Moveable Feasts, Liminal Spaces: Writing Centers and the State of In-Betweenness

Abstract

In "a letter to a friend," the opening lines of A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway writes, "If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast" (title page).1 1 like to think of a writing center as a moveable feast on a transient table -sweets and savories, an interesting mix of guests, perhaps unmatched place settings.An invisible table gathering ghosts of conversations, echoes of drafts, and old assignments.Writing centers lurk in a state of in-betweenness like Hemingway's haunts in Paris.Writing centers house teachers who are students, writers who are readers, people who speak their written texts.Writing centers exist in an often uncertain present -but they work with a past brought in by writers thinking about a future.For years, writing center staffs have tried to define our place to ourselves, our administrators, and to our profession.We've attempted to create a definition that reflects our realities -our struggles as well as our successes -what we've been and what we may yet become.But definition eludes us.Writing center director/scholars, since we first had a forum in which to write, have considered this situation.Muriel Harris, looking over our recent history, writes of our "frill" status.Even the most successful writing centers, she notes, "may still have to contend with a diminishing minority who view them as unnecessary frills, sucking up 1 This article draws from a keynote speech I presented at the New England Writing Centers Association conference titled "The Writing Center as a Movable Feast," March 1995 in Nashua, NH.Since then, with informed minds, critical eyes, and tutoring strategies, Mike Evces, Julie Cheville, Joan Mullin, and Al DeCiccio helped me design and draft appropriate revisions.

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