During the course of the MFA Project Period, students will participate in five student-led Book Circles on Zoom within their Mentor group. This is a monthly opportunity for the group to rigorously discuss the five books they are reading together. Each Circle is an opportunity to reflect upon and talk about the author’s use of craft and how this relates to your own writing process, just as you would in your monthly annotations. Although these are student-led spaces, mentors may choose to participate if they desire. Each student will be responsible for facilitating or co-facilitating one discussion. Below are suggested guidelines for scheduling, facilitators, participants, and the group as a whole.
Scheduling
Students should aim to hold each Book Circle around the middle of the month, except for May or November, when due to the end of the Project Period and the approaching residency it is suggested to aim for the first week of each of those months. If you are facilitating the Book Circle, you should email your group approximately two weeks beforehand to determine a time and date that works for the members of your group. Suggest at least three dates/times—weekends are often best for many students. You might choose to use a scheduling tool such as Doodle to coordinate multiple schedules. The Circle should run for approximately an hour.
Facilitators
When it is your turn to facilitate or co-facilitate, develop five to eight questions and post these questions on Sakai in the Book Circles Forum at least a week in advance. Consider posting interviews with and/or articles about the author, to establish context. During the Book Circle, pose these questions to the group. Listen to their responses. Ask follow-up questions. Think of yourself as leaders and mediators. Consider the goal of your discussion. Where do you want to take your group in relationship to the text?
Participants
If you are not facilitating, come to the Circle having read the book and the questions in advance and ready to respond and actively participate in the discussion. Be prepared and present. Be ready to listen to everyone in the group. When offering your perspective on the book, demonstrate the same mindfulness you would in a genre workshop during the residency. Think about your own subjective biases as a reader; we all have them.
Group Responsibility
Although facilitators are leading the discussion, all participants should take collective responsibility to establish a safe and generous space where multiple, respectful perspectives on the book can arise. All members should approach the discussion aware of their privileges as readers (in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, ability, class etc.) How might this privilege inflect our responses? If discussion becomes heated, take a breath together as a group and feel free to take a break and return in 10 minutes. If disagreement or conflict arises around a text, think of this as an opportunity to explore this mindfully, safely, bravely, and in a spirit of self-reflexive and collective generosity. If you’re feeling uncomfortable with the book or your positionality, you may consider speaking with the facilitators privately ahead of time, your faculty member, the program staff, or you might choose to listen to other responses and comments before you speak yourself.
Group Agreements
As a group, you may choose to create a group agreement before you begin your first discussion and modify as you see fit. One example is by McKensie Mack, an Anti-Oppression Consultant:
We agree to:
We agree to struggle against intersecting prejudices and biases, including against racism, sizeism, transphobia, classism, and ableism;
We agree to examine our (mis)conceptions of our own identities and the identities of others;
We know that no space can be completely safe, and we agree to work together toward harm reduction. We know we can't agree to safety but we can agree to harm reduction;
If you are generally quiet, step up and practice speaking more. If you are generally a talker, practice stepping back and listening more;
We agree to sit with discomfort that comes with having conversations about race, gender, identity, etc… we agree to try our best to not shame ourselves for the vulnerability that these kinds of growth conversations require;
We are open to value the viewpoints of other people that do not challenge or conflict with our right to exist;
We agree that it's okay to have feelings. It's okay to feel uncomfortable when we are discussing complex topics about accountability, equity, relationships, justice and care.
Seeking Help
Sometimes, even with the best of intentions and preparation, things don’t go according to plan and challenges arise. If the facilitator or students feel the need for help, please reach out to your faculty member or the program staff to step in and provide support. Sometimes it’s useful to have a third party join in and help support a struggling group. Please reach out for help anytime and sooner rather than later. We are all here to support you!
Ice Breaker: Read a section of the book that stuck with you the most, and tell us why. (suggest a page at maximum)
1. What struck me reading this book was how Washington gives us the perspectives of Benson and Mike, often reliving the same moments through very different eyes. What was your impression of these POVs? Did each voice feel distinct? And, if so, in what ways?
2. Washington was once interviewed by Ocean Vuong, who commented on Memorial having this sense of "radical okay-ness." As Vuong puts it, "radical okay-ness is where I hope queer narratives can move forward towards, which is not hyperbolic triumph or travesty, but a radical new realization of being okay. And I think Memorial really achieves that." So much of the story dealt with the mundane, banal moments of life: visiting family, sitting in traffic, cooking meals. Washington offers these things up with such detail. As a reader, what was your experience of those details?
3. In the book, Bryan Washington uses a number of techniques that are outside the unusual approaches to structuring a novel: text messages, photographs, and to a lesser extent, one-page chapters. How did this add to your reading experience? Why do you think Washington made the decision to incorporate these unconventional approaches?
4. Houston culture and multi-ethnic residents figure large in Memorial. Did you come away from the reading feeling like you knew Houston, in as distinct a way as, say, a New York or Los Angeles, or London?
5. The unconventional and complicated relationships is a major theme of the novel. As are relationships to family, and working within service economies. What themes most resonated with you?