‘The mundane tells stories’ | Mary E. Rolling Reading Series at Penn State presents Krista Eastman

Author and Penn State alumna Krista Eastman shared her work to students, faculty and community members as part of the Mary E. Rolling Reading Series at 6 p.m. Thursday in the Paterno Library’s Foster Auditorium.

At the event, Eastman, who received her master’s of fine arts in creative writing from Penn State, read essays from her nonfiction book “The Painted Forest,” gave insight on how to improve as a writer and spoke to the community about her writing process.

Eastman said when writing, she doesn’t like it when she “[knows] the answers.”

“I know that for me it’s excruciatingly boring if I have the answer in my pot, and I’m just not interested,” she said. “I do [writing] because I don’t know what my answer is. The upside is that that’s exciting.”

Eastman shared two essays: “My Youth” and “Pioneer.”

The former was a reflection of Eastman’s life during the end of her undergraduate years and her time in France, where she taught English. For Eastman, these experiences led to formative discoveries in both her life and writing process.

Eastman discussed her process in writing “My Youth,” including how her memories from her youth spawned from a “T-shirt for a toddler” with a Hummer “that says ‘bummer’ on it instead of ‘Hummer,'” due to the vehicle’s political significance.

“Actually, what’s interesting to me about this [T-shirt] is that it provided a way for me to give form to this passage of time without having to talk about everything,” Eastman said. “Other people write really big, long books, but for me, it’s very helpful to have that constraint because it was this moment in time that became… this cultural flashpoint, which symbolized a lot more than just being a really big vehicle.”

Alison Jaenicke, assistant director of Penn State’s creative writing program, said the reading series creates a space for student writers to be “in the same space as a writer” and learn in new ways.

“I think it’s really eye opening for students to realize that writers are real people that have kids, have to fix dinner and worry about cleaning their house and have to balance the checkbook — and to see that they live lives. And they also write,” Jaenicke said.”It can help open the door of possibility for student writers to go down that path themselves.”

Julia Kasdorf, the director of the creative writing program, said attending readings can show students the work of authors who “were sitting in the same classrooms” and “have gone on to do these amazing things.”

“For them, just to see it’s a demonstration of possibility can be amazing,” Kasdorf said. “It’s a space where people can come. The community people, our colleagues can come, people can come from other departments and just have the pleasure of literature, which is unusual for a lot of people.”

Kasdorf said bringing Eastman to Penn State for this reading came as a “surprise.”

“Last year, I organized the series for this academic year, and I noticed a book had won an award — I remembered [Eastman] being a student in the program years ago,” Kasdorf said. “I read some of the work from the book and I… saw that it was by Krista, which was really exciting.”

Jaenicke also reflected on the past, mentioning how the reading series was in “great tumult” during the coronavirus pandemic, so it was “difficult to figure out how to present stuff virtually.” She said being in person for readings allows her and attendees to “feel the energy.”

“I think there’s no substitute for being in the presence of a writer and to hear her share her words and… answer questions,” Jaenicke said.

Eastman said her essays tell stories of her life and how she discovers life through reflecting upon her past experiences. She said she has written about “spectacular” things in the past, but she is more interested in writing about “the mundane.”

“Just regular life and the process of just in a sort of mundane way, trying to make sense of your average life is interesting to me,” she said. “I can’t promise it will be interesting to other people, but at the end of the day, I don’t really go to the page because I’m trying to please a large group of people. I’m there because I’m trying to figure something out.”