Well, since I arrived back in Philadelphia from Montpelier, Vermont, a little over one month ago, I think it’s finally time to write my wrap-up of my first residency at Vermont College of Fine Arts’ Writing for Children and Young Adults Master of Fine Arts program. I was really nervous about the residency, given that I work from home and am sort of housebound by disability, and am therefore not used to being around people all day and night, as well as traveling in general. I scoured the internet to find first-person narratives of what a low-residency MFA experience is really like before I went, but honestly I just didn’t find much. I hope that over the course of the next few years, I can provide that information based on my personal experience so that hopefully someone out there might find it useful…a perspective student perhaps? (Is this you? APPLY TO VCFA WCYA—you won’t regret it!) So this is my honest account of what my MFA residency experience was really like.

Let’s get started!

Residency begins: Days 0-2

I departed Philadelphia’s historic 30th Street Station on the morning of Sunday, July 8th to take the Amtrak Vermonter line to Montpelier. The trip through Vermont during the summer months had been scenic. Green, green foliage everywhere, and funky small New England towns all raced by. I still had some anxiety the final hours. All of a sudden the last few weeks just hit me. I had quit my job. I had been sick recently. I had left my psychiatrist of nine years. I had taken out loans to fund my studies. Whaaaat was I doing?? The last hour, with Montpelier the next stop, I started to feel really nervous and have second doubts. Friends, I wanted to keep riding that train until I could get off somewhere and turn right around. But I kept going, and the experience really did feel like the Hogwarts Express approaching Hogwarts as the sun sets.

I got off the train, hailed a cab, and was driven up the very long hill to the VCFA campus. I was grateful for the silence of my single room and felt exhausted but ready to go for the morning.

Monday the 9th was technically Day 1, even though first semester students (“firsties”) were due to arrive the day before (Day 0?). At breakfast in the small cafeteria, I met some of my cohort members and the friendly Graduate Assistants (GAs) who instantly put me at ease. That day was filled with new student orientation (or NSO as we used to call it when I worked in residential life at Penn) and a dizzying amount of new information. We learned about the structure of the residency, the semester, and the program. At our lunch, the firsties mingled with faculty. Those first few seconds were scary! These writers are legends both as authors and as caring, nurturing, and damned effective craft mentors. But I felt relaxed and welcomed.

That night, all students gathered in the Chapel room at College Hall, a historic building from the 19th century when the college was a seminary. Novelist Amy King (pen name A.S. King) delivered the first faculty lecture, a kind of keynote speech that set the tone for the residency, emphasizing how art is pain but art can also heal. By the end of the day, all my anxieties were gone. I was pumped up and excited and anticipating the semester ahead. More than that, I felt surrounded by writers, something I haven’t ever experienced live. “What do you write?” was one of the first questions you hear from students, GAs, and faculty alike. Suddenly I was A Writer.

Tuesday the 10th, Day 2, was the first day of workshop. Each residency, students of all semesters and writing genres are grouped into different workshops led by two faculty members. There are also a few special topic workshops. My workshop leaders (Cori McCarthy and Tom Birdseye) were awesome and set the mood for a mellow, collaborative, and free-form feedback experience. From high up on the top floor of College Hall (or the Astronomy Tower as I thought of it), we workshopped two students during each session. Workshop didn’t happen every day but was spread out over residency. The rest of Tuesday was filled with faculty lectures from Louise Hawes and Cori as well as readings and lectures from graduating students. Each student gives a lecture based on their critical thesis in semester 3 and a reading of their work as part of their degree requirements and graduating residency.

That night, several faculty members read. We capped off the night with readings with just our cohort. I didn’t go that night—I was too nervous! But it was a great bonding experience and a way to get to know each other. My cohort was smaller than average at just 15. All women, they came to feel like a sisterhood—or the coven I always wanted! 🙂

The Sorting Hat Process: Days 3-5

Wednesday the 11th was Day 3 and largely replicated the schedule for Tuesday with workshop in the morning, then faculty lectures. However, by that point in the residency you start to think ahead towards what faculty members you might want to work with in the upcoming semester. For an hour that day, first and second semester students had time to interview faculty (more like speed dating) and ask them questions about their pedagogy, instruction philosophies, as well as their preferences for formats, reading selections, essay choices, and procedures for turning in packets. At the beginning of residency, you get a form that lists each of the faculty teaching for the following semester (some faculty take a semester off here and there). Firsties are supposed to check off (but not rank) at least 8 faculty we’d like to work with in our first semester. I believe second semesters must check off no fewer than 6 faculty, and the number shortens as you proceed through your program. For me, it was a bit overwhelming. There were so many faculty I’d love to work with! And my list definitely changed over the next few days.

Later that night, we had our second evening of faculty readings and cohort readings. I went! And it was fun! And interesting to hear other people’s reactions to what I had written. It made me realize that my excerpt, taken from my workshop piece, was hitting the right notes. Since I had written that piece new for workshop and hadn’t thought much of it, reading in front of my group made me think I could potentially turn it into something more. Alas, I wouldn’t be workshopped until the second-to-last day of residency, so I’d have to wait to find out more.

Thursday, July 12th: Day 4. I was starting to feel a bit squirrelly on top of that mountain. There were fewer mandatory things on the schedule now, though we had a new student orientation to the library and IT services in the morning. A great lecture on film by Amanda Jenkins in the middle of the day lightened the mood a bit but was thought provoking, too. It’s maybe possible to attend everything on the schedule, but the great thing about residency is you’re encouraged to pace yourself and enjoy some time off to decompress, have some fun, and clear your head. By that afternoon, I was itching to get off campus, which is really quite small. In the afternoon, then, I decided to stroll down into Montpelier down at the bottom of the long hill. The town was gorgeous. Very classic New England small town, though Montpelier is the capital city of Vermont. I only had time to go into Bear Pond Books before I headed back for a meeting, but I felt refreshed and cleansed, as any bookstore will do.

One of the great things about residency is they invite visiting writers and illustrators, and Thursday night graphic novelist Jillian Tamaki gave a reading and signed books. Jillian Tamaki is one of my idols. I’ve read four things she’s authored, and I was so stoked to meet her live. I was an “autograph virgin,” but Jillian was kind to sign my copy of Skim with my message.

I skipped the student readings that night—I learned that I have trouble paying attention to readings of any kinds, both student and faculty—and watched an episode of TV in my dorm room. It was necessary, as I still had to finish filling out my faculty preference form before submitting it the next day (Friday) by 1 pm. And the last few days’ faculty lectures and readings, as well as workshop, informal conversations, and the faculty interviews, had helped me shape my list. At that point I had 7 names but was stumped on the 8th. The thing is, there were some faculty I’d love to work with, but I didn’t think it would be the best match for my first semester and where I was. Maybe down the line in the program when I felt more confident in my work. But that’s the great thing about it. “You get who you’re supposed to get,” more experienced students told me. The actual sorting process is a mystery that is never truly revealed. That’s why it’s jokingly referred to as the Sorting Hat from Harry Potter… you get your selection, and it happens in mysterious ways but ones that are right for you. Trust the Sorting Hat…

Finally, Sorting Day arrived… and it was also Friday the 13th! Which added a little spooky supernatural feel to the already magical day we would learn our faculty advisers. That morning, we had workshop and then had to submit our faculty preference forms by 1:00. There were a bunch of optional activities scheduled for that afternoon, but I knew what I really needed was FOOD. Everything about residency was great except the cafeteria food, and it was affecting how much I ate. I already have eating disorder issues and take medicine that has side effects of loss of appetite, so I didn’t need to give myself a handy excuse to not eat anything and restrict. I took a cab to the nearby Hunger Mountain Co-op. I enjoyed a snack and cold brew (Vermonters apparently LOVE fancy canned cold brew—that all taste the same, btw) in a nice dining area by the river and stocked up on food and some toiletries to bring back to my room.

One thing I did not realize about my trip was how many toiletries I’d need… mini travel sizes were not going to cut it for 12 days away from home. (Kudos to Amazon Prime for delivering to campus 7 days a week… definitely saved me a couple times!) I got back to campus and lay down for a few minutes before we had a special meeting with just the first and second semester students so we could bond. I was so touched by the camaraderie and warm welcome from writers who already felt like peers, like friends, like family.

Interlude: Laundry Day

I should say that Friday was also “Laundry Day,” named for linen exchange where you got fresh linens, and it has a legendary reputation for being the day that people break down and get emotional. I did not have the Laundry Day experience Friday but it certainly came up throughout the residency. The thing is, residency is grueling, inspiring, gratifying, challenging, provocative, humbling, life changing, and earth shattering. I think there’s a reason for this. Children’s literature, and our task to write books worthy of today’s kids, reaches to your core, your past, your identity. We were all there because stories affected us profoundly when we were young. We knew how powerful literature for children and teens can be. I was not alone in being continually reminded of how books literally saved my life over and over again and reached me at a vulnerable age.

The gift of being admitted to VCFA WCYA, to Hogwarts, and opportunity it offered was humbling and empowering and terrifying all at once. We have the power to change lives with our stories. So… you can start to see how emotional people get when they’re digging deep into their childhood and the stories that shaped them—saved them.

**

Okay, back to Friday night!

As the magic hour of 9:00 approached, I joined many students walking the illuminated path to the building where we’d find out our faculty assignments. I imagined it would be something like high school theatre where the cast list goes up, and it sort of was! Will Alexander, our faculty chair, walked down the magic steps with the Sorting Hat on and posted the list. It was actually much smaller than a giant cast list—after all, VCFA WCYA isn’t that big, just 100-ish students enrolled for the semester, I believe. I camped out with my cohort while someone in our group took a picture of the list and posted it on our cohort Slack. And. I found out…

That I got Amanda!

Cue trumpets and fireworks. I was so happy and relieved. Amanda, who people told me again and again “changed my life,” was one of the faculty I wanted to work with most at VCFA, and to have her in my first semester left me overjoyed. Two other members of my cohort also got Amanda. The rest of us were pretty well distributed among the various faculty with a few of us grouped together with an advisor. I felt happy and excited, and in a way it felt circular because Amanda was the first faculty member who I had spoken to on our first day of NSO.

The rest of the night was happy tears and watching TV in my room trying to get my mind to relax after a very emotional first half of residency.

Planning for the semester ahead: Days 6-8

The next two days—Saturday the 14th and Sunday the 15th—were focused on planning for the semester ahead. Saturday, the day after faculty selection, we had group meetings with our advisors where they told all their advisees the specifics of their requirements and preferences and we set packet due dates. The rest of the day was spent in graduate and faculty lectures. The residency Dance/Party/Games took over the evening. I went and had a great time, especially with a very bawdy game of Cards Against Humanity.

The dance was a fun way to unwind, and I will usually do anything possible to avoid going to a dance or social event like that because of all the social anxiety I get. I was struck again by how VCFA students of all cohorts and semesters and alumni and GAs mingled as one big family. I did think to myself, this is such a cult… in a good way! I felt privileged and lucky to be a part of this wonderful community.

But there was a flip to that, and something that I heard from other VCFA students, too. It was easy to feel like an imposter if you let it get to you. Am I good enough? Did they make a mistake? However, “lucky” wasn’t quite accurate. We wrote our way there. We earned our spot in the program through talent and sincerity of passion, a commitment to our craft and wanting to be better at it. We deserved to be there.

Sunday morning I had my meeting with my advisor and then caught up with my therapist on the phone. I was feeling confident about the semester ahead and felt a renewed sense of interest in Swing Love, my novel that I had been working on for a while but hadn’t planned on exploring in my first semester, if ever. Amanda and I talked about where my mind was with the novel and my big breakthrough that the relationships needed to change and the focus be on my main character’s bond with her father.

The rest of the day was pretty light. We had workshop, graduate lectures, and faculty readings. I finished the night with a phone call to my parents. Then I listened to a faculty lecture about children’s literature and the avant-garde from our online library. It felt like one more way to cram my mind with the wonder of possibility. My plans for the semester were starting to take shape. It was going to be a good next six months, I could tell.

Wrapping up residency: Days 9-10

The final few days of the residency went by pretty fast, even though there wasn’t a ton on the schedule. Since most of the faculty had already given their lectures and readings, the remainder were mainly by graduating students. I went to as many as I could, and the variety of subjects kept things interesting. By that point, I was exhausted like everyone else and taking notes at a lecture was one way of staying awake. I finalized my semester plan and felt ready to write. I also took this time to go down to Montpelier and get lunch and poke around the town.

Wednesday the 17th was the final day of residency. The main event was graduation in College Hall’s Chapel. The day was brilliantly sunny, and the Chapel was illuminated. The big space suddenly felt intimate. Throughout the roughly hour-long ceremony, I started to feel teery-eyed and emotional. I wasn’t alone. Seated among my cohort, I felt proud and honored to be among this community of writers and artists. There’s something special about going to a fine art school for your graduate studies: people just “get” it. They get how important art is to you, how it’s the life force we depend on. Everyone is connected to this one common goal of art, and to be a part of it is just exhilarating. Compared to undergrad at the University of Pennsylvania, which is old AF and you inherit a history that you weren’t really a part of, newer Vermont College of Fine Arts felt so focused on one mission to support emerging artists. We are building something special.

That night, my cohort and I went out to dinner. We were starting on this journey together, knowing it would set us up for a path far beyond two years.

Back on the Hogwarts Express: Day 11 of residency… Day 1 of my new life

The next morning, Thursday the 18th, I tidied up my room and got ready to head down to the train station. As the train pulled out of Montpelier headed towards home, I could feel the tears coming. I was just so emotionally floored. My lifelong interest in reading, books, and writing… validated. My calling, confirmed.

I’m heading into the unknown. Having undergone major personal changes and quit my job just before VCFA, I had spent most of residency scared of what lay on the other end of the train line. I loved the bubble I was in, but I knew I had to go back to Philly and face what lies ahead. However, the strength I gathered from VCFA propelled me down the Vermonter train line. Back in 30th Street Station, I was no longer quite as afraid of the future. I couldn’t wait to get started, knowing nothing could stop me now from pursuing my dream.

Step off the train and resurface.

Bring it.