Butler MFA Favorite Breweries

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Hunter S. Thompson noted, “There is an ancient Celtic axiom that says ‘Good people drink good beer.’ Which is true, then as now.” The Butler MFA is blessed to be in Indiana, where there are many options to drink good beer including over one hundred and twenty craft breweries.

beer

Indiana is home to over one hundred and twenty craft breweries and is often listed in top ten states for best breweries in both variety and quality. The top three big dogs, Three Floyds, Upland, and Sun King, win awards and are distributed nationally, but the Butler MFA students have made their favorites among smaller gems close to campus.

imagesChris Forhan, MFA professor in poetry, recommends Bent Rail Brewery. “It’s a giant but welcoming space slightly hidden away just south of where the main action is,” says Forhan. “The head brewer is Bradley Zimmerman, who spent years mastering the art of brewing in Seattle, including as an assistant to my brother, Kevin, who is a kind of Mount Rushmore figure in the Seattle beer world.  Bradley’s concoctions are bound to be marvelous.”

Screen Shot 2016-03-30 at 8.03.39 AMJohn Eckerd recommends the Broadripple Brew Pub. He says, “In my mind, the Broad Ripple Brewpub is the heart of the Butler MFA program. The atmosphere and menu are top notch. Nothing compares.”

 
imgresBailey Merlin combines two loves: beer and movies at Flix Brewhouse. “It is divine. The whole restaurant/movie theatre is really doing it for me,” says Merlin. “The theatres are small, but high quality, and the food and booze (the beer is made in house and is great) is delicious for a decent price.”

 

 

Screen Shot 2016-03-30 at 8.00.20 AMDavid Anderson can’t get enough of Two Deep. “I really like the quieter vibe of the tasting room. Upscale warehouse decor and a variety of seating options lends itself to a big group or a date night,” says Anderson.

 

 

Screen Shot 2016-03-29 at 4.23.24 PMMindy Dunn discovered St. Joseph Brewery & Public House located in a 135-year-old Catholic church. With owners bringing years of successful expertise (they also own Ralston’s Drafthouse and Chatham Tap, and the head brewer pioneered Oaken Barrel Brewing Company), the food and beer are amazing. However, with beer named Holy Roller Oat and Confessional IPA, seating in a choir loft, a bar in the nave, and fermentation tanks dominating the apse, it is the ambiance that makes St. Joe’s a must visit brewery.

Indiana also celebrates over twenty craft beer festivals yearly, including October’s America on Tap, a venue offering samples from hundreds of breweries across the nation, so there will always be new beer to discover.

“Isn’t beer the holy libation of sincerity? The potion that dispels all hypocrisy, any charade of fine manners?” – Milan Kundera

“God has a brown voice, as soft and full as beer.” – Ann Sexton

“Beer’s intellectual. What a shame so many idiots drink it.” – Ray Bradbury

“For a quart of Ale is a dish for a king.” – Shakespeare

“Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza.” – Dave Barry

Convo@Efryo Events Strengthens MFA Community

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The MFA reading and event series, conversations@efryomson, held two successful events this past month. conversations@efryomson is organized by the Butler MFA and works to compliment the popular Vivian S. Delbrook Visiting Writers Series, which brings in twelve major national writers every year. The objective of conversations@efryomson to provide unique opportunities for Butler MFA students and to foster a community among the MFA.

From Fire to Form: the Sanity of Writing

IMG_2068Through conversations@efryomson, MFA students Kim Carey and Bailey Merlin led an interactive workshop giving Butler MFA students a taste of a writing for wellness workshop. Carey and Merlin, along with several other MFA students, are sharing their passion for creative writing and igniting the cathartic nature of writing in writing groups around the city. Currently, Butler MFAs run workshops at hospitals, rehab centers, assisted living homes, and schools around the Indianapolis area. Merlin runs a workshop in a youth psychiatric unit. She said, “It’s hard work but well worth it.”

In addition to the gratification of sharing her passion for writing and knowing she is helping others, Carey said running a wellness writing workshop has benefits to her creative writing. “Just getting it out is my favorite part,” she said. “I get so many ideas from just listening to other people’s stories.”

To demonstrate the personal and creative benefits of this type of writing, Carey and Merlin led a group of current MFA students through five different writing prompts with options to share after each one.

wellnesswriting

Because of the personal nature of the writing prompts, the MFA students who attended the workshop experienced yet another benefit. Friendships deepened as new understanding of each other emerged. As usual with this MFA class, lots of ever-present humor created an enjoyable evening.

Nationally, writing for wellness is growing in popularity as more people see the benefits of therapeutic writing. The Butler MFA is rising to the call for more groups and training. In addition to volunteering at one of the workshops, all Butler MFA students are encouraged to consider taking Hilene Flanzbaum’s summer course on Writing for Wellness. Email Hilene or Mindy for more information on the course.

Sunset Story Hour

The second conversations@efroymson event this month was the first ever Butler MFA story slam. Our version of The Moth meets a poetry slam, The Sunset Story Hour invited the MFA community to celebrate good story telling and great friends. Three finalists were selected from an open call to all Butler MFA and undergrads to compete for Amazon gift cards, fame, and glory. Two MFA students and one undergrad were chosen to present their best story to an audience with no notes.

A standing room only crowd was entertained by three presenters who delivered wildly different personal stories. There was laughter, there was heart-racing tension, there were tears, and there was thunderous applause. One of the finalists admitted she was extremely nervous. “I’ve never read in public, and now I’m doing it from memory.” Once she practiced about a hundred times and received encouragement from professors, students, and friends, she was ready. “It really helped that so many people were supportive.” One the most supportive people was her fellow competitor. “She emailed me all week telling me I’d do great. I felt like we were in it together, which made me want to perform better, too.”

The story tellers did such a great job, the judges refused to select a winner and named all three victors in their own right. Nicole, a Butler undergrad who came to the Story Hour to cheer on a friend, said, “It was so much more fun. The speakers were all so good, it was really relaxed, not like a regular school event. There was a dog [Millie, the MFA mascot] walking around, and pizza, and it felt like I was being talked to, not read at. I loved it.”

Ultimately, the night was declared a raucous success by the presenters and the audience. Once it was over, one finalist said, “I was crazy nervous, but it was the most fun thing I’ve done.” She encourages everyone to submit next year.

Don’t miss the remaining converstations@efyoymson events:

3/29: A job that doesn’t feel like a job: Creative Writers in Marketing & Advertising, 7:00PM

MFAs are often not just creative writers, but creative thinkers. Join us for a panel of these “creatives” featuring advertising directors, copywriters, marketing consultants, many of whom will call their creative writing the foundation of their business careers.

4/1: Poetry Lunch Hour – Marilyn Hacker, 12:30
4/15: Poetry Lunch Hour – Poet TBA, 12:30

Open to all Butler community members, each Lunch Hour will feature discussion of a selected poet’s work. A selection of poems will be emailed in advance of the discussion with RSVP, so no book purchase is necessary. Lunch is also provided with RSVP.

Percy Goes 1:1 with Butler MFAs

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image006On his recent visit to Butler University as a Vivian S. Delbrook visiting writer, Benjamin Percy discussed genre writing, read from his new thriller (Dead Lands, a post-apocalyptic reimagining of the Lewis and Clark saga), held a student Q & A, and met with MFA fiction candidates for one-on-one workshops.

Percy was introduced to an audience of Butler students and community fans by MFA student John Eckerd. “He’s a modern Edgar Allen Poe without the weird hair; A Raymond Carver with scarier dreams.”  With a voice like Samuel Jackson, (developed, Percy says, on a diet of beer) Percy discussed the differences between literary fiction and genre fiction. He grew up on genre fiction, but fell in love with literature as a college student. In literary fiction, Percy says, “You create three-dimensional characters you think about years later. You create great lines you can hang on your wall.” In genre fiction, Percy says, “All six cylinders are blazing. You never lose track of what’s most important – what happens next.”

Percy asked himself to write the kind of story he’d fall in love with as a child.  “My childhood can only be described as preapocalyptic,” Percy said. “Falling off the grid has always been an active part of my fantasy life.”

While his story ideas are wildly imaginative, his writing process is as analytical as an accountant’s spreadsheet. He reads a novel he admires at least six times before becoming emotionally detached enough to dissect each chapter into a structure. He works in an old dark room he calls his “nightmare factory.” For at least a year, Percy plots out stories on paper he’s ripped from his children’s art easel. His story map is “like a constellation or a seismograph.” There are bright points and lots of up ticks and down ticks.

IMG_2150Because he is so precise in his own writing process and so willing to share advice, fiction MFA students were eager to meet with him one on one to discuss their work. Percy spent time with students’ work beforehand, covering the pages with notes and considerations. When he met with them one on one, he offered specific advice on the submission, general writing techniques, and writing career tips. Thesis candidate Dave Marsh said, “Percy was excellent 1:1. I am SO glad I made the effort to sign up for one of those workshop slots. I can’t wait to get hold of his craft book [Thrill Me: Essays on Fiction, October, 2016] that will come out later this year.”

Spring Break in Indy

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While some of our MFA students spent spring break in Canada and Portland, many stayed in Indy and were gifted with beautiful, sunny days in 70’s and even hotter evenings of exciting literary readings.

On Tuesday, Pressgang celebrated the release of Flashed: Sudden Stories in Comics and Prose, edited by Josh Neufeld & Sari Wilson. Butler MFA students read selections from the book before a conversational Q & A session with Neufeld and Pressgang’s Editor & Publisher, Robert Stapleton.

Flashed is a collection of flash fiction stories in comics and prose, pressed up against one another. In dialogue. In concert. In conversation. The stories are arranged in “triplets”—each grouping a kind of call-and-response among the respective contributors. So Flashed is more than an anthology; it’s a conversation among some of today’s most exciting prose writers and cartoonists, and between the forms of prose and comics.
flashed

On Wednesday, the Akbar III drew a crowd to the Brewpub. Emceed by Mindy Dunn and punctuated with impossible trivia by John Eckerd, the hotly-criticized and officially disavowed reading series packed the Brewpub’s sun porch once again.

The audience was treated to the debut reading from Ben Winter’s soon to be released novel, Underground Airlines. The Butler MFA professor and Edgar-winning author confessed he was nervous to read from his new novel, but the crowd was thrilled.  Butler MFA candidate Kyler Moor read his hilarious personal essay in the form of yelp reviews, and community poet Bree Jo’Ann entertained with poetry effectively funny and poignant at once.

Best lines from Akbar III:

Winters: I looked pathetic.

Kyler: Everyday has its asshole.

Bree: There was a time it was okay to be in a boy band.

John: Read a book people!

akbarIII

 

The sunny spring weather sparked interest among current MFA students in forming a hiking/outdoor writing group. With diverse natural landscape across Indiana – dunes to the north, caves to the south, rock formations to the west, and forests and hills all around us – there are many outdoor places near Indianapolis to explore and inspire. Look for details coming soon.

indiana

Get Back to MFA Life with These Events Happening This Week

Wednesday: Writing Club, 11:00, ECCW

Thursday: Visiting Writer Robin Coste Lewis Poetry Reading, 7:30 PM, Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall

Friday: Poetry Lunch Hour, 12:30, ECCW (RSVP to Mindy Dunn)

Friday: Sunset Story Hour storytelling slam, 7:00 PM, ECCW

Summer Course: Writing for Wellness

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IMG_2081The Butler MFA has created an initiative to bring writing for wellness into the Indianapolis community through outreach programs. In the trenches of writing and revising, MFAs often take the cathartic nature of writing for granted, but in wellness writing groups across the city, MFAs are igniting the passion for writing and sharing its therapeutic powers.

Championed by MFA program director, Hilene Flanzbaum, the writing for wellness effort now includes programs at four sites, has been the focus of two conversations@efroymson events, and now will be the focus of a summer course taught by Flanzbaum.

The course is a three-week practicum meeting June 6th-24th with a flexible schedule including class hours and experience hours. A typical week will meet twice as a group for instruction, sharing experiences and ideas, training, and development. Additionally, students will participate in writing for wellness sessions both as a leader and an observer.

IMG_2090Potential writing groups include adolescents at Riley Children Hospital, health employees at Eskenazi hospital, and Seniors at long-term care residences. Additional groups are currently being pursued and will be added.

Andrea Boucher, a volunteer at the Eskenazi writing for wellness group is registered for the summer course. “I’m taking Hilene’s class as a way to learn more about the nuances of leading a writing for wellness group,” she said. “One thing I find most helpful is talking and collaborating with others on what bests energizes and inspires a group of not-necessarily-writers to feel creative enough to write something meaningful to them. It’s a bit like a treasure hunt, but when you see that click — that universal expression of joy at being able to connect images and feelings to words — the hunt is well worth it. Service work is good for the soul.”

Contact Hilene Flanzbaum if you have questions about the summer course or the writing for wellness initiative at Butler.

 

 

Summer Course: Writing for Wellness

Posted by MS

IMG_2081The Butler MFA has created an initiative to bring writing for wellness into the Indianapolis community through outreach programs. In the trenches of writing and revising, MFAs often take the cathartic nature of writing for granted, but in wellness writing groups across the city, MFAs are igniting the passion for writing and sharing its therapeutic powers.

Championed by MFA program director, Hilene Flanzbaum, the writing for wellness effort now includes programs at four sites, has been the focus of two conversations@efroymson events, and now will be the focus of a summer course taught by Flanzbaum.

The course is a three-week practicum meeting June 6th-24th with a flexible schedule including class hours and experience hours. A typical week will meet twice as a group for instruction, sharing experiences and ideas, training, and development. Additionally, students will participate in writing for wellness sessions both as a leader and an observer.

IMG_2090Potential writing groups include adolescents at Riley Children Hospital, health employees at Eskenazi hospital, and Seniors at long-term care residences. Additional groups are currently being pursued and will be added.

Andrea Boucher, a volunteer at the Eskenazi writing for wellness group is registered for the summer course. “I’m taking Hilene’s class as a way to learn more about the nuances of leading a writing for wellness group,” she said. “One thing I find most helpful is talking and collaborating with others on what bests energizes and inspires a group of not-necessarily-writers to feel creative enough to write something meaningful to them. It’s a bit like a treasure hunt, but when you see that click — that universal expression of joy at being able to connect images and feelings to words — the hunt is well worth it. Service work is good for the soul.”

Contact Hilene Flanzbaum if you have questions about the summer course or the writing for wellness initiative at Butler.