SEWANEE, Tenn. -- With his main motto being to write and be curious, but more importantly, to enjoy life, author Sam Pickering returned to his alma mater this summer to teach a workshop at the Sewanee School of Letters.
"I had not spent much time in the South since 1966," the 1963 graduate of Sewanee: the University of the South, said in an e-mail.
"I was eager to roam the Cumberland Plateau. I hoped wandering the woods would quicken my nature writing," said Mr. Pickering, who inspired the 1989 film "Dead Poets Society."
Besides, there were plenty of friends he wanted to visit in the area.
He teaches a workshop in nonfiction prose writing. It's about "everything and nothing, hard work and idleness, the optimism of youth and the pessimism of age," he said.
The School of Letters offers a summer master's program in English and in creative writing. It started in 2006 with 19 students and four professors, but has grown to 88 students and 13 professors, according to school officials.
BY THE NUMBERS19: Number of students initially enrolled in summer of 20064: Number of faculty members in 2006 88: Number of students in summer 2010 13: Number of faculty members in 2010 6: Number of students who have graduated from the School of Letters.Source: John Grammer, director of the Sewanee School of LettersFAST FACTSOver the five years of the program there have been professors from Vanderbilt, Northwestern, the City University of New York, Ohio State and the universities of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Mexico, as well as from Sewanee.Classes have included the Bible as Literature, Environmental Literature, Southern Literature and the Classic Russian Novel, as well as seminars on Dante, Shakespeare and William Faulkner and workshops in poetry, fiction and nonfiction.Current students in the program have published stories and poems in such magazines as Gettysburg Review, Crab Orchard Review, Southeast Review and California Quarterly.Tuition for the program is $4,440. Room, board and fees are an additional $1,740.Source: John Grammer, director of the Sewanee School of Letters
"It's a great thing for the college because it offers a way for some of the college faculty to interact with a different kind of student and other faculty from other campuses," said John Grammer, director of the School of Letters and English professor at the University of the South since 1992.
"(And) it's been a great thing for a certain kind of student who needs or wants to do an advanced study in literature or writing but can't quit their job and leave their family to enroll in a two-year program somewhere," he added.
The program was designed primarily for secondary and high school teachers who have summers off, said Dr. Grammer, but it turns out half the student body are lawyers, doctors, housewives and business people. Ages range from the 20s up to 83.
Ohio native Jason Kelley graduated with a bachelor's degree in English and philosophy but now works as an office coordinator in Chattanooga.
"We moved to Chattanooga a few years ago and I was looking for a fine arts program and the School of Letters really stood out because of its location and it's a well-known literary school," said the 27-year-old, who is getting his master's in creative writing.
Having Mr. Pickering is great because of his name recognition and style of teaching, Mr. Kelley said.
"Professor Pickering is a one-of-a-kind person. He is not as focused on things like definitions or (styles). In general he is very open to letting people write about what they want and their own experience," he said.
The best advice he's gotten in his life came from Mr. Pickering, he said.
"He said the best way to learn to write is just to do it," said Mr. Kelley, "and I think he's completely right."