Back from Ioway

So I'm back. I got in early yesterday afternoon, and tried to catch up on my blog, but my brain felt dried out by the workshop, and then cured by the seemingly endless drive home into some kind of brain jerky. Yeah, yesterday I was a blank. I got home, and J and I had passed somewhere on the expressway. He was heading down to the Cities to just get the hell out. Some of his friends were going to the Mason Jennings show, which he wasn't going to, but wanted to just head down and see a good movie, shop at Utrecht, and mostly I think just breathe in the energy of some other folks. I, having gotten my fix, decided not to meet them in the Cities, but head right home. This worked fine for both of us, but it was a curious feeling arriving home without him to greet me.
Anyway, about the workshop. First let me say: Iowa City is a great town. It is the perfect size (30,000 without students, 60,000 with them), and features all those things you love about a college town: funky little shops, arty theaters, great bookstores, and kiosks selling grilled cheese and crepes. I felt curiously at home there, which is something that happens to me in a college town. I feel like I can breathe, and there is a strange sense of elation. The other thing - Iowa City has lots of green space. Parks, trees, green stretches of grass, winding paths. Oh, yeah, and the University of Iowa Museum of Art. Holy shit folks. I went, expecting something similar to most college art museums: beautiful collections of work that someone who knew something about art would probably recognize. I did not expect this:



Yes. According to what I've read, this painting, Pollack's Mural, is what started it all. And there's more - I saw Rothko, Miro, Gaugin, Chagall, Picasso, Lasansky, and a whole lot more beatiful and amazing art that I'm sure someone in the know could recognize. I got one-third of the way through the first time and had to leave. My brain was full. Needless to say, I'm a museum nerd, but this one quickly became a haunt for me during my stay. Enough about that - this post is already disturbingly long.
Let's talk about the workshop. I took Katherine Min's Advanced Short Story workshop. There were seven of us in the class. And here's the surprising thing: we all seemed to be at about the same place. You know how, when you're in a workshop, you hope to find one, or maybe two, people (if you're lucky) who are in the same spot you are, have similar insights and sensibilities? Well, not to say that everyone in there was trying to do the same thing. But I was amazed to find that just about everyone in the class (with one exception) was similarly well-read (different books, but same sensibility), intelligent, and insightful. My story was workshopped first (lucky me) and I expected awkward critiques and dancing around the subject. There was none of that. No one trying to figure out how to tell me, without hurting my feelings what was wrong with my story. We immediately dispensed with all those social niceties and got down to brass tacks. So refreshing! And it was that was for everyone's stories. The thing that was wrong, the thing that the author couldn't put her/his finger on, was promptly nailed by the workshop, and interesting discussions followed on how to work with it. Interwoven in this were lesson plans that used the strengths and weaknesses of our stories to discuss elements of the story, etc. I've never been in such a well-oiled workshop, where I walked out with energy, enthusiasm for my work, and concrete ideas on how to make it more complete. It was pretty thrilling.
That said, now I am here. Is this enthusiasm translating across 600 miles? Yes. I'm still excited. The distance between me and the workshop has not diminished that. Plus, I met some cool people, and we have a plan to do our own weekend writing retreats and workshops.
Okay, I admit, I'm a little cynical, jaded, and otherwise pessimistic and overcritical. But I really didn't expect this workshop to be a success in so many ways - in all the ways you hope it to be.