You may have heard that my Alma Mater, the MFA program at Seattle Pacific University, will come to an end this August.
I and my fellow students cannot express our heartbreak at learning that forces within the conservative board and administration had decided to fire program director Scott Cairns and close down the MFA program, a decision akin to sending a pegasus to the glue factory because if God wanted man to fly he’d have given him wings. Scott is one of the most luminous and profoundly gifted poets alive today.
Happily, Scott and the MFA program has found a new home at Whitworth University in Spokane, WA. I cannot recommend the program highly enough, and if anyone is interested, please go to this link for more information. The faculty and staff will be the same as the Seattle program, and I can attest that the mentors are solid gold. I cannot thank them enough for their patience with me as I grew as a writer and as a human being under their close guidance.
Incidently, please note the name: “Whitworth Writer’s Workshop.” Here’s a bit of insider information and shameless self-promotion.
When I was hanging out with Scott Cairns at Festival of Faith and Writing last year (Apr. ’24) at Calvin University, commisserating the demise of our beloved program and rejoicing over the news that Whitworth University had agreed to take on the program, I suggested to Scott that he should give the program a name.
“The Iowa Workshop had a cool name,” I said. “You should rebrand the new Whitworth program with something similar. The such-and-such Workshop. You just come up with a good name.”
Scott looked at me with wide eyes and said that was a fabulous idea and that he was going to make a phone call to get the wheels turning on it.
I asked him to be sure he gave me credit for the idea. I hope he reads this and remembers our conversation.
