The Felsenfeld Movement

Did you see the piece "Namesake" in the July 30 issue of The New Yorker? I found it especially fun because I’ve just learned that I’ll be spending 3 weeks in November at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, and I can picture the same thing happening there.

It seems that a number of novelists (including Michael Chabon) were resident at the MacDowell Colony (one of the most famous artist retreats in the US) in February 2004, and it has emerged that many of those writers have included a character named Felsenfeld in recent work, all named after one Danny Felsenfeld who was resident at MacDowell at that time. Having spent time at VCCA in the past, and elsewhere in the company of many writers, I can picture this happening: one resident who for some reason seems pervasive or larger than life, infiltrating everyone’s work, either conspiratorally or by accident. If it has never happened before in quite this way, I imagine there will in the future be imitators, and I may gleefully join in.