Three UW alumni reflect on what they remember most from studying in the Eternal City and how their experiences at the UW Rome Center impacted their career trajectories.
Elizabeth Cooperman: Freelance Editor and Writer
What do you remember most about your time in Rome?
Rome is a swirl to me. When I think of it, I’m standing in front of a small marble statue of the goddess Diana in the Capitoline Museum trying to draw her hundreds of breasts in my spiral notebook, and the next moment I’m eating zucchini flowers stuffed with mozzarella and anchovy (a delicacy the likes of which I’ve never before tasted), and the next I’m at a flea market purchasing a single tear drop-shaped crystal from a deconstructed chandelier which the seller has laid down nonchalantly all over the street (as if it weren’t a miraculous sight), and then I’m back at the apartment with classmates and we’re sipping wine and discussing classical mythology, the zodiac, painting, and the soul, when finally I find myself in a dark piazza where children launch colorful spinnerets into the sky. Rome is this kaleidoscope of images and tastes and sensations that I can’t tweeze apart—and wouldn’t.
Have you stayed connected to the UW Rome Center since studying abroad?
Yes, so connected that I’ve studied at the Rome Center three times! UW’s creative writing program in Rome is intentionally set up to accommodate learners of all levels, with beginners writing alongside highly accomplished poets and scholars. In fact, it’s one of the most unique learning communities I’ve ever experienced. I first attended the Rome Center in 2005 as a complete beginner, second in 2009 as a graduate student, and third in 2017 in a teaching role, and each time my relationship to writing and to Rome was forged and re-forged. I cannot imagine a more beautiful classroom, by which I mean the illustrious halls of the Palazzo Pio, which houses the Rome Center, and Mama Roma herself. I guess I just can’t stay away!
How has the UW Rome Center impacted your life?
I return again and again to the writing methods I learned in Rome—namely the emphasis on looking and listening. As conceived by Richard Kenney, the program urges you to “keep your pencil on the city” and not agonize over your own daily mark-making. It’s not about you! It’s about Rome. And that’s oddly freeing. There will be time enough after you leave Rome to revise your work, but while you’re abroad, try to really engage the city. This is a way of approaching the discipline of writing that I still practice, much like drawing or painting en plein air, but it’s also (a wise and challenging) way of approaching life. Metaphorically speaking, I continue to try hard to keep a pencil on all the cities that matter to me.
Too, in a very real way, I’m sure I would not be a writer at all if not for the UW’s program at the Rome Center. That program convinced me I’d love to get an MFA in Creative Writing, which I received from the University of Washington in 2010. Afterwards I went on to co-edit an anthology of brief prose with UW professor David Shields, co-author a book about Rome, The Last Mosaic, with poet Thomas Walton, and compose my own collagistic personal essay named after a painting by Picasso, Woman Pissing, which comes out this fall from University of Nebraska Press. In the second two books I write frequently about visual art. Of course, it was in Rome that I began working in an ekphrastic mode. I’ll never forget the time at the Galleria Borghese that poet William Camponovo and I spent forty minutes writing and talking about Bernini’s statue of Pluto and Prosperpina. We were studying the marble figures so closely that it took us forty minutes to make a single circle around them.
Tell us more about the book you co-authored about Rome, The Last Mosaic.
My co-author, Thomas Walton, and I created this book after spending summer 2017 at the UW Rome Center. Thomas and I engaged the writing prompts for the UW class every day and subsequently came home to the United States with notebooks full of descriptions of ancient sculptures, street performers, nuns feeding turtles, etc. Rather than let these prose sketches rot away in our notebooks, we decided to excavate our notebooks and expand our favorite sketches. In part, we were still so in love with Rome and hesitant to leave it behind. Making the book was a way of lingering in Rome—lingering in the art museums, the cafes, and especially on the city streets—months after returning to Seattle. We fashioned our co-authored book in the form of a mosaic, which we agreed suits the city itself, with its ruins, headless statues, wobbly cobbles, broken arches, and river worming through it all. The Last Mosaic is a poetic guidebook to the city and very much our love song to Rome.
Theresa Maloney: Assistant Director, Foster School of Business’ Global Business Center
What building or site first comes to mind when you think of Rome?
My absolute favorite site in Rome is one shared by many…Piazza Navona! To me Piazza Navona feels like the very heart of the city and is always abuzz with Romans on their nightly stroll, or tourists snapping a photo in front of the famous Four Rivers Fountain by Bernini. Since Piazza Navona is just a short walk from the UW Rome Center, I visit it often when leading study abroad programs to Rome to soak up the sounds and energy of the city.
What study abroad program did you participate in at the UW Rome Center?
As a UW undergraduate, I participated on the Art History Seminar in Spring Quarter 2010 and I was also the UW Rome Center Student Intern from 2012-2013. Both those experiences allowed me to dive into the rich history of art and architecture found around every corner of the city. Since 2015, I have organized and led many Foster undergraduate study abroad programs to the UW Rome Center, helping over 160 UW students study business in Rome. My favorite part of my job is getting to be in Rome with students and helping them as they navigate the city.
Did your experience in Rome prepare you for your current role?
My first experience in Rome on the Art History Seminar has shaped my whole life. By getting to build deep connections with the Program Faculty and Staff Directors (thank you Lauren Easterling, and Stuart and Estelle Lingo!), I was able to find my way back to the UW Rome Center for the Student Internship at the end of my UW undergraduate degree. That experience of living in Rome for a whole year showed me that a career in international education was possible. I am now 9 years into my career in international higher education and I literally would not be where I am today without that first study abroad at the UW Rome Center in 2010. I love supporting students (and faculty) as they explore Roman culture, learn about business in Italy, and fall in love with Rome like I did on my own study abroad experience.
Tell us about your job at the Global Business Center at the UW Foster School of Business.
At the Foster School of Business’ Global Business Center, I advise students on undergraduate business-focused study abroad programs, support a range of programs that allow over 350 UW undergraduates to study business abroad each year, and I have the great pleasure of organizing and leading Faculty-Led Programs including the Foster Rome Program every summer. Needless to say, I love my job and the opportunity to help make students’ time abroad as enriching and impactful as possible!
Alongside my work at the Foster Global Business Center, I am also currently pursuing my MBA at Foster. To finish out my MBA, I am exploring another part of Europe by participating on an MBA Exchange at the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark.
Doug Schnitzspahn: Founder, Artemisia Media; Editorial Director, Outdoor Retailer Publications; Editor-in-Chief, Elevation Outdoors
Do you have a favorite memory from your time in Rome?
One of the great pleasures of Rome is enjoying the place without too much of a plan—it’s best to look for small secrets (I recommend something along the lines of Bernini’s Blessed Ludovica Albertoni off in a quiet part of Trastevere) and let life happen around you. Drink an espresso; explore a basilica. Too many visitors try to do too much. They rush to see the big sights and miss the rhythm of the city and wonders that inhabit every corner.
The Pantheon, with its oculus open to the sky and (false) inscription that Marcus Agrippa built it (well, the original; this remodel was built by the architect emperor Hadrian), is my favorite place to return over and over in Rome. I first went there when I was a freshman in high school, studying Latin and obsessed with ancient Roman history and mythology. During my time writing at the UW Rome Center, a group of us visited the building and a bird that circled inside the dome ended up in all of our poems in some form. The massive domed building is a skull and an eye, a representation of the divine in the human and, I think, the most wonderful ancient structure to have survived to the present day.
No surprise, one of my favorite memories in Rome happened here. I was walking through the city with a group including my friend/mentor/professor Richard Kenney and (my now wife) Radha Marcum, when it began to rain. It hit me. I turned to them and shouted, “To The Pantheon!” We rushed to the building and, once inside, stood under the oculus where we felt the rain coming down through the vast space of the dome onto our faces. It was a brief moment of communion with the beauty of the natural world and human creativity. It didn’t last long, however, before an angry group of guards shooed us away and put up a barrier to keep tourists out of the shower. But it was enough to last a lifetime. I only hope to be there one day for a rare snowstorm.
What did you study at the UW Rome Center?
I studied poetry and creative writing at the UW Rome Center for three summers with Professor Richard Kenney, a MacArthur Fellow and winner of the Rome Prize in Literature. The dynamics varied each year: The first year, another grad student and I mentored and taught undergrads. The second and third were more of a convocation of grad students in the UW MFA program, a few undergrads, and professional writers and artists. Studying poetry in Rome encompasses far more than simply putting words on a page, especially under the auspices of a mind as curious, keen, and far-reaching as Kenney’s.
We immersed ourselves in all aspects of the city—we learned about architecture and art history, took cooking lessons using fresh produce gathered from the market in Campo dei Fiore, spoke Italian with local baristas, toured catacombs and museums, read poems at Keats’ grave, performed Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar on the banks of the Tiber, and discussed the dynamics of writing that attempts to capture all this. In short, we drank in all we could of the Eternal City. And, most importantly, we wrote every day, exercising our ability to observe and imagine. The highlight of each day was gathering together to share and dig into our writing.
How did studying in Rome influence your career?
Though it was not required, the Rome program was an essential part of my Master in Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing from UW. It gave me the chance to study with Professor Kenney in a relaxed environment while also putting more intensity into the craft of writing. The program gave me insight into the wide scope of art and history and immersion in another culture. It gave me depth (and a good dose of Italian levity). I have never been the same since. The ability to focus on writing here gave me more confidence in my work and encouraged me to travel more, see more, experience more.
All of this has been invaluable in my career as a professional editor and publisher. I have more compassion when I work with writers and I am more willing to take chances with new and young writers thanks to my experience mentoring students in Rome. On a strictly professional level, I have used my experiences living in Europe and speaking Italian to make connections with European colleagues and outlets over the years. I would not be the professional or the person I am today without this program. It is one of the highlights of my life. The Rome Center gives you the space to work through ideas in a city full of creativity and human achievement and it gets you collaborating with inquisitive and accomplished minds in a wide range of disciplines.
Tell us more about your career in editing, writing, and magazine publishing.
I have been lucky to combine my two great passions, writing and wilderness, in my career. As a contract editor and freelance writer, I must piece together several jobs. Some of them, editor-in-chief of Elevation Outdoors and Outdoor Retailer magazine, function more like full-time jobs. I fill that in with freelance writing opportunities—such as recounting time skiing with Sami people, who towed us in via snowmobile in Lapland for Skiing magazine or providing National Geographic online with an ongoing series of the world’s greatest hikes—that fulfill my desire for adventure. As an editor, I see myself as both a curator and a mentor, bringing together a diverse range of voices in a publication and helping them do the best work they can on the stories they most want to tell. Running the Outdoor Retailer trade show Daily publication, I am responsible for publishing a 70-page print magazine every day for three days of a national trade show and getting all of that content to the printer by 5 p.m. each afternoon. It’s an exercise of finding focus and joy in chaos and that, of course, reminds me of the streets of Rome.
I have also founded my own publishing company, creating print magazines, online content, and photography and film for clients including the towns of Dillon and Silverthorne, Colorado. I was once told that all I would be able to do with an MFA in creative writing was “wait tables.” I have rejected that cynicism in my career, proving that this degree also gave me the leverage and authority to make the money to raise a family and travel the world. I have not had the time I would like to focus on the creative side as I raise my kids, but I have had work noted in Best American Essays and by the Colorado Council on the Arts and I am busy on a narrative podcast project tentatively titled “Collision: The long-lost story of the worst shipwreck in history, the American experience, and a family mystery.”
Would you like to share a story about the UW Rome Center? Email uwoga@uw.edu.