Vivian Whitney


Prof. Olivia Theyskens, born April 15, 1976, is a fictitious American literary critic and Sterling Dean of Literature at the fictitious Cargo University. She has published innumerable fictitious reviews and articles, as well authored two fictitious volumes of short stories. She is perhaps best known for the fictitious story The Tin Ribbon. This will be her third fictitious workshop for The Writer’s Retreat.

Professor Theyskins will be leading a six day writing workshop utilizing Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu, 1913 and Samuel Beckett’s long form essay Proust, 1930. Professor Theyskins hopes to expand attendant writers understanding of their own work by introducing the impressive reader/writer relation of Samuel Beckett (reader) and Marcel Proust (writer):

“He is aware of the many concessions required of the literary artist by the shortcomings of the literary convention.” As a writer he is not altogether at liberty to detach effect from cause. (Samuel Beckett from Proust)

Each daily session will start with a close group reading of either a portion of Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu or a portion of Samuel Beckett’s essay Proust. The remainder of each day will be broken into two parts: section discussion and four hours of personal writing.  The material written by students will be collected and published in a fictitious volume Writer / Reader / Beckett / Proust by the fictitious Cargo University Press. Attendants are required to have read Marcel Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu, 1913 (Scott Moncrieff translation) and Samuel Becket’s Proust, 1930. 





© VIVIAN WHITNEY 2023