The Write Formula

Susquehanna University's Writers' Institute

by Victoria Kidd
News Services Manager

It doesn't take long for an aspiring creative writer to learn that the craft is, in fact, a science of sorts. It produces an alchemic combination that generates passion and creativity. And in the case of The Writers' Institute at Susquehanna University, that formula has produced gold.

Tom Bailey leads a writing workshop.

Founded in 1993, the institute was initially intended to give students more creative writing opportunities and better draw on the talents of Gary Fincke, director of The Writers' Institute and professor of English and creative writing. At the time, he was teaching the sole creative writing course offered on campus. It would be another three years before a major was established in the subject. In the fall of 1996, the creative writing program had nine majors. Last year, it had grown to 64. And this fall, more than 70 students are expected to enroll in the program.

"I would have never guessed we could pump this thing up like this," Fincke said.

The "we" Fincke refers to includes the other two creative forces that have helped shape the program's success – Tom Bailey, associate professor of English and creative writing, and Karen Holmberg, assistant professor of English and creative writing. Bailey joined the faculty in 1999, Holmberg in 2001. They came with credentials from such prestigious creative writing programs as the University of Iowa (Bailey) and the University of Missouri (Holmberg). Prior to accepting Susquehanna's Winifred and Gustave Weber Professorship in the Humanities, a designation he held until the fall of 2002, Bailey taught in the Expository Writing Program at Harvard University. With schools such as those attached to faculty curriculum vitaes, the program was bound to get noticed.

"When Tom came in there were 22 majors, and I remember sitting on my back porch telling him that if this works really well maybe we can have 30 majors. He didn't want to hear that. A year later, we doubled the enrollment. We went from 22 to 42 majors and had to add another faculty member," Fincke said. "It's partly because Tom is such an evangelist for writing," he added.

However, the trio has done more than preach about the program. They've molded it into an extraordinary learning experience that combines rigorous writing workshops, critical reading in literature and student mentoring to produce an increasingly popular major. Last year, the Department of English, which houses The Writers' Institute, was renamed the Department of English and Creative Writing to reflect the growth of the program and the desire to be identified as having a vital creative writing program. (See related story).

Despite the increased interest in the creative writing major, the number of English majors has remained steady as well. "Instead of depleting what our colleagues are doing, we've added a whole new kind of student," Fincke said.

Karen Holmberg facilitates a poetry session as part of the Advanced Writers' Workshop.

This new component of the student population also helped propel the institute forward. Student commitment to the program and the craft was responsible for creating a new campus literary journal called RiverCraft, and transforming its predecessor, Susquehanna Review, into one of only three national undergraduate literary journals. The students' ambition also sparked the creation of Essay, a journal devoted entirely to creative nonfiction. In addition, they've continued the 22-year tradition of publishing The Apprentice Writer, a 60-page tabloid featuring the writing of high school students from across the country. And in each case, intense student involvement has been instrumental to the publication's success.

Holmberg says this level of student involvement is immensely important to an education in creative writing. "There is such a sense of investment and pride in the magazines. The students do inordinate amounts of completely self-initiated work. The time students put into these publications is really extraordinary," she said.

The students' dedication is an outgrowth of the program's writing workshops: classes marked by in-depth examination of a particular genre, intense writing assignments and critiques, and close faculty mentoring. These workshops, coupled with the creative collaboration of journal production and numerous opportunities for students, faculty and publishing professionals to discuss their craft in social settings, form the basis of the program. A necessary and inevitable byproduct of this is the family atmosphere that permeates The Writers' Institute.

"It probably begins at that workshop level where there is such trust in the workshop. It's built not just on doing your own thing but on helping each other. These are the cells that build a larger sense of community," Bailey said. "By the time they are seniors," Holmberg adds, "we've mentored them to the point where we're actually very close."

Creative writing major Zachary Macholz '06 says the faculty of The Writers' Institute go out of their way to make students feel welcome from their first day on campus. "During orientation weekend each year, freshman writing majors gather in front of the library under the direction of one or two upperclassman student advisors and walk to Tom's house to eat pizza, listen to Breaking Benjamin (the band Fincke's son plays in), and play with Tom's kids and his enormous dog (an English Mastiff)," Macholz says.

Last year, as poetry editor of RiverCraft, Macholz was given the opportunity to interview poet Ellen Bryant Voigt, who was on campus as part of the institute's Visiting Writers Series. "I sat down with her for a little over two hours and asked her about everything from her childhood to her writing to the politics of poetry. Where else does this kind of thing happen but at Susquehanna?" he said.

Zack Macholz '06 reviews a composition with Gary Fincke.

The Visiting Writers Series is a hallmark of the writing program, bringing acclaimed writers and accomplished editors to campus for classroom visits and public readings. Through the support of the Degenstein Foundation, which in 2002 awarded Susquehanna University a $500,000 grant establishing the Janet C. Weis Endowment for the Liberal Arts, the institute hosted its first Writer-in-Residence last year. Renowned fiction writer Robert Boswell spent a week on campus working with students.

"These visiting writers that come here are extraordinary, and the students have an unbelievable opportunity not only to hear them in class but to socialize with them, hang out with them, talk with them, just meet them and shake their hands, and again, experience a different sort of mentoring," Bailey said.

The visiting writers also inspire the students, showing them that individuals can succeed in the profession. The faculty do this on a daily basis as well. All are accomplished writers with numerous publishing contracts and prestigious literary awards under their belts.

Fincke is a prolific writer who has successfully published in three genres: fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry. In 2003, he was awarded the Flannery O'Connor Prize for Short Fiction. Earlier that year, Fincke received The Journal Award for Poetry from Ohio State University Press, and with it, a publishing contract for his collection of poetry, Writing Letters for the Blind. It was one of five book deals landed by Fincke and Bailey in just one month. That same month, January 2003, Fincke received a $5,000 fellowship for creative nonfiction from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.

Bailey's accolades include a Newhouse Award from the John Gardner Foundation and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction. His first novel, The Lynching of Letitia Johnson, will be published by Random House in the spring of 2005. In 2003, Etruscan Press published Crow Man, his first book of short stories.

Holmberg was the winner of the 1996 Discovery/Nation Award and a two-time recipient of the Academy of American Poets Prize. After she received the Vassar Miller Prize in 2000, her book of poems, The Perseids, was published in 2001.

Despite their success and the close relationship they develop with their students, the faculty never sugar coat the life of a writer. Instead, they exemplify the true nature of the career – patient, diligent and ever-hopeful hard work.

"One thing that stands out to me about The Writers' Institute is the way that the professors cared about their students and valued their potential, yet never coddled them," says Catherine Pierce '00, who has since earned a master of fine arts in poetry from Ohio State University and is now enrolled in the doctorate program in creative writing and literature at the University of Missouri.

Nicholas Ripatrazone '03, who is now enrolled in the master's program in fiction writing at Rutgers University, said "At Susquehanna, one learns that writing is work – constant and meticulous revision – but the rewards are tangible and long lasting. The writing faculty's support was constant, their advice precise and well-considered."

The Writers' Institute will soon welcome a new class of writing majors into the fold, and with the new class comes new possibilities. One of these students, Abigail Martin of Miss Porter's School in Farmington, Conn., will be aided in her creative endeavors by the first Janet Weis Writers' Institute Scholarship. Given annually to an incoming freshman who demonstrates artistic promise, the scholarship is a four-year renewable award worth a total of $10,000.

For some students, their interest in writing keeps them in the classroom beyond graduation. Typically, about one-third of the writing majors apply to graduate school, and more than 90 percent of those applicants are accepted to a master's or master of fine arts program, according to Fincke.

But not all graduates of The Writers' Institute choose the path to professional writing. Many become teachers, reporters and editors. In May, the program graduated its first law degree hopeful. Devon Taylor '04 will attend Rutgers University School of Law in the fall.

"I chose this path rather than going on to further pursue creative writing because during my time at Susquehanna, writing has taught me to examine the world in a very different way. Instead of simply looking at a situation, I've learned to analyze it and see it from many different angles. When I took a few political science and sociology classes, I realized how similar the thinking was, and it was through this that I realized writing was not my greatest passion but rather a very helpful and special vehicle I could use to pursue the study of law," Taylor said.

The writing faculty believe graduates of the program enter professional life with the fundamentals needed in virtually any job, as well as life itself. "We teach them to read well, think critically and analytically, write well and handle problems creatively. What employer doesn't want that?" Bailey said.

Jennifer Hawbaker '04, who hopes to work in college admissions before going on to graduate school, says, "The program doesn't just develop excellent writers, it develops excellent, functioning members of society."

Along with good writing skills, Hawbaker believes the writing program has given her the confidence and strong work ethic to be successful in any career. "Tom Bailey regularly reminds us that our craft is 10 percent inspiration and 90 percent perspiration. This elbow grease ethic has helped me respond to people who inquire about my future with a writing degree by confidently saying, 'Yes, I'm a writer, and I'm a writer with a promising future,'" she said.