Day 6 was designed to be a bit of a breather.
At this point, if you asked someone at Stonecoast what day of the month it was, most likely they would not have been able to tell you.
What day of the week is it, then?
Sorry, all the days are kind of blurred together.
So, Day 6 is a bit of a reset day. A time to clean the palate. Wash the laundry. Catch up on sleep. Renew. Rebirth.
Day 6 started out with Graduation Rehearsal for graduating students and a Community Discussion for all students and faculty. The topic for the Community Discussion this time was a celebration of literary influences, led by the always energetic Nancy Holder.
The afternoon and evening for Day 6 were free.
Some faculty left; some faculty arrived.
On Day 7, the second half of the residency started in earnest. Some new faculty, new workshops, new Stonehouse lunch caterers.
In the morning I went to the graduating student presentation “Short Stories as a World-Building Tool for Novelists” by Taylor Preston.
Taylor led everyone on a tour of world-building–in particular, he emphasized using short stories to help enhance the world-building experience.
A new set of workshops commenced. This time I am in a workshop led by the talented and multi-genre author Elizabeth Searle. By the draw of the alphabet, tomorrow I get workshopped.
After lunch I went to the faculty presentation by guest and award-winning author Jeff VanderMeer, who gave a talk titled “Memory, History, and Fantasy: The Importance of Fully-Realized Settings to Characterization”.
Author of Finch
His presentation really dug deep into the importance of working towards developing the setting as a character.
After Jeff’s talk, the second-semester mentor interviews commenced. Like I mentioned on Stonecoast residency Day 5, students have the opportunity to interview faculty they might want as their mentor. Some Stonecoast faculty members stay for the entire residency, while some stay only for the first half, or just for the second half, so there are two faculty member interview sessions each residency.
Instead of hanging out at the Stonehouse, some of the graduating popular fiction and 4th semester popular fiction students went out to have dinner. Fourth-semester student Amy Tibbetts hosted a dinner for the graduating popular fiction students at the cottage she rented instead of staying at the dorms. (HINT for other Stonecoast students — in the summer you are not obligated to stay in the dorms. In the winter, we stay at the Harraseeket Inn, so it doesn’t make sense to try to stay somewhere else then.)
I helped Amy cook the dinner. As a bonus, David Durham and Jeff VanderMeer dropped by, and we enjoyed the food, view, and conversation.
But the tranquility was broken when we had to drive back to campus for the evening readings.
The Stonecoast alumni association had their first alumni reunion, and people from each genre (popular fiction, fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction) gave a reading.
Next, Jeff VanderMeer gave a reading from some new material, and everyone seemed to be impressed.
No, that’s an understatement. Everyone loved with Jeff’s talk.
Afterwards, everyone dissipated into the darkness. Despite the rest offered by the Day 6 off-day, Day 7 saw people still low on sleep.
As a previous Stonecoast graduate said to me: “You can always sleep when you get home.”