Yesterday there was a big meeting with all the first year MFA writers.  A man named Gale emailed everyone beforehand and said, “My name is Peter, but you can call me Gale.”  I was nervous to meet everyone in the program.  There were a lot of rumors floating around.  Someone told me one of the other fiction writers spent the summer sitting in a dirt parking lot gently pressing his face on the keys of a typewriter.  My understanding going into the meeting was we were all supposed to have prepared a novel manuscript for the group.  I think my dad said, “Gale probably wants everyone to bring in copies of their novel manuscripts and hand them out.”  The one writer who spent the summer in the dirt parking lot was supposedly excused from bringing in any of his novels.  I’ve heard rumors he wrote four or five, but threw them all in a lake at the end of summer.  Brown is in the process of dredging this lake.  The school has very high hopes for this writer.  They gave him an extra fellowship because he walked to Providence from the dirt parking lot after he kicked four novel manuscripts into the lake.  Going into the meeting I was a little worried I would lose my funding because I don’t have a novel yet.  One of the poets said, “I’ve probably written four-thousand poem collections.”  Another poet said, “I was a nuclear physicist.  I’ve never written a poem.”  I brought in copies of a menu from the Vietnamese sandwich shop down the street from my apartment.  I thought maybe people would laugh when I handed this out as my novel.  This whole MFA thing has been pretty embarrassing.  The other people in the program are always asking me how many novels I have.  They say, “I wrote two new novels last night.”  The meeting turned out to be okay.  No one brought in copies of their manuscripts.  Everyone just sat in a circle and looked at each other until Gale said, “Hello motherfuckers.  I’m Peter.”  I think that kind of broke the ice and everyone got emotional and we all shared why we wanted to be writers.  Most of us said, “I’ve wanted to be a writer since second grade when I learned about Martin Luther King.”  A few people had notes prepared.  I did not have anything prepared.  I just stood up and said, “I want to be a writer because my dad wears jeans,” and then sat down.  Everyone laughed.  Then Gale said, “Group hug?”  Later, one of the poets said, “Damn, I want to play basketball with Gale.”

(The above picture is popcorn on the ground.  Gale had brought popcorn for the meeting, but dropped the bowl outside.  There was no popcorn at the meeting.)