Nate Dolton-Thornton ’15 wins Freshman Writing Contest

“I consider myself a writer in the same sense I consider myself a woodworker: I think it’s a wonderful craft that I would be incredibly content dedicating my life to, but as of right now I wouldn’t hire me out to make your table.”

Nate Dolton-Thornton ’15 sent us an engaging and eye-opening editorial about the other energy crisis: our unsustainable food production system. His contest-winning piece troubles the relevance of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway in the face of the more immediate needs of the masses and provides well-researched alternatives to current, inefficient agricultural techniques that rely too heavily on fertilizers and pesticides.

“While a few powerful world players have realized the potential magnitude of the impending catastrophe if our current unsustainable food systems continue,” Nate writes,  “their reactions seem to be based more on ensuring their own safety in light of coming calamities than on avoiding them. If any truly significant changes are to be made to actually negate this calamity, they must be made at a grassroots level, and they must be made soon.”

The hardest part about writing this piece, Nate told us, was making it controversial enough.  He initially envisioned it as a response to these issues in the form of fiction, but decided that hard facts would be preferable, in this case, to a more conceptual argument.  With the help of his writing mentor, Nate developed nuance in the editorial while retaining a strong argument for making responsible food choices and joining in the effort to promote organic farming.

Nate admires the science-fiction and fantasy writer Ursula K. Le Guin for “the clarity and elegance of her prose, the philosophical and imaginative content of her stories, and her attitude towards writing.” He is also a fan of the storytelling techniques of Camus, Dostoevsky, and Borge, and enjoys reading the works of Astrid Lindgren, E.B. White, Kenneth Grahame, A.A. Milne, most of C.S. Lewis, and Tolkien’s The Hobbit.

We’re looking forward to reading more works by the fabulous freshmen writers who have joined us on campus this year.  Nate’s advice to members of the class of ’15: Write, edit, write, and get a writing mentor!

Creative Campus at the Student Activities Fair

Want to know what arts events are happening on campus? Are you involved in arts events and want to get the word out about them? Are you creative and want an outlet for that awesome expression? Or maybe you want to offer up your fresh take on what’s happening on this very creative campus.

This past spring, the Creative Campus website started in conjunction with the Center for the Arts. It was created collaboratively with Wesleyan students, artists, and staff. It is intended for anyone who wants to know what is going on with creative life on this vibrant and inspirational campus. It is a way of aggregating and collecting the creative life on campus, across disciplines, passions, departments, and student groups.

And speaking of student groups, Creative Campus will have a table at the Student Activities Fair! Come check us out to find out how you can get involved, to promote your student group through Creative Campus, or just to say hi. Hope to see you there!

Request for Proposals: Student Commission 2011-2012

The Center for the Arts is accepting proposals from Wesleyan students for the creation of a visual art work/performance connected to the Feet to the Fire: Fueling the Future theme. The proposal should consist of a project idea and timetable for a project to be created and executed by the end of each semester. One project will be awarded each semester. The Wesleyan University Creative Campus Committee will evaluate the proposals and the selection process will be based on the creativity of the submission, the connection to the Feet to the Fire theme, evidence of cross-disciplinary thinking and the feasibility of the project. Selectees will be awarded up to $250. The Center for the Arts will provide assistance in the realization of the selected projects.

Proposals should include:

  • 1-2 page written description
  • Timetable
  • Visual work should also include a visual representation of the proposed project such as a photograph or sketch (jpeg or pdf preferred)

Proposals for the fall semester are due by midnight on September 25, 2011.

Submit proposals to Program Manager Erinn Roos-Brown by email to eroosbrown@wesleyan.edu or delivered to the Center for the Arts office (located above Zilkha Gallery).

Freshman Writing Contest: First Year Matters – Fueling the Future

To all writing-enthusiasts in the Class of 2015: the Wesleyan Writing Workshop wants to hear from you – they are eager to shine a spotlight on the talented writers of this year’s freshman class! If you are interested in the Writing Certificate, write frequently in your spare time, are hoping to break into a writing-intensive field or simply want to prove yourself as a promising writer at Wesleyan, please submit your work to the Freshman Writing Contest.

Your challenge is to respond creatively or critically in roughly 1,000 words to some aspect of this year’s First Year Matters theme, fueling the future. In your entry, make sure to respond to at least one of the FYM readings, citing where appropriate. If your reference is not explicit (for instance, if you chose to write a creative piece about a future America completely overpowered by nuclear plants), note which article(s) you are responding to in a footnote.

Consider the following questions as you begin to formulate your response:

  • How do you define “American power”?
  • What can we – as students, artists, scientists, poets, journalists, activists, etc. – do about “fueling the future”?
  • What must we do to ensure our future is sufficiently “fueled”? With so many different problems in need of solutions, where do we even begin?
  • Where should we draw the line between idealism and practicality when seeking solutions for these problems?
  • How is your daily life impacted by energy politics?
  • How can art be an effective medium for discussing broader political issues?
  • Check out Mitch Epstein’s website, www.whatisamericanpower.com, for ideas and inspiration. Which featured definitions of “American power” do you agree with? Disagree with? Do any of the pictures strike a chord with you?

The Wesleyan Writing Workshop will accept all types of submissions: opinion pieces, research papers, investigative journalism, short stories, the sky’s the limit! They will limit submissions to one entry per student. The winning entries will receive a twenty dollar Amazon.com gift certificate and be published on the Wesleyan Writing Blog. This is a fantastic opportunity to establish yourself as one of the most promising writers of your class.

Please send your submission in an email attachment to writingworks@wesleyan.edu by noon on Saturday, September 24. To complete your submission, you must also fill out the Contest Submission Sheet which you can find on the sidebar of the Wesleyan Writing Blog.

For additional information, please contact this year’s Ford Fellows Anya Backlund and Katherine Mechling at writingworks@wesleyan.edu.

Summer in the City

Shira Engel ‘14 checks in from New York City.

So where do Wesleyan students go once school lets out? To Kenya to work at Shining Hope for Communities? To New Orleans to research the Gulf Coast oil spill? To work at their summer camps? To Russia/the South of France/Sweden? Yes, Wesleyan students will go to all of those places this summer, but first, they go to New York City, the home of a plethora of students and the future home of many more.

This summer, as I return home to the city, I find myself reuniting with friends from school. Last week, Emily Klein ’14 and I went to explore the latest installment of the High Line, which goes from West 20th to West 30th Streets. Originally constructed in the 1930’s for the elevation of freight trains, it was resurrected in 2009 with the opening of Section 1, which goes from Gansevoort to West 20th Street. It is an elevated park that features public art and an aerial view of the city.

The High Line is known as one of the rare places where New Yorkers go to do nothing. For two Wesleyan students, it is the equivalent of Foss Hill during finals week, an oasis in the midst of chaos. And it even looks like a campus in the sky, green and fresh plants balancing out the concrete we walk on. As we crossed the newest section of the High Line, we talked about the year to come and how we didn’t know why, but the experience of how being in the relaxation epicenter of New York reminded us of being at Wesleyan, surrounded by interesting people who spend their time in some of the most creative ways possible. What a great segue from a first year on campus to a summer in the city!

Abigail Horton ’11 on Gulf Coast Experience

Abigail Horton ’11, Wesleyan Summer Session Teaching Assistant, describes her experiences in Louisiana.

The students will present an open rehearsal of their works in progress, which have developed out of their research in the Gulf, on Friday, July 1, 2011, from 1pm to 3pm in Woodhead Lounge (Exley Science Center).

Samuel Sontag '14 and Eli Timm '13
Samuel Sontag '14 and Eli Timm '13

Seven students of the class The Deepwater Horizon Tragedy: A Scientific and Artistic Inquiry traveled to the Gulf Coast of Louisiana to explore the Deepwater Horizon oil spill almost a year after the spill occurred. The class was structured as an investigation – a scientific, artistic, and human investigation into Louisiana’s relationship with the oil industry, how it led up to the Deepwater Horizon tragedy, and how the people of Louisiana deal with it a year after.

The students interviewed over twenty people who were involved with the oil spill: An oysterman whose ninety-year-old family business was wiped out by the governor’s actions during the oil spill. A woman who would abandon her beloved Louisiana in order to save it. One biologist who concludes that we have turned the page since the spill, and a different biologist whose experiments conclude that there are lasting effects from the oil spill. The politician who dealt directly with President Obama during the spill. The first female oilrig worker in Louisiana, and many more passionate, interesting and conflicting voices of the story that is Louisiana, the oil industry, and the oil spill.

The class explored the southern-most rural areas of Louisiana and went to the coastline that was first affected by the spill. We talked to professors and experts at Nicholls State College and Louisiana State University. In boats, the students went out to the wetlands where oil is still caked on the coastal sands, witnessing first-hand the power of the substance to destroy land. Out in the Gulf, we saw the clean-up crews still slowly working to clean the wetlands. The class got into the Gulf and helped professors from the University of New Orleans troll for shrimp and fish to take data on the ecosystem. The class explored New Orleans, and enjoyed the Gulf seafood that Louisianans are so passionate about. Through all of out explorations, we learned how deeply embedded the oil industry is with Louisiana’s history and culture and the complexity of the story.

Perhaps one of the most powerful moments for the class was when we met with a New Orleans-based artist and activist.  Her art has examined the environment, the oil spill, and how nature is trying to recover. She looks at the fragility of the landscape and humans’ role in shaping that. She told the students, “make art about what pisses you off and what blisses you out.” This artist demonstrated to the students how powerfully art can communicate the environmental issues taking place along the Gulf coast, exactly what this class is striving for.

As the teaching assistant for this course, I was able to watch the students delve into this subject with curiosity and sensitivity. As the trip went on, the students became more involved and invested and came to understand the intricacies of the science, human, and political sides of the story. It was an incredible experience for all involved and it is clear to me the students’ dedication to telling the story of the oil spill with accuracy and thoughtfulness.

Wesleyan Students Research Gulf Coast Oil Spill and Create Artistic Works

Submitted by Erinn Roos-Brown, CFA Program Manager

On June 5th, seven Wesleyan students arrived in New Orleans for a 10-day trip that will include interviews with local scientists, fishermen and rig workers. The goal is to learn from these perspectives about the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which flowed for three months in the summer of 2010. They also plan to take a boat into the bayou to see the lingering effects of the oil spill, including a location where dolphins and other wildlife were reported dead from the toxic exposure. This trip is part of a Summer Session course The Deepwater Horizon Tragedy: A Scientific and Artistic Inquiry. It’s designed to provide the students with a toolbox for exploration of the science behind the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and began that process prior to leaving by spending four days on campus learning artistic and scientific tools.

By asking the questions: what is oil? How is it processed into energy? Why is it still the leading energy source? The students will hunt for answers that will enable them to understand the science at a deeper level, and make their research more visible to an audience through their art, which will be produced at the end of the course as final projects.

The class is co-taught by the chair of the College of the Environment Barry Chernoff and playwright and director Leigh Fondakowski. Leigh was the Head Writer of The Laramie Project and has been a member of Tectonic Theatre Project since 1995. She is an Emmy nominated co-screenwriter for the adaptation of The Laramie Project for HBO. Her latest work, The People’s Temple, has been performed under her direction at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Perseverance Theater, and The Guthrie Theater, and received the Glickman Award for best new play in 2005.

This course is made possible by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Come back later to read more about the final projects and hear from the students about their experience!

 

An interview with Barbara Fenig ’11

Katherine Bascom ’10, the Russell House 2010–2011 Arts Fellow, interviews Barbara Fenig ’11.

Barbara graduated this past Sunday, May 22, but will be staying at Wesleyan for a post-graduate year as the Shapiro Center/Russell House 2011-2012 Arts Fellow. Congratulations Barbara!

You’ve got some serious writing skills. Tell us a little bit about your creative thesis.

This year, I wrote a collection of linked short stories that revolve around breaks in normalcy. In the stories, the corporeal has magical powers: lips take on supernatural abilities, the brain houses the reality of the afterlife, and heartlessness becomes a medical condition.

Who inspires you to write?

Aimee Bender and Amy Bloom, Andre Aciman, Paula Sharp, Douglas A. Martin, and Deb Olin Unferth (my Wesleyan writing professors).

What plans or ideas do you have for your post-grad year at Wesleyan as the Shapiro Center/Russell House Fellow?

As next year’s Shapiro Center/Russell House Arts Fellow, I look forward to planning the reading series and to hosting events for Wesleyan’s writing community. I am hoping to establish a series of informal workshops where students can get to know one another. Students will write for a bit and then share their work. I’m hoping that different faculty can offer a few prompts, either in person or before the event. As a writing student at Wesleyan, I really appreciated the writing community and am eager to cultivate new outlets for students to share their work.

What anticipations do you have about spending another year at ol’ Wes?

I’m really looking forward to being at Wesleyan next year and am thrilled that my day to day will be spent in the Russell House, the Shapiro Creative Writing Center, and Downey House– my favorite spots on campus.

If you could have any author or poet come to Wesleyan next year, who would it be & why?

I can’t choose! I’m just so excited to see what the calendar will offer!

Tell us about your summer plans.

I’m traveling to London, Paris, Aix-en-Provence, and Venice for a few weeks after graduation. Then, I’m a member of the student staff at the Wesleyan Writers Conference. I’m taking a course at Columbia in July and will be back at Wesleyan in August. It’ll be a lovely summer (fingers crossed!).

Don’t Hide the Madness: An Antithology

An interview with Morgan Hill ’14 by Shira Engel ‘14.

On May 3, the day after Mike Rosen’s senior project was performed in Memorial Chapel, I just knew that I had to interview a member of this group he put together. Morgan Hill, a willing member of the Om Collective, sat down to talk to me about the process of putting together this synchronous, multifaceted, and interdisciplinary project.

The Om Collective, Morgan says, is “an excuse to hang out and do pretty things. It’s an integration of artists from [creative campus icons like] Mad Wow, Wordsmith, weSLAM, which means dancers, poets, emcees, drummers, singers, horn players, guitarists, DJs, and sound engineers. I am honored to be included as a freshman in this group of people who decided to do performance art in a way we hadn’t seen done.”

Don’t Hide the Madness followed the framework of a spoken word performance, but strayed suitably. It was appropriately done in Memorial Chapel, where the Night Kite Revival performed earlier this year.

It all started with a vague idea. Mike contacted a group of artists on campus that he felt were right for the mission of the project. They met at his house one late night at the beginning of the semester to discuss how their diverse talents and styles might come together. Of the collaborative process, Morgan says, “There are a lot of different interests among the members and with those different interests, we can say something new about pop culture, poetry, and art. We can perform spoken word for what it is, showing it is just as legitimate an expression as anything else. The point was to experience the Self on entirely its own terms. We got to make art in the way we really wanted to make it.”

The intention of the performance, which combined spoken word, dance, singing, bass, and audience participation, had to do with Wesleyan as a creative campus, how it fosters art in a variety of forms and is part of a collective of universities pioneering a new one: poetry as performance art. Morgan explains that “slam is hyper-condensed into the past ten years.” It is fairly magical that Wesleyan can play such a huge role in cultivating an art, a means of self-expression and communal appreciation, that is still legitimizing itself.

I asked Morgan what it was like to integrate all these art forms. She responded, “We wanted to provide an explanation for what has been happening on this campus. We’re saying that this is something new that can be seen differently. This is where poetry can be right now; performance art as a denial of a formal structure is dangerous, but so cool, so cathartic.”

She continues with what I believe to be the perfect note to end this post on: “[At Wesleyan] you have so many people that are so talented in many different ways. Why wouldn’t you want to bring them together, all the time?”

An interview with Yu Vongkiatkajorn ’13

Katherine Bascom ’10, Russell House 2010–2011 Arts Fellow (part of the Wesleyan University Writing Program), interviewed Yu Vongkiatkajorn ’13, a College of Letters (COL) major who is currently studying abroad in Paris.  Yu is a Freeman Scholar from Thailand, and recently won the Herbert Lee Connelly Prize for outstanding talent in nonfiction writing.

 

What type of writing do you do?

I mostly write in my journal — reflections, ramblings, details that I notice, conversations that I have or overhear. It’s the only kind of sustained writing that I can do outside of classes. I’d like to think that it helps me furnish material for more formal nonfiction or fiction pieces, but it’s also something that I really enjoy doing for myself. I’m beginning to write more fiction since I’ve taken Paula Sharp’s fiction class, but I can’t do any poetry. It’s completely foreign to me.

What’s the best thing you’ve read recently?

Un homme qui dort (A Man Asleep) by Georges Perec, which is about a young man who decides to become completely indifferent to the world. He wanders the streets of Paris, sleeps, dreams, watches other people, and describes the actions of himself and others around him in meticulous and beautifully-written detail. I was completely enamored by the lyrical, alliterative style, as well as the subject, perhaps because I identified with it a little. It’s hard not to feel similar things when you seem to spend such a large part of your day sitting in the metro.

What writers have influenced you?

I picked up Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides in eighth grade and completely fell in love with it. It was the first time I had encountered something so powerfully written, so tied to its characters and their interactions. I spent every spare moment I could reading it and I even stopped eating and socializing with people for a while. After that, my tastes changed completely and I started looking for books outside of the fantastical and the Dan Brown’s. My brother later gave me a copy of one of Anaïs Nin’s diaries, and she’s since become one of my favorite authors.

When I really think about it though, there are so many writers that have influenced me. It’s kind of hard for me to read something and not be influenced by it in, even in the tiniest way. In retrospect, E.B. White probably had a profound influence on my life before I even knew it. I don’t know how many stories I wrote about farms after reading Charlotte’s Web in first gradeI probably started writing because of that book.

Please tell us about your piece that won the Connelly Prize.

I submitted two pieces for the prize, both of which I wrote for my nonfiction courses with Lisa Cohen. The first is centered around a watch I bought one summer and how it was tied to a relationship I had with someone at the time. It’s kind of an experiment in style, and I think that it was an indirect way for me to talk about an experience that had a profound effect on me. I wrote it in freshman year, then abandoned it for a while, but now really like how complete it feels.

The second piece was my final project for my Advanced Nonfiction seminar: a profile of my father. It was extremely difficult to write, partly because I had to do most of my research during a Habitat for Humanity trip over spring break, thus spent a lot of time making international phone calls in the car at odd hours. What was most difficult though was that it touched on a lot of sensitive issues in my family — issues that that we’ve kind of buried in the past and still don’t talk about today. I interviewed members of my family, and of course, my father, and unearthed a lot of things I hadn’t known about him.There were a lot of revelations for me while writing the piece, and I still don’t know how I feel about it. When I first wrote it, I didn’t feel like I had done the subject enough justice, so asked Professor Cohen if I could change my topic. She gave me a firm ‘no’ and encouraged me to keep going. I’ve revised the piece a few times since then, but am still ambivalent. I actually just looked at the piece right now, and I can’t get myself to read past the first few pages. I guess it’s still too hard for me to detach myself from it.

Where is your favorite place to write?

I don’t think I have a favorite place to write as much as a way to write. I need to be able to write on a surface — there’s something about pressing my pen to the paper and seeing my own handwriting that helps my ideas flow better. I’ve been keeping a notebook of my travels, and although I don’t usually reread previous entries, it comforts me to see my previous writing. It feels like I’m continuing my thoughts, in a way.

 

Where are you studying abroad, and what has been most surprising about the experience?

I’m studying abroad in Paris. What’s probably been most surprising is experiencing the culture shock that I should have felt when I went to the U.S. for the first time. During orientation in Paris, I had never felt so maladjusted in my life. Though language played a part in how I felt, it was far from the main factor. Identity became a big issue, because I always had to say that I was a student studying in the U.S., but that I was Thai, not American. Yet at the same time, when I work as a language partner or a tutor, people expect me to represent the U.S., or either rebuff me for not actually being from the U.S. I’ve had someone reject me for a position just on the basis of not being American. Other people have just referred to me as an American student. I suppose it’s typical of study abroad experiences, but I continually find myself rethinking my identity here.

Apart from that, what’s also been interesting is discovering how filthy and strange Paris can be. The Champs-Élysées at three a.m. is a sad, depraved place.