Anecdotes from My Residency VII: Introducing. . . .
from the January 2011 Residency
I love many of the little touches included in my MFA experience. Every residency, we have both student and faculty readings, and for the faculty readings – including both full-time teachers and guest speakers – students are asked to introduce the readers.
Now, the first time I did this, I found it a little stressful. By my third residency, though, and I was more relaxed about the whole process, so when I was approached to introduce Children and Young Adult professor Bonny Becker this past January, I was more than happy to accept. I had just taken a Directed Readings: Fantasy class from her the previous semester, so we had spoken quite a bit already. I knew introducing Bonny would be easy.
I agreed at lunchtime on the first day of classes. At dinner time that very day I found myself in an awkward position: another faculty member approached me for an introduction at the reading.
I immediately felt terrible. I would have to refuse a professor I like, whose work I admire, because I had a prior commitment. I wanted to accept, but it would have been selfish. As we students publish more and more of our work, we will be called on to introduce others, and be introduced ourselves, at public readings. Getting us past the initial terror that comes with such a task is important. I could not introduce two readers at one residency, effectively stealing that experience from another student. I know the professor in question understood this, and that my need to say no was not a personal rejection.
I still felt like I was turning down a prom date.
I think the real problem, though, was not that I had to say no. Of course I had to. But I should not have had to say it to the professor directly. My understanding has been that finding introducers for the readers is the job of the reading coordinator (a role that floats from residency to residency, landing on whoever doesn’t dodge fast enough). When I had accepted an invitation to introduce Bonny, I had spoken with the reading coordinator. I don’t know why the other professor had to approach me directly.
When the time came, I enjoyed introducing Bonny. In fact, the fun started before I even reached the podium. Another member of the Children and Young Adult faculty, Carmen Bernier-Grand, heckled me on my way to the front, saying that everyone should talk while I was talking. (For those who don’t know Carmen, I should make it clear here that this was good-natured teasing.)
“Two things,” I said with a smile, letting my voice carry. “One, even if you do you will hear me, and two, if you do you won’t be being rude to me. You’ll be being rude to Bonny.” Perfect segue to start talking about Bonny, her accomplishments, and the many ways she keeps surprising us (for example, we all knew she had a degree in English, but how many of us knew she had a degree in Psychology?).
If you ever have to introduce a reader, do yourself a big favor and talk to him or her for a few minutes, even if you’re already acquainted. Details from someone’s bio or website are lovely, but nothing can top the gems you might hear in even a short conversation. In this case, Bonny gave me a killer line I used to end the introduction: “And since Bonny enjoyed digging up salacious facts about the authors we studied in her Fantasy class, I thought I would continue the tradition here. Everywhere Bonny goes, women think her character Bear is based on their husbands. But that’s ridiculous. Bear is Bonny’s husband!”
The introduction went over well. Oh, and the other professor received a good introduction too, so all were happy in the end.
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Submissions Update: Since my last real update, I have submitted pieces to Niteblade and The L. A. Review.
