Tag Archives: William Dietrich

For the past three years, I’ve been studying for an MFA with the Northwest Institute for Literary Arts. An important component of this low-residency program is the “profession of writing.” Students gather for ten days two times a year, for classes and readings, especially for an extended series of workshops taught by published authors, agents, editors, publishers, publicists, etc. It’s how we’ve learned the complex facets of the writing biz, which even in the past three years has toppled on its ear. (When I started the program in 2008, self-publishing was considered suspect. Now, the term is “indie publishing,” and even big name writers are taking it seriously.) The culmination of the program is writing a 60,000+ word manuscript, which has been read and approved by published authors.

Milestone: Last Saturday, I graduated with an MFA in Creative Writing! A shout out to the published authors who vetted my manuscript: Kathleen Alcalá, Wayne Ude and William Dietrich. William Dietrich attended residency as one of our guest presenters this year. What a great writer, and what a great guy. I just finished reading his most recent novel, Blood of the Reich, a historical thriller with a modern-day twist, “inspired by a 1938 Nazi expedition to Tibet.” It’s a fun and inventive read that takes place over spectacular terrain, is packed with information, and features atom-splitters, Lugers, and Gandalf-style weaponry. Very cool.

So I’ve graduated, and people are asking me: What now? Are you taking a break? Is it time to rest on your laurels? Ever the language geek, I went and looked up “rest on one’s laurels.” According to The Phrase Finder, the phrase did not originally imply idling away one’s success. Sure, this past week I might have taken a brief rest-and-recupe nap on aromatically-scented laurel leaves. But the alarm clock has rung. I love this quote in The Phrase Finder’s write-up: “For Miss Edgeworth there must be no rest on this side the grave.” (1825) Like Miss Edgeworth, it’s time for Ms. Gebben to get off her laurel-leaf duff and hike the next mile.