My MFA First and Second Term Reading Lists
What I'm reading and studying at the Bennington Writing Seminars
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A large part of my graduate writing studies is based around studying story through reading, but instead of being stuck to a specific regiment of stuffy classics written by supposed masters, I build my reading list with my teacher.
I’m working on a bigger post about what my terms are like and what I’m working on and thinking about in regards to story and writing over on my blog, but I wanted to share what my reading list for my second term is. And since I didn’t share my first term reading list, I’ll also share that at the bottom.
My Second Term Reading List
Along with these books, I’m reading short fiction from magazines, critical essays, book reviews, craft essays, and poems.
Her Body and Other Parties
Helter Skelter
Emergent Strategy
The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African American Literary Criticism
Varieties of Religious Experience
No God's, No Monsters
The Exploration of the Inner World: A Study of Mental Disorder and Religious Experience
We Keep Us Safe
Parable of the Sower
Parable of the Talents
Stories of Ray Bradbury
I Sing the Body Electric
Killer, Come Back to Me
Future Home of the Living God
Never Let Me Go
The Memory Police
Frankenstein in Baghdad
Storytelling in Design
Bradbury Speaks
Bradbury Chronicles
Yestermorrow: Obvious Answers to Impossible Futures
The Reformatory
Palestine +100
Night Sky with Exit Wounds
Triggering Town
My First Term Reading List
Deaf Republic
Great Stories Don’t Write Themselves
Best Horror of the Year
Colorizing Restorative Justice
Kindred
Beloved
Stamped from the Beginning
Annihilation
Authority
Acceptance
Tender is the Flesh
Magical Negro
Paradise
Song of Solomon
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
Meander, Spiral, Explode
Playing in the Dark
Recitatif
Dracula
The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley
The Lottery and Other Stories
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Long Haul
Freedom is a Constant Struggle
All Fours
How I Build My Reading Lists for Each Term
I build my reading lists based on my writing projects during the term, my overall focus and intentions for the program, and my critical paper due at the end of each term. 25 books is the minimum we have to read each term, but I usually end up reading more than the 25 books I am committed to.
For my first term, my writing projects were a novella that I’ve talked about a little before that deals with teenage and childhood depression and suicide clusters in rural areas. I’ve been billing it as Stephen King and Joanna Newsom rewrite The Faculty. I also worked on a short story about myths and murdered and missing women.
Both stories I worked on for my first term dealt a bit with reframing how certain aspects of story are fundamentally routed in western and capitalistic frameworks where there is a good and bad that must be vanquished through slaughter. I wanted to change that in my stories and read books that helped me think of new ways of telling stories, seeing the world, and weaving that into my work.
My writing projects for the second term are continuing the short story about myths and missing women and working on a sci-fi joy ride story about killing CEOs and corp executives. I’m also working on the first draft of a novel that I plan on using as my graduating thesis. The novel has to deal with addiction, faith, and murder.
If you’ve ever read any of my work, you might notice some common themes and the exploration of trauma that many of my pieces dive into. That’s why I wanted to use my graduate study time to look at how stories about trauma or that feature it can be vehicles of healing and change. I try and keep my overall focus and intention for my grad studies at the top of my mind when reading through books, essays, articles, or stories. And I also try and keep it steady while allowing new information to shape it.
Each term a critical paper is due at the end on a craft technique, author, or another aspect of craft. First term I did my critical paper on dissecting the magical negro troupe using the racial cycle to show how in Kindred and Beloved the magical Black characters are able to reach freedom and self agency through their traumatic past by facing, wrestling, and accepting it.
The world is incredibly bleak, but at least we got our stories. Another thing I’m working on totally unrelated to grad school (even though in a way everything writing right now feels grad school related) is changing around some things with the local writing group I started and organize. Our changes are all aimed at essentially being the DEI we want and need in the world.
Community and story are all really important to me and helping me endure, resist, and live right now. Hoping you’re able to find some bits of inspiration and comfort in life right now.