Brenda Paik

“… Eloise Klein Healy once told us that the most important thing about Antioch's MFA program is our writer's community. This remains true, as I am still in contact with fellow writers. During the residencies, we were able to have many opportunities to get to know each-other.

These encounters would occur in the course of workshops, off-site excursions, lunch at the Marina, collaborative projects, public readings, or right by the elevator. The thoughtful feedback we received was invaluable.

I never read so many books in two years, and never had so many substantive discussions about them. Based on the inspiration of several MFA workshops, I have since become involved in a translation project of Vietnamese poetry and also taken up photojournalism--combining text and graphics for my second and third books. So I am deeply grateful for all the ideas that emerged during those five grueling residencies. It's a good thing we were required to write those summaries!… ”