Bring in the dancing lobsters
Tips on how to be a student of your craft.
Lovers & Friends,
Yoyoyoyo! It’s ya boi, KB, bringing you news you can use. After two failed grad school attempts (lol), it turns out that the third time really is the charm: I’m graduating with my MFA in Creative Writing on May 3rd!
Anyway: you might be like “KB, don’t you have three books? Why are you still in school for writing?"??” & the answer is: I am a perpetual student of art. I want to share some tips on how you can always be leveling up in your creativity (with or without school), but first, updates.
UPDATES ON MY LIFE & STUFF
I started a new newsletter exclusively for good trans news. Subscribe to it here!
I’m gonna be at the Greater Austin Book Festival on April 26th. Comethru!
I’ve got a few banners with my face on them on Santa Monica Boulevard and San Vicente outside of the West Hollywood Library all April. Send me a picture if you take a pic of it!
My memoir Pretty, previously only available as a hardcover book, is coming out in paperback next spring. Woo!
Speaking of my memoir: it won an award with the Saints & Sinners LGBTQ+ Literary Festival. Thanks to the New Orleans queers for this one!
Somehow, I’m just finding out that Autostraddle named Pretty one of the Best Queer Books of 2024. Fun!
I have a poem in an anthology called Ecobloomspaces: Poetry at the Intersection of Social Identity and Nature, Environment, and Place. The anthology features Joshua Nguyen, Kelli Russell Agodon, and many others. Order it here!
My screenplay Church Girl made The Red List on Coverfly :) hoping some *cough cough* manager signs me for this one soon!
I have an essay in an anthology called Edge of the World: An Anthology of Queer Travel Writing. The anthology features Alexander Chee, Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, and many others. Order it here!
I have at least two things that I want to tell you so bad, but I can’t…. watch this space…
That’s enough! Onto the tips!
On Being a Perpetual Student of Your Craft
When I decided in 2022, after already having a chapbook out, a full-length poetry collection almost out, & 1 pending book deal, to go back and get my MFA, I got a lot of comments akin to:
“You don’t need it!”
“Why go back now?”
“School’s gonna get in the way of your [insert everything]!”
& to all of these I said: whatever. As in, I had clear goals in mind, & I knew that, even when you’ve written multiple books, you can’t possibly know everything.
Let me back up even further. I started writing poetry when I was 15, in an afterschool poetry club with my friends (I write about the significance of that experience here). Our instructor didn’t teach us form, structure, hell even literary devices; we were just writing what was on our hearts! It wasn’t until sophomore year of college, after I didn’t write at all for three years and I needed a filler class so I took “Introduction to Creative Writing,” did I get the foundational “this is what a sonnet is” type stuff. In that class, I fell back in love with the power of words, and I craved more insight into the history and craft of poetry. So I applied to an MFA my senior year of high school!
And then, reader, I dropped out of that MFA lol. 22-year-old KB I wasn’t ready for what an MFA asks for. I needed to have a goal past “I wanna write poems,” a way to discern between good and bad feedback, a temperament for the rigor expected of graduate-level study. For lack of a better word, I was playing around, and it didn’t help that the MFA I went to at the time was not diverse (they have since improved)! So I dropped out, but still, I was determined to figure out who I was as a writer (and as a person).
So, for four years, I made my own MFA.
I went to every literary space my city offered. Open mics, reading series, bookstores, libraries, slams, literary festivals, book clubs, community classes, author events — every space. I brought a notebook, wrote down quotes/phrases I liked, and said something to someone every time (“I like your poems” or “do you need another reader for X” or “where can I find you online?” were go-to’s). Naturally, I made friends with poets, booksellers, and literary programmers. Naturally, I started to get booked.
I asked questions at author Q&A’s. I bought books at author events! For any book I couldn’t afford, I checked it out at the library (and requested it if it wasn’t there). I dissected those books for craft (AKA “how do they do that, & how can I do that in my own way?”).
I did my own thing — & despite whatever low-paying job I had, I made time for it — until I couldn’t. Until I found new, clear goals (“teach college-level students and get healthcare while doing it”, "give myself time to just be a writer for a couple years”, “earn the qualification that’s standing in between you and more grant opportunities”) that I couldn’t achieve without an MFA.
So now we’re here. 15 years deep into my writing journey and I’m now allegedly a “master” of creative writing (lol). Still, I’m a student of the craft.
My best advice to you for being a perpetual student is: try some of the things I did. Go to events (even when you’re not on the lineup)! Write notes while at said events! Make friends at those events (& if you’re anxious like me, have a few stock questions prepared)! Buy books when you go to author events! Participating in your arts ecosystem makes it so you’re not rusty, cyclical, stiff in your art. It makes it so you’re learning, even if you’re not in a grad school program.
No matter where you are in your literary journey, you can always learn. Take it from your student-turned-author-turned student friend, KB.
That’s all for this month. I hope this email finds you basking in the beauty of being a student — of words, or friendship, of this silly thing we call life. Till next time.
Love, Peace, & Chicken Grease,
KB
Love this so much, KB! I cried bc this is exactly what I needed to hear today😭 Thank you so much for being you. Can't wait to see what else is to come!
Congrats, KB!!!!