Tag Archives: SUNY Geneseo

by | October 20, 2019 · 1:43 pm

Fearing the Unknown: Let Your Characters Guide the Way

Posted by RebeccaWilliamson, GD Fiction Editor for  8.1

 

Road at night

I could barely see a few feet in front of me. Maybe that’s an exaggeration, but the streetlights provided little light as my friend and I walked down Main Street. The chilly air wrapped around me like a blanket, and I shivered when the dark shadows moved to my left. I told my friend I was scared of the dark, but quickly retracted my statement. I wasn’t scared of the dark; I feared what could be lurking in it. I feared the unknown.

That’s how I felt that night walking down Main Street waiting for something to jump out at me. That’s how I feel when I’m lying in bed at night and I hear a loud bang and wonder if someone is in the house. Mostly, I’ve realized that’s how I feel about my writing.

How could a person fear their own writing? Continue reading →

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by | October 28, 2018 · 2:47 pm

Writing Outside Your Genre

Posted by Gabrielle Esposito, GD Fiction Editor for 7.1

I identify as a fiction writer because I’m too self-conscious to write nonfiction, and I can’t write poetry because I don’t know when to shut up. I’ve found in the writing community that writers have preferred genres, and once that preference is identified, all the other genres disappear. Most of a writer’s hesitation comes from the fact that the three genres are very different. Continue reading →

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by | February 23, 2018 · 12:43 pm

The Gandy Dancer Ball

Posted by Emily Sterns, GD Public Relations Manager for 6.2

This Valentine’s Day, Gandy Dancer and friends celebrated our love for the literary arts! This event, meant to call attention to our upcoming submission deadline, included readings from both students and faculty. Readings were done by English department faculty, former contributors and current staff members. Our production advisor, Allison Brown read some of her poetry. She has been an immense help to Gandy Dancer through the years as she has helped produce the journal and taught countless students how to use the InDesign program. Dr. Greenfield performed some songs on an acoustic guitar to wrap up the first ever Gandy Dancer Ball! There was also a swag table full of Gandy Dancer merch including beanie’s, T-shirts, past issues, and new additions including coffee mugs and stickers. An assortment of delicious treats was made by numerous students in the Editing and Production classes. Guests especially enjoyed the Valentine’s Day card making station.  Continue reading →

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by | March 23, 2017 · 10:30 am

A Day in the Life of an English Major

Posted by Tyler Herman, GD Creative Non-Fiction Reader for 5.2

Tired of being belittled for choosing to major in English? Me too. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that most English majors have an aunt who repeatedly, “You’re still an English major? How are you going to get a job when you graduate?” And if you don’t have that aunt, then good for you, but you probably have that chemistry major friend who thinks his life is a million times more difficult than yours. I have gotten a lot of backlash for being an English major. When I tell people what my major is, I know to expect the “are you at least going to go to law school” look. But, hey, we do a lot, we know a lot, and we are proud of what we do. Continue reading →

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by | December 15, 2016 · 9:00 am

Gandy Dancer Turns Five: A Celebration of Our Magazine

Posted by Juliana Schicho, GD Fiction Reader for 5.1Gandy Dancer Turns Five: A Celebration of Our Magazine

Issue 5.1 of Gandy Dancer marks the transition into our fifth year of publication for our magazine, out since 2012.  Our covers may have changed over the years, but our core literary mission remains the same: to connect students SUNY-wide through literature and art.  Published twice yearly, we receive submissions from schools all over the SUNY school system.  We publish one accepted alumni submission per issue in our postscript section.  Our magazine has grown since our first publication to include all sorts of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and art.  The writing in Gandy Dancer is varied in terms of style and theme and it reveals the diversity of SUNY students. Continue reading →

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by | May 30, 2016 · 4:16 pm

Senior Readings: An Exploration of Past and Future

Posted by Maya Bergamasco, Poetry reader for issue 4.2

Here in Geneseo, spring is not only a time to lounge on the campus green or celebrate the return of famed Geneseo sunsets. For English students, spring heralds the annual senior readings, where every graduating senior in the creative writing program reads their work for their peers, professors, and family. For me, this is a bittersweet time. As I listen to my peers share their poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, and hear their plans for the future, I am both excited and saddened. Excited that they will do such amazing things: become a teacher, earn an MFA in creative writing, or join the world of publishing. Yet, I am saddened that I will no longer laugh with them in class, or receive their feedback in workshop, or simply have the privilege to read rough drafts fresh from their thoughts. The seniors, too, seem to share this bittersweet feeling.

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by | April 27, 2016 · 10:55 am

What Makes a Good Writer?

Posted by Megan Tomaszewski, CNF reader for issue 4.2

myemotions_troyWho is a writer? According to Dictionary.com, a writer is “a person engaged in writing books, articles, stories etc., especially as an occupation or profession.” Merriam Webster Dictionary notes that a writer is “someone who has written something.” But are there any definitions out there for what makes a writer a good writer?

Working at Gandy Dancer this semester as a creative nonfiction reader has prompted me to reflect on the answer to this question a lot, especially when reading through submissions to accept or reject. While discussing submissions with my peers, I was captivated by the way our group would sometimes unanimously “no” a piece, whereas, other times, we would debate pros and cons back and forth. Sometimes, we’d all like or dislike a piece for similar reasons, sometimes for completely different ones.

It was a fascinating, engaging, and messy process unlike anything else that I’ve been a part of—a group of individuals with their own subjective tastes and backgrounds collectively deeming literary pieces as worthy of publishing is no easy feat.

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by | April 22, 2016 · 10:32 am

A Staff Member’s Perspective on their Experience in Creating SUNY Geneseo’s Original Literary Magazine, Gandy Dancer

Posted by Connor Hillman, Fiction Reader for issue 4.2

library_infiniteAs an English major, I’ve been wondering when I would get to make practical use of the skills I’ve been learning. Sure enough, along came ENGL426: The Editing and Production workshop, the class in which we create the college’s biannual literary journal, Gandy Dancer. Our title comes from the slang term used for railroad workers of the 18th century. Like those workers, the journal reflects the diligence of the artists, poets, and writers who refine their work to create something that allows others passage.

I was excited to learn that we would be reading and selecting the work we wanted to include in Gandy Dancer. Finally, I can read through literature for the sole purpose of discovering and discussing what makes it appealing or not. There are no lengthy research papers, though that doesn’t mean we don’t have to work hard. In fact, it’s a different kind of work altogether. In Gandy Dancer we work as a cohesive and interdependent staff. Not doing your “homework” here means letting everyone down. No one wants to be the one who shows up unable to provide any input about the submissions. I’m normally pretty quiet in class, but here I am required to vocalize my opinions frequently, which is a good thing. After submissions have been selected, we begin copyediting and then digitally constructing the layout of the journal in InDesign. Having worked with InDesign for my High School’s yearbook, I felt confident in this stage of development. The interdependence of our staff is now more prevalent as each of us work on individual pages of the journal that will eventually come together. To students contemplating taking this class, I urge you to do so. Working on Gandy Dancer gives an experience that is closer to actual job. You have to work and communicate effectively with others, maintain a goal oriented schedule with deadlines, and in the end your name is on the masthead. All in all, I’m grateful to be a part of this staff and to be able to participate in a project oriented class. It’s rewarding to dedicate yourself to something that is legitimate, published, and has your name on it.

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by | April 3, 2016 · 12:00 pm

What We’re Reading: Deliberative Use of White Space and Form in Poetry

Posted by Caitlin O’Brien, Poetry Editor for issue 4.2

As the frenzied period of submissions review winds to a close, I find myself growing a little tired of white space. White space is almost invariably inescapable when putting together a literary magazine, and perhaps even more so when dealing with poetry, yet I’ve noticed a recurring aesthetic trend of white space in many of the submissions we read. From both a literary and an aesthetic standpoint, I can’t help but find this trend in poetry to oftentimes border on excessive. This is not coming from a staunch poetry elitist who refuses to read anything written after the 1800s—I love seeing poetry as a written art form interface with the visual, as well as with the spoken, and other modes of communication.

What gives me                           pause when I encounter a poem that makes ample use of white space is the intentionality behind its form. In the case of some submissions, the poets submitting to Gandy have made wonderful use of white space—we’ve received calligrams in clever shapes, as well as poems that can be read in multiple ways due to the way the words and stanzas are arranged. In the case of other submissions, though, the poetry team has often used the deliberative construction of the poem’s form as a strong measure of the poem’s overall purpose. Reading a poem aloud, the white space does not always inform the flow, so much as it makes the poem seem as though the poet was possessed of a hyperactive space bar. The most common aural effect of a form that relies on white space is a pause, yet these pauses do not create a rhythm that comes across as calculated. As one reader in the poetry section said, “if we have to guess whether or not the poet meant to do something, it’s not effective.” Similarly, the primary visual effect of non-traditional spacing is to set apart important words or allow the reader to focus in on a particular image or concept, rather than jamming the space bar an arbitrary number of times in order to make a poem look modern and minimalist.

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by | March 9, 2016 · 12:00 pm

The Leslie Pietrzyk Experience

Posted by Shayna Nenni, Fiction Editor for Issue 4.2

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Leslie Pietrzyk, author of This Angel On My Chest. Photo courtesy of John Hopkins University.

Geneseo was incredibly privileged to have writer Leslie Pietrzyk visit our campus, Thursday, February 29th, to give a reading from her book, This Angel on My Chest. Channeling the intimate, personal experience of losing her first husband at the age thirty-seven, Pietrzyk greeted us with humor, sadness, hope, and creativity, reading one of her sixteen short stories. Not only were we lucky enough to hear her read from her marvelous collection, she conducted a workshop (which I was lucky to participate in), and attended classes on campus. I envy students participating in the Converse low residency MFA program where she’s a member of the core fiction faculty, and John Hopkins University’s MA Program in Writing where she teaches because of their chance to learn from and work with her so closely.

Listening to Leslie Pietrzyk’s reading of “A Quiz” from her collection of stories, This Angel on My Chest, was inspiring. She captivated the audience while reading a story about a young widow. The quiz format of her short story is innovative and strangely funny as it reveals how her narrator handled certain social situations after her husband’s death. The repetition of the cause of the husband’s death and his age also convey the obsessive nature of grief. Continue reading →

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