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Printer-Friendly ModeStudent exercises literary muscle
Peterson returns to SVSU to hone Creative Writing skills, receive several awards
February 20, 2006 —
For Kris Peterson, getting a degree meant getting the freedom to do whatever he wanted.
The writer, poet and playwright is a man of many accomplishments, most of which have come since he made his return to SVSU.
Peterson grew up in Orange County, California. His father, a teacher, got a job in Saginaw when Kris was a teenager and moved the family with him. In 1998, he started his freshman year at SVSU. Peterson says things did not go quite as planned, so he dropped out of college and moved back to Los Angeles where he worked as a ghostwriter for a production company.
He stayed in L.A. for three years, but when his brother was about to graduate he began to realize that he was tired of writing for other people and not for himself. He returned to Saginaw and started on his path of education once more.
Since returning to SVSU, Peterson has made his mark on the school. He won the Mid-Michigan Play Festival for his piece Bludgeoned Innocence. He has also won the last two Cardinal Sins Poetry Slams and the publication's fiction contest, and was also a finalist in the Austin Film Festival for a screenplay he wrote.
Of all these accomplishments Peterson feels most rewarded by winning the play festival.
"Getting to see your stuff performed, where people can appreciate it, that's amazing," he says. "That's a huge step for a maturing artist. Seeing life breathed into my words was the most rewarding experience of my life."
The formula to his success? "Write every day," he says. Peterson explains that regimenting yourself to sit down and write each day, no matter what, will improve your writing and build up your arsenal.
"I write all the time and while most of it is useless, some good comes out of it," he adds. "I will write thirty stories a year and wind up with two good ones. You need the bad stuff to lead you to the good stuff. Then you just need to revise."
Peterson also warns writers not to set their work in stone.
"Revision is the key to good writing," he says. "Nothing is good the first time. You have to take the initial art, pin down what made it so great and explode it. Then you throw out all the stuff getting in the way and build on what you wanted the message to be. This is where work-shopping the piece can be so helpful. Other people can help you see what is worthwhile and what isn't."
Many writers hate workshops even more than revising. No one likes being told what is wrong with their work, but Peterson believes that every writer needs the workshop process.
"Ninety percent of the advice you get in a workshop is useless," he says. "It's all good advice, just for some other writer, not you. What you have to do is find someone whose opinion you really trust and seek their help. Most importantly, figure yourself out. Figure out who you are as a writer."
His material is not all pure gold, he says. Peterson admits to writing some terrible stuff himself.
"My writing partner in California and I used to brutally critique each other's stuff and what was really bad got pinned to the wall in our kitchen," he recalls. "The walls were just covered in all this bad dialogue. That's where I wrote the worst stuff I've ever written, like this one bad line, 'I'll remember to forget you,' or something like that. It was awful. But from bad dialogue will come good."
One of Peterson's most polished pieces is Quantum Bunny, which is the poem that he won last semester's Poetry Slam with. Those who have heard the piece are initially in shock from how fast he can talk, but once the words sink in it becomes clear what a profound statement he really makes.
"It's really a standard relationship poem," Peterson explains. "The 'prettily pouncing, bouncing bunny' is symbolic of the core of a relationship. The piece is about realizing that the core is gone and that you've built your whole life around something that isn't even there anymore. The poem plays off of quantum theory and the idea that matter can 'pop' out of existence."
Peterson will be graduating soon, and after taking a year off first, will be searching out the perfect graduate school. He wants to perfect his portfolio and decide where in the world he wants to live. He is looking for someplace "outside the art" where he can observe the everyday lifestyle and write about it.
For his portfolio, he is working on a collection of short stories called Commercials for Dapple Dandipratts and also a stage play called Errorport, which was inspired by his good friend Erich Brown, a local writer and actor.
After graduate school Peterson has big plans for his career. He hopes to become a professor somewhere with the goal of being able to help future writers.
"My real dream, though, is writing plays for the stage," he says, "but that won't pay off my student loans and gambling debts."
Besides leaving behind a legacy Peterson also wants to bestow some advice.
"Use your professors," he says. "They know what you're going through and they care. Let them guide you."
Early in his career at SVSU he met C. Vincent Samarco, assistant professor of English. Peterson says Samarco has been his mentor ever since.
"I knew from day one that this guy really cared," Peterson says. "There's nothing fake about him. He just radiates genuine kindness."
Peterson also has advice for life in general.
"Find a really weird job," he says, mentioning that he races pigeons for a living, though he has not had a winner yet. "You have to do some outrageous stuff in your life. That's how you get all the best ideas. I used to be a driver for a Detox center and I met the most interesting people."
