Today was my first REAL thesis meeting with Marty. Since I’m on the two year track (already having a Master’s degree), I’m lucky enough to begin working on my thesis my first semester in Georgia College & State University’s MFA program. I LOVE this. As happy as I am with my MA thesis, it really came together at the last minute, and I know that as a “book” it still has a lot of revising that I need to do. Having the opportunity to at least think about my thesis from Day One is so awesome! Even if this is just a little voice in the back of my head, I am aware from the get go that I need to be working towards a bigger project.

I have poetry workshop this semester with Laura Newbern, and so I’m working with Marty on my thesis to 1) give the opportunity to work with two people, 2) give me the opportunity to figure out who I will work best with. So he isn’t my set in stone thesis advisor in case something happens, or even in case some shuffling around needs to be done in terms of balance. He is working with (I think) five thesis worker/people right now, four creative nonfiction and me.

The most important thing for me to do right now is generate work. I totally understand this, and we met and talked about it a couple weeks ago. I gave him a copy of my MA thesis, which he read, and this is what we discussed today. So Marty took the time to look at the bulk of my work, and he wrote me some really really useful and insightful comments (and we talked about all of these ideas for about an hour today) in terms of how I can get better during my MFA work.

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I think it’s hilarious that surrounding books include: Fidel is Dead!, The End of the World Book, and Caramba!