Milwaukee

Writing was lonely.
So very lonely.
Until the day I discovered other writers.I knew they existed, of course, on couches being interviewed, represented with jacket pictures, in print. But not in real life like this. 

When I joined this MFA Program last summer, my world exploded. Suddenly I was filled to the brim with the camaraderie I had so desperately craved before, alone at my desk. Now, I could see in color.

I was home, with these people who thought a little like me and laughed at the same jokes I did, people who noticed subtleties like I do. We talked well into the night every night. No one wanted to go to sleep, no one wanted it to end.

This summer, during student readings, Jen and I acted in Colleen’s ten minute play. I was the first Indestructible, Jen was the first Dorothy Wick. We rehearsed much more than necessary because we just really loved running lines together, making each other laugh. I wrote a poem inspired by the character I played. I read that. The crowd loved us. 

So when Colleen texted us that her play, the play we loved, was being produced at a play festival in Milwaukee with “road trip?” Jen and I each texted back “hell yeah” without contemplation. Of course. Writers support writers. That is what is so incredible about the MFA community. So we drove, a lot of hours, after Jen and Brandon were out of school, in the dark, and arrived at 3:30 a.m. We woke up and ate gluten-free pancakes and we went and saw Colleen’s play acted out by “real actors” 🙄. They were incredible. Colleen was a celebrity. We were groupies.

On the ride back, at a Walgreens somewhere in Wisconsin, I checked my email where I had an acceptance from a literary journal for the poem I wrote at residency based on my character in the play. I told the girls and we high-fived, shrieking loudly. We are writers, becoming published together, by writing together, editing for one another, texting prompts and urges to write and submit. We are friends who get each other, get this business, and give each other a tunnel out of the loneliness that could envelop you if you let it.