It's been far too long since I last posted...I liked your birthday list, Kate. And the reason why I won't ever get married is precisely to avoid having to file a joint tax return.
So, the update on Jen And Paul In Idaho. You can now add the letters MFA after our respective credentials. Paul passed his thesis defense last night; I passed mine on April Fool's Day. Beer was promptly imbibed on both occasions. The highlight of Paul's defense was when a professor grilled him about the difference between craft and art, and then concluded the inquisition with this gem: "So what advice would you give Tolstoy?" That question has already gone down in the history of classic MFA defense questions. The highlight of my defense was when one of my committee members left unexpectedly because he "had to catch a plane." I tried not to have a total breakdown at that very moment. The whole creative writing MFA defense is generally a surreal blip of hoop-jumping wherein one tries not to fall flat on one's face while professors construct freaky obstacles and place bets on how spectacular your clumsy attempts to survive will be.
Paul wrote a short story collection called Saturdays Remain the Same. It rocks, and Paul has renounced the term "short story" in favor of "linguistic narrative art." Can you tell he's been in graduate school for five years? I wrote a collection of personal essays called Under Glass. I'm sick of explaining what it's about...greenhouses, basically. I mailed it to an agent yesterday morning. I've decided that writing is very much about learning how to wait and I have yet to master waiting. I check my email compulsively...
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