publish a novel a year for the next decade? Absolutely. The years to come are going to be a lot of fun. Random fact: my agent (huge shoutout to the amazing Betsy Amster, who believed in me from the start!) sent my manuscript to Holly on the one-year anniversary of my mom's death. She didn't know the exact date, although she knew my mom had died the previous year, so it was a fluke that she got around to reading my last edits and sending the manuscript out on that very day (I had sent it to her for review several days earlier), but when she told me the book was out on submission, I knew my mom would watch over me to find the perfect home for my novel. My mom had always believed in my writing. 
2. I started and completed my first year in the low-residency MFA program at Bennington Writing Seminars (Bennington College) in Bennington, VT. (The picture above is of the impromptu pizza party we had with my cohort during spring residency when the fire alarm got triggered in the dining hall right before dinner.) I absolutely adore this program. Usually, I tend to think in terms of academic years because of my day job, but Bennington has both fall and spring cohorts, so I started in January. (I applied after my mother died. I wanted to do something I wouldn't have done if she hadn't died, and I've always dreamt to study writing more deeply.) By now, I've gone through two residencies, with three to go. The timeline works beautifully for my schedule because the residencies happen outside the regular semesters when I have to be in Dallas to teach. I also just find a low-residency MFA a much better fit for me than a "full-time on-campus" one. That is because, in MFA programs that are full-residency instead of low-residency, you spend a lot of time workshopping other students' material. In low-residency MFAs, you exchange packets (writing materials) with your teacher outside residencies, where you submit new writing pages and annotations on books you have read for the program, and you only workshop other students' work during residencies. I personally prefer focusing my time not spent writing on analyzing published novels for what makes them work or what doesn't resonate with me. Also, there is a much more diverse crowd in low-residency MFAs than in "full-time on-campus" ones, where most students are a few years out from college. In my program, some people are just out of college, some are retired, some never even graduated from college (it is a hallmark of Bennington that they don't require an undergrad degree for the MFA). My cohort and other Bennington cohorts have included retired lawyers, investigative reporters, university professors, rock band frontmen, HR specialists, marketing wizards, and more. It has been refreshing to be with other dedicated writers who have a day job. We understand each other in ways other people can't. 
3. I rescued a stray cat from the Dallas heat wave back in August. He'd been coming every few days for the past two years because I was leaving food outside for him but he wouldn't let me come close. Then, the heat wave happened and in two separate occasions he seemed in distress so I opened my door and aimed my cold air column at him and fed him rotisserie chicken from Whole Foods and Central Market and he decided to stick around. 
4. I went to Asheville, NC for Spring break. This had been on my bucket list for years, and I finally made it happen. (Years ago when I still lived in Pennsylvania I wanted to road trip down the Blue Ridge Mountains with a good friend of mine, but unfortunately our schedules never aligned and the trip didn't happen. I've been thinking of visiting Asheville ever since.) I struck up so many conversations with strangers during the long weekend I was there, and visited so many cool places, and ate at so many amazing restaurants. I initially had wanted to go for fall break last year but it didn't work out schedule-wise, which may have been for the best, because locals told me the prices for hotels and restaurants become prohibitive since it is peak foliage season. Instead, I got to see the "real-er" side of Asheville. It's a lot more expensive now than when I first thought about traveling there, but it's still a great travel destination.  
5. I got assigned my first CASA case with Dallas CASA. CASA stands for Court-Appointed Special Advocate. It is a nonprofit organization that trains volunteers to assist and advocate for foster kids through their journey in the foster-care system. I can't discuss details of the case, but I will say I have a phenomenal supervisor who inspires me in every interaction we have.
6. I completed the 200-hour yoga teacher training offered by Aligned Yoga (Briohny Smyth's online yoga school) and started the 300-hour follow-up training. I had already completed a 200-hour YTT with Dallas Yoga Center, which was good, but wanted something with more precise instruction for advanced yoga poses, and the training (which includes teachings on yoga philosophy, breathing techniques and so on) has done wonders for me. I may enroll in the 300-hour DYC YTT too in 2024.
7. I attended my very first writers' retreat. It was outside Los Angeles and organized by the UCLA Extension School. I learned about it last year because my friend Darren N., who I met through taking online classes at UCLAx, went last year and praised the retreat. Fun fact: I didn't know she was returning to the retreat this year, but Darren and I ended up rooming together in one of the chalets. It was a fantastic experience. 
8. I completed the Nanowrimo challenge. (If you don't know what it is: the goal is to write 50,000 words of a novel in a month. Ideally, you start from scratch, and by the end of the month, you have the rough draft of a book.) I now have a first draft of my third novel. I had never attempted the challenge before but wanted to push myself. At the UCLAx writers' retreat, someone gave me a demo of the Scrivener software, and that was instrumental in my completing the Nanowrimo challenge because I just started a file for each day I was writing and uploaded my word count after each session. I discovered that writing 1,667 words at a time wasn't hard (I didn't say they were *good* words). There was something about the challenge that helped bypass my critical brain and so almost every day I would sit down and write the required amount of words. I stumbled around Thanksgiving but there was no way I was going to fail so close to the finish line so I forged through and I succeeded. I created a new writing habit and was thrilled to have completed a major writing project in just one month.  
9. I roadtripped to Albuquerque, NM. The last road trip I took was to Marfa, TX, two years and a half ago. That was also one month before I had a bad car accident. It took me a while to find both the time and the inclination to get on the road. Driving ten hours solo each way was a bit out of my comfort zone, but I am glad I did — first, because challenging oneself is always good, and second, because Albuquerque is such an amazing city. It has a lot of street art and has a funky vibe that Asheville, NC probably had before it became super-popular. The main reason for my trip is that I've never managed to see the musical Hadestown (I had other shows lined up when I went to New York City, I had conflicts when the national tour made stops in Texas), and I decided I really wanted to see that show, so I booked a ticket on a Thursday for a Saturday matinee, and the next day I got in my car and drove west toward New Mexico. I stayed at the Hotel Andaluz, which I highly recommend. I also had time to see the river lights, do some sightseeing around the Old Town Plaza, eat what is supposed to be the best guacamole in Albuquerque at El Pinto and drop by the museum of art, which had an exhibition about Georgia O'Keeffe and Henry Moore.  
10. I kept learning Ukrainian and I brushed up on my Spanish too on Duolingo. I'm not sure how any beginner can learn a new language on that platform, but when you already know a bit of the language like me, a couple of minutes a day on Duolingo is a fun way to feel accomplished. And I've been earning multiple monthly badges although the number of quests to complete each month keeps increasing.
11. I went to Los Angeles twice. The first time I was based in Pasadena and the other time in Los Feliz. I did a lot of sightseeing, from LACMA to the Pacific Asia Museum and the Huntington Gardens (which is where I was when I learned Holly would be making an offer on my novel. You don't forget moments like these.) I love LA and it was a great opportunity to meet up with other members of my Bennington cohort.

Just in case you think my year was all peaches and roses, there were also some major downs. I may write about those one day but not now... Over the past four years, I've definitely had more downs than I wanted, but maybe they make the ups seem much sweeter.

Happy New Year! Best wishes for a fantastic 2024. I have a lot of plans for this new year and I can't wait to share what I do on this blog!

 

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Bennington Term One in One Pic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I can't say enough how much I love this MFA program. To the left are the twenty books I read for Term 1. There were many excellent reads, especially A Thousand Acres, Horse, The English Patient, Nobody's Fool, Preston Falls, A Summons to Memphis, The Handmaid's Tale and Revolutionary Road. Looking forward to Term 2!     

Trip to Asheville NC

I just came back from Asheville, NC. That trip had been on my bucket list for about ten years -- back when I lived in Pennsylvania, my best friend from grad school and I had discussed taking a road trip down the East Coast to the Blue Ridge Mountains, and then our schedules didn't align, and then I moved to Texas. But ever since the move, I would have that pang of regret whenever I saw something mentioned Asheville online, and since I subscribed to multiple Instagram feeds about Asheville, I would regret not going in a semi-frequent basis. After my mother died, I tried to check off more items on my bucket list, but going to Asheville in October during leaf season proved far too expensive for what I was willing to spend on it, and it was only two weeks ago that I decided to make the trip happen. And I am so glad I did.

It is not just because I like getting closure for things I wanted to do. It is, mostly, because from the moment I landed at Asheville Regional Airport, I met so many interesting people who gave me tips on the next thing I should do or see, and it felt I was meant to be there. Dallas has such a narrow definition of success, especially for women -- blow-dry your hair smooth and long with little curls at the bottom, wear white pants, wear stilettos, paint your nails, showcase a signature necklace along with your designer's purse, plot to move to University Park where you can bitch away with other housewives after yoga, devote all your energy to snatching a man because how dare you believe you are worthy even if you're not a man's sidekick -- that it is easy to forget this is not normal anywhere else in the country. And so I felt home in Asheville in ways I haven't felt in Dallas ever since I moved there, and I understand by now that I will never feel at home in Dallas.

Let me get over the key points of the trip. I landed in Asheville, got an Uber. There is a shortage of drivers, but I was lucky: I only had to wait a few minutes. The driver had only been in Asheville for a couple of years, ten at most, and I asked what had made him move, since it is a very salient question for myself at this point. (Not that I don't like waste my life in the pinnacle of consumerism where wealthy donors think they can buy prestigious, undeserved appointments for their proteges because the university wants their money at all costs, but I digress.) And the Uber driver mentioned he had asked a location astrologer and reader, I find my work environment to be so bad that I asked the driver for the astrologer's name and got it and checked that person online and ascertained that they were not fraudsters and I am going to ask them for advice just because my current environment is not good for people like me, whose family members got themselves out of poverty by playing by the rules and believing in the system. The system where I work has a distinct predisposition toward letting self-pay students do whatever they want, and it is my fault I didn't realize early on the problem it would become.

 So I reached the hotel, glad to have met my Uber driver, and went to dinner across the street at a place called Salsa's. It was crowded so I ended up sharing a table with the person waiting by herself in line before me, who ended up being an anti-vaccine Trumpist working as an air stewardess for a well-known airline, and I have to say she was amazingly nice and helpful in giving me recommendations for things to do while I was in town. In fact, I was aware of most of the restaurants I visited later during my stay only because she had recommended them: Chai Pani, Sunny Point, Limones. So here I am the next day, trying to get into Chai Pain for a late lunch. The wait was twenty-five minutes, which surprised me because it was after the main lunch rush, and since it was very windy I didn't want to walk around and ducked into an art store called Sol Collective two doors down, where I bought some cute accessories, mostly necklaces. The co-owner, who was manning the cashier's desk, told me Chai Pani had received a James Beard Award the previous year, and that was why they were so popular. 

 Then my seat got ready and I went to Chai Pani (pictured left is what I ordered). I was seated at the bar where I had delicious food and ended up striking a wonderful conversation with my neighbor, who was in Asheville for a five-week residency in ceramics. Reading about the James Beard award, I learned that local Asheville restaurant Curate (pronounced the Spanish way, with the accent on "-te") had also received a Beard award in a more minor category, so of course I had to go to Curate for dinner. (Those restaurants were all within walkable distance from my hotel.) I ended up striking a very nice conversation there with my neighbors, including a salesman from Charlotte who adores Asheville and whose daughter was planning on studying in the city.) 

Left is my favorite drink at Curate, if you're curious.

 

 

 

 

On Wednesday morning I went to Sunny Point for brunch -- that one required an Uber. Then I walked around the River Arts District and had a cortado at Summit Coffee. I also wandered through Marquee, which is supposed to be an antique store but really is a home decoration store with artsy personality.

 

 

 

 Then in the evening I went to Limones, where I continued my arduous task of trying as many ceviches from as many restaurants as I could, and the mercado ceviche was indeed spectacular.

 

 

On Thursday I had the most amazing avocado toast with eggs for breakfast at the hotel, and for lunch I went to Wasabi's, (rock shrimp + Play boy roll + sake), and then I dropped by the Asheville Art Museum.

 

 

 

 

 For dinner I went to Posana (kale + trout + some delicious cocktail I forget the name of). Before dinner I attended the social hour at the hotel where I met two wonderful elderly ladies who showed me the rooftop bar of the AC Hotel across the street where I enjoyed a magnificent view of the North Carolina hills from there.

 

 

 

 Then I returned to my hotel where I tried a drink or two at the hotel bar before going back to my room and catching up on sleep. (The bartender was another great conversationalist, planning to move to Vermont in August after seven years in Asheville.) On Friday I had another great avocado toast for breakfast at the hotel and then I packed my suitcase to head to the airport. My Uber driver was a very interesting person -- is anyone in Asheville not interesting? -- who had moved to Asheville from Charlotte for a girl a few years ago and had stayed after she had left. He was active in a ultimate frisbee professional league and talked about how he wished he had gone to college. 

I regret not having time to visit the Biltmore Hotel or the Omni Grove Inn, but if I go back (I hope I will), this will be high on my to-do list. Ultimately the trip was amazing because it allowed me to connect with a lot of different people, highlighting that the problem for me in Dallas is more about a poor fit between me and the community than an issue with my ability to connect with strangers, I am just not in the place where I am meant to be, is all. In Asheville, I ate exceptionally good food, and gained a peace of mind I normally don't have, in addition to benefiting from many amazing conversations.

This was a bucket-list item and I am so glad I took the time to take the trip after so many years of putting it in the back burner! I'll remain grateful for years. And to all of those who make Asheville unique: thank you. 

Update: I forgot to mention I visited the Black Mountain College Museum in downtown Asheville! I can't believe it slipped my mind to mention it. The museum is small but it was a delight, especially given how much I like non-conformists and hyper-creative types. Highly recommended!

Bennington One

So I got accepted into the Bennington's low-residency MFA program a few months ago (the best low-res MFA program in the country if you ask me, but it is said to be neck-and-neck with Warren Wilson). Bennington is of course famed for its innovative, student-centered curriculum, mostly at the undergraduate level -- besides writing, there are a couple of MFA programs in dance, music and public action at Bennington as far as I am aware -- and its role in pioneering a new era of modern dance thanks to Martha Graham, whom I adore. I applied to the program after my mother died unexpectedly, because I wanted something positive to come out of her passing -- she would have wanted that for me, and she was the only one in my family to fully support my writing. So throughout the residency I kept taking stock of how lucky I was to be sitting in this or that auditorium and meeting so many phenomenally talented writers and I kept silently saying: Thanks for making this possible for me, Mom. 

I can do a low-residency program because the residencies fall outside the academic terms at the university where I teach. I was wondering if I had made the right decision right until the moment I showed up on the Bennington campus on the shuttle from Albany Airport, and then it was so obvious I had I thanked my lucky stars and I enjoyed ten days of phenomenal master classes with top instructors and best-selling writers, great readings, and the wonderful cohort of my amazing cohort members. I have met more interesting people in ten days in Vermont (none of them living in Vermont, but still) than I have met in almost seven years in Dallas, Texas. It has been a while since I was surrounded by so many talented creative people and it has already pushed me to achieve a new level of proficiency in my writing. That residency was total bliss (ok, it helped that the weather was very mild for early January in Vermont, going barely below freezing). The 20+ first-termers all lived in the same "house" (dorm), we just had to get up in the morning and get ready and walk to the dining hall, which was about 4 minutes away and had delicious organic food sourced from local farms. The first tremors would recognize each other and we would sit together in the dining hall, in maybe two tables due to the size of the group. Then we would walk to the first class or reading of the day and would just keep going until it was lunch time, where we would repeat the same process as for breakfast. Then there was time to go back to the dorm if needed before going to the mandatory workshops (where our work would be workshopped). Then more classes and readings and then social hour (wine hour at Roz's Cafe!) and then dinner and faculty readings. It was an extraordinary experience. I can't wait for the next residency. 

Here are some pictures of residency. (The man at the podium is David Gates, author of the amazing Preston Falls, who teaches at Bennington.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes life takes you through a meandering path, and that has certainly been the case for me and the MFA program. If I had been able to, I would have done a MFA years ago, but I had no one to recommend me, a student visa and later a H1B, and even after I got my Green Card, it never occurred to me to quit my job to pursue a full-time MFA. I come from a blue-collar family, so quitting an engineering job I was good at for a MFA just didn't cross my mind. Where I come from, the priority is to make a living. But years ago (close to twenty years ago, I think), a friend of mine who lived in NYC at the time had told me about the Gotham Writers' Workshop, and I took a couple of online classes there, and I hired someone to give me feedback on a story of mine through them. That person was an adjunct at the UCLA Extension School, so about nine or ten years ago I looked into whether they offered online classes, and they sure did. That's how I got started taking online classes at UCLAx, back when I still lived in Pennsylvania, and ended up taking two master classes there and getting a Certificate in Writing (with Distinction :) from them. Through the first master class I met a woman my age who was writing a similar type of fiction, and we stayed in touch over the years. She got a NY agent but when the agent refused to send out her manuscript (perhaps the agent's assistant had been more enthusiastic about the book than the agent herself was), that friend of mine announced she had decided to pursue a MFA at a local low-residency MFA program. This is how I learned low-residency MFA programs existed. I also got my literary agent through the UCLAx program, and she has been excellent. When that friend of mine told me about her MFA program, I researched the top MFA programs in the country (hers is one of them), and applied to the top three. I was accepted into two of the three, and picked Bennington due to the name recognition, the great support for students and alumni especially regarding publications, and the better fit with me as a person (innovative curriculum... Martha Graham... student-centered... groundbreaking...)

Now that residency is over, we have to read about 20 to 25 books each term (approved by our advisor that term), and submit about 25 pages of new writing to our advisor each month. I actually have already read 11 books for the program since the beginning of January (I was having a dry spell in my writing so I decided to read a lot), and now I am working on new pages. My cohort has a Discord channel and we keep in touch through that as well as occasional group Zoom calls. It's been such a joy to meet people as dedicated to their writing as I am and as talented too. For many years I didn't have nearly enough writer friends. We give ourselves book recommendations, celebrate good news, share publication opportunities and cheer each other up as needed. 

One thing that is embedded in my mind about residency is that I liked to sit at the back of Tischman Hall for the faculty readings and the master classes, and one day I looked around and noticed how different everyone looked -- everyone with their unique style of clothing and hairstyle and shoes. This is so different from Dallas, where women in particular most often have their hair down with little curls at the bottom and wear some kind of revealing dress with stilettos or other high heels.

I went to some breathtaking graduate readings and I can't wait to see where the recent graduates end up publishing. The Commencement ceremony was also the most enjoyable Commencement ceremony I have ever attended. This is a remarkable program and I am so glad to be part of it. And if you ended up on my page because you consider applying, all I can say is that this program has been incredible for me. 

New York City

A few weeks ago I went to New York City. This was the trip I was supposed to take the week when my father called to say my mother was going to die and I had to cancel. In fact, the trip I was supposed to take was much shorter -- a few days -- but when I was able to reschedule some time after my mother died, I decided to go all out and do what I love most, attending a lot of theater performances in New York City. 

It was a phenomenal trip. I stayed in three different hotels, each close to the performing arts venues I was going to visit at the time: first in Brooklyn close to BAM where I saw A Little Life and Hamlet (A Little Life in Dutch, directed by Ivo van Hove, the production was gorgeous but the topic is so depressing that I had, like many other attendees, to speed-walk to the exit at intermission, and Hamlet in German with a zany energy that was invigorating), then on the Upper West Side where I saw the NY Philharmonic and Don Carlo at the Met as well as Straight Line Crazy in midtown (the performances besides the Wednesday matinee were sold out, given that Ralph Fiennes was starring in the title role), and then in Midtown/Theater District where I had to get back to the Upper West Side to see the Paul Taylor Dance Company (hotel snafu) and I also saw the musical Into the Woods (definitely a Broadway staple, although it is more touristy than the sort of New York entertainment I usually seek), The Piano Lesson (with Samuel Jackson in a play directed by his wife and also starring the son of Denzel Washington, and I have been so out of the New York theatre scene over the past few years that I didn't even realize the woman with Jackson in her name was Samuel's wife and the man with Washington in his name was Denzel's son, until they made their entrance on stage and Samuel Jackson got a lot of applause but the man with Washington as his last name also got a lot of applause and it wasn't until intermission that I realized why), and Death of a Salesman, which was phenomenal although the review in the New Yorker tried to convince you otherwise.

I wish I could have found the time to go to the Whitney for the Hopper exhibition and to the Metropolitan Museum because I will love the Met no matter what is on display, but I already found myself lucky to take this trip after all the darkness that befell my family over the past few months. New York City theater exhibits a level of innovation and creativity that other cities just cannot display if they want to satisfy their customer base, and I always leave the City feeling refresh and exhilarated. I hope to be back in the spring/summer for a couple of key theater productions. We will see if I can make it happen. In any case, I went back to my daily life with more energy and creativity than I had had in years. I am so happy I was finally able to take this trip. My mother would have been proud.

2022 in review

UPDATED AT THE BOTTOM (Picture: pedestrian street in downtown Denver.) Now that 2022 is officially over, here are some highlights of the year for me. The biggest event was, of course, that my mother died suddenly back in May. I was extremely shocked and one day I may write about the details but not now. She died too early. Then two months later, her dog, whom she adored and who adored her back, also died suddenly after he realized she wasn't coming back. Mom and her dog were my favorite two-legged and four-legged people in the whole world, and navigating this grief has been hard. #GriefTwitter has been very helpful, though.

I wanted to do something I wouldn't have done if mom hadn't died, to honor her memory, so I decided to apply to a couple of low-residency MFA programs in fiction writing. (Low-residency means it won't interfere with my job, because the short residencies are all outside the regular semesters at the university where I teach.) I was admitted to my dream program and I am so excited. It is good to reconnect with that side of me because being Faculty Senate President during the pandemic was incredibly disheartening and I am not sure I can ever recover the old me but at least I can move forward. And it is good to develop a community of fellow creatives all over the country.

I also finished the next round of revisions to my novel (the one about the opera singers) and my literary agent sent it out recently. It was very exciting because writing this novel has stretched over way more years than I had anticipated and getting the book to this stage was an important milestone. That novel is also a key reason I applied to MFA programs -- I don't want my current novel to take nearly as long to be finished. I am really lucky to have the literary agent I have and I have plenty of ideas for more books, but I need to finish them.

(Pictures: LA cityscape, theater program in LA, theater programs in NYC). I started traveling more again. I always double-mask on planes and in the airports, and it has always been really important for me to travel, so I am glad I get to do it again. This year I've been to Denver, CO, Portland, OR, Los Angeles, CA and New York City, which deserves its own post (to come soon). I also traveled to Bayreuth, Germany with my father during the summer because my parents had tickets to Tristan und Isolde at the Bayreuth Festival (they would go every few years before the pandemic). T&I plays a key role in my novel and I wanted to cheer my father up so I took my mother's place. I had seen a previous production of T&I at Bayreuth with my parents but it was underwhelming, so I am really glad I got to see this production, which was excellent. Also, I was thrilled to realize that Catherine Foster, whom I had seen in the Ring as Brunnhilde both at Bayreuth and at the Washington Opera (different productions, both excellent, although the one at the Washington Opera was more my style), was singing Isolde. The hardest part was to see so many women looking older than my mom when she died, strolling around the festival grounds during the intermissions. Why couldn't my mom survive?  

What else? I was named an alternate for a Fulbright award to Austria (Vienna) but being an alternate means you only go if the people ahead of you in line for the same Fulbright award don't go, and they went. I didn't apply this year because I was too stunned by my mom's death, but I plan to re-apply next year. I did manage to graduate two doctoral students (one PhD, one DEEM), before my mother passed. The work accomplishment I am proudest of, though, was coming to the (academic, not literal) aid of a sick student. My mom had taught for decades at a technical community college outside Paris and she loved helping her students.

Another thing I did was to sign up for 200-hour yoga teacher training, also to get out of my post-Faculty Senate state, although that was before my mother died, so the worst was still to come (thankfully that part happened during the summer when I don't teach). The best part of the training was to have to take 30 hours of practice, and to understand what some yoga teachers are doing wrong in their sequencing, including yoga teachers who sell many DVDs. The issue with doing the sequencing wrong is of course that students may get injured. My life is always better when I have a regular yoga practice, and now I am doing two other online trainings to keep the momentum going. Doing yoga helps with my focus and energy.

I started learning Ukrainian on Duolingo after the Russian invasion in February. I am about to reach the 300-day mark: I have practiced Ukrainian almost 300 days in row now. Frankly the only reason I have been able to learn Ukrainian on Duolingo was that I already knew Russian. I don't know how anyone could learn it from scratch using that app only. A lot of the exercises are very repetitive and you can be asked the same question in multiple lessons, but sometimes it is downright funny, for instance when the app asks you to translate "What is my name?" (girl, if you don't know your own name, you have bigger problems on your hands than learning Ukrainian), and I love how it counts your answer as wrong if you spell Kyiv as Kiev (that is the spelling I learned when I was in school decades ago so sometimes it comes back, although now I am careful not to use what is in fact the Russian spelling.) 

I am slowly getting back into dance and this year I picked up an interest in musical theater because of my going to New York City. Last year and the year before that, I had already been taking online playwriting courses with a mostly Denver-based group and since I used to dance ballet many, many years ago and also have an interest in opera, I suppose it was always meant to be that I would look into music theater at some point, although I spent my college years in Paris watching straight plays and ballet and never musicals (they are not produced much in France). 

In June I was a keynote speaker at a workshop in the U.K. It was really good and I reconnected to my passion for research. Faculty members outside the U.S. have in general a much healthier attitude toward academia too, at least in my experience.

This year I taught engineering management both semesters (in addition to other courses) and I really liked it. The first time I taught the course, in Fall 2021, I used a previous case studies package that I hadn't developed in addition to a book that I selected but that a large minority of the students disliked. Their main reason was that the book basically only portrayed white males as managers, which was understandable given the historical period covered by the book (decades ago at NASA) but disappointed a large segment of those among my students who weren't white males, so I picked new case studies and new books and now the students like the new books a lot more.

Then in the fall, using recent academic literature about novel grading methods, I tried a different grading technique where I had the students write assignments about which letter grade they were going to go for, how they planned to achieve it and what may stand in their way, and the best part of it is that they got to share with me any potential problem they may face, such as a very heavy course load or an anxiety of public speaking (the course uses in-class discussions a lot). I had never felt so close to understanding my students before. Sometimes, when students are on their laptops in class, it is easy to assume they are doing something fun like online shopping while I try to give the lecture but in fact a lot of them have to deal with very intense course loads and they also tend to be perfectionists. Without that assignment, I would never have realized so many of them wanted to do well in the course but were anxious of public speaking, which was very important in the course. One of the two sections I taught had 55 students in it (the other had 36). That made difficult for all students to participate, especially students who have anxiety speaking in class. I am making some changes to address this in the spring. 

The assignment helped me get a better sense of the rigorous education engineering students receive at the university where I teach (every engineering undergraduate student must take the engineering management course before graduating, but before teaching it I only knew the workload of students majoring in my department). I have been so impressed by my undergraduate students this year -- the great things they do in their major, the many rigorous courses they juggle, the fantastic capstone projects they accomplish, the high standards they hold themselves to, the discipline they bring to their studies and the internships and full-time jobs they secure. (I know about the internships and jobs because they also have to write an introductory post on the Canvas discussion board to the whole class.) I joined this university because I love undergraduate teaching and it took me some time to figure out the fit because at my previous employer my strongest teaching contribution was in a quantitative senior elective course in operations research but it turns out that here my strongest contribution is in teaching that engineering management course. My mom would be so happy to hear I have great undergraduate students and they are set to do great things after graduation.

When I re-read this post before publishing it, I realize I've had several milestones in 2022 but my mom's death will always mean that 2022 was an awful year for me. I miss her. 

UPDATE: I forgot to write that I completed the CASA (court appointed special advocate) training and got sworn in! 

(Picture below: high-level view of Portland from a lookout point with a large tree on the right.)

Best Books I Read In 2022

Here are my favorite books of 2022! (They may not have been published in 2022. My only criterion for inclusion is that I finished reading them in 2022 and loved them, aka 5/5 on Goodreads.)

Fiction:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis. Loved loved loved. Great example of a strong female character struggling with her own demons. I haven't seen the TV adaptation, so can't compare.

The Testaments by Margaret Atwood. I attended the Arts & Letters Live event at SMU sometime ago and didn't get around to read the book for a while. It is great. Also shows how to do close 3rd person POV effectively.

Mohawk by Richard Russo. I love Richard Russo for his close 3rd person POV and his description of academia in a previous book. This book was also great. 

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng. I watched part of the TV adaptation on a transatlantic trip and didn't care for it, but then I read the book and wow! what a page turner. 

Nonfiction:

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Life of Picasso: The Minotaur Years (1933-1943) by John Richardson. Hardcover book with high-quality reproductions of the art and great scholarship on the subject. It makes me sad to think Richardson died before completing his multi-volume biography of Picasso. I am not a big Picasso fan because of how he treated his women, but Richardson does great justice to the man's genius. 

Calder: The Conquest of Time: The Early Years (1898-1940) by Jed Perl. That is another book along the lines of "Hardcover book with high-quality reproductions of the art and great scholarship on the subject." I liked that Calder was initially an engineering student, and maybe it shows in his art later. I also liked how he had many artistic talents. 

The Unquiet Ghost by Adam Hochschild. The Soviet Union... Stalin... Possibly a future project of mine.

Frida, by Hayden Ferraro. My late aunt loved Frida Kahlo before it was fashionable. I loved reading more about her and feeling closer to my aunt in better understanding her tastes. I also have that book in Spanish. That's on my to-read list for 2023.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lessons from the Edge by Marie Yovanovitch I read that book when I was in Portland, Oregon for a weekend. It was a page-turner, well-written and truly inspirational. I recommend it for anyone who seeks a memoir by a strong female character who lives her life on her own terms and dedicated herself to public service. 

A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders. Russia! Short stories! A phenomenal teacher! It was like getting a master class by an expert in his field.

Passion by Design: The Art and Times of Tamara de Lempicka, by Kizette de Lempicka-Foxhall. I wish I could have gone to San Diego to see the Lempicka musical at the La Jolla playhouse this summer but my schedule didn't allow me to. Next best thing: I read this book. A fascinating woman. 

Patti LuPone: A Memoir, by Patti LuPone. I took a trip to New York City, saw a play or a musical just about every night, and stumbled upon this biography in a local bookstore. Spellbinding, accessible for a lay audience while being insightful for musical professionals too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Secret Life of the American Musical, by Jack Viertel. I am more of a straight-play rather than musical-play person, but after reading the LuPone biography and seeing "Into the Woods" on Broadway, I decided to learn more about the medium (I may use it for a future project of mine). This book by Jack Viertel was exceptional in dissecting what makes a (successful) musical compelling for the audience. This was also interesting for me because I like to read cross-genre craft books in case I can glean lessons for my novels. This book is a must read for anyone who cares about musical theatre.  

The Best American Essays 2022, edited by Alexander Chee. The "Best American..." collection can be hit or miss for me, depending on the year, but this was a bull's eye hit.

Screenwriting is Rewriting, by Jack Epps, Jr. Another example of a craft book in a different genre that provided good transferrable advice to novel-writing.

The Best American Travel Writing 2020, edited by Jason Wilson. I think I bought it when I was in Colorado. Perfect to satisfy my wanderlust vicariously. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Louise Nevelson: Light and Shadow by Laurie Wilson. A very good biography of an atypical woman artist who lived her life on her own terms. Quite obvious why I liked this book. 

Sam Shepard: A Life, by John Winters. I thought I had finished reading this book in 2021 but I forgot to enter it on Goodreads and now I don't remember if I finished it in late 2021 or early 2022. So, here it is! Very well written. Gives genuine insights into Shepard the person while describing his plays. Every biography should aim at achieving a similar mix. 

Nureyev: The Life, by Julie Kavanagh. It is a bit too long (900 pages) but it is still a good read.

The Director's Voice: Twenty-One Interviews by Arthur Bartow. Read my previous post about that one. Loved every page of it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Directing in Musical Theatre: An Essential Guide by Joe Deer. For a potential future project of mine. A really good book with excellent advice, worth its paperback price. 

Acting the Song: Performance Skills for the Musical Theatre by Tracey Moore. For that same potential future project of mine. A great recommendation for musical theater performers. 

How Musicals Work, and How to Write Your Own, by Julian Woolford. For that same potential future project of mine. Outstanding. 

Plays:

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Collaboration by Anthony McCarten. That Warhol-Basquiat play that everyone is talking about in New York right now.

Vanities: The Musical, by Jack Hefner. Spot-on Dallas play from a few years back.

Total: twenty-five books! I read a lot more than that in 2022 but it is nice to see I averaged over two great books a month. I pick my books well, and I have some more fantastic books to read in 2023! 

 

 

 

 

 

The Director's Voice

 I love this book so much. Years ago (maybe nine years ago?) when I still lived in Pennsylvania, there was a time period where I got tired of taking the Bieber bus to New York City and I would drive down to Washington DC quite frequently and I saw Henry IV Part 1 twice at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in DC because it was that good. And I went to college in Paris, France, so I like to think I know what good theater is like. That Henri IV Part 1 was really, really good. (And I loved the Tom Hiddleston TV series but that was not live theater.) Anyway, in the Shakespeare DC bookshop when I was in town to watch Henry IV Part 1, I bought The Director's Voice volume 2, about more recent interviews (at the time) of directors, and I remember seeing The Director's Voice later in the bookshop (maybe the second time I drove down to catch Henry IV Part 1 again) and at the time I decided I didn't know enough about the times where those directors had made theater to connect with what they had to say in interviews. Frankly, I don't think any of the names resonated with me. (!) 

But I am where I am now and I bought this book on a recent trip to New York City (Drama Book Shop, I love you), and once I started reading it I could not put it down. It was fascinating to hear theater landmark names like JoAnne Akalaitis or Zelda Fichandler or Harold S. Prince express themselves when time has made them become stultified. This is an important book for anyone who cares about theater directing.

Finally, a funny aside is that my current employer is mentioned in two interviews (out of twenty-one) in the book, and in the second of them it is mentioned more than once. Theater is not a discipline that my employer currently seems to include in its strategy for greater academic preeminence, but I have also read about my employer in another theater-related book, and they are ranked in the top 25 drama programs in the world in Hollywood Reporter, so I think they are good, even if they don't play a leading role in the current strategic plan, for whatever reason.

The two directors with ties to SMU mentioned in the book are John Hirsch and Garland Wright. The other university that gets mentioned a lot in the book is Yale, so it is all to SMU's credit that it was mentioned in the book too more than once. SMU alum Garland Wright tragically died at 52 of cancer and we are left to imagine the impact he could have had on American theater if he had lived longer.  

This was a phenomenal book I could not put down and I recommend it to anyone interested in theater, especially directing.

Denver

 Not too long ago I went to Denver and it turned out to be an amazing trip. I decided to make the trip when I realized I had to bail out of Dallas and if you've been following me for a while you can figure out why I had to leave STAT. (If you haven't been following me for a while and can't figure it out, I still love you tons! Hugs and kisses!) So, off I went. I ended up being there for five nights including a day where there was a snow storm and it was exactly what I needed. The snow storm wasn't that bad and the next day I was able to get to the airport as if nothing had happened. Alright, so what about Denver? First off, the American Museum of Western Art was PHENOMENAL. It showcased so many interesting periods of Western art and I was just amazed. Then I went to the Whistler/Cassatt exhibit at the Denver Art Museum and that was good but frankly it wasn't great either and the exhibit at the Clyfford Still museum was not great either. You just have to take your losses I guess. Some of the best food I had was in "holes in the wall" kind of situations, especially at Randall's, and my goodness that place made my salad look and taste better than any picture! I just adore them.

One thing I loved during the trip was the New Play Summit at the Denver Center for Performing Arts and while the plays I saw were of varying quality, let me tell you that the play Cebollas was AMAZING, Because it is a work in progress we were specifically asked not to review it so I won't say more than that but frankly it was MINDBLOWINGLY GOOD and hopefully no one will resent me for writing that down. 

Another thing I loved about the trip was the opportunity to watch Who's afraid from Virginia Woolf. l had seen the black and white movie with Elizabeth Taylor but frankly it doesn't compare with seeing it live. The people next to me, who were speaking Russian, seemed very disappointed that it wasn't more funny than it was, and one of them even explained to me he had come expecting to laugh, and what exactly am I supposed to say to that? The play is a masterpiece that has been recognized as such for decades. If after all this you still don't know about the plot line in Who's afraid from Virginia Woolf it is your fault more than anyone else's.  

So basically I had a great time, and I also want to give a shout-out to the kitchen staff at Earl's because they were spectacular. Runner-up: lunch at Rioja. I was so happy walking through Larimer Square. I also loved getting dinner at Panzano. It was a bit of a hit or miss but once you've figured out what the restaurant is great at, oh my, they're really truly great at what they're great at, if that makes sense. Love them tons!