2023 Roundup or: "To make an end is to make a beginning"

I often write the yearly roundups in June as it is when the classes celebrate their birthday, but this year, June was busy and was followed by some time off, which was followed by days of intense reading, which was followed by new classes, and before I knew it, it is the end of 2023. 

At the end of 2022, I said I wanted to design the classes as MFA semesters, and then announced the new classes as a series that complemented one another and came up to 16 weeks in total, that is, one semester. Another 16 weeks were in the making, though I ended up teaching seven classes, and I am still two weeks short, but I know we accomplished quite a bit, and I want to take the time to celebrate all of you who were a part of the classes.

So, what did we accomplish? How did this MFA year play out? 2023 began with The Fantastic in Everyday Life, a class that focused on short stories that used the element of the fantastic. Our focus was on creativity, and along with the stories, we read some wonderful essays on art by bell hooks, Jeanette Winterson, and Dorothy Allison. 

After The Fantastic, we dove into contemporary short fiction and read stories that presented interesting and innovative uses of structure. I know all good writers are masters of using empty spaces, so I added excerpts from Gustie L. Herrigel’s Zen in the Art of Flower Arrangement (along with her husband Eugen Herrigel’s Zen in the Art of Archery) for us to think about emptiness philosophically.

Next came the first of the responding to stories with stories class, where we read stories by Hemingway, Joyce, and Chekhov, paired with their story responses by contemporary writers. David Foster Wallace has rewritten Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants,” John Updike has rewritten James Joyce’s “Araby,” and there are many other examples of this type of correspondence among authors, which I find both humbling and inspiring.

We then returned to Anton Chekhov. We had spent 6 weeks reading and studying him in 2022, but, really, every single one of Chekhov’s stories is a writing lesson in itself, and I cherished this chance to revisit some of my favorite stories and learn as much as I could from the master.

Speaking of masters, the following classes each had one. First, we studied selected chapters from A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf along with a number of her essays, where she speaks about writing as a craft, writing as a vocation, and writing as a mirror reflecting the zeitgeist of 20th century, bringing together the personal and minute details with the socio-economical, philosophical and historical understanding of the times.

After Woolf, came Joyce. I taught Dubliners for a second time, and as is always the case with classics, rereading and reteaching Dubliners gave me the opportunity to go much deeper into the stories, to learn more from Joyce’s genius, and to understand myself through the shifts in my interests and changes in my grasp of craft, characters, and conflicts.

We wrapped up the year with the most challenging class of them all: Mrs. Dalloway. I believe Mrs. Dalloway is the best book to start reading Virginia Woolf, but it poses many difficulties, stylistic and thematic. How Virginia Woolf uses stream-of-consciousness is unlike any other writer, and the pace and the repetitions take some getting used to. Her references are subtle, and instead of explaining her images and symbols, she trusts her reader's intelligence and intuition to catch onto the said references and symbols and to understand what lies between the lines. As if this wasn't enough work, I added neuroscience essays and chapters from William James and Sigmund Freud to see how the mind works from the masters of different fields.

If I’d change one thing in this year’s classes, it would be to put the in-class workshops back. I didn’t want the classes to be too much work, but looking back, I realize some pressure is needed and even welcome. In other words, get ready to write more in 2024!

Workshops or not, I can say I worked hard to prepare for every single class in 2023. I didn’t have a choice, really, with such smart, perceptive, and talented readers and writers such as yourselves in my classes. It has been a privilege to work with you.

Those of you who could not attend the classes regularly joined us for the open events, such as the Open Classes, Group Readings, and Writing Talks. In 2023, we held our very first MFA Session, where writers from our community shared their experiences of the application process. During the Dalloway classes, I brought Writing Hour back to encourage my class participants, as well as our greater community, to make time for their writing, and very much enjoyed writing with all who joined over six weeks. Finally, I started the 15-Minute Book Club, another initiative to encourage people to read more and, most importantly, regularly.

Not that 2021 or 2022 was a breeze, but 2023 has not been an easy year either. Wars are being fought left and right, and natural disasters hit one country after another month by month. When the earthquake hit Turkey in February, many of you got in touch with me to donate to the earthquake relief. I am blessed to be surrounded by such caring and compassionate friends. Thank you. I didn’t want to announce this earlier, fearing it might look like some sort of advertisement, but I feel I must include it in the end-of-the-year writeup. 

As we know earthquake victims continue to suffer and struggle long after the media has forgotten about them, so along with my personal donations, I have been donating a part of the class payments to help the earthquake relief every month since February and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. The NGO I chose shares the news of help and healing (along with their receipts and audit reports), and I want you to know that with your help in the last 10 months, food, clothing, and hygiene supplies have been sent, psychological help has been made available and free, and shelters, new homes, and new schools have been built and opened. I am grateful that our classes have been a part of this effort. Thank you a million times.

We've been reading Eliot over the weeks, and now seems an appropriate time to quote him: “To make an end is to make a beginning.” Or much less poetically, I am ready for 2024! You have decided what you want me to teach in 2024, and I couldn’t be more chuffed. More on new classes and the class calendar for 2024 are coming soon.

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TL;DR An inventory of classes for our own MFA year, aka the roadmap of our literary and intellectual development. Includes information about recent open events/groups, earthquake relief, and the slightest tease about what is to come. >.<

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