Melissa Fraterrigo

Lafayette Writers’ Studio

West Lafayette, IN      
Member Since: 1999

About: Melissa Fraterrigo is the author of the novel Glory Days (University of Nebraska Press, 2017), named one of “The Best Fiction Books of 2017” by the Chicago Review of Books, as well as the short story collection The Longest Pregnancy (Livingston Press, 2006). Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in more than forty literary journals and anthologies from storySouth and Shenandoah to Notre Dame Review, Sou’wester, and The Millions. She is the founder and executive director of the Lafayette Writers’ Studio in Lafayette, Indiana, where she offers classes on the art and craft of writing.

“I think all writers should reflect on their strengths and then consider how to share that goodness with others.”

Who encouraged you to be a writer?
I was a freshman in the early ‘90s at the University of Iowa, and Jo Ann Beard, author of The Boys of My Youth, was my rhetoric teacher. She assigned us to write a descriptive scene in a positive and then negative light, and the day she passed those papers back to us, I was heading out of class and she pulled me aside and asked if I had ever considered becoming a writer.

What words, literary works, virtual readings, or communities have helped you get through the challenges of 2020?
I’ve returned to so many books that have helped me time and again: Writing Past Dark, Bird by Bird, Dinty W. Moore’s phenomenal The Mindful Writer. In March, Robert McNally, a fellow author from the University of Nebraska Press, reached out and invited me to participate in a Google group with fellow writers as we attempted to navigate the uncertainties of late. Now we send weekly emails championing each other’s successes and urging each other forward on those trying days.

What do you suggest to writers who wish to help other writers and/or the world at large? Is there one thing you suggest all writers do?
I believe all writers need to tend to their own needs prior to reaching out and helping others. I often think about the advice we receive that if you are on a plane and the oxygen levels drop, you should put on your own mask before tending to any dependents. This is doubly true now, when many writers such as myself are considering the state of the world and how to bring some sense of hope to others, some release from despair. I think all writers should reflect on their strengths and then consider how to share that goodness with others.

What obstacles have you faced to your writing this year, and how have you overcome them?
For starters, all of my classes pivoted from face-to-face to virtual. That was a huge undertaking, and while I’ve missed the immediacy of being in close proximity with my students, Zoom has been a welcome surprise. In my own work, I’ve had to lower my expectations. I’ve shifted my writing time to either the early morning or in the late evening when my two children are asleep. I’ve returned to journaling to prime the creative well, and in the process, I’ve discovered half-remembered truths that I’m exploring in essays. It’s been a wonderful revelation that has given intention to my days. All this being said, I’ve been vehement about the fact there is no one way to approach this time. Some writers are quite productive right now. Others are unable to write. Both approaches are fine.

What online resources do you recommend to writers?
I encourage writers to get in touch with their own creative processes and then challenge this. Do you write historical fiction? Check out Appalachian poetry. Do you write in quick bursts and then not at all for months at a time? Try keeping a daily log of images and words that feel powerful to you. In terms of recommendations, I’m a huge fan of the Creative Writing Opportunities list by poet Allison Joseph, and I think that Terry Kennedy does a wonderful job of not only celebrating the work of new writers, but also cultivating good literary citizenship. I think there’s this idea that as writers we must constantly be thinking about developing our platform as authors. Yet I think it’s just as necessary to consider how to make our writing communities stronger and use our words to help others pen theirs.

Carol D. Guerrero-Murphy, Ph.D.

Emerita/Adjunct Professor of English at Adams State University

Who encouraged you to be a writer?
My parents, my third grade teacher, my Aunt Minnie (RIP age 96), my sister, my close friends, my high school English teachers, my grad program (Denver University)—very encouraging all around!

What words, literary works, virtual readings, or communities have helped you get through the challenges of 2020?
Pink Progression; Rattle journal subscription and chapbooks; Rosemary Wahatolla daily poems on Facebook; Union of Mt. Poets; Madblood newsletter (vs. reading series), Colorado; my students who are prisoners; PEN America, Poets & Writers; attending virtual readings; my little writing group—we’ve kept it going somehow. And I am reading so much.

What do you suggest to writers who wish to help other writers and/or the world at large? Is there one thing you suggest all writers do?
Create a blog, keep at it, and write about other writers sincerely. Publishing your work immediately makes you part of a larger community, so enjoy and use that public space to connect authentically with others. Try simple Zoom workshops. Learn from someone whose experiences (and their identity) are nothing like yours. Mentor someone outside of your usual circles. Become a PEN American participant and apply to be a mentor to a writer who is incarcerated. Take time to celebrate, recommend, and review (on social media) the writers you admire. Craft thoughtful comments on writers’ blogs. Collaborate. Read. Share invitations that you receive to participate in writing events/opportunities, as you would wish to be shared with. Provide virtual workshops through underserved/underfunded elementary schools.

What obstacles have you faced to your writing this year, and how have you overcome them?
My second book came out in December, so I had many readings in bookstores and galleries, and workshops in rural schools scheduled throughout spring, all of which were cancelled after February. I was newly retired, new to where I now live, so I joined Colorado Authors’ League; Boulder Media Women; Pink Progression. To be honest, I have found other ways to support those venues: raising funds for thermometers and masks, ordering books, picking up snacks at the to-go windows of bookstores, donating used books. I don’t think I’ve overcome obstacles well, sorry, but culling old journals has been helpful. I had applied to several residencies--all of which are cancelled--so I try to find times to pretend I am on retreat. It’s hard. I think it’s important that I allow into my brain all of the bad stuff along with the good, and this is requiring a swerve, a pivot as the hottest new word suggests, in my purpose—always good. I mentor more than write at the moment and am creating publishing platforms for a couple of my completed manuscripts.

What online resources do you recommend to writers?
Poets & Writers; Colorado Poets; Rocky Mountain Writers...I browse and cruise a lot.

What words, literary works, virtual readings, or communities have helped you get through the challenges of 2020?
At the beginning of the pandemic, I collaborated with A Public Space and started a Tolstoy Together virtual book club. Three thousand people from six continents participated. It was a great and sustaining experience to be reading with a steady pacing with so many readers around the world.

What do you suggest to writers who wish to help other writers and/or the world at large? Is there one thing you suggest all writers do?
I can’t really suggest, but I would say I wish writers—both aspiring writers and experienced writers—could exercise more uncertainty.

What obstacles have you faced to your writing this year, and how have you overcome them?
The obstacles I have faced this year in writing is similar, I imagine, to those faced by many writers. It’s a time of turmoil and uncertainty. I try to keep two hours of uninterrupted writing time in the morning, before looking at news or anything online.

What online resources do you recommend to writers?
Merriam-Webster or other good dictionaries.