An Interview with Marianne Manzler | Senior Spotlight: Hollin Keyser-Parker and Quinn Lander | The 2LM‘s Winter Break Reading Recommendations
An Interview with Marianne Manzler
In this interview, visiting teacher and artist Marianne Manzler talks about her love of writing and how her Carleton experience has been so far.
This term, the English department has had the pleasure of having visiting teacher and artist Marianne Manzler teach a course, Hybrid Memoir and Creative Nonfiction. Marianne is a published writer, as well as an educator and an editor and received her MFA from the University of Washington. At the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, she manages the education program and teaches classes in contemporary literature and creative writing.
When asked how Carleton was treating her so far, she said that “Carleton has been amazing! I love the campus and sweet Laird Hall; Northfield is so cute and I love poking around the coffee shops and boutiques in town. I’ve gotten to attend some faculty gatherings and appreciate all the opportunities to get to know more Carleton folks.” Adding on to that, she says that teaching specifically at Carleton “has been lovely. I am so lucky to work with students who are kind, smart, funny, thoughtful, and talented writers, and I’m so excited to see how their writing develops over the course of our time together. I’ve taught in a variety of settings, and I can tell that Carleton is a close-knit community, where faculty truly cares about its students and their experiences and overarching goals. Thank you for welcoming me into the Carleton community!!!”
Marianne’s love of writing “began at a young age through the encouragement of beloved teachers in grade school and high school, and I remember taking my first creative writing class in high school, where it really sunk in that a whole world existed at my fingertips.” These experiences in high school led Marianne to look into local organizations, writing competitions, and writing opportunities to publish her work. She wanted to “pursue writing and literature as a way to bolster my understanding of the world and help others to better tell their stories. To me, writing is part of everything I do, from teaching to editing to grant writing to program administration and event planning to daily journaling and my memoir project. I love the iterative process of writing and collaborating with writers to honor their vision for their work. I love the possibilities that the nonfiction and memoir form offer storytellers as a container for experience and meaning making on the page, as well as the opportunity to reach diverse audiences in ways we haven’t yet conceived.”
Marianne’s favorite piece of writing right now is Two Kinds of Decay by Sarah Manguso. She is currently reading Shapes of Native Nonfiction: Collected Essays by Contemporary Writers, edited by Elissa Washuta and Theresa Warburton.
Thank you so much, Marianne! We are so lucky to have been able to interview you and even luckier to have you here in the English department this term.
Senior Spotlight
Read on to hear about Hollin and Quinn’s favorite books, classes, and advice for future majors.
Hollin Keyser-Parker
What is your plan for comps?
I’m participating in the colloquium comps. I’m personally really excited because I have not read a lot of the books that are on the list even though they’re super famous.
What is your favorite book?
I have two recent favorites from classes. We just finished Paradise Lost, and I was struck by how truly incredible that poem is and how it lives up to the centuries worth of commentary. But also, we just read To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf and I loved that too.
What is your most English major trait?
I was obsessed with the Boston Public library this summer. It’s a really beautiful building… and I felt like an English major nerd, because I really enjoyed going there in my free time.
What has been your favorite class?
Hands down, Nancy Cho’s Methods class. I really enjoyed applying theory to analysis, which can sometimes feel very wishy-washy. Nancy is absolutely incredible. Huge shout out.
What advice would you give to future English majors?
I went to talk with the poet Nick Makoha, who was incredible, and he said, “No one’s a good writer. You can only be a good rewriter.” And that’s really stuck with me.
What are your post grad plans?
I’m so excited to go to New York City next year and be a paralegal for a year and then go off to law school.
Any other thoughts for the Miscellany?
It’s just really sweet and also shocking being on this end, interviewed as a senior. When I was a junior, I wrote for the Miscellany and it’s making me reflect on my time here and I really enjoyed it.
Quinn Lander
What is your plan for comps?
I’ll be writing part of a novel, like 60 pages. I’ve been working on a piece since I took the Advanced Fiction workshop last spring. It’s a fusion of ecocriticism and maybe some Faulkner, just looking at the climate and our modern world and how it interacts with the family unit and history and trauma.
What is your favorite book?
I’ll go with this book by Richard Powers called The Overstory because it’s related to my comps. It deals with the climate narrative, it’s a very ecocritical novel, and has multiple narrative perspectives, which is also something I’ll try to do in my project.
What is your most English major trait?
I really like to take the hard copy of a book and go and read it in a really nice spot outside.
What has been your favorite class?
I took American Nature Writing with Mike. And then I also took another class with him that was called Hemingway, Faulkner, and Fitzgerald. I remember almost each and every one of the books we read.
What advice would you give to future English majors?
Do the readings. Think of classes as stepping stones for finding your interests. After you take these classes, if you’re like, hey, I really love this author, go read more books by that author, even after you aren’t taking that class anymore.
What are your post-grad plans?
I haven’t lived at home for a long time, so I’m going to go home, spend some time with my aging parents and reconnect.
Any other thoughts for the Miscellany?
Enjoy winter while it lasts. It’s going to be my last winter at Carleton. I was dreading how cold it was going to be, but then I was like, you know what? It’s the last one.
Winter Term Reading Recommendations
It’s nearly the end of term, which means Carleton English students are chomping at the bit to get back to some leisure reading for once! Here are some suggestions from our beloved Professor Emily Coccia.
Stacy Jane Grover’s Tar Hollow Trans (2023):
A collection of personal essays that blend memoir and theory in really lovely prose–and a bonus, it’s free as an ebook through Carleton’s library!
Asha Thanki’s debut novel, A Thousand Times Before (2024):
Thanki weaves an intergenerational story with a dash of magical realism that spans from Gujarat during Partition to Brooklyn in the contemporary moment. (And a fun fact: the novel has a local connection! Asha, a dear friend from undergrad, wrote her first draft of the story that became the novel while pursuing her MFA up at the University of Minnesota!)
Sally Bellerose, Fishwives (2021):
I’m actively reading this one now (or perhaps I should say: I was actively reading it until weeks 8 and 9 crashed over all of us), so I can’t speak to the ending, but I’ve heard great things and am enjoying the exploration of working-class queer history so far!