Endless Knots

Foucault via John Hancock

Posting picture big to convey how it feels to stand by it

This jacket belonged John Hancock (as in, see sig), the first governor of Massachusetts. His home, the Old State House, is in the heart of old Boston, about a stone's throw from Fanueil Hall.

We had dinner there as a prelude to a conference** a few weeks ago. Before dinner, there were drinks and hors d's in the room where this jacket is englassed. It was noisy so people took refuge in the corners to talk. Soon we were in converation with an insurance industry lobbyist who, it turned out, had been up until 3 am with his twin boys, and whose family has had a lot of cancer. We exchanged many stories rapidly and when it was time to go into dinner, Justin commented on our talk: "Discourse produces meaning," not his words, he clarified, but those of French philosopher Foucault.

He amplified in a further note: "I think I apply it a little differently than Foucault, but my interpretation is that honest, empathetic discussion benefits us all.  Not only in increasing what we know about the world, but also in terms of developing understanding for what someone else is going through.  Something tells me that the world needs more, not less of this."

**Post on distinctions in virtual teams came from the interviews I did to prep for this conference.

Inspire your inner writer -- audit at Solstice!

I've posted about the value of the Solstice programs many times before and recommend this generous offer without reservation. Read this notice from them and take advantage!

Pine Manor College in Chestnut Hill, Mass, is making a select number of its graduate-level creative writing courses open to the public for auditing during the January Residency of its Solstice MFA Program, scheduled from January 1–10, 2010.

One local writer, a post-graduate student, said: “…I think Solstice MFA classes can fill an unmet need for Boston’s writing community —to provide bursts of momentum to working writers who may not want the intensity of instruction found in either an MFA Program or a long-term advanced level workshop, but can benefit immensely from individual master classes.”

Classes are open to serious writers working at all levels; auditors are encouraged to complete the advance preparation requirements for any MFA class they wish to attend.

January 2010 MFA classes that are open to the public include:

Cross-genre courses:
An Eye for an I: Lyrical Elements in Poetry — A Gift for the Prose Writer
Narrative Arrival: A Craft Class for All Genres

A course on film adaptations of the novel:
Is the Book Always Better?•

Two classes on creative nonfiction:
Every Word Counts: Crafting Nonfiction That Sings
Maxine Hong Kingston: A Trans-Genre Memoirist•

Two fiction courses:
Place in Fiction: Larry McMurtry and Thalia, Texas
Action that Shakes the Page

An in-depth look at poetic structure:
Structure & Artistic Memory

A class on how writers can engage with their communities:
Higher Ground: How to Enrich Your Community and Make a Difference Through Your Art

January 2010 Classes are now available for registration; the deadline for enrolling as an auditor for the Winter 2009 Residency is December 28, 2009. For course descriptions, our audit policy, and a downloadable registration form, go to: www.pmc.edu/mfa

"Storytelling adds human touch to virtual work"

I don't typically use the same titles as other people's posts except when they are so good that the post itself is addendum. Such is the case with David Adewumi's reposting of Kathy Hansen's original one about the value of stories to virtual team success, which David posted to Heekya yesterday. When people are not together, they have to work hard with all available tools to stay connected and committed. Storytelling does that--and Kathy Hansen has been collecting up some very good stories of storytellers on her blog, A Storied Career.

When the (good) leader of a (good) conference call begins by throwing out a question -- for example, "What did you have for dinner last night?" -- that wise person is evoking stories from the group. We can picture the bowl of pasta, the leftover soup, the drive-through where the fries spilled onto someone's lap, the baby hurling the sippy cup. Stories. They keep us whole and human and, yes, connected.

Here's a pull from Heekya's repost, mentioning our book Virtual Teams and referring to the interview I did last summer with A Storied Career:

I got interested in virtual teams and virtual work a few years ago when I learned that some of my former students felt that, while their business-school education had prepared them well to collaborate in face-to-face teams, it fell short in readying them to participate on geographically dispersed teams in which very little interaction was face-to-face. As a result of this finding, I developed a well-received virtual-teams project in my business-communication classes. It was at about this same time that my interest in storytelling was burgeoning; thus, I'm quite interested in convergences between virtual work and storytelling.

That's one reason I was so delighted when I discovered that Jessica Lipnack, co-author of probably the definitive book on virtual teams, was also a member of Worldwide Story Work. In her Q&A with A Storied Career, she discussed the value of storytelling in virtual teams.

Thanks so very much, David, and, of course, Kathy, and, everyone, take a look at A Storied Career and Heekya, "a social storytelling platform that will change the way you create, share, and discover stories."

Rx for writing

The real reason I went to the Poets & Writers site: Andrea Crawford's "For Writers, the Doctor's Definitely In." Excellent piece on "The literary lineage of those who pursue medicine and also write..." Crawford makes the point that doctors write ALL the time:

Physicians actually write all the time too; as Bazell ["who left a PhD program in literature to study psychiatry and whose first book, a crime novel, is forthcoming from Little, Brown this month"] noted, on a page-by-page basis, he produces more on a day he practices medicine than on a day he writes fiction. The case history, or progress note, is the basic unit of medical practice; it's something doctors work on constantly, and students learn from the first year to see a patient, hear her story, distill it into a chief complaint or main narrative, and write it down. It's not unlike the process of writing fiction, Lam ["an emergency physician whose story collection, Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures (Weinstein, 2007), was the first debut work to win Canada's Giller Prize"] says: "The art of figuring out the medical narrative is, on one hand, to be very intuitive, instinctual, open, and expansive, and, on the other hand, to be very reductionist."

"Tell me," doctors say. What great material comes their way and what a terrific way to practice the art of story-telling. All of which gives the opening to point you toward my essay, Feeling Numb, that appeared in Ars Medica.

I'm a "story guru" on "A Storied Career"

Kathy Hansen is running an interesting series of interviews on storytelling on A Storied Career. I was honored to be asked and the first part of my interview appears today. My whole interview is here.

Storytelling has become all the rage among organizations and those who assist them. If memory serves, Patti Anklam alerted me to Worldwide Story Network, where people using stories in their work convene to talk about what they're doing. Through that site, Kathy connected with me.

It was great fun answering the questions and relating my experiences as a writer with the use of stories in organizations. What's your story?