Where Muses Meet

Writers share their secrets

How appropriate, how metaphorically magical, that UConn’s Torrington campus is perched high atop a hill.

Here, on what is nothing less than a modern-day Mt. Parnassus, today’s muses of poetry, drama, literature, and the arts gather to inspire both undergraduates and adults—taking them inside the creative process, nurturing their talents, and, of course, delighting them with readings, erudition, and analysis. This, then, is what UConn’s Litchfield Country Writers Project is all about.

Now in its fifth year, the unique—and increasingly popular—LCWP program has had an intellectual impact far exceeding its founders’ expectations. It has, in many cases, literally re-shaped the lives of students of all ages. Mary Somers, who lives in Salisbury and formerly had a career as an academic historian, told us: “I’ve now written poetry, plays, and prose that I never before could have produced. My life has been transformed over years of attending courses with authors like Dani Shapiro, Frank Delaney, Roxana Robinson, Frank McCourt, Honor Moore, and many others.”

Litchfield County has long been blessed with talents such as these. This past autumn, for example, award-winning playwright David Rabe held forth at a special session devoted to his new career as a novelist. Speaking to us afterward, Rabe characterized his multi-generational audience this way: “[It] says a lot about their interest in the process and art of writing. The opportunity to offer your own thoughts regarding your work—in a congenial Q&A format—has great personal value for me. As a novelist or playwright, one spends a lot of time on the receiving end of interpretation by others. This is refreshingly different.”

From a student’s perspective, psychology major Jenna Farmer explained the value of the program this way: “The sessions add a human dimension to works you might otherwise just write ‘response papers’ about. That takes away the abstractness of what we’re studying. The LCWP opened my eyes to so much that lies behind literature and poetry—emotions, ideas, hopes, dreams, and convictions. Who knew?”

On this particular evening, apparently, a lecture hall full of enthusiasts did know. A friend of Farmer’s, UConn junior and English major Josh Brunetti, caught the spirit of LCWP courses: “It’s like this. After their highly personal talks, writers like McCourt, Bill Davis, Shapiro, and Candace Bushnell always take time to chat with us, explaining and interpreting concepts and the way they’re executed. Opportunities and experiences like that make a huge difference in moving forward in your studies.”

The LCWP programs are offered in both the spring and fall semesters. Held mainly in the evening for the convenience of adults and non-matriculated students who can take them free of charge, they are also attended by undergraduates for regular course credit. Each semester, LCWP programs attract about 1,600 adults from around the county. In addition, 200 to 300 students and faculty members also flock to the school’s main lecture hall for the sessions. According to director Davyne Verstandig, “We get an eclectic mix of serious-minded people of all ages and backgrounds. It’s an idea whose time has come, a participatory, free-flowing method of learning and sharing ideas.”

Verstandig introduced us to an older student, Sheryl Kennedy, who enrolled at UConn after an educational hiatus of 38 years. “I only expected to take a couple of creative writing courses, more or less for fun,” said the mother of two grown children, “and never imagined that three years later I’d be deeply immersed in a classical education reading the likes of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Shakespeare with two extraordinary professors.” Her muses, as it turns out, are none other than Charles Van Doren and his wife, Gerri.  “Gerri and Charlie are perpetually interesting, generous, honest, and tough teachers,” says Kennedy. “They exercise profound patience, allowing their students, as it says in the Tao Te Ching, to ‘wait until the mud settles and the water becomes clear.’ What more could anyone hope for?”

Interestingly, the origins of the LCWP program date back as far as the 1960s when the county’s renowned creative figures began donating signed copies of various works to this “nearby center of learning.” Artist Eric Sloane was the first to do so, and over the decades a unique and highly specialized library was established in the main campus building. It contains more than 1,200 volumes by Philip Roth, A.R. Gurney, Harrison Salisbury, William Styron, Henry Kissinger, Barbara Taylor Bradford, Mark and Carl Van Doren, Arthur Miller, and other playwrights and filmmakers. The work of famed photographer Inge Morath, Miller’s wife, is also represented in the LCWP collection.

And where are things headed? In an era when funding of specialized academic programs continues to be problematic, UConn’s LCWP last year received an anonymous donation of $250,000 for its support and expansion. Based on this endowment, the program may turn into the LCWAP—the Litchfield County Writers and Artists Project, with accompanying facilities for both teaching and exhibitions. There is also talk of providing fellowships for writers and artists as part of the program. Where muses gather, anything is possible.

-- Nick Wedge

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