“Minding Ms. Manners: Etiquette Tips From My Literary Hero” by Fiona C. Hankenson

The driver dropped me off at an imposing building with knobby stone walls, bound together by rough concrete. The impression was decidedly less castle, more penitentiary, especially with the chill of late spring and gray skies above. I double-checked that the address was correct and tried to decode the foreign coordinates of letters interspersed with numbers. A bearded, bespectacled man sat nearby in a parked car, engine humming, peering down at his cell phone. I would later learn that he was a fellow student, apparently a well-respected physician, perhaps as nervous as I was. A trim cemetery, with headstones tipped like loose teeth, formed the eerie gauntlet to cross to access the private retreat of the Famous Author. More than a year had passed since my placement on the waiting list, and six months since I’d been admitted into the course. It was set to start that afternoon.

For this type of retreat, the first I’d ever attended, prospective students were required to submit a prose sample, a personal reference (ideally from someone known to the Author), and a full manifest of dietary restrictions (gluten/meat/dairy/wheat/vegan). The invitation was open to writers of any level, provided a deposit of 800 EUR accompanied each submission packet. If I had to guess, based on what I now know, I find it hard to believe the Author ever read what we wrote. When I miscalculated the euro based on the U.S. exchange rate, the Author’s assistant emailed, reminding me ‘kindly’ to wire additional funds. The application included an attestation that I would make no recordings of the Famous Author. Nor would I post any such recordings if I were to take them, which I would not (!), on social networks or otherwise. This warning was not in fine print; it was in bold.

On that first afternoon, I unpacked bulky sweaters and thick socks into the dresser drawers of my monastic, cramped room, for which the en-suite cost extra. From the room’s smudged window, cracked open slightly, dogs yipped in a call-and-response across the neighboring yards. I lingered outside the introductory afternoon tea that transported me back to raucous cafeterias full of popular teenagers who weren’t my friends. Heading alone to the makeshift classroom, ahead of the rush from tea, I intersected in the stairwell with the FAMOUS AUTHOR! I quickly botched my greeting, said her name as my own by way of introduction, and tried to share a common interest, stuttering over the words. I then overshared a unique fact I’d read about her time at university, long ago. Before moving along down the stairs, the Author smiled slightly, although perhaps in hindsight she smirked, ‘Okay then.” Mortified, I entered the loft area, where others were already gathered, and sat at a desk, one row from the back.

The Author began class exchanging hellos with familiar students, those who seemed to have attended her previous retreats. Repeat customers, I mean, writers? This was surely a good sign. It was going to be worth the additional wire of 1,000 EUR, sent ahead of my flight across the Atlantic, and then the long drive to bring me here, to this desolate country village. There she stood in front of us, looking much like her public headshots: wavy locks, thick brows, ruddy cheeks; casually attired in a button-down shirt tucked into denim pants, and pants tucked into tall boots. The Author waited through the class’s chittering, then spoke loudly to quiet us down.

‘Alright then! You’ve paid to be here, and I’ve already deposited your money, so whether you come to class or not the rest of this week, I don’t care. I really don’t. It’s your dime. It’s your time.” She told us this was an adult class. For adults. She asked if we were prepared to do the work that needed to be done. Just as the application warned, she did as well, “No one is to take any pictures or recordings. And, if I discover that this sort of thing happens, I’ll never hold a course again. And you will all know why.” A lengthy, awkward pause ensued, then, “Now write down all the things that can be lost. Tension is in direct contact with loss. Whatever the loss, that’s the story.”

On command, we wrote. Our first writing assignment, as writers! We scribbled away; the scratching magnified across the sheets of paper-lined notepads, which we’d been encouraged to bring, preferred by the Author over laptops, tablets, or phones. The answers shared out loud were tentative at first; no one wished to be impolite or overeager. After the botched exchange in the stairwell, I certainly didn’t plan to speak. Yet soon, many were talking, and the Author copied what was called out with a thick marker onto a flipchart. Everything she wrote, I captured in my notes: lost items like money, reputation, time, and common sense. I’d add to the list of lost, “myself,” but don’t utter this aloud.

The Author remarked the next day, amidst highlights of Chekhov and Cheever, that it was the height of bad manners to complain. Not just a writing course, apparently an etiquette lesson too. My parents hammered proper manners into me as a child – they corrected grammatical errors, nudged me to tuck in my elbows at meals, and commanded pleases and thank-yous. But indeed, there was a minor complaint… no Wi-Fi password had yet been offered or shared to us, and believe you me, I’d checked. No instructions in my room or pinned to the bulletin boards. “Does anyone know how to get a signal?” brave students asked one another behind cupped hands. Certainly, none of us dared ask the Author. In secret, I used the hotspot on my phone each morning to scroll the internet, looking up the other writers and their accolades.

Evening social hours were held after class, once the Famous Author had mysteriously departed the grounds. These activities were outlined in the course plan, along with tea at 11:00, lunch at 12:45, and dinner at 6:30. We students were mostly women: attorneys, teachers, social workers, and a few academics and professors. We had traveled from the Americas, Ireland, England, Sweden, and Spain. I never spoke with the bearded, bespectacled man, who I learned was taking telemedicine appointments in his car. We shared stories about who had published, who had a Pushcart, and who was there to celebrate retirement. In bursts of creative speculation, captive as we were in the Author’s tiny universe, intimations would be made about where she went each night and to whom. Midweek, Gretel, who’d spent her career in theater, bluntly told me, “Your lipstick’s too dark, too brown.” As if in explanation, she handed me a rosy lip liner the next morning, remarking, “You’ve a lovely face. Hope this isn’t too forward?” when I accepted. Each day afterward, I’d point to my brightened mouth in class to summon her smile.

In the unscripted morning hours reserved for personal writing, I’d often skip the organized tea and sneak out to the village Tesco for Jaffa Cakes and Pepsi MAX. The pleasant cooking staff stored my drinks in their kitchen and prepared plates of leftovers for me, sealed tight in silver foil. At the meals I attended, enticing scents pervaded the hallways and overwhelmed my inclination to eat alone. I’d grown comfortable enough to sit with any number of students. Still, I tracked the Author’s whereabouts as she mingled among the attendees, always selecting a seat far from her chosen table. Any attempt at another personal interaction had become unimaginable.

The mandatory craft book for the course was out of print; luckily, I’d found it (despite three times the original price) from an online used-book seller. The content was dry and so obscure that I couldn’t read past the first chapter. Not once, all week, was the dull text ever mentioned by the Author. I reveled in an irrational sense of victory for having avoided wasting time on its pages. As it happened, the Author’s lectures were the main source material: structure and scaffolding, architecture and efficiency. The themes of any decent story were clarified: stupidity, disappointment, and loneliness, all of which aligned with my course experience. At the trip’s end, I tucked the craft book inside a drawer in my room – a gift for a future student. 

As the retreat continued, the Author carted in stacks of her own books, both hardcover and paperback versions, in canvas totes. We lined up to buy them and secretly pined for personal dedications (which, as written, were surprisingly warm and encouraging!) or openly asked for the inscription to be addressed to our parents, our children, our writer friends elsewhere who also adored her. The Author made something abundantly clear: “I’m not here to talk about my work. Perhaps I could do a Q&A one evening. But only if people are interested. And if not, I don’t care, I really don’t. ”Well, of course, we were interested! We wanted to soak up every tip and trick of her gorgeous prose! We yearned for her heady success! Why else did she think we were there? 

During the Q&A, a woman in the front row raised her hand to ask when her novel would be ready to publish. Her British accent conveyed confidence, yet she confessed that it was difficult to get agents to respond. This woman was the first to ask such a personal question about her own work, and we eagerly awaited our heroine’s wise guidance. Instead, the Famous Author asked how many drafts had been written, to which the woman answered: “Three in all.” Then the scolding came: “It’s not nearly ready. You need at least thirty drafts before you even think of sending it off.” Disappointment rippled through the class, our collective confidence now shaken – it was the hot topic at the next social hour. When I searched, many months later, I learned that the woman, an accomplished barrister, had self-published her book.

The final lecture was on Carver: A little menace is good for the circulation. After multiple days spent indoors and evenings in the lounge, the quote inspired an escape to the town pub. Smoky and lively for a birthday celebration, a band played classic rock covers just like back home. I was with a clique of friendly writers and, over gin and spritzes, we rehashed the varied abuses by the Author. Adele and the others offered condolences about how I’d been that day’s target. Stoic at the lectern, the Author had addressed me: “What do you mean by ‘autofiction’?” as if she’d never before heard the word. From my seat in the back, I described my understanding, and those around me nodded. The Author ignored my explanation, “Too many ‘I’ statements are tedious. The reader doesn’t know who you are, so why should they care? It’s juvenile.” When I raised my hand later, the Author looked at me and asked, “Anyone else?” before looking away. At the pub, the sting of humiliation was soothed by the ridiculousness of it all. Our lively pack spilled out of the bar, giggling and grabbing selfies with the foreign street signs in view. We made our way back, past the graves and their ghosts, and stayed up talking on our last night altogether.

Adele and I have kept in touch since the course. We’ve shared pictures of our pets and story drafts, and both of us have been shortlisted in recent months. Occasionally, I’ll send her a funny line from class lectures, like the gem: “Good writing is good manners.” Adele’s voicemail responses are casual and fun, recorded from another continent while she’s out walking her dog. She signs off her replies, teasing back: “I don’t care. I really don’t.” It makes me laugh each time I hear it—fingers pressed to my rosy lips.