{"id":3997,"date":"2015-09-03T11:44:53","date_gmt":"2015-09-03T15:44:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/groups.etown.edu\/news\/?p=3997"},"modified":"2015-09-23T15:23:43","modified_gmt":"2015-09-23T19:23:43","slug":"presidential-community-enrichment-series-kicks-off-sept-6-with-bwh-author","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/2015\/09\/03\/presidential-community-enrichment-series-kicks-off-sept-6-with-bwh-author\/","title":{"rendered":"Presidential Community Enrichment Series kicks off Sept. 16 with BWH author"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"waters_jessePCES\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI hate writing, but it\u2019s an addiction. I can\u2019t not write.\u201d<\/p>\n

These are the words of Jesse Waters, director at Elizabethtown College\u2019s Bowers Writers House, who will discuss, Wednesday, Sept. 16, his literary achievements over the past years as a poet and novelist.<\/p>\n

Waters\u2019 lecture, held in the Susquehanna Room of Myer Hall, kicks off the College\u2019s Presidential Community Enrichment Series. The forum, \u201cMy Own Strangelove: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Write the Novel,\u201d begins at noon. Cost of attendance is $15, which includes lunch and a 15-minute Q&A.<\/p>\n

Waters\u2019 poetry, fiction and non-fiction writings have won contests, have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, and appeared in countless literary journals. As a visiting assistant professor in the English Department, writing for Waters is not a new territory. But writing his first novel, \u201cSaving Face,\u201d is.<\/p>\n

\n

I hate writing, but it\u2019s an addiction. I can\u2019t not write.\u201d<\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cWhen I work on a poem, it\u2019s small. It\u2019s more focused and easier to reform,\u201d said Waters, in a recent interview in the College\u2019s Blue Bean Cafe. \u201cBut writing a novel is like doing a triathlon without seeing the other competitors.\u201d<\/p>\n

The journey to write his novel has taken more than two years, but the dream of completion is something Waters believes is crucial for all writers.\u00a0As he described, every novel\u00a0is a \u201clittle dream\u201d and\u00a0novelists must wake up every day and believe in that dream, \u201cthat you can do this.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not trying to be Fitzgerald,\u201d Waters said when asked about the pressure of writing his book. \u201cI\u2019m just trying to write a novel I think people would like to read.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his Enrichment Series on Wednesday, Waters discusses the ups and downs to writing a novel and the strategies he uses to undertake the feat. Since he was six years old, Waters has been writing. Short stories and poetry called out to him as a way to create something purely his. And, later on, in his own story, Waters designed the programming of Bowers Writers House from the ground up as a venue for other writers, performers and artists. Now, Waters is up to his shoulders in projects and stories he has started. But \u201cSaving Face,\u201d is taking the spotlight on his desk.<\/p>\n

The novel is a fiction piece involving a couple headed to Las Vegas and into a series of events that will change their lives. With the book still in process, Waters will discuss the truth about writing something as demanding as novel.<\/p>\n

Competition, the desire for excellence and the overwhelming weight of completing a novel is \u201clike plate spinning,\u201d said Waters. \u201cYou are 150 pages in, and you are trying to be engaged, but you can\u2019t forget that you have all these other energies to be spun at the same time.\u201d One strategy the writer uses is avoiding any expectations that could pin him down in completing \u201cSaving Face.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI have the whole book mapped out, and I know where I want it to land,\u201d he said. \u201cBut if you stay too much on the plan, there isn\u2019t an opportunity for the unconscious to breathe.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  \u201cI hate writing, but it\u2019s an addiction. I can\u2019t not write.\u201d These are the words of Jesse Waters, director at Elizabethtown College\u2019s Bowers Writers House, who will discuss, Wednesday, Sept. 16, his literary achievements over the past years as a poet and novelist. Waters\u2019 lecture, held in the Susquehanna Room of Myer Hall, kicks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":3998,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[774,5],"tags":[998,77,197,207,838,999],"class_list":["post-3997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-and-culture","category-arts-culture","tag-ashley-reeb","tag-bowers-writers-house","tag-elizabethtown-college","tag-jesse-waters","tag-presidential-community-enrichment-series","tag-saving-face","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3997"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4017,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3997\/revisions\/4017"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.etown.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}