Poet Rachel Schmeider-Gropen, class of 2018, loves to look at pictures of golden retrievers and, according to the Buzzfeed quiz she recently took, has the soul of a thirty year old British man. This is not surprising (the British part, at least), considering she spent the last month of her summer at an intensive creative writing program at Pembroke College (part of Cambridge University) in Cambridge, England. The program is directed by novelists Carrie Hudson and Richard Beard through Pembroke’s National Academy of Writing. While there, Rachel attended guest lectures by well-known writers, workshop sessions, and tutorials with young, up and coming British novelists. The tutorial groups consisted of one “fellow” (like a professor at a U.S. college) and three to five students. Rachel describes this feeling as both “wonderful and terrifying.”
“It’s quite the experience to have three people tear into your work for an hour,” she told us.
Aside from the inevitable nervousness brought on by such close criticism, Rachel had an overwhelmingly positive experience at Pembroke. She particularly enjoyed attending Carrie Hudson’s office hours, where she could have a more flexible, informal conversation with Hudson. Most people chose to use this time to discuss manuscripts or novel concepts. Rachel did bounce around a few ideas for novels or novellas, but her main interest is poetry, and she told Hudson this. Hudson replied that poetry is “impractical,” but “all writing is impractical, so you might as well do what you want!”
Rachel also enjoyed attending the lectures given by renowned writers who came to speak during the program. She said the writers often talked “directly and candidly” about things not usually discussed in your run-of-the-mill writing workshop. For example, author O.L. Kennedy told program participants that she could only write creatively when barefoot. Kennedy also gave some advice that stuck with Rachel: write what you need to write, and write what scares you. Rachel said that in the past she has often outlined ideas without following through on them, because she felt she was not ready to develop the ideas. After attending the Pembroke program, though, she now understands the need to write fully what needs to be written without shying away from complex or frightening topics.
After a month spent focusing entirely on her passion for writing while living in a place she loves, Rachel found returning to Mount Holyoke to be something of a letdown. Or, as she put it: “a cold slap in the face.” The month she spent in England “felt like a dream.” It was difficult to return to real life and the regular American college experience. However, she ended our interview by noting that now that she’s been back a while, she is reconnecting with people she cares about and reacclimating to the Mount Holyoke campus. “It is nice to be back,” she told us, “even if it isn’t as glamorous.”
Want to experience Rachel’s poetry for yourself? She will be performing with the Conscious Poets Society on campus, and will hopefully appear at Tuesday night open mics at the Deuce in Northampton.