Finally some text (and some photos)

Finally i have a bit of time for journaling.

The residency really hit the ground running with classes (nonfiction workshop and acting styles) in the 9am-5pm window, and public readings in the evenings at the Voodoo Rooms.

My nonfiction workshop is led by Stuart Kelly, a book reviewer for The Scotsman and an author of several books. We're only three days into the class, but so far i'm really loving it. Obviously Stuart is very well-read (he told us that he reads a book a day and reviews two a week!) so just from discussions i've already got an enormous reading list of his recommendations.

Acting Styles is seriously an incredible experience. It's led by Jim Winter, who teaches the playwriting workshop as well--he taught the very first playwriting workshop i took, in fact--and it's functioning as a companion class to the resident playwrights' workshop. So, not only are we learning various acting techniques but also we are working with new scripts in development, which is something i never did as an undergrad theatre major back when i did act. It's SO fascinating to see how that functions, running improvs with a character collection created by a playwright who's in the room answering your questions, and it is fantastic to improv a scene one day then get script pages generated from it the next to do a formal reading from. SUPER cool.

At the Voodoo Rooms Monday night I read a selection from my essay that's forthcoming in Fourth Genre and then was conscripted to be the emcee for Wednesday's readings.

It's a tad bittersweet to be a third-year. I'm excited to be almost done with the MFA, but sad to be almost done with the program. I see why post-grads come back to the residencies every summer.

Here are a few more images:

My investigation of foreign snacks is clearly out of control. I think these are roasted turkey leg flavor but I don't know Polish.

Jenner's Department Store lit up all fabulous in the dense night fog.

The edge of a painting i saw at the City Art Center, done from a commercially printed fabric stretched on a canvas and then painted into by the artist. (Original print on the right side.)