M.M Porter’s flash fiction piece titled “The Excavator and The Weaver” was selected for publication as the winner of the Winter Wheat 2024 Flash Fiction competition. During the competition, participants are given a short period of time to write a flash fiction piece from scratch. After each contestant completes their piece, the winner is selected through several rounds of crowd voting.
Author Biography: M. M. Porter is attending Ohio University to pursue her PhD in English with an emphasis in Poetry. She is a graduate of the MFA poetry program at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. She has been published in Epiphany, The Shore, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Originally from Michigan, you can find her work at mm-porter.com.
The son of the blacksmith had always been in prison. There was no before or after, for him; there wasn’t even a now. Not a now like you and I know. He just was in prison. The moon hadn’t learned to spin and the sun hadn’t performed a pirouette. This was because time had not yet been made.
The daughter of the cobbler was also in prison, the way one is imprisoned when nothing changes. The pair had no need of anything, and didn’t really mind their prisons. Occasionally, the two would talk. It was only before, after, and between this talking that the pair decided that they didn’t care much for prison anymore. The cobbler’s daughter wanted to find a way out of their cells. The son of the blacksmith wanted to find a way to merge their cells.
He thought they would be content, if only they shared. Often, he would take his nail and scratch at the wall between them. The prison walls were skeptical of this, because the blacksmith’s son was trying to change things. However, the rocks allowed such things, if only to breed a new contentment and stillness. And though, for us, nails against rock would take a lifetime to break, the son of the blacksmith had no such concerns. And thus, the cells became one, and they talked face-to-face, and space was born. Black and brilliant. Infinite.
But the daughter of the cobbler was not contented. She insisted there would be a way out. All this space had made her cold. Besides, If they could combine their walls, they could do other things. But nothing happened, and how could they escape if no dog with a key in its mouth came down the hallway? Or no guard fell asleep? Or no food was brought by a pitying kitchen servant?
So the daughter of the cobbler took the only thing that seemed to change, and started to braid. She pulled black hair from her head, and blond from the son of the blacksmith’s head. With each hair she threaded together, she felt hope overtake her. She shaped their hairs patiently until they formed a stiff key. She placed it inside the lock through the bars, and turned the key. The son of the blacksmith was scared, but the bars were already opening. And as they stepped out, time began to unfold.
I’ve been tasked with capturing the spirit and experience of Winter Wheat 2024. I’ll offer first a series of images and momentarily shift responsibility to you, earnest reader: imagine the Education Building, in all its eastern bloc nobility; a gaggle of impassioned writers, buzzing in disquiet; dark, fall evenings with winds a shade warmer than we deserve; and a smooth Saturday morning where hope sprinkles in tease of snow. There was coffee. There were snacks. Writing was done. Some learning, too.
But it’s all best stated by our presenters, guests, and organizers.
Nathan Fako, poetry MFA student and co-presenter of the Elegies for Disappearing Nature workshop, finds that Winter Wheat “was fine, wonderful. It was warm. Gatherings of writers… I feel like we’re all kind of awkward people. We wanna keep to ourselves. We like to be alone to think. There’s an apprehension, generally, when we get together, but the warm atmosphere assuaged that feeling. It was fun.” He felt that the “workshops were accessible. There was clear work put in to make the content accessible to someone with no experience with writing, but also to make it interesting to those who are experienced.” His concluding thoughts, which should be remembered: “I’ve never been to a literary festival before, and I really enjoyed it. I thought it was great. It was nice to see so many people passionate about the same thing. I find that heartwarming. Or terrifying. I don’t know which.”
Liz Barnett, fiction MFA student who presented on adaptation, found that Winter Wheat “went really well.” They stated, “In the end, I had a lot of people tell me it was fun. [The workshops] I went to were accommodating; they provided materials, it never felt like I wasn’t prepared, and it didn’t feel like I was being excluded from any activities.” Liz said finally that they’re “looking forward to running a workshop again next year” that will explore revenge stories.
Michelle, an attendee, offered similar sentiments on the warmness: “I had concerns that Winter Wheat would be workshops where the presenters sort of droned on about things they didn’t seem to really care about, but I was happy to find that the presenters had interesting topics that I didn’t know much about. They seemed excited to be there but also relaxed. It felt like nobody was going to make fun of me for my lack of poetry knowledge.” She thought “people were going to be stuffy and have very specific and intense rules for writing,” but stated, “Thankfully, I was wrong. I feel like everyone there was open-minded and interested in exploring many different styles of writing.”
Abigail Cloud, Editor-in-Chief of Mid-American Review, thought “it went really well. People really needed it this year in a big way. There was a lot of worry going on, particularly among our population. People needed to be together and create together. [Attendees] wanted that opportunity to work in inspiring circumstances that are safe, where they can create and not be worried about anything else besides new work and new ideas.” Cloud spoke at length about the generative importance of Winter Wheat, how it “puts focus back on creation, the generation of new ideas and work,” an attitude shared by Haley Souders, Winter Wheat Coordinator. Souders stated, “I always come out of [Winter Wheat] wanting to write more. This year I left wanting to take a look at my thesis project. I feel like I’ve been in a little bit of a gray area with it, where I’m not feeling as much joy writing it, but after spending a few days talking to people who are interested in writing, I feel inspired.”
Cloud also highlights regionality, the “quintessential midwestern aspects of comfort and value of togetherness.” For Cloud, Winter Wheat fosters a sort of camaraderie: “The region, as much as it is here, it is a place, it is more about the attitude and knowledge that we are coming to a place that represents some level of comfort to people.” Souders also touched on the importance of place, stating, “I feel like the words “literary community” have gotten thrown around a lot when talking about Winter Wheat, but having events that are free to attend is important because people from all over can come together to talk about art and writing. Who knows in five years if we will be able to do these things? Humanities are being defunded across the board. It’s important to have [Winter Wheat] and maintain it.”
Finally, Cloud defines Winter Wheat: “The word I’m going to pick is fervent. There’s a real desire to put new work together and take advantage of seeing friends. That’s how I felt. I had some friends there that I haven’t seen in a really long time. I wanted to fervently soak time up with them while they were there with me. I think that’s the best energy that we can hope for and create, just having an immediate connection and desire to what we were doing.”
And here’s what I’ve been thinking about lately, pre and post Winter Wheat: among a few other pesky things, John the Savage tells us to find poetry, God, freedom, sin, and goodness. His distant cousin Alexander Supertramp tells us to honor Ahab, but advises we not forget the dominant primordial beast. Locate ambition, but do not forget hubris. Writers are strange; sometimes we are arrogant, sometimes self-dismissive. Maybe we have ethereal jobs, biblical duties, and great importance – maybe not. It does not matter. Find a warm atmosphere with gentle souls like Winter Wheat, sit awhile, and play toward peace.
The MFA once seemed like a secret society existing only for the surest, truest, most brilliant writers, and more importantly, a slingshot to success. I wondered if the MFA was a kind of pseudo-nepo-baby? Would Harper Collins or Penguin Random House see the degree and take my manuscript, no questions asked?
I was a junior at Duquesne University when I first heard of an MFA program in creative writing from my fiction professor. The two faculty members in my small program who had MFAs held an informational meeting for all of us who hoped to break into this secret society. Only three of us attended the meeting, eager to know: Was this our ticket to becoming a writer, truly and honestly? Was this the way to see our name in print, making a career out of the scribbling we did in the solitude of our rooms?
Instead, we learned it was, at best, a boutique degree. At least, that’s what they said. I still don’t know what that means except that I figure it’s what a boutique is: unique, specialized, and overpriced. These were not meant to be words of discouragement from our faculty but rather words of caution. Don’t overemphasize its significance. Don’t go into debt. My all-knowing twenty-one-year-old self took it with a grain of salt. I needed that piece of paper.
I spent my senior year of college compiling a spreadsheet of top-rated MFA programs, evaluating their location (East Coast, New England preferred), their stipend (one has to eat), teaching requirements, and professional opportunities (literary magazines, publishing, and editing skills). I was methodical and determined. I prepared my portfolio with the gracious help of my fiction professor with line-by-line editing and revised personal statement after personal statement. I was doing everything by the book, but the thing I wanted so badly, to write, was exactly what I’d stopped doing in the process. By March, I’d been waitlisted by one program and rejected from the rest. The rejections shook me. I saw graduate school as my inevitable future. How could I be done with my academic career? I needed the MFA to waive in front of all my doubters so that I could say, “Look here! I’m worth something.” Instead, I scrambled for the backup plan I hadn’t made as I walked across the stage to collect my diploma.
After the rejections, I retreated to my parents’ house in rural Lancaster County–the prodigal daughter’s return. I went back to my summer job as a prep cook and caterer in my small town at a cafe known for being an overpriced tourist stop, passing off Costco ingredients as locally sourced. I sliced deli meat and mopped floors and wondered if this is what it was all for after years of filled journals, carefully annotated short story anthologies, and Barnes & Noble gift cards. I felt myself to be a failure, the starving artist doomed to a food-service job, resentful of her unrealized potential. Still, I was determined to apply again; I needed to prove something. I spent the days after work, still smelling of grease and potatoes, shoveling spoonfuls of short stories down and carving out the pieces I wanted to steal like a butcher. I collaged my rejection letters together using some Modge-Podge to paste in a poster frame – my grand motivator. I got a story published, and some of my coworkers at the cafe read it. I came in one morning to the baker telling me she’d cried; it had stirred something in her, made her feel seen. I realized I was a writer to her.
It was the fall of 2023, a few months after my rejection. I stared at my poster frame collage, and I took it down. Until that point, I had been waiting for someone to permit me to write. I had been waiting for a graduate degree. I realized that having an MFA wasn’t going to make me a writer. It wasn’t a knighthood I needed to be inducted into. There was no monarch of writing and literature, no degree, that could grant me the title.
A year prior, when I was finishing my undergraduate program and our university’s last literary magazine was released, the other senior creative writers and I gathered for our pizza party in College Hall, a windowless classroom on the English department’s floor, and we signed each other’s poems and stories with bright-eyed optimism that our names would be widely in print someday. We treated the inside covers like yearbooks, and inside mine I have six notes that all say, don’t stop writing.
If there’s one thing I learned from my two rounds of applying to MFAs, it’s that intent matters. I reapplied, but this time I wasn’t chasing a degree, a title of prestige, or a sense of validation. The biggest part of creative writing that I missed was being around other writers, and that was my new intent. To learn from others, to be inspired, to sit at a roundtable workshop and voice ideas about how to make a piece work better and in turn, learn how to make my work better.
Now I’m here, at Bowling Green’s MFA program as a fiction writer. The first few weeks that feeling returned–the dreaded imposter syndrome. However, our first Q&A session for our Prout Reading series took place just last week with an alum, Jacqueline Vogtman. We all wanted to know, how do you make it happen after? When you’ve finished the degree and have dedicated two years of your life to writing, how do you return to the real world? We talked about writing habits, about making time for writing in the early hours of the morning, and about doing it every day. But we also talked about the connections formed in an MFA. Their cohort still talks and reads each other’s work. They’ve invited her to read her new book at the schools they teach at. So, the MFA is more than a degree; it’s an investment in a supportive community that knows what it’s like to sit behind the closed door and stare at the blank page. A community that knows what it’s like to Modge-Podge rejection letters onto a poster board.
Sitting in workshops in East Hall 406 with our printed copies of each other’s stories and our marginal notes, each of us tossing out what-ifs and questions, I feel like I am doing a lot more than earning a degree to frame on my wall. So, do you need the MFA? While I don’t think it will get you a published manuscript by default or get your relatives off your back about your employment status, I think it’s worth a lot more than that.
Jacqueline (she/her) was interviewed for an hour in the early afternoon on September 26th, 2024. This interview occurred in East Hall at Bowling Green State University, just a few hours before Jacqueline read at Prout Chapel for our reading series. We were thrilled to sit down with Vogtman and talk behind the scenes of life as a writer. The interview is split in two parts; part 1 was posted last week. This is part 2.
Jacqueline Vogtman received the New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship, awarded earlier this year, 2024. Jacqueline graduated from BGSU’s MFA program in 2010. She currently teaches composition at Mercer County Community College in New Jersey. Vogtman’s short story collection, Girl Country, won the 2021 Dzanc Books Short Story Collection Prize and was published by Dzanc Books in May 2023. Vogtman’s book Girl Country is available for purchase with the following link:https://www.dzancbooks.org/all-titles/p/girl-country
Interviewer:
You’re a professor at Mercer County Community College, can you tell us a bit more about that?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
I mostly teach second level English comp, which is a little more fun than the first level. We get to incorporate literary sources in there, and I guide the students during a research project. It’s fun. I really enjoy working with my students.
As there is a steep growth curve for writing, there is also a steep growth curve for teaching. I was pretty young when I started teaching, and there’s this navigation of authority, like “How strict should I be? Are they going to respect me?” Maybe now that I’m older I feel like I don’t struggle with that as much.
I just give my students grace, kindness, compassion, and respect, and somehow it comes back to me. The last few years in the classroom, I’ve just felt so surrounded by love. It feels like I’m giving out love, and they’re giving it back to me. It’s a very nice feeling.
Interviewer:
It’s a big accomplishment to have your students trust and love you.
Jacqueline Vogtman
It can be hard to get to that point. I’ve felt this way for five years. Before I reached that point, I was still navigating asking, “How do I do this?” Then, eventually, I sort of found myself in the classroom, and I felt this confidence had been building inside me from being in the classroom for so long.
Maybe it’s also just being a parent. I don’t know what it is that changed in me, but I see my students as not my kids, but almost like secondary children. I imagine my daughter in the classroom and how I would want her to be treated.
Interviewer:
Has teaching taught you anything about your voice as a writer?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
My first instinct is to say no, probably not. I find inspiration everywhere. I’ve found it in the classroom with my students, their stories, lives, and even their names. I’m always struggling to find names for my characters, so sometimes I’ll look at my old rosters to see if there’s any good names there. Overall, it hasn’t played into my process a huge amount.
Interviewer:
I was wondering if growing confidence as a teacher has seeped into other areas of life?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
Yeah, basic principles like don’t beat yourself up for a shitty first draft or let yourself just write your ideas, and try to let go of that inner critic. These are some of the things that I would tell my students that I also tell myself.
Interviewer:
In your Mud Season Review interview, you were speaking about how the idea of “Girl Country” came to you after you had your daughter. Could you speak a little bit more about how parenthood has impacted your journey as a writer? Do you see your relationship with parenthood and writing as evolving or interconnected?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
On one hand, being a parent robs you of a lot of time that you might have previously had for writing. That’s the negative of it all. On the other hand, I don’t know if I would have been able to write this book if I hadn’t had my daughter. I’ve been so inspired by the journey of being a mother and watching her grow up, and, overall, just the struggle of parenthood, the struggle of breastfeeding.
The story of “Girl Country,” which is the title short story in the collection, came to me in a dream. My mind was always there because of struggles I had trying to breastfeed. A lot of the stories in the book have to do with women’s bodies and maternity.
I think sometimes when you become a parent, or when you have a full time job, those things take a lot of your time. It forces you to make time for your writing. Which might sound counterintuitive, but, sometimes, it’s helpful! Sometimes, it forces you to actually use the time that you have.
Interviewer:
That’s definitely a challenge. For the fellowship, is there anyone that you’re checking in with, or do you have to be on top of your own schedule?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
The fellowship is a lot of working with your own deadlines. You have to give yourself deadlines. I believe a lot of fellowships are like this, but this is the first fellowship I’ve received. It’s really flexible. When you’re chosen as a fellowship recipient, there’s money, there’s resources to help with writing, but, the money doesn’t have to be used for anything specific.
Some people might use fellowship funds to pay off debt if you can make a justification for why it’s going to help you. For example, someone might say, “I’m going to pay off a bit of credit card debt because the debt is really weighing on my mind that’s going to help me write better,” and that’s OK. For me, I paid for a couple of summer camps for my daughter, so I could do a little writing. It’s pretty open and flexible. I don’t really have to check in with anyone, but there’s an end of year report.
Interviewer:
In one of your previous interviews, you talked about coming from a working-class background and how that’s influenced your writing. Have you always been drawn to writing working-class stories?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
When I started writing fiction, I wanted to write characters that were similar to my family growing up. A family that maybe you don’t see as much in fiction. I remember one of my first weeks here in Bowling Green, I was talking with one of my fiction cohorts, who was a year above me, Dustin M. Hoffman.
He said something to me that resonated. He said something like, “I want to write real, working-class stories. People working, really working. I want to write stories that my dad will read. I want to reflect on the real-life experiences of blue-collar people which you don’t see as much.” And when he said that I was like “Yes, that’s what I want to do.” Do it in a different way, but that really matters to me.
Interviewer:
Definitely. The New England Canon of literature is so bound up in wealth. It’s interesting to see prose about characters who are different from that. We also wanted to ask what topics or themes have you been gravitating towards recently?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
The novel I’m working on has something to do with the American Dream. The family is a working-class family. Part of the novel has to do with finding out about a secret relative that someone’s father had a child from a previous marriage. Part of the novel also involves new genetics testing, and I’ve been looking into that. The novel’s set along the Delaware River, so I’ve been researching its history.
Interviewer:
I’m going to read a quote from an interview to get your thoughts, ‘I’m a poet from a working-class background, and I write poems about myself, and the people I grew up with who are working-class. I can’t really do anything else, which is why I don’t see my poems as a form of resistance against social expectations or economic pressures. I see them as approximate depictions of my reality,” is a quote from poet Sydney Mayes, interview is published in Only Poems. Does this quote resonated with you?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
Yeah. That rings true because I’m not… I’m not trying to make a statement. Anyone could say, “I’m going to write about this social experience because I think we should make a political statement about it.” But that’s not necessarily how I go about it. I approach writing by thinking about how I grew up, what I want, the people I want to write about, and the emotions, love, and complicated feelings that I have toward my childhood and background.
Interviewer:
That’s awesome. Do you see the literary world becoming more inclusive of working-class stories? Do you feel like working-class stories are adding to or expanding the canon of what’s considered literary instead of rebelling against the canon?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
In the past five years, maybe ten years, it feels like the literary community is becoming a bit more inclusive of different identities and backgrounds. Hopefully, that’s an expansion of the canon, right?
Interviewer:
We saw in one of your recent interviews that you’re bad with titles. We love the title, “Girl Country.” Do you think that’s still the case?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
That interview happened very early on in the writing of this book. Pretty soon after I had written the short story, “Girl Country”, that was probably the first story I wrote where I feel like the title came to me. And I liked it right off the bat. Thank you for saying you love the title.
When I came up with the title “Girl Country,” I could even see it as the title of the collection rather than just of a short story. I’ve gotten a little better at titles since back in the day. Sometimes, it’s still a struggle.
I figure out titles by brainstorming whole pages of different words and phrases to figure out what works best. But with some of the stories I wrote recently, I thought, “oh, that title wasn’t that hard to come by.” And I’m OK with that. Coming up with titles gets easier.
Interviewer:
What does a good title do in your opinion?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
A good title advances the theme of the story. Sometimes a good title adds something to the story that’s not necessarily even in the story. A good title catches the reader’s attention. But much of writing is still a mystery to me and forever will be.
Interviewer:
Do you think the mystery of writing is part of what draws you to writing?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
Maybe because of the lack of clarity. There’s no correct way to do writing. For instance, there’s no right or wrong. You don’t have to make definitive decisions all the time. I don’t know if mystery is what draws me to writing. Sometimes, writing feels like an impulse that’s existed in me forever, almost like dreaming.
I’m not necessarily drawn to writing because I like mystery. It’s just that mystery is part of writing. I know this is not a popular opinion because we don’t want mystery in the academy. When you’re teaching creative writing, you want to be able to say, “yes, you can teach creative writing.” And you can teach certain aspects of it.
Everyone’s born an artist. For some people it somehow thrives or takes off, maybe a little more in others. For some it ends up fading away for some reason or lingering inside them. Maybe it comes out in weird ways throughout their life.
Interviewer:
Thank you for your thoughtful answer. Your short stories are really stunning and incredibly powerful. In your short story, “Girl Country,” the girl is not named until the end of the story. We thought this was a very powerful technique. One of the many powerful craft techniques employed. Could you talk a little bit about the power of naming in creative writing?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
In that particular story, it is very intentional that she doesn’t get a name until the end because we don’t know her, we don’t get to. She’s a mystery who appears on the side of the road. We don’t know who she is. Then, at the very end, she transforms into a person with an actual name.
Interviewer:
Can you talk a little bit more about the power of naming?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
Naming can do so many things without even telling the reader much about the character, just the name can tell you certain basic things about them. With a name, sometimes, you can tell how old the character is or their culture or background. Certain things emerge from a name that are just basic stuff.
Names give you a level of specificity for a character. I have a story in the collection that there’s a character, a woman is just called, she’s “a woman” and not named throughout. Sometimes, I leave the characters deliberately unnamed to create a surrealist feeling.
The book isn’t realism. It’s a story that is almost dreamlike, not a real-life scenario where so-and-so has a name. Sometimes, I like to leave characters unnamed.
Interviewer:
When I was reading “Girl Country,” it felt very emotional to me when we got to the naming because in the story, I figured it was intentional. It felt incredibly powerful, to use a quote, “this girl who had braved escape and had come back just to save him.”
Jacqueline Vogtman:
Thank you.
Interviewer:
Do you have any tips for someone who has to figure out how to be a writer alone?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
You have to give yourself deadlines. It’s nice to have at least one other person holding you accountable like sharing work together on a deadline. It’s important to set up a writing routine. It’s great to have a writing routine where you do something every single day.
One of my old MFA cohort members, Dustin Hoffman, said he was going to force himself to write everyday even if it’s just a single sentence. I think that’s a manageable goal.
I’d also say give yourself some grace and don’t beat yourself up. Sometimes people when they don’t meet their goal will get down on themselves and end up throwing away their work which isn’t good.
Jacqueline (she/her) was interviewed for an hour in the early afternoon on September 26th, 2024. This interview occurred in East Hall at Bowling Green State University, just a few hours before Jacqueline read at Prout Chapel for our reading series. We were thrilled to sit down with Vogtman and talk behind the scenes of life as a writer. This interview is split into two parts; the second part will be posted next week.
Jacqueline Vogtman received the New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship, awarded earlier this year, 2024. Jacqueline graduated from BGSU’s MFA program in 2010. She currently teaches composition at Mercer County Community College in New Jersey. Vogtman’s short story collection, Girl Country, won the 2021 Dzanc Books Short Story Collection Prize and was published by Dzanc Books in May 2023. Vogtman’s book Girl Country is available for purchase with the following link:https://www.dzancbooks.org/all-titles/p/girl-country
Interviewer:
You were recently in the woods as part of your fellowship. Could you tell us a little bit more about that experience?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
I used some of my fellowship funds to book a cabin in the woods for a week as a DIY writing retreat. I went alone, with my dog, to this nice, little cabin. What was really amazing was returning to a solitude that I hadn’t experienced in so long. I normally dedicate so much time to being a mother, caring for family, and my students. The silence and the solitude were really refreshing, and they helped me have headspace to think through my novel and begin working on it.
The first part of my writing process is on paper: brainstorms, scribbles, mapping things out. I did some of that, and then I was able to begin actually writing. I did a decent amount while there. Being out in nature is inspiring to me. I took a lot of walks while there. I find walking to be meditative and a good way to let ideas flow. The combination of solitude, silence, and just being surrounded by nature helped me get started on this novel.
Interviewer:
Has it always been your natural inclination to go to secluded spaces or natural spaces when you’re in the writing process?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
Absolutely! For me, it’s helpful to have a private space to write; I’ve never been one to do my best work in a crowded coffee shop. I find so much inspiration in nature, being surrounded by woods, or being in the countryside, even in a suburban backyard visited by birds and deer. These are things that help my creative process.
Interviewer:
Can you tell us more about the moment you realized that you had a collection of short stories that would eventually be Girl Country?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
I can’t recall an exact moment—but after writing several of the stories, I realized that they were all fitting together thematically and that my short story “Girl Country” was kind of the thematic thread holding them together. From there, I was writing new stories with these themes in mind—that they’d all somehow have something to do with girlhood, womanhood, motherhood, the body, nature, magic, and finding light in the darkness.
Interviewer:
Is nature integral to your writing? How do you not go crazy being alone in the woods for so long?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
I’m definitely inspired by nature. I feel like I am at home in the woods. I have more of a fertile imagination when I’m out there. I know some people thrive in a city but that doesn’t do it for me. It was nice being alone in the woods because I constantly have stuff to do: teaching, mothering. I like stepping away from all that to be alone in silence. Silence makes me the opposite of crazy. Silence gave me clarity for the first time in a long time.
Interviewer:
I can see how that would be a relief. How do you feel about being back at BGSU? We read in one recent interview that your cohort had great rapport.
Jacqueline Vogtman:
Yes! It feels surreal being here. On the one hand, everything looks the same. On the other, things feel different. It’s all such a long time ago but feels like yesterday. I would say some of the best years of my life were at BGSU.
I don’t know if everyone feels this way, but when I came here and met everyone, I felt like I was finally meeting my people. When I was growing up, I felt like a bit of a weirdo. Probably a lot of writers do, so getting to the MFA and meeting people who are on the same wavelength and interested in the same things was eye opening. I finally found myself.
Interviewer:
That’s awesome. Do you keep in touch with your cohort?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
Yeah, I made some great relationships. Now, we’re all sort of scattered around the country. It’s nice because we still have those connections. This past summer, a few of us had a mini workshop via Zoom because we’re all in different parts of the country. It was so nice to reconnect. I felt like I lost my writing community after leaving the MFA.
Interviewer:
We are scared to graduate! Thank you for the wise words. So you live in New Jersey now. How did you go about making a literary community where you are?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
The sad and short answer is I haven’t really. I find a lot of inspiration in non-writing communities and through my kid. She’s a kid, you know? Kids are imaginative. For my own adult writing community, I don’t really have one aside from sporadic mini workshops with my old BG friends. I don’t want to sell myself short though. I advise a creative writing club on campus where I teach. Obviously, the club is more focused on students, but it still gives me a sense of being a part of that world.
I was also the editor of this literary journal called the Kelsey Review that has been running for a really long time. We focus specifically on the county. It’s not a national literary journal; it’s for people in Mercer County, NJ to submit their work. I felt lucky when I got the job as Editor-in-Chief. That’s another writing community I was a part of. It was really nice to see work from the community.
Interviewer:
So you were the Editor-in-Chief of the Kelsey Review, you aren’t anymore? Do you still have a role on the masthead?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
Yeah, I recently handed it over. I’m no longer the editor. Some of my colleagues took over. I was the Editor-in-Chief for nine years. That was nice. But at this point, my main involvement is helping the new editors transition into their roles.
Interviewer:
How did you make that decision to give it up?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
It was difficult. On one hand, it was such a nice part of my job that was a refreshing break from grading research papers. It was also very time-consuming, and there was a lot of red tape, working with the administration on money things. I don’t have a head for money. I don’t want to. I don’t want anything to do with money.
Running the Kelsey Review took a lot of time and headspace. At times, it became stressful. That all played a part in my decision to move on. I also wanted to step away from helping others publish, so I could focus on my own work. After publishing Girl Country, I am working on a novel now. I want to focus on that now.
Interviewer:
When you were in the MFA, was your thesis a short story collection?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
Yes. I worked on short stories. Actually, three of the short stories from thesis ended up in the book. I wrote a whole thesis here. At the time, I was happy with it. When I left Bowling Green, I tried submitting the manuscript to a few places.
I wasn’t very aggressive about it. It wasn’t picked up. As time went on, I was not super happy with it. I basically put the whole project aside for a long time. Years later, I sat down and wrote a few, new stories that are in the book. One day, I realized that I have a collection here. I looked back at my thesis; some of my short stories fit into the new collection. It was a matter of taking those three old stories and somehow fitting them into the collection.
Interviewer:
Did you ever consider taking your thesis in a novel direction?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
Not really. I didn’t feel ready to write a novel. It’s such a different beast than a short story collection. I didn’t feel ready, and I wasn’t that interested at the time.
Interviewer:
What changed to make you feel that you’re ready to write a novel?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
I finished this project of short stories, Girl Country. I figured I’d written all the short stories that I wanted to write. Sure, I still have ideas jotted down for a few new ones. But I’m not as interested in writing them right now. I want to try something new, the novel. I’ve had these thoughts of a novel for so long. Maybe there’s some maturity that’s happened like I can handle it now. Back then, the novel felt like a beast.
Interviewer:
Is the novel not a beast now?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
It still is just not as big of a beast. I think it will always be a beast. With a novel, it’s so big. There is more structure, more to plot out. In general, there’s lots of pieces to put together with the novel. And that was the most challenging part.
Interviewer:
Have you heard the hypothetical: would you rather fight like ten horses, or thirty duck-sized horses, or one horse-sized duck? Would you say that is accurate to short stories versus a novel?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
Oh, I haven’t heard of that. It’s an interesting hypothetical to be sure. Short stories are more of a fight with a bunch of duck-sized horses, while novels are more of a fight with a horse-sized duck. A huge duck is one solid thing. So that feels right.
Short stories feel more manageable. Arranging the collection was putting pieces where I wanted them. Right now, I’m still in the thick of the novel, and there are lots of pieces. I’m trying to figure out how to create and mold the huge duck.
Interviewer
That’s awesome. It’s interesting how a writer’s voice changes over time. I’m at the stage now where I’ll look back at my previous writing and not like what I was writing a few months ago. Does that stage end?
Jacqueline Vogtman:
You mean that feeling where you’ll look back on something you wrote like six months ago and go “Oh that’s such utter shit?”
Interviewer
Haha. Yes.
Jacqueline Vogtman:
It has changed a little for me. There’s always going to be shitty first drafts. It’s always going to be messy in the beginning. I think what I write now, like even the stories that I wrote for this collection, a lot of them came not fully formed. Obviously, there had to be a lot of revision, but I didn’t look back on them six months later and think “Oh god that’s so awful I’m so ashamed I don’t want to show this to anyone.” That does change. As you navigate this steep growth curve, it sort of levels out. Again, the first things you write are going to be messy for the most part, and once in a while, you’ll get a gem that just comes out and it’s like “oh my god I wrote this almost perfect thing and I don’t even have to do much to it”. That’s very very rare, but it might happen.
Interviewer
Thank you for your time.
The final part of this interview will be posted on Wednesday, 11/21/2024.