"I refuse to let my heart and brain be polluted or hijacked... I just refuse and resist." — Elena Georgiou, on protecting her creative capacity during political crisis
Thank you Jennifer Zarin, LCAT, Jack Cameron, Cate, Snigdha Roy, Julie Neches, and many others for tuning into Writer in the World: Create to Survive, with Sherri L. Smith , Aimee Liu , and Elena Georgiou! This is a special presentation from MFA Lore , where Writer In The World is a weekly section featuring essays on the writing life by MFA faculty and alumni.
Here’s who’s talking:
Elena Georgiou is the award-winning poet and fiction writer who formerly directed Goddard’s MFA in Creative Writing Program and currently teaches in the PhD program at the Rubenstein School at the University of Vermont.
Sherri L. Smith is an award-winning author of fiction, nonfiction, and graphic novels for young adults and kids, and a faculty member of Hamline University’s MFA in Children’s Writing. www.sherrilsmith.com
Aimee Liu , author, publisher of the Substack MFA Lore, and former colleague of Elena & Sherri in the sorely missed Goddard’s MFA program.
Scroll down for key quotes, takeaways, and more info about the Two Trees Writers retreat that Sherri and Elena will be leading this summer.
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Create To Survive
“I don’t want to downplay the horror show, but if we don’t use our creativity as one of the ways in which we resist and one of the ways in which we keep ourselves healthy... then what are we going to be doing instead?” — Elena Georgiou
A few highlight & takeaways from the video
1. Writing as Medicine in Crisis
Our central premise is that creative writing serves as an essential survival tool during times of political and social turmoil. Engaging with creative work isn’t self-indulgent escapism but a necessary practice for maintaining mental health and capacity for activism.
“In writing, there is fast medicine and slow medicine. Fast medicine is an op-ed, is an essay, is honestly, it’s a protest poster, right? That’s fast medicine. Longer form, which is what I do, graphic novels, novels, that’s slow medicine. Maybe the protesters go out there and they address the current moment. And the novelists sit at home and feel guilty for not being out there, but work on something that is going to address the STEM problems, you know? Dreaming up solutions.” — Sherri L. Smith
2. Balancing Art and Commerce
Sherri shared a particularly revealing struggle: her climate-focused and American mythology projects—conceived as “medicine for the world”—were rejected by publishers as either “too pedantic” or unsellable. This highlights the tension between creating work that addresses urgent social issues and market demands. She noted having to balance “healing the world with making a living.”
3. Finding Your Writing Community
It’s critically important to have a supportive writing community. Sherri credited her recovery from creative paralysis to meeting with a writer friend who could see clearly what she couldn’t. The discussion repeatedly returned to the value of shared creative space, whether through MFA programs, retreats, or informal writing groups.
"We need to take care of ourselves so that we can help take care of each other." — Sherri L. Smith
4. Documentation as Resistance
Elena’s experience teaching after 9-11 demonstrated how urgent the need for creative expression becomes during crisis. She taught a poetry class in New York then, and students were desperate to complete assignments—”chomping at the bit”—because they needed to document what they were experiencing. One student wrote poems about her brother’s death. Elena emphasized: “Creativity was their survival strategy.”
5. Strategic Retreat and Renewal
“Step aside so that you can breathe.” A Hedgebrook retreat gave Sherri space to dream new ideas, even though market forces later rejected them. Sherri and Elena, with Rahna Reiko Rizzuto , are organizing a Two Trees Writers retreat at the reimagined Goddard College campus (now “Creative Campus at Goddard”) specifically to provide writers this restorative space.
6. Permission to “Lean into the Woo-Woo”
The retreat will incorporate tarot readings and other less conventional creative practices to help unlock creative work. Sherri recalled Rahna Reiko Rizzuto’s tarot readings “helped me turn messes into successes with my own novels.” Non-traditional methods can break through creative blocks.
7. Using Creativity as Empathy Practice
Elena argued that if we don’t use creativity as a form of resistance and self-care, and don’t use “our own empathy and sympathy, community to help one another, then what are we going to be doing instead?” The implication is that creative practice keeps us emotionally healthy enough to sustain whatever activism we choose.
“We have to find the taproot of joy and nurture it, because that’s what’s going to keep us going. And for me, that taproot of joy is in the creative work.” — Sherri L. Smith
8. The Goddard Legacy
Throughout the discussion runs a thread of grief and gratitude for the closed Goddard MFA program, which created a lasting community of support. We are committed to continuing this community through Writer In The World , MFA Lore , and the Two Trees Writers retreat to preserve and extend what the Goddard MFA in Creative Writing created.
Practical Wisdom
When overwhelmed by current events, don’t try to write around them—either address them directly or create work set in a stable time frame
Seek outside perspective when a project feels tangled; sometimes you need someone else to identify the “dotted line” between multiple stories
Protect dedicated creative time even (especially) during crisis
Find or create community where “your ideas will be taken seriously and nourished and moved forward”
Take care of yourself “so that we can help take care of each other”
The overarching message: creative practice isn’t a luxury during difficult times—it’s essential infrastructure for survival, resistance, and maintaining the capacity to care for ourselves and our communities.
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