Jotham Burrello is the director of the Yale Writers’ Workshop. His novel, Spindle City, was longlisted for the PEN/Hemingway award, and a finalist for the Connecticut Book Award. His writing has appeared in literary journals, the Hartford Courant, the Christian Science Monitor, and he’s a proud winner of The New Yorker caption contest. He’s currently revising a new novel. He teaches writing at Central Connecticut State University, founded the CT Lit Fest, and is the former publisher of the award-winning Elephant Rock Books.
KMD: How did you first become involved with the Yale Writers Workshop?
JB: The program has been in hiatus for a number of years. When it re-started, I met the director at a writing conference, AWP, and he asked me to teach a fiction workshop. That was in 2012. I became director in 2017.
KMD: What has been the greatest challenge and the greatest reward of your role at Yale?
On a practical level, the organization of five separate programs and over twenty faculty members is always a challenge. Our on-campus programs ask adults many years removed from their college experience to share bathrooms. That will always be a challenge. That said, the opportunity to work with talented faculty and swap ideas with writers is something I look forward to all year.
KMD: I admire your leadership at YWW, particularly your ability to foster community among students who are usually working in vastly different styles and genres. What advice do you have for educators and arts administrators about creating a sense of community among emerging writers?
JB: Remember that 1970s show the Love Boat? The main cast included the captain, the purser, the bartender, the doctor and the cruise director. The director of an arts organization must play all five roles. Steer, serve, listen, mend, and plan the program.
Our program runs each June, but we’ve grown into a loosely knit year around community. I do the work to keep the conversation and community going through social media and Zoom. These are small efforts like starting an alumni newsletter or hosting a lecture series or an open mic, but the work accumulates. So, relationships that began at Yale continue and evolve over time. I love it when alumni return to campus, but I am most pleased when I hear they are continuing to write and publish.
Lastly, innovative programming builds community. Each year I tap available resources and ask colleagues for ideas to expand and develop new programming. I read evaluation surveys. An example is our experiential Ekphrasis adventure. Yale has free, world class museums. Each year the entire cohort goes on a field trip to the galleries seeking inspiration. This activity bonds the community, allows the writers to look beyond the story or essay they are workshopping, and to think of themselves as practicing artists. Later, they share their journal entries with the entire group.
KMD: YWW creates a unique opportunity for students, providing them with special submission opportunities at partner literary journals. Can you say more about why it’s important to include professional development and empowerment in writing curricula?
JB: Making discoveries while writing is its own measure of success. Writers remember when they figured out a manuscript’s narrative arc or a character’s voice. And yet, the desire to publish burns brightly in all writers and I don’t think it’s up to me or our faculty to determine what is publishable and what is not. And there are just so many different avenues to publish nowadays. I strive to provide our writers with paths to publication and opportunities to speak to editors directly. And beyond that, create submission opportunities.
Most conferences bring in publishing professionals, but I didn’t just want platitudes and general advice, so I ask visiting editors to speak about specific work. And then I ask guest editors to create special submission periods for our writers with their magazines. This does not guarantee publication but a spot in line to be evaluated by professional editors. For years now, visiting journals have published Yale writers. But this submission drive was confined to short prose. I wanted to create a similar avenue for writers of book-length manuscripts. In 2021 I sought out an independent publisher to create a special submission period for these writers. In the first three years of the collaboration, two different publishers accepted manuscripts for publication. It’s exciting to receive those acceptance notifications from our alumni.
KMD: When it comes to organizing the YWW over the years, what are you the most proud of?
JB: The relationships I’ve developed with other writers. We write in a silo, but can’t survive alone forever. It’s nice to have a community of writers to talk shop and share a cup of tea.
KMD: What has been the greatest challenge and the greatest reward of your role at Yale?
JB: At the end of each of our programs we organize student readings for writers to share revisions from the week. I usually sit in the back of the room and take notes as my students read. Listening to their revised work is a highlight of my week. It all comes back to the page. And as a teacher first, I hope the craft elements learned at Yale are applied to their future stories.
KMD: How has your work as an educator enriched your creative practice?
JB: The writers who attend the Yale Workshop have a great desire to tell stories. I am humbled by their passion and leave each session with renewed energy for my own projects. (For the past two years I’ve read from my novel-in-progress at our faculty reading. They year I hope to have the manuscript completed.) Plus, the amount of prep I do each spring reading and studying the work of our visiting writers always informs my own creative practice.
KMD: What’s next for YWW? What can students and educators look forward to?
JB: We are currently meshing our online sessions with our on-campus programming. So, this year virtual and in-person programs will run simultaneously. This took some schedule juggling, but I think I can be in two places at once. Wish me luck. And I can’t end without mentioning our flower arrangements. My wife and I own a flower farm, and the Yale Writers’ Workshop has phenomenal flowers. June is peony season. Who doesn’t look forward to those beauties?