Making Literature, Making Connections

This past February break, from March 2 to 4, Houghton students Sophia Ross ‘17 and Ava Bergen ‘17 presented at Taylor University’s Making Literature Conference. The conference, held every other year, invites undergraduates to submit fiction, poetry, and critical essays. If their work is accepted, students present in panels composed of three other students whose work resembles their own. This year’s conference drew students from Houghton, Hope College, Wheaton College, Taylor University, Anderson University, and several more schools. According to the conference’s official website, programming this year also included keynote academic speakers such as Tom Noyes (Houghton College alumni), Jessica Mesman Griffith, David Griffith, Grace Tiffany, Shari Wagner, and Amy Peterson, as well as a book fair hosted by Eighth Day Books.

Houghton students were made aware of the conference by Laurie Dashnau, professor of English. Houghton students have attended the conference in the past, but there was no trip planned to attend the conference this year. Even so, Dashnau invited students to submit papers. Bergen and Ross were informed of their acceptance in early February, and made travel plans accordingly so that they could attend.

Bergen, a double major in English and communication, presented her critical essay, “A Malleable Sense of Justice: Robin Hood’s Enduring Appeal to English Readers” and a collection of poems entitled “Transit.” In her essay, Bergen analyzes the use of Robin Hood as an English hero in different works over time. She researched his role in the texts “A Gest of Robyn Hoode” and the “Little Red Robin” by Vivian Matthews and Alick Manley, and argued that the character continued to be appealing to English readers due to his malleable sense of justice and military successes. She wrote the essay while studying at Oxford University in the Fall of 2016 as part of the Best Semester program. Her collection of poems, meanwhile, focus on the theme of “times of transition, times of uncertainty, and, above all, time spent in motion.”

Ross, a double major in English and writing, presented a fictional short story titled “Gone Places.” The piece takes place on a bus travelling through a snowstorm. There are only two passengers, and both are heading to a nursing home. One passenger is going to visit her dying grandmother and the other passenger is a nurse. The story centers on the relationship between the passenger and her grandmother, which Ross said is loosely based on her own relationship with her grandmother, who suffered from dementia during the last seven years of her life. Ross began the story during her sophomore year in Writing Fiction, a class taught by Lori Huth, assistant professor of creative writing. She came back to the work last semester and revised it for her graduate school applications.

While attending the conference meant working through half of their February break, both students agreed that it was worthwhile.

“I’m glad I attended,” said Ross. “This was my third time presenting at a conference as an undergraduate, which is fairly uncommon for students in the arts and humanities at Houghton. I’m very grateful for the opportunity to connect with students from other schools in my discipline, as well as professionals like Tom Noyes and Jessica Mesman Griffith.” She continued, “I always find it refreshing to see the context in which I’m working. It helps me remember that there is a big world of writers out there.”

Bergen, too, enjoyed the networking aspect of the conference as a source of inspiration.

“Having the opportunity to connect with writers and artists from other schools was wonderful,” she said. “There was also an encouraging underlying message from the pros: failure is inevitable. To be a writer is to entertain rejection. To persist, and continue writing, despite this is life-giving.”