Cleyvis Natera | Guest Writer for MFA Program

My passion for writing emerged naturally from a deep love of reading. I became a voracious reader in middle school and spent most afternoons in my local library in Harlem, NYC, lost in stories. By the time I arrived in college, I was eager to start writing my own stories. I took my first creative writing class as a freshman at Skidmore College with Steven Millhauser, who happened to win the Pulitzer Prize that Spring during my first writing workshop. I’m not saying my being his student had anything to do with his winning. I’ll leave that connection to others. HA! But something magical happened to me during that first class. It was the first time in my life that the idea of making a life as a writer, that it could be a viable profession, became a possibility. For many reasons, I didn’t pursue writing full time as a career for many years. I was invited to the Saratoga Book Festival in October 2023 to speak about my debut, Neruda on the Park, and it was such a lovely homecoming. Being back in my college town, where I’d first dreamed of becoming a published author, was so wonderful. I met up with Millhauser at our favorite local diner (I see him almost every time I’m back in Saratoga Springs). He had just published his 14th book, and I was celebrating the sale of my second novel. It’s such a beautiful thing to have stayed in touch with my first creative writing teacher after all these years. For most of the time that had elapsed, I wasn’t confident it was in the cards for me to get published. Millhauser’s confidence I’d make it as a writer never wavered.

The biggest concern my book explores is around the concept of home. What does it mean to make a home away from what is familiar? How do we protect the homes we make or are born into? How does sacrifice, love and revolt play into our concepts of safety? I hope the book serves as a way for my readers to consider what they owe the places and the people who have made them who and what they’ve become.

I found out I won the award when I landed at home after serving as a judge for the 2024 International Neustadt Prize in Literature. It had been a truly wonderful experience, speaking about groundbreaking writers, carefully reading and analyzing entire bodies of work by those writers, and reaching consensus with the fellow jurors, who also happened to be writers I deeply admire. Learning I’d won the award as I emerged from this transcendent time was truly humbling for me. I had special insights into how deserving all nominated books are and how difficult it is to land on the most deserving title. Knowing the brilliant and urgent books published alongside my book has made me feel fortunate as a life-long reader to be writing during this time. Being acknowledged by my peers has acted as an accelerant—it has fueled the urgency I feel to continue to do my best work.

As someone who has an MFA from a traditional program (I am an alumna of NYU), I love working on a low-residency model and wish this had been an option I considered as a full-time employee pursuing my degree many years ago. I have seen, firsthand, how students thrive in this model. It provides a balanced approach to starting or completing a full-length book, be it poetry, fiction or nonfiction. It creates the opportunity for an instant community with likeminded and passionate people who will be at a similar stage in their professional goals and skills. It provides access to brilliant and talented teachers who will instruct and inspire.

My biggest hope is to connect to students who are on the journey to discovering their voices and their stories. It is my favorite stage at which to connect to students. I love sharing the ups and downs of a writing journey, and so I’m also excited to connect to my peers, the fellow faculty members, who will be part of this exciting new program.

No! I’m not speaking about this book at all while I’m in the process of finishing it. But by the time I see everyone at Hood College in June, I will be bubbling with excitement to tell you all about it. Find me, ask me about it, let’s dish.

Learn more about Hood’s new low-residency MFA program here.