I'm moving to Ithaca, and I'm excited about it.
In my efforts to get out of Edmonton, I've come across a creative writing program at Cornell University that I might deign to participate in. It's benefited from the ministrations of writers like Kurt Vonnegut and Adrienne Rich, and the student's thesis is a novel. The only thing I can't decide is whether to get them excited now about my coming, or to surprise them when the time comes.
Seriously, the program takes four students in prose fiction every year, and I haven't got a prayer. And no Cornell means no Ithaca, because, well, it's a college town, and of its roughly 30,000 inhabitants, about 24,000 are students. I believe the rest of them run antique stores.
Actually I'm writing a story at the moment, and I encountered a crossroads deciding where to set it. I'm only twenty-four and I've only lived in two provinces, so really I can only write about Alberta and BC convincingly (and maybe the South, since that's where my family, em, hails from). But I looked up Ithaca anyway, here: www.visitithaca.com.
I want to live there.
Imagine! Within hours' distance of Montreal, New York City, and Boston, and there are seasons! I'm one of those people who needs a clear demarcation of the seasons to feel sane. Even when I lived in Terrace, BC, the climate was too much like the UK's for my comfort - basically rainy year-round. But the site says that the mean temperature in January is 25 degrees (F). Whatever other Canadians might say, I love the snow.
I have an idea: let's start a petition. Let Sarah Go To Cornell. Let her touch the face of the Ivy League the way air shows touch the face of God.
Sigh.
In my efforts to get out of Edmonton, I've come across a creative writing program at Cornell University that I might deign to participate in. It's benefited from the ministrations of writers like Kurt Vonnegut and Adrienne Rich, and the student's thesis is a novel. The only thing I can't decide is whether to get them excited now about my coming, or to surprise them when the time comes.
Seriously, the program takes four students in prose fiction every year, and I haven't got a prayer. And no Cornell means no Ithaca, because, well, it's a college town, and of its roughly 30,000 inhabitants, about 24,000 are students. I believe the rest of them run antique stores.
Actually I'm writing a story at the moment, and I encountered a crossroads deciding where to set it. I'm only twenty-four and I've only lived in two provinces, so really I can only write about Alberta and BC convincingly (and maybe the South, since that's where my family, em, hails from). But I looked up Ithaca anyway, here: www.visitithaca.com.
I want to live there.
Imagine! Within hours' distance of Montreal, New York City, and Boston, and there are seasons! I'm one of those people who needs a clear demarcation of the seasons to feel sane. Even when I lived in Terrace, BC, the climate was too much like the UK's for my comfort - basically rainy year-round. But the site says that the mean temperature in January is 25 degrees (F). Whatever other Canadians might say, I love the snow.
I have an idea: let's start a petition. Let Sarah Go To Cornell. Let her touch the face of the Ivy League the way air shows touch the face of God.
Sigh.
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