At a loss for words, and that includes titles
To say one chapter's ending and another's beginning feels cliché, however true
Last Saturday was the end of my last residency week for Salve Regina University’s Newport MFA in Creative Writing program. They’ll deliver my diploma in August.
It’s always been a busy week, and I’ve always loved it. I am exhausted by the end, but so happy to be exhausted, over the moon to be alive and writing. Every day of the week is packed full with workshops (two on most days, one cross-genre and the other genre-specific) and craft talks by visiting authors, professors and mentors, and graduating students.
I gave my craft talk and read two chapters from my novel on Thursday, June 26, and as much as I’d like to share more about it here, I’m going to hold onto it for now. I just think it might have potential as an essay or article somewhere else, so I’m going to be patient with this one.
As a graduate, my week was not as busy as usual. I went to the cross-genre, a wonderful opportunity for the entire program to get together in one room and work, talk, and learn together; we were led this time by writer and publisher extraordinaire Francesco Sedita. After the cross-genre, my fellow graduates and I had some time to kill—which we often used to get coffee and work on our novel manuscripts, because duh—before our Masterclass workshop with the exquisite writer and the Newport MFA’s co-director, Ann Hood. The 2025 June Residency craft talks roster included Adam Stumacher, Laura Lippman, Bruce Handy, Helen Schulman, Zoe Sprankle, and some of our own professors/mentors, such as Jenn De Leon, Tim Weed, Charles Coe, Alden Jones, and Katie Moulton.
Every one of these people is not just a fabulous person and incredible professor/mentor, but they’re also writers I adore and admire and hope and pray I’ll make proud someday! That’s not even to mention my classmates, who are peers and friends first and foremost, but they’re also writers I also adore and admire, writers I cannot wait to see flourish and continue to completely rock it.
God only knows I’m not done with Newport, or with New England in general. That said, this is the closing of one chapter, and we all know that means we get to look forward to the chapters to come.
Speaking of chapters:
I’ve had this idea for a few months, ever since I visited Ascension Priory in Idaho. There, I met Fr. Hugh Feiss, O.S.B., who graciously gave me a copy of his book, Essential Monastic Wisdom: Writings on the Contemplative Life.
The format of the book gave me an idea for a mini-project for Substack, a sort of inner-project I’d work on within the larger project at large. Essential Monastic Wisdom covers, well, essential monastic wisdom by breaking down the spirituality and lifestyle into a fantastic list of items; the book is, therefore, divided into three parts made up of a cumulative eighteen chapters, one for each of these items:
Part One: Ordering Time and Place
Prayer
Reading
Work
Mutual Support
Hospitality
Part Two: Character
Silence and Speech
Reverence
Humility
Simplicity
Discernment
Peace
Patience
Separation
Stability
Obedience
Authority
Part Three: The Good Desired and Possessed
Longing
Love
The plan is to read the book, one-ish chapter each week, and share via Substack any notes, thoughts, pops, questions, et cetera that arise. I have to say, there’s an introduction to each part, and the book begins with an introduction by Feiss himself and a foreward by Kathleen Norris (not the novelist but the poet and essayist, whose book Acedia & me rocked my world a little), so my “mini project” begins to look not-so-mini, at roughly twenty-three weeks’ worth of Substacks according to the “one-ish chapter each week” plan. So, as with all things, it’s perfectly reasonable to expect this plan shan’t go according to plan.
But I think it’s a good idea for a few reasons.
First, it gives me a pre-ordained (internet-friendly) numbered list to organize my thoughts and writings. I’m anticipating the reading-writing-sharing model will help knock around my head and bring forth memories and reflections and stories from my last year on the road.
Second, about that road, I only have twenty Benedictine communities in the continental U.S. left to visit. That’s twenty out of seventy-seven. So the macro-project is still in the works, but it is coming to its close. Many of the places I haven’t visited yet are in the Midwest, so once I move to Chicago at the end of this month, they will be much more accessible to me, and the end will be more in-sight than it’s ever been. So, as I continue to write from the road and its new experiences, organizing and working on this inner-project—that will, I imagine, outlast the driving part—will help ease me into the ongoing work of writing about it all.
Third, sharing this idea “out loud” means I have a couple dozen readers (that’s you) keeping me accountable. I’m not saying I want or expect anyone to break down my door and reprimand me if I miss a Sunday, but I am hoping that setting this (very reasonable and attainable) expectation for myself helps get me writing consistently on Substack again.
Anything else to report?
I’m working on finishing the second draft (of many to come) of my book, and I’m very happy with it. It used to scare the shit out of me that it could take many, many years for some authors to finish their books, and while I don’t think this will be something I’m still working on ten years down the line, I am trying to think along the lines of “well, even if it takes that long, at least it will get done.” It’s all I can do to wait for the day.
In the meantime, I’m soon going to start some volunteer work with the Catholic Worker. I’ll be on their Dorothy Day Library cleanup crew, with whom I’ll be “proofreading and correcting Dorothy Day’s writings and contacting Catholic Worker communities to update the community directory.” I love those guys, they bring out the lil anarchist in me. (Did you know Dorothy Day professed as a Benedictine Oblate of St. Procopius Abbey in 1955?)
There’s other things coming up, especially during the next couple of weeks I’ll be home in SoCal getting ready to make the Big Move back to the Midwest, but more on that later. I’m writing this before Sunday, so I’ll be somewhere on the road when it goes live, but for now, before I have to rejoin the real world, I’m enjoying a lightly overcast sunny day on Nantucket, and all is well.
Peace.
You are so cool it makes me 🥲
Joseph, I'm so grateful to know you and I'm beyond excited for your next chapter!