Two weeks in Prague a hallmark moment for FLC English students

 

DURANGO, CO – “I really enjoyed Prague,” says Shawn Yazzie. “It was great. It was an experience of a lifetime, definitely.”

 

Shawn and three of his fellow Fort Lewis College students, along with FLC Assistant Professor of English Pamela Uschuk and her husband, recently returned from a little over two weeks spent in Prague, Czech Republic. The group was attending the prestigious Prague Summer Program, which offers students of writing and photography the chance to study with the masters.

 

The fact that four Fort Lewis College students could attend is impressive, given that each of the four students won John Woods Scholarships to help pay for the trip. Shawn, a Theatre major, and Rebecca Thill, an English major, were finalists for the top John Woods Scholarship. English majors, Jesse Maloney and Joshua Shipman, rounded out the four winners from FLC.

 

John Woods was an influential writer and professor at Western Michigan University and his scholarships go to promising writers.

 

WMU hosts the Prague Summer Program—“one of the best writing programs… in Europe,” according to Pam—along with the Czech Republic’s Charles University. Pam and her husband, William Pitt Root, both taught workshops at the Prague Summer Program as featured writers.

 

Knowing how intensive the Program could be and the educational backgrounds of many of the other students, Pam set about preparing the FLC students before they left with instruction on European and American poetry.

 

“A lot of the students who go to Prague are graduate students and they’re in pretty high powered writing programs from around the world,” she says. “So we wanted to make sure our students were prepared.”

 

The preparation seemed to pay off for the FLC students, three of whom had never been out of the country. Shawn had never even flown on an airplane before.

 

Beginning each day with a walk across the Charles Bridge, an experience Rebecca recalls as “surreal,” the students quickly found themselves immersed in their studies. Shawn and Rebecca both took the poetry workshop taught be William Pitt Root.

 

“[Czech] poetry is very gray and dark, but it’s still alive in a certain way,” Shawn remarks. “It was really different, the range of voices there.”

 

“I think it gave me a little taste of what it’ll be like if I do a grad school program for creative writing,” says Rebecca.

 

Pam also acknowledges the benefits the Prague Summer Program could have for students planning a graduate-level education. “These kids have made connections that are very powerful and can help them get into some pretty good graduate programs from here,” she says. She hopes to send more Fort Lewis College students to the Program in the future.

 

One of the final experiences the students enjoyed before leaving Prague was a public reading of their own work. Perhaps a little intimidated at first, the FLC students nonetheless impressed their fellow students and made Pam proud.

 

“The students from Fort Lewis were fantastic,” Pam says. “People were complimenting them left and right on the job they did.”