Sarah Gibbard Cook
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Grieving the U.W. Writing Program

10/26/2020

4 Comments

 
Of the many casualties of this pandemic, large and small, one I grieve personally is the writing program in the University of Wisconsin’s Division of Continuing Studies. Its workshops, classes, spring Writers’ Institute, and week-long Write-by-the-Lake retreat have taught me so much in recent years and introduced me to so many amazing people. Now the program’s big events are discontinued, online services are winding down, and the last of the staff will leave by the end of June.

To grieve is not simply a stronger form of to miss. I miss family members I don’t live with, Door County vacations, eating out. They’ll be back. I grieve the deaths, the abandoned dreams, particular shops and restaurants closed forever. I miss informal interactions over lunch or breaks when a conference has to go online. I grieve how, when budgets get tight, the arts are the first to go.
4 Comments
Connie Gill
10/26/2020 09:04:48 am

The UW Continuing Studies Writing program helped to tip the balance on my decision to move to Madison. I too grieve the loss of it.

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Sarah Cook link
10/26/2020 10:40:22 am

It's made a major difference in many of our lives, one way and another. Didn't realize it was part of what brought you here. So glad it did!

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Rebecca link
10/28/2020 11:35:32 am

The program was important to me as well. I took memoir writing classes and attended the conference. I wish it had been possible to have a virtual conference last year, but it was short notice. Very sad this important resource is ending.

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Sarah Cook link
10/28/2020 09:32:01 pm

Rebecca, I remember meeting you in the second floor cloakroom at Madison's Concourse Hotel, the beginning of a months-long conversation that might never have happened otherwise. Yes, sad indeed.

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    I'm a historian who writes novels and literary nonfiction. My home base is Madison, Wisconsin. 

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