Sin Fronteras Creative Writing Project for Undergraduate Students ended after a three-year stint at WNMU. It encouraged students to investigate the concept of the border in new and different ways. KRWG's Susan Morée spoke with Heather Frankland, associate professor of English Composition at WNMU, about the program and what the WNMU undergraduate students got from the program.
Susan Morée:
So Heather, you had this three-year-long program at Western called Sin Fronteras Creative Writing Project for Undergraduate Students. Tell us about what it did and what you were doing through this program.
Heather Frankland:
Sure. So this program was built to be kind of a community builder with undergraduate students, giving them the opportunity to work with professional writers as well as write new material, as well as being exposed to literature that was both regional and international. And so, the Sin Fronteras Creative Writing Project consisted of craft talks, generative workshops, and really just a celebration of writing and readings. They had six sessions this time around, and each session was taught by a guest writer who was very published and had experience within international and or regional literature. Each session was playing with the idea of sin fronteras being without borders. Sometimes very directly so, talking about the borders between countries or the US-Mexico border. Other times a little bit more abstractly so, talking about, for instance, like the borders between genre, with hybrid genres. And so it was a fun time.
Susan Morée:
And who were some of the writers you were able to invite to teach the students?
Heather Frankland:
Yeah, we had JJ Amaworo Wilson, who is our Western writer-in-residence. Also, you know, JJ, one of his books was on the Oprah's Book Club pick. We also had--
Susan Morée:
Very impressive.
Heather Frankland:
I mean, all the writers, were very impressive. Fabienne Josaphat was one of our other writers, and she was a Penn Bellwether Award winner for her historical fiction book. And then we had a couple who came a couple of summers when they were able to, but there also were repeats. And that was Melanie Sweeney, who is a USA Today bestseller. And then Miguel de la Cruz, a Las Cruces writer, who is also very well known with his micro fiction. It was like a little buffet of looking at the border, this idea of a border in different ways through different genres.
Susan Morée:
And you yourself are a poet. You were the poet laureate of Silver City and Grant County. How did this fit in with your poet laureateship?
Heather Frankland:
Sure, yes. I did teach. I didn't always teach with poetry, but I often was using poetry in how I taught, almost like a perfect marriage between my work as a professor and my work as a writer, and as a writer in service of the community.
Susan Morée:
And what do you think the students got from this experience?
Heather Frankland:
Yeah, I mean, I think that a lot of students are very interested in creative writing. And this gave them an opportunity to expand that interest. In addition, some of them, they immediately wanted to check out the books of the other writers that were the guest teachers, and they were talking about the books that were important to them and seeing the power that books could really give. So on a very practical matter, they wrote a lot during these sessions. And some of them wrote things that they never knew that they would write. And some of those who wrote, they submitted to the student academic press, the undergraduate academic press, the Maverick, and they are going to be published in the fall. So what they wrote, what they started now is going to be a publication on their record.
Susan Morée:
All right. Well, thank you so much, Heather. I really appreciate your taking the time to talk to me.
Heather Frankland:
Okay, well, thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking the time to highlight Sin Fronteras in this work. And I do want to say that we were able to do this work based on the generosity of the President's Society from the Foundation of Western New Mexico Foundation. And if we hadn't had that support, then we would not have been able to do this work. So a big shout out to them. But thank you very much.
