Students in the Master of Arts in Writing Program at Point Loma Nazarene University have been preparing for the annual Writer’s Symposium by the Sea this past month. With professors encouraging their involvement and presence at the events, the students say they have been anticipating the arrival of this year’s guests: Judy Woodruff, Jamaica Kincaid and George Saunders.
In the program, students work on a long-form thesis project, as well as learn different teaching skills. The Writer’s Symposium, founded by journalism professor Dean Nelson and hosted annually at PLNU, allows these students to experience firsthand interviews with popular writers and receive advice or methods for their work.
Kharis Rutherford, a first-year M.A. in writing student, said that the best way for students to experience this is exposure to different writers and local volunteer opportunities.
“As soon as another symposium or visiting writer is in town, we’re the first ones to know about it,” Rutherford said. “[Professors] constantly are informing us and keeping us in the loop.”
Rutherford said that the symposium has also served as a great place for the M.A. students to show off their own work, including the student-run literary journal Last Syllable. She also said that there are volunteers there who also promote the M.A program to anyone interested.
The Writer’s Symposium is promoted heavily to the students within the program, and, along with attending the event, they are also encouraged to volunteer. Current adjunct professor and previous M.A. in writing student, Meghan Coley, said that she has volunteered at the symposium for the past six years and plans on continuing for the rest of her time working at PLNU.
She said she is most excited for Saunders’ appearance, and recounted her favorite memory from working at the symposium with writer Paulette Giles, who died last July.
“[Giles] needed someone to take her from one building to another,” Coley said. “She learned that I like to write about Greek Mythology, which was also a [writing] niche for her. So she just stopped right then and drew me this picture of a Greek myth that we both really liked, and gave it to me. She was just a lovely person to chat with, and then later that night, hearing her give an interview in front of everybody, I just felt like I was learning more about her.”
Rutherford said that the students also enjoy sitting with the audience and taking in whatever advice or stories the writers have to tell.
Rebecca Li, a second-year M.A. in writing student, said that she learned valuable concepts from Rebecca F. Kuang during her interview last semester at the annual Visiting Writers Series hosted by the M.A. in Writing Program.
“I really appreciated her work, ‘Yellowface,’ that I read,” Li said. “She had written in a really unique way about the experience of being a Chinese American woman, and specifically a Chinese American woman writer, [and] all these layers of intersectionality that I hadn’t really seen in contemporary fiction before.”
The students said the lineup for the symposium this year has brought them excitement.
“I am genuinely so excited about the lineup,” Li said. “Next week, I will probably be volunteering. But, more than that, I’m just going to be a happy member of the audience, maybe come with some questions, you know. I think I’m just excited to listen and to hear their wisdom.”
Adee Tulcan