creative writing

Acclaimed author Tania James balances writing and teaching at Mason

Shayla Brown — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 21:05:06 +0000

Acclaimed author Tania James balances writing and teaching at Mason Shayla Brown Mon, 01/29/2024 - 16:05

Tania James is having an amazing year. Since her novel Loot was released by Knopf in June 2023, the accolades haven’t stopped.

In addition to being named to longlist for the National Book Award, the novel has been included in the Best Books of the Year lists by the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, NPR, and Kirkus Reviews. And, in 2024, was selected as a DC Reads book by the DC Public Library and the PEN/Faulkner Foundation.

I’ve been really surprised and grateful at how this book has been received,” said James, who teaches in ��AV’s Creative Writing Program.

Tania James. Photo by Elliott O'Donovan.

Although the novel is often described as historical fiction, James questions this label.

“For the most part, I didn’t approach this novel any differently than I would a contemporary novel,” said James, an associate professor in the Department of English in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. “To my mind, historical fiction isn’t a genre with clear conventions in the way there are with crime fiction or horror fiction.”

James said the inspiration for Loot began with Tipu’s Tiger, an automaton of a life-size tiger that is mauling the throat of an English soldier. It resides in the Victorian Albert Museum in London and was commissioned by a South Indian ruler the late 1700s.

“Back in the day, you could turn a hand crank and the tiger would grunt and the soldier would groan. It was this darkly comic, sinister object that created a sensation in England. I found it fascinating,” said James.

Loot is set in 18th century India, England, and France, and follows a young woodcarver, Abbas, who is called by the Tipu Sultan to build the tiger, a prize of war, as a gift for his son. It is her fourth novel.

“Loot was the first time I wrote a novel while I was a full-time tenure track professor. I also had two small children, so there were all these new constraints on time, which taught me to be less precious about the conditions in which I can write,” she said.

Writing a novel also requires living with uncertainty for long periods of time, she added. “I was going through old notebooks, and it occurred to me how many different iterations this novel could have taken, some of them terrible and some of them just different.”

At Mason, James teaches fiction writing, and this semester she is focusing on writing novels in ENGH 608 Novel Writing Seminar.

When she came to Mason in 2016, James was mentored by fellow author Courtney Brkic, a professor in Mason’s Creative Writing Program.

Brkic said her mentorship of James was primarily about balancing teaching with her own writing.

“When you come into a new job, there's a tendency to want to tackle it all and volunteer for everything and not take care of your art, but for us in the MFA program, we're not academics. We're working artists,” said Brkic. “Sometimes the balance of serving our department, students, families and serving our art can be a difficult one to strike.”

“Tania is an outstanding teacher,” said Brkic, who invited James to guest lecture one of her classes. “One of the things I've always admired about Tania is that she's so good at seeing nuance in things and helping students to see that nuance. Not telling them, but helping them cultivate that muscle in their heads that helps them to become great writers.”

MFA student Connor Harding in James’s novel writing course echoed that praise of James as an exceptional teacher.

“She engages with people's ideas and asks interesting questions that generate great discussion,” said Harding. “The course definitely has a little bit of something for everybody, especially for people that want to generate writing beyond just understanding it,” Harding said.

“[Courtney] really helped me navigate a world that I wasn't familiar with. I’m constantly learning from her generosity and leadership,” James said.

“In terms of my own work as a writer, one of the beautiful things about being a teacher at Mason has been being in such close proximity to different opportunities that bring great writers to campus like the Visiting Writers Program,” she added.

In the program, faculty bring published writer to campus to do readings as well as run a masterclass. “I oftentimes sit in on those masterclasses for our MFA students because I find them helpful in terms of applying wisdom to my own work and teaching methods,” she said. “I aspire to be the kind of artist who, at some level, will always be a student.”

Meet Mason's Award-Winning Creative Writing Faculty

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Women's History Month

Mason author gives voice to generations of Native American women

Colleen Rich — Thu, 16 Nov 2023 15:22:28 +0000

Mason author gives voice to generations of Native American women Colleen Rich Thu, 11/16/2023 - 10:22

Despite the pandemic, it has been an amazing year for Kelli Jo Ford. In addition to being named to Oprah Magazine’s list of Native American Authors to Read Right Now, the ��AV alumna’s debut novel, “Crooked Hallelujah,” was recently named one of the best books of 2020 by Publishers Weekly and is on the longlist for the 2021 Carnegie Medal for Fiction, among other accolades.

Kelli Jo Ford. Photo by Val Ford Hancock

“Crooked Hallelujah” is a novel in stories that follows four generations of Cherokee women over five decades. Ford will be discussing her book on Friday, Nov. 6, as part of this year’s virtual Fall for the Book festival. Find out more information about the event here.

It isn’t easy to launch a book in a pandemic, but Ford has been able to find a silver lining in the many virtual book talks and readings she has given.

“My mom and aunts get to attend as many of these readings as they want,” said Ford, who graduated with an MFA in Creative Writing from Mason in 2007.

“And, on a normal book tour, I would have to be away from home,” she added. Home is in Richmond, Virginia, where Ford lives with her husband and fellow MFA alum, poet Scott Weaver, and their 7-year-old daughter, Cypress.

Ford, who is a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, said she has “always been a scribbler” and wrote a lot of “really bad poetry” as a young person, but didn’t start writing seriously until her late 20s.

The first in her family to graduate from college, Ford was a student at Loyola University New Orleans when one of her teachers, author James Nolan, told her she was better at fiction. Then she found Mason’s MFA program.

Ford said that she really didn’t know a lot about getting an MFA when choosing Mason, but found what she needed here from her very first fiction workshop with Richard Bausch, who was the Heritage Professor of Writing at Mason at the time.

“[Bausch] is really good at helping students believe in themselves,” she said. “I needed that.”

Ford was looking to hone her craft, and she speaks glowingly of working with the late Alan Cheuse, who mentored her while at Mason.

“I wanted to work hard and have a critical eye,” Ford said. “Many of the lessons I learned from [Cheuse] I carry with me to this day.”

The world in “Crooked Hallelujah” is one that Ford found herself creating from that very first fiction class. In fact, the story “Bonita” dates back to her MFA days.

“I kept coming back to the same characters and places. Eventually, I realized, hey—maybe that’s because this is a book!” she said. “I tried to honor the characters and places by creating the world I was being led to create.”

“While I'm sure Kelli might often have wished for things to speed up a bit, I'm just endlessly impressed by the way she cultivated this book. She took the time to find the right form for it, made sure she found an agent who truly believed in her voice and vision, and revised and revised and revised,” said Mason English professor Scott W. Berg. “ ‘Crooked Hallelujah’ is a great book, a hard-earned nugget of pure gold, and I couldn't be happier for Kelli that it's finally out in the world and getting all this loud and well-deserved acclaim.

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Podcast - EP 45: Describing history through the eyes of ordinary people

Damian Cristodero — Tue, 13 Dec 2022 20:29:01 +0000

Podcast - EP 45: Describing history through the eyes of ordinary people Damian Cristodero Tue, 12/13/2022 - 15:29

In This Story

Gregory Washington

Helon Habila, a professor of creative writing at ��AV, and an acclaimed international author, has never shied away from important issues. In a fascinating discussion, Habila, the author of four novels, tells Mason President Gregory Washington about his process of combining compelling narratives and characters with current examples of oppression and exploitation, and how his factual account of the 2014 kidnapping in Nigeria of 276 young girls by the terrorist group Boko Haram forced him to confront his homeland as he had never seen it.

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YA author writes bestseller while completing graduate program at Mason

Colleen Rich — Tue, 11 Oct 2022 14:59:25 +0000

YA author writes bestseller while completing graduate program at Mason Colleen Rich Tue, 10/11/2022 - 10:59

��AV alum Andrew Joseph White said he has wanted to tell stories even before he knew how to form letters. White, who graduated with an MFA in creative writing in May, published his first young adult (YA) book, Hell Followed with Us, an LGBTQ post-apocalyptic horror story, less than a month later in June 2022.

Andrew Joseph White. Photo by Sierra Guard/Creative Services

Now a New York Times bestseller, the novel was an American Booksellers Association Winter/Spring 2022 Indies Introduce title and received an American Library Association Booklist Starred Review and starred write-up in Kirkus Review.

JOURNEY TO PUBLICATION: White, who also has an BFA in creative writing from Mason, chose Mason because its creative writing program is more accepting of genre fiction than many others. This was especially important for the MFA, because White’s application consisted of the first chapters of what would become Hell Followed with Us. White started writing the novel in his senior year at Mason and signed with Peachtree Teen in early 2021 as one of the new imprint’s first three books. While at times White simply had to trust the process, Peachtree Teen’s small team impressed him. He said he was glad to debut with an up-and-coming press before working with a larger publisher where authors may have less control.

Advance copies of Hell Followed with Us. Photo provided

DARKER THAN FICTION: White has been deeply fascinated by monsters since he was very young. He connects this with the fact that unrecognized gender dysphoria and undiagnosed autism can make individuals feel like they are not entirely human. White’s debut novel coincides with legislation in multiple states seeking to severely curtail trans people’s rights. In this environment, White’s story, which acknowledges how life sometimes seems to require monstrous actions to survive, is one he feels that a lot of LGBTQ kids need. Hell Followed with Us is also a way to provide young trans readers something he never experienced growing up—a YA trans protagonist. “The whole point of the book is telling queer kids that you can make it out of hell alive. You might not be in one piece; you might not be okay. But you are still alive.”

EXPANDING REPRESENTATION: In addition to a trans protagonist, Hell Followed with Us features an autistic character, Nick, as the secondary lead and love interest. White emphasizes the need for autistic YA characters who readers can take seriously and look up to. When White began research to ensure the character was an accurate depiction of autism, the Winchester, Virginia, native realized how much of what he was reading applied to his own experience. This led White to base Nick on a version of himself, and the process has allowed him to embrace his ability to write characters who are both authentically trans and autistic.

LOOKING AHEAD: White says he would love to win a Lambda Literary Award or Stonewall Book Award one day, and he already has more LGBTQ YA horror novels and an adult novella in the works. When White is not writing, he likes to play horror video games, which are another source of inspiration for his stories; read work by queer YA fiction contemporaries; and spend time with his cat.

White will be part of this year's Fall for the Book. He appears on Saturday, October 15, at 11:30 a.m. in the Wilkins Plaza Tent.

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Mason alum Kelli Jo Ford receives 2022 NEA fellowship

Colleen Rich — Thu, 13 Jan 2022 20:45:41 +0000

Mason alum Kelli Jo Ford receives 2022 NEA fellowship Colleen Rich Thu, 01/13/2022 - 15:45

Kelli Jo Ford. Photo by Val Ford Hancock

��AV alum and author Kelli Jo Ford, MFA Creative Writing '07, is the recipient of one of this year's National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowships in Creative Writing.

Ford's debut novel, “Crooked Hallelujah,” was named one of the best books of 2020 by Publishers Weekly and was on the longlist for the 2021 Carnegie Medal for Fiction, among other accolades.

Ford, who is a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, was also named to Oprah Magazine’s list of Native American Authors to Read Right Now in 2020.

The NEA fellowships provide published creative writers with $25,000 so they can set aside time for writing, research, travel, and general career advancement.

Ford teaches at the Institute of American Indian Arts’ Low Residency MFA Creative Writing program in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and said she plans to use the funding to dial back her teaching responsibilities this spring and take on fewer speaking events in order to begin work on a new novel.

"This summer, I hope to travel with my family back to the Cherokee Nation, where the book takes place, to research and write," she said.

Ford lives in Virginia with her husband and fellow MFA alum, poet Scott Weaver, and their daughter, Cypress.

Learn more about Creative Writing at Mason

Meet the Creative Writing Fellows (National Endowment of the Arts)

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Art and poetry exhibition invites all voices

Colleen Rich — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 15:01:48 +0000

Art and poetry exhibition invites all voices Colleen Rich Mon, 11/22/2021 - 10:01

Mason alum and artist Joseph McCloskey-Caballero’s Creation in Ores (left) and Bailando Bacchanal (right) explore common actions taken to connect to the less mundane self in collaboration with theater major Alex Berrios, whose poems “Mirror Talks” and “Laugh Some More” accompany the work. Photo by Shelby Burgess/Strategic Communications

Sharing art with art lovers at the intersection of the literary and visual arts is something Jordan McRae thinks is truly innovative. He’s one of many artists featured in Conjuring Presence, an exhibition of visual art and poetry featuring ��AV students, faculty, and alumni at the Fenwick Gallery in Fenwick Library on the Fairfax Campus.

“My inspiration for creative writing––in particular, poetry–– has returned to me. It had been a while since I wrote creatively, let alone for something that would be publicly shown,” said McRae, a graduate student in the College of Visual and Performing Arts’ Arts Management Program. “I wanted to challenge myself to start writing again, and this exhibition was the perfect opportunity.”

“Conjuring Presence” features work from nine pairs of artists and poets that speaks to ideas of presence, absence, erasure, and creation. Curator and Mason alum Jessica Kallista, MFA Creative Writing ’02, asked each participant to consider the possibilities and manifestations of presence: “What does it mean to become mindful of the presence of others and the need to work against erasure? Who decides whether some people are or are not allowed to be present to occupy spaces in the arts and academia? How do we acknowledge the past, work for a just future, and still ground ourselves in the present?”

School of Theater faculty member and visual artist Deb Sivigny created the sculptures Caught, Aloft, and Pause (detail above) in collaboration with Mason alum and poet Holly Mason Badra, whose poem “An Aubade with Grain, Gold, and Feather” accompanies the work. Photo by Shelby Burgess/Strategic Communications

The pairs responded with works including sculpture, textiles, poetry, video performances, and artificial intelligence (AI) “metahumans” that speak with the voices of many. Among the participants are current students and alumni from Mason’s School of Art, Creative Writing program, and Arts Management program, as well as faculty in poetry, game design, theater, and visual art.

“So much of the history of art exhibitions, and academia, is problematically notable for who is excluded,” said Kallista, who teaches in Mason’s School of Art. “I worked consciously as a curator of this exhibition to conjure the future we want to see, a future that is diverse, equitable, inclusive, and accessible to all.”

Kallista said that the exhibit is an intentional effort to pivot toward an inclusive future that invites, elevates, appreciates, and applauds previously excluded voices. “The exhibition is exciting, and the collaborations are phenomenal, demonstrating that diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility are the secret so many of us have been shouting: We can do much more amazing work when all voices that believe in equity are invited to the table.”

Jax Ohashi, MFA sculpture major, was paired with poet and third-year MFA student Simonne Francis.

Mason MFA student and poet KS Keeney's poems “Midnight” and “Portrait of a Lover” accompanied videos by experimental multidisciplinary artist StrangeLens whose “Goatface La La Land” is pictured above. Photo by Shelby Burgess/Strategic Communications

“The piece I made for this show, which fittingly takes place in a university library, resembles the form of a book,” Ohashi said. “The ties for the accordion pages reference the form of butterflies, a universal symbol of hope, travel, and change.”

Fenwick Gallery Manager Stephanie Grimm, art and art history librarian, said that this year’s works are engaging with AI and game-based technologies, like Mason alum Boris Willis and Vivek Narayanan’s Encounters, which features “metahumans” narrating a series of texts by the artists.

Angela Terry, an MFA graphic design student, produced an image, a school photo of herself in grade school. “I thought the innocence of youth would be a great offset of something hidden that should have a presence. The pink polka dots are there for decoration, to create a distraction. The white text stating, ‘i am here,’ conjures presence by letting the viewer know something is there,” Terry said.

McRae worked with Terry to develop a co-created project. In this project, Terry produced a visual arts piece, and McRae produced a poem.

“I wanted to center this poem on my meditation practice and how I came to meditation,” McRae said. “Radical Honesty aims to show my internal progression with my mindfulness journey. “

Many of the works can be viewed online through Mason Exhibitions, and the full exhibit can be seen in Fenwick Gallery through Dec. 11.

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Mason alum returns as visiting writer

Colleen Rich — Mon, 15 Nov 2021 14:31:45 +0000

Mason alum returns as visiting writer Colleen Rich Mon, 11/15/2021 - 09:31

Priyanka Champaneri. Photo by Lauren Brennan

Award-winning novelist Priyanka Champaneri is returning to the classroom this week as part of ��AV’s Visiting Writers Series.

Her novel, “The City of Good Death,” was awarded the 2018 Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing and published in both the United States and India. It is a finalist for the Center for Fiction’s 2021 First Novel Prize, which will be awarded in December, as well as India’s Tata Literature Live First Book Award for Fiction.

Champaneri, who holds two degrees from Mason—a BA in English and an MFA in creative writing—is the editorial manager in Mason’s Office of Communications and Marketing. She will appear in conversation with Mason faculty member Alexia Arthurs on Thursday, Nov. 18, at 7:30 p.m. In addition to giving a public reading of their work, visiting writers also conduct a writing workshop with graduate students pursuing a master of fine arts (MFA) in creative writing.

How does it feel to be returning as a visiting writer?

It’s humbling. I’ve never had much confidence as a writer, but Mason boosted my confidence in so many ways, both directly and indirectly—by fully funding my undergraduate and graduate education, by awarding me the Thesis Fellowship in Fiction so I could concentrate on writing the book, by welcoming me into a community of faculty who encouraged and nurtured me, and who were always ready with advice even after I graduated—especially Courtney Brkic and Susan Shreve. This community has given me so much. To be able to return in this capacity—to interact with students who are in the same spot I was in more than a decade ago and have the privilege of reading their work—it’s an honor. I’m intensely grateful.

What inspired you to write this book?

The direct inspiration for using a death hostel in Banaras—the city that Hindus believe can offer an end to the cycle of reincarnation if a person dies there—came from a Reuters article that a friend sent to me, “Check In and Die in Two Weeks, or Get Out.” Having grown up in a Hindu household, I had long known about Banaras, but the article was my introduction to the death hostels, and I was immediately fascinated. When it was time to work on my MFA thesis, I’d built up a mental storehouse of knowledge from all the reading and research I’d done just to satisfy my curiosity about the city. I’d basically built my own imaginary Banaras in my head, and it was very easy to see these characters walk around this place that, I should note, I have never actually visited in person.

How much has the novel changed since those thesis days?

By the time I had submitted my thesis, I had finished about a fifth of the manuscript. The first draft, which I completed five years later, was about 600 pages. In the years since, my revisions to the book included significant cuts, additions, removal of peripheral plot lines and characters, and wholesale rewrites. The book went through so many iterations—I would say about 9 to 10 drafts, if not more. In many ways, the spirit of the book and the main players have remained, but the plot changed radically.

Winning the Restless Prize changed everything for you and this book. Could you talk about that?

If I hadn’t won the prize, this book would not have been published—it’s as plain as that. Before I entered the contest, my agent Leigh Feldman submitted the book to basically every publisher in the United States, as well as a few in the United Kingdom and in India. We received rejections that were incredibly kind and complimentary. After two years of this, my agent and I had a conversation about shelving this book so that I could move on with my writing life and start something new. It’s important for me to note that even though the reaction from the publishing world was disappointing, my agent never lost faith in the book. And because of that, I could never completely lose faith in the book either—so when I saw an advertisement for the prize, I decided to toss the novel in the ring. At that point I wasn’t even entering to win—I was entering to simply satisfy my need to knock on every door. Winning the Restless Books Prize was—and still is—one of the biggest surprises I’ve experienced in my life.

You've mentioned in interviews that this story is told with a lens unfamiliar to many in the Western world. Can you elaborate on that?

I wrote the book from the perspective that I grew up with, which is one rooted in Eastern philosophy. The way one approaches death, grief, mourning, and obligation from that point of view is very different from how a Western perspective might approach those things.

It was an intentional decision to write with that lens for manifold reasons. Most immediately, I had never seen a work of fiction take on death from this point of view, and I wanted to try.

The choice was also a reaction to my own experiences as a Gujarati American and Hindu navigating the U.S. education system. I’ve enjoyed a wonderful diet of Western literature, all in English, that has changed my life and influenced me as a writer. But inevitably, I had to contort myself to understand what I was reading on a deeper level of literary analysis, given that almost all such literature revolves around a Judeo-Christian perspective.

I wanted to write something that assumed the same lens I use to view the world. I knew that there had to be readers out there like me who would appreciate a story told from that point of view—but equally, I knew that there were also readers who were perhaps unfamiliar, but who were open to accessing that world and learning something new.

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Writing prize honors Mason alum who died at the Pentagon on 9/11

Colleen Rich — Thu, 09 Sep 2021 12:15:46 +0000

Writing prize honors Mason alum who died at the Pentagon on 9/11 Colleen Rich Thu, 09/09/2021 - 08:15

A white rose marks Shelley A. Marshall's name on the 9/11 Memorial in New York City. Photo courtesy of @InMemoriamSept11

��AV alumna Shelley A. Marshall, BA Public Administration ’87, was in her office at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. A budget analyst in the comptroller's office of the Defense Intelligence Agency, she was scheduled to move to a new office on the other side of the building later that week.

According to news reports, she called her husband, Donn Marshall, around 9 a.m. to talk about the World Trade Center being hit by a plane. That was the last time he heard from her.

After hearing that the Pentagon had been attacked, Donn rushed to Pentagon's day-care center get their 3-year-old son, Drake, and 20-month-old daughter, Chandler. When he reached the day care and realized his wife was not already there with the children, Donn said he knew she was among the victims.

"If she was OK, she would have been there," he said.

Mason alum Tara Laskowski with the Shelley's Teaware she was awarded as the first recipient of the Shelley A. Marshall Fiction Prize. Photo provided

The following year Donn created the Shelley A. Marshall Foundation to support activities that were of interest to Shelley—reading to her children, creative writing, and tea. In addition to supporting story hours for children at local libraries and intergenerational tea parties at nursing homes, Donn set up a number of writing prizes in Shelley’s name at several of her alma maters, including one at Mason.

Bill Miller, who directed Mason’s MFA in Creative Writing Program from 1992 until his retirement in 2018, started talking to Donn in 2002. In sharing his memories of his wife, Donn told Miller about parties Shelley would throw where each guest was expected to share a story they had written and wear something—a hat, a scarf—that hinted at a moment in the story.

Miller suggested the award as a way to pay tribute to Shelley’s love of storytelling.

“Stories are important ways of communicating and enjoying and celebrating our fellow humanness,” said Miller. “I liked the idea of celebrating someone who loved stories.”

The Shelley A. Marshall Fiction Prize is awarded each year for a single short story. The competition is open to any currently enrolled Mason student and is awarded in the spring.

Many of the students winning the prize have gone on to successful writing careers. Mason alumna Tara Laskowski, the first receipt of the award in 2004, said she remembers that Donn came to the awards ceremony that year and said a few words.

Donn also gave Laskowski one of the Shelley’s Teaware cups created by Oakleigh Ceramics Ltd. in England and based on a drawing by son Drake. The teacups were sold over the years to raise funds to support the foundation.

“It was an honor to be chosen,” said Laskowski, the author of the suspense novels “One Night Gone” and “The Mother Next Door” who graduated with an MFA in 2005. “It meant so much that [Donn] was there. The story behind the award made it all the more meaningful.”

The award is now supported through a variety of sources.

“I kept [the award] going, pulling money from other sources because I think maintaining that tie to an alum who was lost on that day was important,” said Miller, who is also a Mason alum and graduated with an MFA in creative writing in 1987. “I believe in the power of stories. I would love to have gone to one of those parties. Unfortunately, I didn't know her at that time.”

If you would like to support Mason students and honor Shelley Marshall, please visit the CHSS online giving form and indicate “Shelley A. Marshall Fiction Prize” in the comments field.