I can't believe I have my MFA???

You’re talking to Karis Rogerson, MFA 👩‍🎓

I did it, Joe.

Nearly nine years after my college graduation, and seven years after I would have graduated with my MA had I continued in the journalism master’s I started, I walked across a stage and got a diploma with my name and “Master of Fine Arts” inscribed in it.

Holy forking shirtballs, Batman. I freaking did the thing.

I’m saving the emotions of this newsletter for the “from the heart” section. Check out “from the camera roll” for a round-up of residency shots. And let’s gather in “from the page” to chat through some of what I learned after delivering a lecture this past residency. For now, I leave you with this: I did it.

From the heart 💗

Suddenly I don’t know where to start. So let’s start with this: when I enrolled in VCFA’s Writing for Children & Young Adults MFA, I did so not really believing in my ability to graduate. I definitely didn’t believe in my ability to graduate in four consecutive semesters, without taking multiple leaves of absence (LOAs)1. However, when I met my cohort that first day of residency, Jan. 11, 2022, I knew I wanted them to be my graduating class. And so I put my head down and I spent two years working my ass off.

I pulled near all-nighters to turn in packets on time. I devoted ~25 hours a week, for two years, to reading and writing and thinking critically about what I was reading and writing. I hopped on countless Google Meets with friends to write together, commiserate together, laugh together. I forged bonds with a community so special it hurts my heart to think about because how is this real?

I’m making myself cry and I’m not even to graduation yet!

I persevered through a first semester in which I was underemployed and often didn’t have money for groceries; through a shock announcement about the college changing its residency structure; through a semester where I spent half the time abroad, lol; through a critical thesis; through a residency I spent mostly suicidal; through a semester in which we learned faculty were grossly underpaid and their future at the college was uncertain; through a final residency of joy and laughter and reading aloud and lecturing live.

I persevered through coming out and through broken hearts and through Covid and through working full-time again after 14 months of unemployment.

I persevered, and I kept writing and reading and thinking, and the culmination of it all was this past Saturday: they called my name, the crowd cheered for me and laughed at the excerpt my brilliant advisor chose, and I got my diploma.

How is this real life? It’s a fever dream, an accomplishment I’ve ached for for over a decade, a culmination of hard work and tears and blood (yes) and sweat and friendships forged and a community born out of shared grievances and hardships.

Fuck. I did it.

More importantly: WE did it. My cohort persevered through all the things I did as well as their own personal mountains. My community persevered through all the changes and horrors and came together this January to provide the most epic, beautiful, celebratory experience for me and my cohort2.

I am a mess of emotions. I’m literally crying as I write this. I don’t know where to put all the feelings roiling inside my chest: the pride, yes, but also the grief. Grief that this beautiful experience is over, that even though I will remain connected to my people, it will look different. Grief because change is hard, and scary, and I’m mourning the person I was on Saturday before I walked and also don’t know yet who I’ll be today and tomorrow and every day after.

Who am I when I’m not a VCFA student? Who am I when I’m not working on school?

As our graduation speaker reminded us Saturday: I am a writer. I will take these feelings and write them. I will take this emptiness I feel and fill it with words. I will take the tools I gained over the past two years and with them I will craft stories to take your breath away. I will change the world, one reader at a time.

I am a writer.

Let’s do this.

From the camera roll 📸

From the page ✍️

On Friday, Jan. 12, 2024 at 9:30 am (EST), I stood in front of a room full of students, graduate assistants, and faculty members, and a Zoom full of the same but far away, and I said: “Welcome to my lecture: We’re Here, We’re Queer, We Have no Fear.” For the next 30 minutes, I shared from the heart and from the findings I came upon as I worked on my critical thesis during my third semester. They laughed at points; I cried at others. And most importantly of all, I survived.

I knew from the moment I learned I had to deliver a graduating lecture that I’d want to do it live and in-person. I’m an extrovert who loves the spotlight, of COURSE I was going to thrive when all eyes were on me 😂. And then I was slotted last in the line-up and I spent the week listening to my brilliant classmates deliver lectures on topics ranging from funny girls in kidlit to callbacks to the social model of disability to Native languages. And I was both soothed by their brilliance and terrified of not measuring up.

And then, I did it. I spoke from the heart and from a slideshow I’d made, and I shared a bit about my own coming out journey and how Pride has factored into my life, my reading, and my writing. I shared about learnings from some excellent YA novels including The Lesbiana’s Guide to Catholic School by Sonora Reyes, a book that broke me and pieced me back together stitch by stitch. I wrote about how conversations on the page in which characters discuss shame vs pride can help teen readers have those in their own life. And I shared how supportive communities on the page can model supportive communities in real life.

I am so proud of myself. Because I was terrified, and I did it anyway. Because I didn’t think I had anything to add to the craft conversation, and I did it anyway. Because I’m convinced I’m not smart, and I did it anyway. Because I’m anxious, and I did it anyway.

There is so much I could share as a takeaway from this experience, and I want it to be this: do it anyway. Be scared. Be unsure. Be nervous. Do it anyway. Have doubts, do it anyway. Write the story anyway. Share the lecture anyway. Love your friends anyway.

Do it anyway.

Alla prossima 👋

Well, I’m emotional. I’m going to hit send on this newsletter and then curl up and have a good cry and then I’m gonna clean my room and get back to life.

Today marks 100 days since Oct. 7, 2023. Over those 100 days, tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed. One hundred journalists have been killed. Buildings have been flattened and hundreds of thousands injured and millions displaced within Gaza. Let this be the last day of this genocide. It’s been too long already.