Week Five for Chautauqua, but week one for me! The theme of the week was Innovation in Capitalism: How to Meet 21-Century Challenges? I arrived last Saturday and have been spending this first week getting used to the community. I have gone to all the events for the Literary Arts Center and have enjoyed every one.
The author that came to give a lecture this week was Cat Bohannon. She wrote Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution. The lecture she gave was this Thursday, and it was a very intriguing look on how the invention of gynecology changed the impact of the human race on Earth.
I found a lot of peace walking around Chautauqua and taking moments to myself. There were many people around me constantly doing the same thing, with books, sitting in silence with another person, or simply just sitting at a bench. This was closer to the beginning of the week, but I find myself still enjoying time outside when the weather permits it.
When I wasn’t wandering about, I was on the porch of Alumni Hall. It was a fairly peaceful and inviting space where I could take in the community. This was where book signings and team meetings took place. At the beginning of the week, I met all the faculty members that were teaching courses for the week, including Tempany Deckert-Donovan.
I took a course with Tempany through the week where I learned her system for writing a novel. It was called Writing Recovery for a Beginning Novelist. I workshopped on a single short story, and worked through the steps of writing a novel through the short story. I was impressed with the work of the others and was glad to have received feedback on my own writing.
Getting used to the three-day workshop was not as hard as I was prepared for it to be. I strongly believe the work I have done at Cornell makes it easier to adapt to different pacing for classes.
So far this week I worked four shifts at the Poetry Maker Space. Each time it’s not been too busy, but I have had the pleasure of meeting remarkable people. A notable experience was on my first day when a family came in, and I was talking with the mom of the family. Turns out she was a librarian. We spent a good while talking about the field and her steps to getting the job she has. I am looking into graduate programs for a library science degree, so it was nice to talk with someone who has done it. Her younger child was in the back of the room writing a poem with the word blocks which are pictured above.
Another couple I encountered were regular visitors to the space and were interested in getting to know me. Robert and Nina Frost had an interesting experience that felt welcoming. Nina, after receiving many praises from her husband, shared her experience being a photographer that captured a famous Title IX protest at Yale University in 1976.