I first read a Pinckney Benedict story before I realized who Pinckney was, and before I realized I would be studying in a program where he is a member of the instructional staff. About a year before I decided to apply to the Queens University MFA program, I purchased a copy of the anthology, New Stories from the South, 2008, edited by ZZ Packer. Somehow, I think of my self as a Southern writer, even though I’ve spent most of my life in Ohio and Indiana. There is something tha

I’ll start with a personal aside: During the January residency, I shared the first chapter of my novel in progress with my small reading group and my adviser for the semester, Jonathan Dee. I received a lot of good feedback, and the manuscript is better for it. One of the comments, though, stuck in my craw (to use a cliched regional colloquialism). I have chosen to tell the story of my novel’s protagonist, Margaret, from the first person point of view. One of my fellow reader