Vendela Vida to Speak at Spring Symposium

Today, the College will launch its annual Spring Student Symposium with an inaugural keynote presentation by San Francisco-based novelist Vendela Vida ’93 in the Mahaney Center for the Arts. Since graduating from the College with a degree in English and American Literatures with a Creative Writing focus, Vida has gone on to publish four novels, including a non-fiction work entitled Girls on the Verge: Debutante Dips, Drive-bys, and Other Initiations inspired by a class in women’s studies.

One of the organizers of the symposium and the Associate Dean for Fellowships and  Research Lisa Gates believes the symposium will give students a rare taste of the diverse academic work done by their peers. The student presentations are intentionally “not organized by academic field so that a thematic thread can connect independent research projects across academic sectors in an interesting and interdisciplinary way,” Gates said.

“One of the most empowering features of Vendela’s experience is the way in which her faculty instructors helped her believe in herself,” she said. “As young adults, students have ideas of what they want to pursue, but grapple with large and intimidating ideas in the process of reaching their goals.”

As an undergraduate who had no intention of becoming an English major, Vida cites Julia Alvarez and David Bain of the English and American Literatures department as the professors who first opened up her mind to the possibility of pursuing a career in writing fiction and non-fiction.

“I wrote a lot of short stories during my time at Middlebury and it was Julia Alvarez who encouraged me to write a novel,” Vida said. “She told me what I was trying to do was write a novel, which at the time was a prospect I found really exciting, but also very intimidating. It was inspiring that she thought I had the capacity to write a novel.”

Currently, Vida is working on a novel that finds its genesis in a piece she authored for the “Lives” section of the New York Times Magazine, of which deals with her mother’s experience of growing up in Sweden.

“I always tell people that when they are starting projects, the idea they have in mind cannot be sort of interesting – or even potentially interesting – but rather all consuming,” Vida said. “I think the famous saying — write what you know — is often misunderstood by novelists. I encourage aspiring writers to not just write what they know, but to go out and experience the world. I am a big advocate of travel and placing oneself in different situations. Ultimately, five years down the line, we can draw upon the emotions of the experience and observations of other cultures.”

Students will have the opportunity to introduce themselves to Vida during the keynote reception on Thursday. A full day of student independent research presentations will kick off tomorrow at 9 a.m. in the Great Hall. Vida will also moderate “The Creative Process” panel.

In the grand scheme of the upcoming symposium, Gates urges students to embrace the spirit of the intellectual curiosity and to explore a range of independent research across a multitude of academic spheres.

“I encourage students to view the symposium as special place in which different lines of investigation can fit together in a dynamic, and ultimately inspiring way.”