I applied to a summer session of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop out of spite in order to prove my best friend/writing partner wrong. I had been applying for fellowships and workshops diligently for a while, but had only been getting rejections. When my writing partner said I would certainly get into Iowa, I told them there was absolutely, positively no way, and applied in order to show her that I was right.
You simply cannot imagine how incorrigible they have been since I got accepted.
After the initial shock wore off, I quickly started googling my future classmates’ names, to see what exactly I had gotten myself into. I found the others to be a diverse mixture of backgrounds, including journalists, world travelers, fellowship winners, and professors. (I would later learn that our professor had chosen us, which accounted for the unique mixture that was our class makeup.) I was, clearly, in my mind anyway, just lucky to have been invited at all.
Even though I felt intimidated, I became excited for the class as soon as I saw the other pieces of writing that had been submitted to be workshopped. I found them to have interesting premises, fantastic writing, plus so much more. We were asked by our professor to have the first two people’s pieces ready to discuss on the first day of class, with a very detailed and professional example of a feedback letter given to us to follow. During the first class, I found not only the other students to be incredibly insightful and astute in their feedback, we discovered we had all hit the jackpot in terms of professors.
Sanjena Sathian is hands down the best creative writing instructor I can imagine. She did not lead the instruction so much as guided it masterfully, pushing all of us toward deeper understandings of our work and each other’s, in a way that felt earth-shattering while simultaneously inevitable. I left the first session feeling certain I had learned more about craft in that three hours than I ever had in my entire life. And that was only day one! By the end, we had all learned a great deal more and had gained shared language on new craft points, making it easier to navigate the diverse set of stories. But you know you’ve lucked out when, after your professor read part of her new novel aloud at the faculty reading, the other fiction workshop turns to you, wide eyed and asks, “Is she your professor?!”
Why, yes. Yes, she is.
It was a whirlwind three weeks, which included literal and figurative tornadoes (those sirens sure are loud!). Having my piece workshopped was actually enjoyable, though I don’t know if I could tell you now what was said. Thankfully, everyone wrote their feedback down and I’m pretty sure I took notes, somewhere. What I remember most though was the feeling of camaraderie and the belief we all had in each other and in each others’ works, even if we weren’t confident about our own. Maybe the nicest thing though was realizing that everyone had come into the workshop a bit leery of what could happen. Even very accomplished writers have insecurities and need the support of other writers.
In the end, I found some humans that I would label “my people” and I am eternally grateful.
So I hope maybe we can all learn (including myself) that sometimes, dreams do unexpectedly come true.
