I agree with cris that it would be fantastic for our creative writing
program at large (BA and MA) to have this option, too. It sounds like
Eric's talking specifically about the low-res right now (because of
"mentorships") but I'd support the idea for all our offerings. Eric,
not sure whether you are differentiating between "hybrid" projects and
multi-genre here -- no reason we couldn't offer both, but they seem
different to me (maybe "mixed genres" would be a compromise term?).
Anyway, if we offered such a track, it would be good to hire at least
one person for students on that track to work with who does "hybrid"
work, who could direct them to interesting work in that vein and model
a practice. Some students might want to dabble in fiction and poetry
and some students might want to develop a "hybrid" body of work, and
we could cater to both, assuming we are talking about mentorships for
now, vs. MA curriculum. I think we could be pretty flexible about it.
Ideally we'd have at least one hire who'd be able to teach "hybrid"
writing as well as either fiction or poetry and the student could
choose the focus of the course with that hire.

So in answer to the practical question -- we could tell students on a
"mixed genre" (?) track to take at least one of their mentorships as a
"hybrid/multigenre" course, plus one fiction and one poetry. The
"hybrid" course could always be taken in the second year, so that we
would know ahead of time as students decided their tracks what sort of
hiring we'd need to do. ??

Cathy

On Thu, Jun 5, 2014 at 8:57 AM, cheek, cris <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hi Eric, i wonder what's driving the question. Do you think there's a need
> we can respond to?
>
> If i extrapolate from our recent and current MA cohorts there are times when
> they do more than overlap. I was at Bridge Street Books in Washington a
> couple of weeks ago and bought the new collection from Lydia Davis. An
> author we've all expressed interest in. Can't and Won't Stories which i
> don't have with me here in Alabama includes work that more closely resembles
> what some poets are writing than anything i've seen from her as yet.
>
> Are you really driving towards a mixed genre possibilities to develop as you
> suggest hybrid final projects? I think it could be one (just one) of the
> things our program could do well. For example a sequence of prose poems or a
> graphic narrative or an interactive e-book . . even an artists's book
> project
>
> Now i'm not being stupid enough to say that we have the staff to support
> such work, right now. But we're going to hire and maybe even hire again over
> the next 3 or so years. Plus we do have people in our mix or people we hope
> to bring into our mix who might provide the possibility to support such
> hybridities. The chat about David Mack being one example. Possible
> skill-sharing with the Art Department (which could still have life breathed
> back into it) another.
>
> I'm returning to the first question. My guess is that the only way we will
> gauge response to that is by offering such a possibility and making it real
> for potential students?
>
> I'd strongly support exploring the possibility.
>
> cris
>
>
> On Thu, Jun 5, 2014 at 7:28 AM, Goodman, Eric <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> Good Morning,
>>
>>
>>     What would you think of a multi-genre option?
>>
>>     And if you think that's a good idea, how would that work?   Two
>> semesters of one genre of mentorship, with the third semester in the second
>> genre?  Followed by writing the final project?
>>
>>     Or would it require an extra course, say two mentors in different
>> genres during the same semester, to write what we'd call a hybrid final
>> project.
>>
>>     E
>
>