In Mary Oliver’s poem “Sometimes,” the speaker famously encourages readers to “Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” How might we channel this kind of deep noticing and reflection to locate new directions for creative exploration—to find our way to work that matters to us? I’ll talk about how slowness and stillness are embedded in the story of The Come Apart, both its creation and the themes at play in the text. You’ll be able to try your hand at slow writing through exercises that promote close observation, hand-writing, stillness, and playful revision.
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Susannah Felts, co-founder of The Porch, is a fiction writer, freelance writer, teacher, editor, and native Nashvillian. Her second novel, The Come Apart, will be published by Triquarterly Press in June 2026.
Susannah has been awarded the Tennessee Arts Commission’s Individual Artist Fellowship, a Tennessee Williams Scholarship to the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and residencies at the Ragdale Foundation, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences. Her work has appeared in publications such as The Oxford American, Guernica, Joyland, Literary Hub, Longreads, StorySouth, The Best American Science & Nature Writing, and others. She earned her BA with Highest Honors in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and holds an MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Susannah is also a contributing writer for Chapter 16, Humanities Tennessee’s site devoted to literary culture.
"Susannah is fantastic! Encouraging, authentic, and insightful. I came away with so many useful ideas for improving and deepening my writing practice. I'm already putting them to use! Her prompts for re-visioning previous drafts were especially helpful."
"Susannah was great at loosening up the group and encouraging us to volunteer our work and our feedback for others' work. She set the tone for the class's constructive spirit and guilt-free approach to engaging new techniques for creativity and trying out new writing and revision methods. It was great!"
"Susannah really personified empathy. From the first class, I felt challenged and accepted."
