UW MFA Graduate's Work to be Published in Journal |
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Nov. 12, 2007 -- Justin Robertson never imagined he'd see his work published in Orion, a distinguished national journal usually reserved for the who's who of nature and environmental authors.
That was before he enrolled in the University of Wyoming's Creative Writing Master of Fine Arts program.
"You couldn't ask for a better program. It's dictated everything that's going on in my life right now," says Robertson, whose essay, "The Summer Dad," has been accepted for publication in Orion, a bi-monthly magazine that addresses environmental and societal issues. "I got a lot of great feedback on my writing from the instructors and my fellow graduate students, and I can't thank the program enough for helping me improve my writing.
"In two years, I enjoyed one heck of a growth spurt as a writer."
Robertson's experience at UW also helped him land a full-time instructor position in the Department of English at Southwestern Community College in Creston, Iowa, a 2.5-hour drive from his hometown of Liberty, Mo.
"I owe a lot to the University of Wyoming's MFA program," says Robertson, a May 2007 graduate.
Robertson began work on his essay while enrolled in MFA faculty member Jeff Lockwood's spring workshop at UW. The essay is a recollection of his memories of his father's seemingly never-ending battle with bagworms, a species of bug that attacks and destroys evergreen trees.
A fiction writer, Robertson says he had always wanted to write about his father's summertime struggles with bagworms but didn't know how to "turn it into a fiction story."
As part of the MFA program, however, Robertson was required to enroll in one class outside his genre and chose a nature writing course.
"It was my first essay, my first attempt at nature writing," he says with a chuckle. "It just kind of took off."
While Lockwood says he knew Robertson's essay was a "first-rate piece" as soon as he read it, he calls it a "coup" to have it published in Orion.
"Orion is such an exclusive and tough-to-break-into publication," Lockwood says. "I was just visiting with an English professor from another university who is a first-rate nature writer and it took him a decade to get into Orion."
H.L. Hix, director of the MFA program, says Robertson's accomplishment is proof of the quality of the program and curriculum, its graduates and its instructors.
"I won't speak for other faculty, but let's just say I myself wasn't sharp enough to be doing work worthy of publication in a prestigious national magazine within six months of earning my degree," says Hix, a 2006 National Book Award nominee and author of 12 books, including "God Bless," a political and poetic discourse that was released in October.
Robertson says the publication date of his essay has yet to be determined.
To learn more about Orion, go to the Web site www.orionmagazine.org.
Posted on Monday, November 12, 2007
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