The Butler MFA program is growing faster than ever, and in the early summer that growth paid dividends to a handful of students who got to spend three weeks in writerly nirvana, attending intensive workshops in Chamonix, France. Part graduate workshop, part scenic vacation, part mad-science experiment, the first Chamonix Summer Writing Program was a resounding success– so much so that it is being offered again, now a permanent offering to Butler students.
But you absolutely shouldn’t take my word for it. You should, however, take Jim Hanna‘s word for it. Because he went. And despite this glamorous head shot, he is most assuredly not a paid actor. He was kind enough to answer a few questions and share a near-death experience with me.
As an MFA student, what’s the value of partaking in the Chamonix Program?
Waking up in an unfamilar place—especially an unfamiliar place surrounded by mountains on all sides—seemed like it might disrupt my writing routine. And for a day or two it did. But then workshops began. I couldn’t help but be caught up in the literary mindset, both critical and creative. Four days a week, our mornings were devoted to discussing story. Afternoons I read, wrote, hiked. Evenings I prepared for the next day’s workshop.
Again, it might seem like going to a far away place would be a recipe for not getting a lot done. (There’s so much to see and do!) But if you’re a writer, you’re probably looking for ways to discipline yourself, to rededicate yourself to craft. And, yes, the time to write is there to seize. Besides amazing cheeses, cured meats, and wines at ridiculously low prices (and a terrible selection of overpriced beer), I found peace, quiet, and several hours a day of writing time. But more importantly, being around your workshop companions and talking and thinking about writing for three solid weeks was one of the best experiences of my writing life.
Can you share a particular memory from Chamonix?
We were on our way to our first workshop in Chamonix. Meeting at a roundabout near the towncenter, the nine of us wound along the morning-quiet streets toward the home of our professor, Mike Dahlie.
The air was cool and wet, like Indy in the Fall, but the sun peeking over the rim of the valley in front of us promised a warmer day. I was already starting to sweat beneath the heavy coat I wore, a caution against the surprising alpine weather.
Our group’s mood matched the beautiful morning, and we chatted amiably as we crossed town. Mike lived on the east side, just on the outskirts of Cham, while most of the rest of us were set up in the neighborhood called Sud, so-called for its southerly locale. But the city is small. You can only really get lost once. The next time you try to get lost you will only find all the same streets you were lost on before, and so become un-lost right away. I discovered this the first night there when everyone else had yet to arrive, and I went out for a pint and a burger without my map. It took me an hour to find the lone microbrewery. But on my way home, even in the gloaming, the streets took on familiar shapes.
As we walked Maria told us how she woke up to discover herself running repeatedly into the dresser in her apartment. Sleepwalking, she admitted, was something she was prone to. We all laughed with her, but then I began to remember my own adventure from the previous night. Unusual for me, I, too, had gone sleepwalking.
I suppose I could blame it on the tenuous wireless connection in my apartment, which failed on my second day there for reasons explicable only in French it would seem from conversations had with my landlord. So every night I wandered across the street to the too-close-for-my-good-health Jekyll & Hyde pub, an old stone home now converted into a refuge for English speakers in the heart of the Alps. There, I would sit and chat online with Sally, my wife, who was to join me in France later.
At four days into our three weeks there, I was already on a first-name basis with Jo, the Jekyll’s British expat bartendress. (It later turned out she thought my first-name was Tom, but that’s another story.) At the cozy pub I drank and talked to my wife about all the fun I was having without her, and she regaled me with pictures of her cuddled with our dogs, until we were both woozy from the hours between us.
Perhaps it was the quantity of European lagers I consumed, and me missing my wife, or maybe it was the jetlag and mountain air that caused me to sleepwalk. In any case, my dream returned to me in the streets like a thread unspooling. I followed it with the telling. And I realized, as I began to speak, that I had not remained confined to my own room.
Let me explain: the rooms to my tiny efficiency apartment locked from the inside, and only with a key. I’d quickly gotten in the habit of leaving my key on its oversized keychain in the lock for quicker exits, but on this night I was able, in my sleep, to unlock the door and wander down the hall, through the double swinging doors, all the way to the staircase.
I dreamt that Sally, still two weeks away, needed me to take the trash upstairs. The dream logic, of course, was flawed—I stayed on the seventh of seven floors. Nonetheless, my dream-wife (not to be confused with my actual wife, who is, indeed, also my real life dream wife) needed me to take out the trash right away, and the place I absolutely had to take it, she insisted, was to the the next floor up.
Dream-trash in hand, I opened the door to the stairwell. Deep, midnight air from small, open windows stirred me to wakefulness. Emerging from the dream, my first thought was that I really ought to put on more clothes before taking out the trash, even at night when no one else was around, even in France where the libertine spirit still thrives. Then I realized that there was a trash can right in front of me, and that I didn’t even need to go up the non-existent stairs after all.
I turned around to head back to my warm bed, but the dark hall shuffled me back down to the dream world. My dream wife once again demanded I take the trash out, and I once again returned to the cold stairwell to obey, repeating the whole process. When the cold air hit me the second time, I shook off sleep’s thrall, found my way to bed, and finished the night’s sleep uninterrupted.
As I finished my story, my workshop companions were shocked and frightened for my safety. “You could have died,” said Heather. “You’re so lucky,” said Lisa. I smiled and we kept walking, but my sweat turned cold as I realized how right they were. I nearly met a terrible end by falling downstairs when there were perfectly good mountains to fall from just a few hundred meters away.
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Editor’s note: Chamonix is actually very nice, and not a death-trap. Promise. Stay tuned as other Butler students weigh in on their first Chamonix experiences.