Michael Arnzen
“Fessing Up”
Acceptance Speech for the Caritas Service Award
Writing Popular Fiction Graduation Ceremony, Seton Hill University (June 30, 2019)
THANK YOU, Seton Hill, for this amazingly heavy service medal, which I will wear with pride whenever I don my academic attire, and which I will affectionately term “The Abominable Amulet of Doom” when I wear it around the house.
I am humbled and honored by this recognition for twenty years of service. I was hired during the first year of the Writing Popular Fiction program – one score and fifteen minutes ago back in 1999. This medal is an achievement that I share with all of you, as a testimony to the endurance of our Writing Program at SHU and the ability of our community to evolve with the times, while remaining steady in its mission for a whole generation – a few years longer, in fact, than most of the undergraduates I also teach have been alive.
WPF is kind of the granddaddy of low residency writing MFA programs, still the only one that I know of that prints the phrase “Writing Popular Fiction” right on the diploma. Drs. McClain and Wendland broke new ground when they designed this program, and I think they deserve a special round of applause for making all our lives, especially mine, better because of it.
This program was a risk for them to start, because it is so unique, and relies so much on faculty willing to grade novel-length papers on top of an already very full load and to teach during their summer and winter breaks…and adjuncts willing to break from their own writing and travel great distances to share their wisdom and experience with all of you. You (students), too, are willing to leave your families and jobs to spend time with us. Ours is a program that is successful due to not merely the sacrifices we all make to be here and the deep studies that we all perform, but due to our passion for writing genre fiction and the connections we forge among each other. I always end my “What is a Genre?” theory module with a slide that simply reads “Genres are communities.”
As is self-evident from the smiles on your faces, and also the annual return of so many alumni who not only host a shadow residency, but put together a fantastic book fair (last night), we are the living embodiment of what a genre community really is. And even though we write in many genres, we all work in one craft – fiction – that unites us quite strongly, despite our differences. And that itself, perhaps, is why popular fiction is so important, because it can show how differences interrelate for the masses as well.
Our staying power in academia and our growth from a class of about 12 then to a class of about 100 now is a sign of our strength as a program. But over the past twenty years we also have survived because we have evolved with the times. Dr. Peeler has been here for half of it – a full decade – and I chalk up a lot of our evolution over the years to her, because she helped us to adapt to a marketplace where genres were merging, audiences were changing, and technology adjusting what it is we all do. Plus she’s just hilarious, and ever since our trip to Transylvania together we share a blood oath that I can’t talk about, so let’s just give her a round of applause too.
I have so many memories to share, because 20 years is a long time. Even in the early days, we started referring to students by their residency number – from the 1s who just finished their first residency to the 6s who were finishing up their sixth and last. I appreciate this token of my service to Seton Hill, the Caritas, because it means I am a 40. Yet I'm also happy to say that I’m nowhere near graduating into retirement. In fact, I’m likely to be a 70 or an 80 by the time I finish my work in this program. If at all. Who knows, with the way medical science and technology are developing, maybe someday I can even proudly be a 666.
Oh, imagine the medal and ceremony for that.
Think back to where you were twenty years ago. Were you in school? What grade? Were you writing then? What was the world of popular fiction like back then? It was a different millennium. It was w world before 9/11, before Osama Bin Laden and Donald Trump and Kim Jon Un. A world before Facebook and Twitter – even before the iphone!
The end of the 20th century – the time when I grew up – is often considered the television age, but it was also a high point in popular fiction, when the mass market paperback was invented, and bestselling novels defined their own sort of genre along the way, rife with tactics that have trickled down into what we consider makes a good book today. Hopefully, inspired by your program, you have studied some. We’d be foolish not to at least carry a secret hope to become the next John Grisham, Thomas Harris, Danielle Steel or Stephen King – all of whom were on NY Times Bestseller list when I started this job 20 years ago and believe it or not are or have been on it again this year too. Maybe you guys can change that. But the storytellers of the last generation wrote what are the equivalent of literary classics today, and our culture treasures their voices still. A lot has NOT changed in the popular fiction landscape over the past generation…only now we are reading these books on our kindles and playing the video games that they inspire and binge watching television series that are based on them on Netflix. I encourage you to study all popular media, if you truly aspire to write popular fiction. Popular fiction is both universal and yet trendy, and you must evolve with the times while also keeping a hand in the past.
Over the past twenty years, I have many memories of our program, too many to recount here, and many I probably should never mention on a public stage. But indulge me for a moment while I do three things: share some memories, share my deep appreciations, and just GUSH about how much I love what I do – so much so that I wish I could just give you all medals for being such amazing people.
And oh, do I love this program. The Caritas medallion is for service, but that sounds heartless and drab to me. If I am “serving” you, like some drone or slave, it is because I am a masochist. Which means I love you. But actually, teaching and writing are the same thing to me – they are my vocation, my calling, and when I prep a class I might as well be outlining a short story – and vice-versa. I’m really just doing what I love to do and getting paid for it is just the frosting on a very fulfilling cake. The harder I work, the more I enjoy it. And the rewards are seeing the work of my students published, or to hear from an alum what impact something I’ve said has made on their lives is a pure joy. And how could I not love WPF, with everything from wine socials to crazy alumni balls, where I have had the rare opportunity of seeing my thesis advisees dress as witches, vampires, and catwomen. This stuff gets in your dreams and it’s kind of weird. I also have a deluded kind of pride to share that I have sat on this stage and heard an “Arnzen joke” in virtually every graduation speech I’ve heard. Who has been roasted almost 40 times like that? I feel special. And I love that every time I walk into Orientation, I am overwhelmed with hugs and questions and laughter. Seton Hill has offered me a salary and benefits that very few genre writers ever get, and rewards me for publishing my strange, sick, purile, and prurient thoughts. Because you trust that there is more going on than just that – and you’re right. My love for writing outweighs my desire to gross you out or give you goosebumps, and though my cackle of evil laughter might seem creepy to some, I assure you it is just my expression of twisted love for my genre community.
Here at Seton Hill, I have learned for 20 years. I have learned that horror writers are not so different from other genre writers, and I keep learning from you all. I came here straight out of a PhD program, where I wasn’t sure if I’d ever find a teaching job because of what I did as a horror writer, and instead I found a home that not only welcomed me but has encouraged and rewarded me for doing it for over twenty years. Thank you, Seton Hill, I love you because you have given me something akin to unconditional love with your trust. You are my family. And my colleagues – Al, Lee, Nicole, and Wendy – you are my colleagues, but also my brothers and sisters and even though we are all PhDs in the language arts, I cannot put our bond into words.
And you, Griffins all, are also my friends whether you know it or not, and not just here, but out in the world. Anytime I go to a writing conference, I am surrounded by alums and students and adjuncts all of whom will gladly open up a dialogue, let me hang around the bar with them, or even engage in witty repartee on a panel discussion. Just last month I attended StokerCon, where I couldn’t count the number of Griffins in attendance, but several alums and adjuncts taught workshops, sat on panels. One former alum was a Guest of Honor; another won a Stoker Award. Do you know how lucky I am to be a part of all this? How proud I am? And how much justice there is in seeing our academic work validated in the real publishing industry like this? It is the best job in the world and I know there are a number of writers who envy me this position. They’re probably wanting the healthcare plan, but I assure you, it’s the human bonds forged on a job like this that mean more than anything else. Not every job – perhaps especially not writing, which is isolating, lonely, challenging and fraught with financial risk – allow for such community and friendship and growth.
Thinking back over the past twenty years, a lot of memories flash up in my mind. I think of all the guest speakers whose lectures have shaped my way of thinking or merely just entertained me. I remember the reverence I felt when Octavia Butler was on this very stage, lecturing about cultural issues in Science Fiction – and I smiled throughout Daniel Jose Older’s reading last night, showing the enduring potency of such matters and how our genres are not just capable of representing diversity, but reminding us of the diverse community that we already are, and the power that is sourced in speaking truth. I also remember Catherine Asaro’s hilarious powerpoint mishap, when her laptop stalled and she hit the forward button like a hundred times, and then it accidentally auto-played in rapid fire with all these sound effects she had added that the very chaos of hell poured out of the loudspeakers. That was awesome. I now know how to depict the experience of someone having a stroke.
As a 40, I remember so, so many students, many of whom keep coming back every summer for the alumni functions making sure we never forget them. Of course I have a special place in my heart for my mentees, but I wanted to publicly thank them for all they have taught me, because every book contains research and information, but also working side by side with another writer, you learn and relearn the method every time. My mentees are my colleagues and several former students are now my closest friends – and I bet your critique partners are yours. You need to hold on to those who can give you intellectual conversations and fellow writers who know what it’s like. I have had coffee talk with Heidi & Jason more often than I do members of my own family. And just last week I joined a bbq at Rebecca Baker’s house – Becca was among the first or second graduating class, and now works fulltime in the Marketing department here at SHU, and she and her husband Bruce are now my best friends. And guess what? They’re your friends too and you should thank them, for Becca hosted the very first wine social in that same backyard, and while the location moves from bar to library lounge to (my personal favorite) “Beer on the Lawn,” the tradition of conviviality has continued ever since.
I mention past students, and how alumni always return, but some are so devoted to this program that several of them teach for us now, from Priscilla Oliveras to Heidi and Jason Miller, Will Horner and Maria Snyder and Nalo Hopkinson to Shelly Adina…even Victoria Thomson, who has taught for us, like, forever, took the program and is technically an alum. And while I’m mentioning adjuncts, I just have to say that I love you all, both those here today, and those who have gone before you. You ARE our faculty, and I know the fulltime folks on stage would agree with me that there would be no program without you. In fact, your presence as professionals in the industry working alongside us stuffy academics is precisely what distinguishes our program from all the other would-be MFAs that are out there, and I commend you for it. A round of applause please.
I could go on and on, but I did want to add that this moment causes me to reflect not only on teaching in our graduate program, but teaching at Seton Hill in general. Have you heard the expression “Keep your day job?” That’s usually criticism suggesting that your artistic skills aren’t quite good enough to put food on the table. But let me tell you, I have the best day job in the world and I currently plan to keep it forever. It’s a lot of work, and it IS true that I sacrifice a lot writing time to teach and serve this institution, for I have worked not only in this graduate program, but in the many roles I have played on this campus between residencies as an English professor – from teaching composition to 18 year olds fresh out of high school to running courses in fiction writing, poetry, film and literary criticism. I’ve also edited the campus literary magazine for 2/3 of that time and was even the Chair of the Humanities for almost a third of it. It’s a lot of work to teach English full-time, but I love the back and forth I get from being a Generalist one day and a specialist the other. All of this is grist for my creative mill, and keeps me engaged with readers, thinkers and just the world at large. I hope you see how this can be true for you too, even outside of academia. We should all recognize just how important a day job is for generating ideas and giving us a sense of audience. But ever since I’ve been a professor, all along the way, people – usually my writer friends who aren’t in academia – have persistently asked me: “Why bother? You’re an award winning author and have a PhD from studying your genre. Surely you could make a living at this writing gig…Wouldn’t you rather just write?”
Sometimes that’s a question I have asked myself, but the answer always comes back to my realization when I was an undergraduate that it’s not just the writing that I love. It’s everything related to it. I love horror movies, from the Italian Giallo’s of Dario Argento to the creepy body films of David Cronenberg to the classic creatures of Universal Horror. And oh nothing warms the black chambers in the cockles of my heart than all the bloody, putrescent gore. I love it all. I love articles about phobias and historical looks at urban legends and demonic myths and I even enjoy bad book reviews. I love reading a horror poem to a friend to listening to panel discussions about the latest trends in monster movies. I like creepy storytelling over campfires as much as the latest Stephen King novel. I dig goth clothing and creepy doom metal. I love every single Halloween costume I see, especially the lame ones. But I am not just a fan. I am a professional fan and also a creator. I love to dream alongside other dark dreamers, but also just love to imagine how all of these things could be even better, if I did them my way. It’s the creative life.
And when someone asks me, “Why don’t you just write?” The answer is simple. I don’t JUST do anything. I dive into my genre and I do it all, including studying and teaching it, and I don’t JUST do it the way that everyone else does, either. Teaching allows me to live a very conscious life as a practitioner and a scholar, and so SHU, I thank you for that liberty to learn and grow and to keep having the same kind of book chats I had as an undergraduate myself.
There is a thin line between being a professor and a professional. They both share the same root word: to FESS. Not as in to fester, Scott Johnson, but as in to TELL THE TRUTH. As in to CONFESS. Genres and those who work within them express truths that no one else in our society – from the news pundits to our parents – are telling. I am very proud to have been a teacher in this community who from the very beginning has prodded and encouraged and challenged you to think deeper and get at those truths, and to tell them well, armed with the verities of the craft and the conventions of your chosen genre.
My speech is already too long, so I will stop with the walk down memory lane and end the litany of love and all my random pontificating to just say that part of what makes a community a community is the stories it tells itself about itself. I hope you, storytellers all, will continue to share your memories in the gathering that follows todays commencement, and also over the next twenty years of your lives. You have, in fact, been trained by Seton Hill to tell them. So go on, take the risk, step forward, and fess up.
Thank you again, for this Amulet of Doom.
Class dismissed.