Sent it

Well, my first agent query for The Strega's Story went out last night. I am actually glad I am doing this after I graduated from my MFA program--it was hard not to get caught up in the competitive aspects of that program, which has, in the natural course of things, changed a lot since I first began there. When I first started my MFA program, I was in the very first class (it's a relatively new program), and the energy in that program, among faculty and students, was amazing and really opened up my creativity in many ways. I think one of the reasons it changed so profoundly is that the handful of male faculty (not my fiction prof, nor my TA supervisor, by the way, but certainly others) are utterly sexist and the male members of the program got teaching priviledges no one else got, much more praise and encouragement, were awarded the majority of the academic prizes, and were referred to as the "leaders" of the MFA program. At one point, some of the women got together and tried to get the MFA committee to put more women writers on some of the required reading lists, and we were shot down. One woman all but dropped out because of repercussions and outright verbal confrontations with one particularly threatened faculty member. It made me frankly sick, and for awhile during this past difficult year , I thought about never crediting the college I went to (in litmag bios and so forth) as the place where I got my MFA.

But, as a very wise person once said, "Resentment is the poison I take, hoping it will kill you." I learned a lot there, really got help from a wonderful group of faculty (not the jerks), had a small teaching job, and got a couple of prizes myself. My thesis director is brilliant in every way and truly in my corner (she's fiery and very strong and reminds me that it's okay to stand up for myself and get angry). So what if my MFA program became a microcosm of the literary world, despite the hopes of the people who started it? I've been in that world for more than twenty years, and I do believe that world continues to favor a certain group of folks. Sorry, one hopes it will be more equitable, but I think it's taken a step backwards in the last ten years. I know who I am, and some part of me does understand that I can write as decently as anyone out there. That knowledge keeps me pushing forward. And I don't care if I come off as a rabid feminist from hell. They aren't probably going to hire me back there (they've been whining about the budget, even though one of the former TAs gets three to four classes to teach every semester--but he was one of the "leaders," don't you know), and they generally fail to listen to most of the students (or the faculty who have moved on to better places) about ways to improve the creative environment of the program. I do hope things will change--the students themselves were absolutely wonderful, and also the few faculty that really have an idea of how to foster creativity. I AM grateful for the MFA program in general and this degree--I just couldn't close my eyes to the problems and the fact that the administration there seemed to be afraid of taking necessary risks to try and keep the program from stagnating in its own juices.

Still, all ranting aside, I did drive out to the Felton post office last night with my agent query; I was proud of how professional the query seemed. I put flower stamps on the envelope and took a moment to reflect on the journey in my life so far to this place, and to silently thank all the wonderful teachers, friends, and family who have helped me to this place. Since I'm a groovy Santa Cruz mountain woman at heart, I do these things. In The Strega's Story, I describe a field outside my childhood home--we had a large property with at least an acre of land behind it, a field that looked huge to me, spotted with timothy grass and scattered with walnut trees, as it had previously been a walnut grove. In summer, the air filled with the sound of crickets--a sound both delicate and pervasive, like a sort of aural perfume. There's also a field by the Felton post office--like the field behind my childhood home, it's a transitory place, slated to become the site of the new Felton library eventually. But last night, I recognized the fragrance that all fields, left wild and to themselves, hold at a certain time of night--a sweet smell of dry grasses that have been slightly dampened by the night air--and the crickets were singing. There is a sense that whatever I lost--my grandmother and great-grandmother, access to my mother because of her destructive life--can still be found, that writing redeems these things and pulls them out of the well of memory. I do believe something will come of my book--I can't be doing this process of getting things to an agent and into the publishing arena and not believe that--and that, if I stay strong in just doing things one day at a time, the right path will open for me. But one of the best things for me is that I don't feel divorced from these memories now--I feel as if I possess the past again, and there is a sense of goodness and wholeness about that.