171EL12b Adam G's Blog

I would like to interview my writing professor. She is the Fannie Hurst Visiting Writer on campus.  Her Brandeis University profile states she co-founded the Novel Incubator program at GrubStreet. The GrubStreet website explains this is, “A competitive and affordable MFA-level course, spanning 12 months, for ten fiction writers interested in deep revision of their novel drafts, a comprehensive craft-based study of the novel form, and a thoughtful introduction to the publishing world.” She has written three well received books. Her debut The Quickening  won the Center for Fiction’s Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize.

I’d like to learn more about her background and find out more how she wound up in Massachusetts by way of Iowa. Did she always want to be an author? Is she willing to admit an predilections that put her on that path? What is an author before she is an author? When did she seriously consider becoming a novelist? How did she get her first manuscript into the hands of a publisher?

Authors provide entertainment that is necessary in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. They can provide a perspective that takes one out of his narrow mindset and makes one consider people/situations/problems more thoughtfully, and critically.

I would get photos of her teaching, in her office and perhaps I can sit in on one of their novel-incubator meetings. I can get sound bytes of keyboards clicking and pages turning.

Hopefully she’s cool with it.

My name is Adam Gurfinkel. My interests as a journalist are fairly widespread for the time being. I have some ideas however for feature pieces within the local and Boston community.

One of my housemates participates in an after school program for Waltham community children. He teaches them to rap. I think that can be nice thing to report on. What do children rap about? How similar can it be similar to radio, top 40 rap songs? I consider the explicit content of some rap, for example, and wonder how exactly do the adults in the room guide such activity?

Another idea is the Grubstreet novel incubator program in Boston. I think it’s worth shedding light on how writing can be more done in more of a community setting. This can do away with the notion that writers are solitary figures when in fact there is a lot of excitement in working in a group setting than there initially seems to be. I think it can bring solace to kids on campus who think that their efforts must be quiet and concentrated.

An on campus interest of mine is what films students are making as well as the day in the life of some particularly noteworthy/busy people. Usually there is little fanfare for student films and I think reporting on them can bring a little more excitement to these students who are pursuing something outside of titles like doctor or esquire.

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