I met Katrina Hays this past summer at Pacific Lutheran University’s Rainier Writers’ Writing Workshop’s (RWW) graduation day discussions and ceremony. I was there to talk about how students in the graduate low-residency writing program could choose to work on Writing It Real articles to meet a required “outside experience.”

Last year, Tarn Wilson from the program interned with Writing It Real and wrote several articles. Recent graduate Hilary Schaper wrote one, too–they were all very appreciated by subscribers who are hungry for the kind of information and experiences that MFA students receive in their training.

I am delighted to have had the opportunity to hear more about the value of what the program teaches with “outside experiences” by interviewing Katrina Hays. She shares much about how all writers in any life situation can forge this kind of experience for themselves.

Sheila
I’d like to hear about the outside experience requirement in your RWW program. I have already learned there are two kinds.

Katrina
I am eager to tell you about my experience, but first, I’d like to assert the inverse of what you wrote inviting me to do this interview, “I believe that MFA students have much to share with writers who are outside academia.” It’s also important to WORK with writers who are outside academia, so I am delighted to do this interview.

What drew me to the Rainier Writing Workshop was that it is a graduate program designed for adult working writers–that is, people who have an established writing life (be it personal or professional), and want to improve their writing. I had been supporting myself as a freelance writer, primarily doing feature articles for magazines, but my creative writing life was stagnant. I couldn’t find a local writing community that suited me, so I started sniffing around for a low-residency program that might work. The program at PLU was right for me in terms of being geared towards self-motivated, independent people who are able to work under their own steam for long periods of time.

 The program is structured so that the students and faculty get together once a year for an intensive residency at the Pacific Lutheran University campus in Tacoma, Washington. The rest of the year students work one-on-one with a mentor, who critiques their work, gives feedback, cheers, challenges and is (in my experience) intensely interested in the process and in working with students in this fashion.

The second year of the program (it is a three-year commitment) calls for each student to create an “Outside Experience” (OE) that in some way adds to and enriches both their schooling with RWW and their own writing life. The requirement is for 100 hours, but many people end up doing far more than that. The OE can pretty much be anything at all–people have done huge things like creating a podcast dedicated to the literary life (www.riverandsoundreview.org), or simpler but equally valuable experiences like taking two weeks to write in the quiet of a cabin in the Trinity Alps of California.

The point of the OE is twofold. First, it is an opportunity to fill in any gaps or areas of writerly interest that might not be covered in the RWW curriculum. Second, the OE is a sneaky way to teach students yet another technique for growing themselves as writers: finding their own methods of self-education and continuing to figure out how to live a rich, literary life in a world that often does not overtly support creativity and the arts.

I think the notion of an outside experience for a writer is terrifically valuable. Just think–it can be anything. As long as it in some way grows you as a writer, fills your creative well, answers your curiosities, or pushes your borders of understanding in some way, an outside experience is remarkable.

You don’t have to climb Mount Everest, know what I mean? You don’t have to do something splashy. You simply need to look inside and see what–in your writing life–needs a little love, a little attention, a little cool water and sunlight in order to grow. It’s probably okay for an outside experience to seem to have little overt connection to your writing. Who knows where the artistic impulse to create, to write, comes from? A valuable outside experience might be planting and growing a small vegetable garden, and writing a series of essays on the experience, especially cool if you’ve only written fiction, and want to try your hand as essay and need a built-in task to give yourself structure.

Sheila
Tell us what you chose to do to meet the OE requirement.

Katrina
I have had an interesting journey with my Outside Experience for RWW. Most comfortable with essay and fiction writing, I was surprised and discomfited when poetry showed up in my writing a few years ago. In the past year, I have fallen madly in love with poetry, and I decided to focus exclusively on the form for my second year of schooling.

I had previously been planning on using my OE to pursue my interest in writing children’s books, but I did a course correction and decided to use my OE to broaden my understanding of all things poetic. To that end, I applied for and was chosen to do an internship with Copper Canyon Press (CCP) in Port Townsend, WA in order to learn about the craft of publishing books of poetry. That internship alone took care of more than enough hours to complete my requirements, but I also wanted to spend a discrete chunk of time writing poetry–away from the distractions of home, family, paid work–so I applied for an artist residency with the Vermont Studio Center and was again fortunate to be awarded one.

Sheila
How did that go?

Katrina
Well, I am not completely done with my OE! I go to the Vermont Studio Center in early February, and I expect that experience itself will be rich, and perhaps challenging. If all I have to do for two weeks is write–then what happens to my excuses of being tired, distracted, forced to work to keep the dog in kibble? I’m curious to see what I am capable of producing in an environment where I am housed, fed, and given the gift of time to write and only write.

Sheila
What would you say are the most valuable things you’ve experienced/learned so far in your outside experience?

Katrina
The time I spent with Copper Canyon Press was remarkable. I came away refreshed, challenged–and even more intrigued and compelled by poetry than I had been before.
It was fascinating to see the whole process of how a book–that is, the artifact we hold in our hands when we read, that beautiful bit of bound paper and ink–actually gets created.

When I was on-site with CCP, I saw manuscripts come in the door, and I witnessed all the differing stages of editing and production that happen to make an author’s manuscript a real book. It was startling to realize just how many people touch a book–interns, editors, copy editors, proof readers, designers…and then there are the people who market the book, publicize it, help get it out to the public.

Prior to interning with Copper Canyon, and being around the passionate and committed people who work there, I had labored under the delusion that writers were always “lonely in the garret.” What I see now is that there are large parts of writing that truly are communal art. I may write the poem, but it takes a village to make my words available to the public in the form of a book.

Sheila
Realizing the extent of the publishing aspect of the poetry community must have been very nurturing–to see and work with the people who are committed to getting those books out there for others. It sounds like you are hooked on lifetime outside experiences. What’s next for you after the Vermont Studio?

Katrina
I have already planned my next outside experience–in July of 2009 I’m going to go to the Pacific Northwest Children’s Book Conference in Portland, Oregon. I still have a few children’s stories running around my computer and head that I would like to see about getting published. I expect immersing myself in that world for a few days will be interesting and informative.

Sheila
I really appreciate your revealing to us the way you are seeking experience in genres new to you.  I think once we have succeeded in one genre, it is sometimes hard to feel like a beginner by jumping to another genre.  May I ask how you approach being new–to a genre, to an internship, to a residency?

Katrina
I believe the trick is to think and feel outside the box a bit. Some questions to ask your intuition might be:

• What is an area of writing that I’m interested in and know little about?
• Where do I feel scared in my writing?
• Where do I feel bored?
• Where do I feel empty?
• How can I use my skills as a writer to give back to my community?
• What is one thing I need, right now, in order to grow my writing?

We all know ourselves pretty well, but often it might take a little nudge or suggestion from someone else to get the ball rolling. Listen to your writing group, or writing buddy. My girlfriend is my greatest source of outside experience ideas. She knows me well, knows my writing, and is not shy about making suggestions that help keep me moving towards better and better writing.

The OE quite naturally feeds into the notion that creativity is a well we must take time to replenish, and even with encouragement, the only person in this world who can do it is oneself. Taking the time to think about–and actually do–an experience outside one’s daily routine of writing is invaluable.

Sheila
Can you sum up what the invaluable nature of an experience outside of one’s daily routine is? Maybe in a kind of “if then” list?  If I take the time to ______, then I learn ________…

Katrina

• If I take the time to nurture a languishing area of my writing, I will be rejuvenated as an artist.
• If I MAKE the time to nurture my self-as-artist, then I learn to value myself as a writer.
• If I take the time to listen to myself to find out what might be interesting to me as a writer, then I broaden the scope of my writing (which can only be to the good.)
• If I take the time to look carefully at the world around me, then I learn to see more clearly.
• If I learn to notice detail (see more clearly), then I learn to break down description into smaller bits, which leads to more accurate writing.

Sheila
Thanks for that list!  And now I don’t want to forget to ask you to talk about why you took on the role of newsletter editor for the RWW and how that is helping you immerse yourself in the writing life.

Katrina
Ah–now that I think about it, that is another outside experience, isn’t it?

I have been granted small financial fellowships from Pacific Lutheran University. For the money I receive, I need to do some work for RWW. The Directors of the program–Stan Rubin and Judith Kitchen–asked me to create an electronic newsletter that connects participants, alumni and faculty.

I’d never made a newsletter or edited anything, but I figured it out and am proud of Soundings. It gives me the excellent opportunity to be in touch with everyone connected to the RWW program, and that keeps me from feeling lonely. One feature of the newsletter that I’m particularly found of is the “Announcements” section, which lists the publications, readings, and other literary good news of people tied to RWW. It is wonderful to talk about people’s successes. We hear so much about the frustrations and failures of being a writer–it is good to hear about the sunny side of this life, also.

Sheila
I hope there’s been some good news for you, too. In addition to your acceptance to the Vermont Studio Center, what is your other good news?

Katrina
I was very fortunate to have a poem of mine win the “Poet’s Choice” category of the Oregon State Poetry Association’s Spring 2008 contest. It just came out in the OSPA anthology Verseweavers. This is my first poem to be published, and I’m very pleased to make that step.

Sheila
That’s certainly a sunny side!

Katrina
Each time I receive good news, I realize again that I am blessed with my talent and want even more to give back to the writing community that has given–and continues to give–so much to me. Frankly, I would act as editor for Soundings without being paid. I love to act as a cheerleader for writers. I especially want to be able to celebrate and acknowledge successes, however small or large.

The longer I write, the deeper I immerse myself in what Stan Rubin calls “the writerly life”, the more I have a sense that we are a tightly-woven community. What betters one cannot help but better us all. I am not alone. I am part of something large and precious, and the threads that bind us together as writers are strong.

Sheila
I enjoy the poetry of your description of the writer’s world as “something large and precious” with binding threads. So often people who want to start writing or publishing or taking a larger part in the writing world fear feeling like outsiders because they don’t know other writers or aren’t in a writing program or don’t have a writing group yet or have never done a residency or entered a contest or attended a literary reading or …..The list goes on and on.  It is hard emotionally to carve out a place for ourselves in a world, as you said, is not overly supportive of creativity. And yet, there are so many places to look for that door to entering the network of people who are busy supporting and growing the arts. Local arts commissions, local literary reading series, places that support residencies, creative writing departments at colleges, universities and community colleges, are among the avenues for connecting.  Once you know you want an “OE,” the posters, newspaper ads and website addresses you need start making themselves noticeable.  Then, it really is a hop, skip, and a jump to becoming involved.

And it doesn’t have to take a lot of time, if you don’t have a lot of time. Sometimes a mere shift in focus creates an outside experience. It might be a shift in the movies you choose to see (more movies based on literary novels or about writers, for instance). It might be giving up an hour or two of TV viewing to become a regular book reviewer for an Internet Radio Show.  It might be reading literary magazines and journals online instead of doing computer solitaire or surfing the net.  It may be switching a magazine subscription from a news magazine to a literary magazine.  It might be reading a poem a night before you go to bed or posting a new poem each week on your refrigerator.  It might be visiting the library or newsstand at the Borders or Barnes and Nobel or independent bookstore near your home or work to spend an hour or two a week reading print literary journals.

Next, it might be taking a weekend retreat of your own to see how it feels to write diversion free for a weekend. Then you might feel more comfortable perusing the lists of writer’s retreats to find one you might like to attend. You can consult writers’ conference listings such as ShawGuides, Poets and Writers, Writers Digest magazine and the Associated Writing Programs for lists.

You can approach publishing organizations in your area about becoming a volunteer, start regularly attending a local literary reading series, or sign up as a volunteer at a local annual book festival. You might approach a local coffee house or bookstore about holding a reading series you head up. You might approach a local neighborhood newspaper about a column about writing.

Whatever you choose to do for an OE, you will connect with writing at a deeper level and feel supported by others in the writing community. You must remember, though, to leave yourself time for writing.

I like your idea, Katrina, that planting a vegetable garden and then writing about it is a writing experience.  I think you can make an OE out of any experience you have in your routine life as well. For instance, if you carpool for work or for getting your kids to school, you might like to start a series of poems or essays about that carpooling experience.  If you have a dog you must walk daily, you might want to write about the walks and the neighborhood seen through the eyes of a dog walker. If you travel for a living, you might want to commit to writing a series on long distance commutes.  Or if you’ve been meaning to start knitting or make a photo album, you can combine those efforts with writing or journaling about your endeavor. The possibilities are really endless.

Katrina, thank you for sharing your thinking and experience about internships and residencies and conferences.  No writer left behind–all we need to do is research the opportunities available to us, find some people in our communities to talk with, and keep the information flowing.

Katrina
You’re welcome, Sheila. I appreciate being a part of Writing It Real.