With inspiration taken from the writings of Wendell Berry and from the University of New Hampshire community, UNH alumna Elizabeth Joseph’s desire to understand the meaning of community led her to a research project in creative writing. With the assistance of a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF), Joseph, an English major who graduated in 2008, spent three weeks living in an intentional community and wrote eight short stories based on the experience. Her research reached far beyond the realm of strict academic and career goals; it sharpened her outlook on life. “I learned that doing research—moving beyond one’s realm of experience, thought, imagination, knowledge, and understanding—is important, even necessary. And I learned that it’s what you do after this moving beyond that perhaps matters most.” In publishing this commentary for Inquiry, Joseph hopes to stir up conversation among the journal's readers about the stories and ideas she presents in her writing.
Clark Knowles is a lecturer and teaches writing in the English Department at the University of New Hampshire. His fiction has appeared in Glimmertrain Stories, Inkwell, Zahir Tales, Black Warrior Review, Scribners Best of Fiction Workshops 1999, The Flying Horse Review, and Red Rock Review. He received his master's of fine artis in writing and literature from Bennington College. The New Hampshire State Council on the Arts recently awarded Knowles an Individual Artist’s Fellowship for the year 2009. He lives in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, with his wife Gail, daughter Grace, dopey beagle Fielding, and lazy cat Evil.
Read Elizabeth Joseph’s commentary In the Arms of the Community >>
