Bye Bye Fall 2008 - Soon I Gradiate

At last-the semester has come to its conclusion.

I've submitted my last essay to Brad Buchanan: Heroes, Narrators And Time: Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim And Its Influence On F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.

I've pestered Doug Rice for the last time this year.

I've even updated my blog. See.

Now it's on to Christmas shopping, paying overdue library fines, and returning checked out books before my trip down to Orange County for the holidays.

To get done in the next month: A completed draft of my novel. And then, my 500 project. And then, I graduate. And then--

Aesthetic Essay A La Great Gatsby

Here's my aesthetic essay that I completed for my 230A class with Doug Rice. We're supposed to bring into conversation the writers that have influenced our writing in a creative way. I chose to write a scene a la Great Gatsby. I've integrated a number of quotes from Rice and quotes from my favorite authors. I don't typically post any of my fiction, but I'm posting it here because I won't be submitting anywhere for publication.

Gatsby’s mansion boomed with the commotion of hundreds of bodies curling sideways and upways, their coats and dresses climbing each other’s clothing so that the fabric weaved into a giant crawling monster of color. A drowning girl stood in a champagne fountain singing the last words of The Christmas Song, while a man with owl spectacles drank the sparkling torrents streaming from her elbows and down the hems of her dress. Between gulps, the man gasped, “They’re real books. Absolutely real—have pages and everything.” He was of course speaking of the thousands of whispering tomes filling the hardwood shelves lining the walls. Though general disorder seemed to be the theme of the night, close inspection revealed that the bodies were serpentined into some kind of line, partygoers shuffling backwards and forwards, some singing, some dancing, all drinking, their bodies and voices expanding into pure energy so that the walls of the mansion swelled and ballooned, and the planks of wood groaned under their tapping feet as if to wrench the building from the ground it was so poorly moored to.

And in the middle of this giant crawling monster, the line ended at the middle of a raised, platform, where a girl with dark hair, brown skin and rectangular glasses that looked too small for her large face, settled into her red high-backed chair. The girl studied the long line—so long that she couldn’t see its end, only the colors that disappeared into the kitchen and snaked into the family room. The sign next to her, driven into the artificial snow at her feet, read: Writers. Approach At Your Own Risk. An elf adorned in green, from the cap covering his balding head, to the tips of his pointed shoes, consulted a long list that fell to the ground and rolled around him. He straightened his spectacles and called out, “Hemingway. Ernest. You’re next.”

Hemingway stepped up the platform, while toting a tall fishing pole that branched high over his head. He wore a wore a white, short sleeved collared shirt, and a dark brown tan. His belly and beard were as large as the man himself. The girl had always enjoyed Hemingway’s company. She appreciated the brevity of his words, the subtlety of image laced into his works, and the rhythm of his language that seemed to suggest movement. He was good at making his readers hallucinate—making them see what wasn’t there. Although she sometimes questioned his lack of dialogue tags, she aspired to open her mind to the concept. Like the elf had once told her, “Be ready to revise what you think.”

“Gertrude wants to talk to you, but she couldn’t get past security. I’m supposed to send someone to get her.”

“Don’t bother,” the girl said. “This party is exclusive, not inclusive.” She pointed to the large lever next to her chair that opened the hidden shaft underneath Hemingway’s feet. “Austen and several others are still down there. Perhaps they’d enjoy Gertrude’s company?”

Hemingway snickered. “I’ve brought you a few things.” He handed the girl his fishing pole. “That’s for fun. If you don’t enjoy what you’re writing, no one will enjoy what they read.” Then he reached into his left pocket. “Damn.” He pulled a wet hand out and slapped it into her open palm. “That was supposed to be the tip of an iceberg, but I stopped off in Spain, so, I guess the heat got to it.

“If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of the iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. The writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing.”

He finished and fiddled with his pocket, until the girl thanked him for his gifts, while she dried her hand on the side of her pants.

“That’s a fine line you speak of, Ernest, this iceberg. Writing, after all, is about revelation. Hiding something from your reader is low—like a ploy. Gertrude, for instance, couldn’t trick me into appreciating Alice’s—” the girl raised her hand and her fingers made invisible quotation marks, “autobiography with the iceberg that sank the Titanic. I noticed, in your writing, you are never in your characters’s heads. Is this part of your iceberg theory at work?”

“The emotion of a character must be expressed through action, through the senses—not thought.”

Someone knocked into Hemingway, and the elf harrumphed when Hemingway shoved back with a fat shot gun cocking in one large fist. A pale, skinny man staggered left and then right, and then into Hemingway again. He wore a salmon colored dress shirt that the girl assumed he borrowed from Gatsby.

“Toughen up, Scott. Otherwise I’ll have to slap you with that fish again,” Hemingway said.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s white flesh pulled tight over his thin cheeks as he leaned on his friend, who sidestepped him and swung a fish. Scott’s face turned red, his eyes cleared, and he wiggled his legs until he stood straight with his shoulders back. “I’ve brought you Zelda,” he said to the girl, and pulled a woman in a billowing white dress, with thin arms from behind his back.

“Scott, her bills alone will put me under.”

“Writers must be poor. Hunger was a good discipline,” Hemingway said.

“And every writer needs a cross to bear.” Fitzgerald shook Zelda’s arm and her thin blonde locks slithered, so that for a moment, the girl expected to turn into stone. Fitzgerald sat Zelda onto the floor with a, “Be good,” and turned to Hemingway.

“What are you laughing about?”

“A cross to bear? Please. You just want to off her on someone.”

“What? I’m Catholic!”

“I’m Catholic,” Hemingway added.

“You’re a convert. You’re a faux-Catholic. There’s a difference.”

The girl attempted to put off the mismatched brawl. She liked Fitzgerald, anyhow. His writing was good, sound, and his revision amazing—if only he could hold his liquor. His characters were complex, and he knew everything of them and in them. When he set out to write Gatsby, something simple, yet intricately patterned had been achieved.

“I’m Catholic,” she cried. “I’ve got it! A cross to bear. And the Bible. It’s right here.” The girl pointed over her shoulder to Zelda who was prancing around with a Bible on her head, the string bookmarker swinging in front of her eyes like a graduation tassel. Hemingway threw a cup of vodka into Zelda’s face. Her ballooning white dress melted down her body, until she looked like a child covered in white paint. Zelda was what she was. A cross. The life outside writing that demanded attention. Without a cross, a writer’s life would be misshapen, lacking. She sighed, and accepted Zelda with thanks.

“There’s more!”

“You’re making me look bad.” Ernest bumped his shoulder into Scott.

The girl unwrapped Fitzgerald’s next gift, a set of leather bound, gold tipped Conrad. “I’ve already read Conrad, thanks.” She tried to shove the books back into Fitzgerald’s arms.

“But did you really read them? Marlow’s got a lot to offer,” Fitzgerald nodded. “Conrad’s language—he was a genius.”

The girl dumped the pile of nautical novels onto the floor next to her feet. One thin book tumbled down and hit Zelda’s sleeping form, also on the floor. The girl grumbled, and got down on her haunches to rub Zelda’s shoulder before picking up the fallen book, standing and settling back into her chair.

“The Preface to The Nigger of the Narcissus?” The girl scanned the pages.

“Yes, indeed.” Fitzgerald began to quote Conrad on writing as art form:

“It is to show its vibration, its colour, its form; and through its movement, it’s form and its colour, reveal the substance of its truth—disclose its inspiring secret: the stress and passion within the core of each convincing movement. In a single-minded attempt of that kind, if one be deserving and fortunate, one may perchance attain to such clearness of sincerity that at last the presented vision of regret or pity, of terror or mirth, shall awaken in the hearts of the beholders that feeling of unavoidable solidarity; of the solidarity in mysterious origin, in toil, in joy, in hope, in uncertain fate, which binds men to each other and all mankind to the visible world.”

The girl had her eyes closed when Fitzgerald finished. She let the words flow into her, appreciating the circularity of Conrad’s language, the repetition, the dreaming and the beauty, and of course, it’s meaning—the idea behind it all. “Yes,” the girl opened her eyes. “To reveal truth, to reveal being with movement, that is an accomplishment. Thank you.”

Fitzgerald blushed and Hemingway shoved him.

“Maybe you ought to have my wife too.”

“Enough wives!”

“No, really. My first wife. Hadley!” Ernest’s voice boomed over the clatter of bodies and a woman sitting next to the fire place, rose and mazed her way through the masses. “She lost my first novel, and I had to rewrite the whole damn thing. I was able to put aside my early attempts, and cast off what I was previously unable to part with. In the end—revision made my writing into something far better.” Hadley sat next to Zelda, and finally, the two men strode off together, Hemingway dragging his friend by the armpits, and Fitzgerald’s legs dancing like Jello across the floor.

The elf consulted his list. “Cather. Willa. You’re next!”

A woman stepped up the platform, fiddling with the pleats of a dress that hung down to her boot covered ankles. Her voice was soft and low. “You’ll have to come outside with me.”

The girl stood up, glad to stretch, and followed Willa. The crowd parted so that they might pass, until they reached the double doors and Willa pushed hard at them. “I’ve brought you place,” Willa said. The screaming blister of summer heat, and the burn of frozen snow on skin, hit the girl at once. The radiance of weather assaulted Gatsby’s mansion, so that everyone on the inside demanded that they, ‘shut the door!’ Willa and the girl stepped outside, standing under the great awning, that protected them only from the elements coming overhead, but not the wind, nor heat that attacked from the sides. “They say in the beginning, that it was all the seasons. Summer. Winter. It was all the places. Desert. Ocean. And it is there, in that beginning, where you must find a place for your characters to stand. But remember, there is nothing in the intellect and nothing in your heart except through the five senses first. Experience place through your senses. Cultivate sensuality.”

The snow pulled the girl’s skin tight across her face, so that her nose and cheeks stung, her lips cracked, dry, the heat of summer sun, burning her skin into a red brown. She was thirsty for water—thirsty for place, language, for character, thirsty to revise, thirsty for many things, all of them waiting in her throat to be swallowed.

She waved to Willa, who climbed atop a steaming horse with clouds puffing from his nostrils. The girl went back into the mansion, thinking. She sat back in her red chair and sighed when the elf read the name of the next visiting writer, and the crowd of bodies jostled forward to preach the language of their minds. There were many yet to see, many words and many books to be visited. She motioned a writer forward, and read.

Collective Reading Series: Bridget Mabunga, Robin Martin & Hoppy To It

Every time I attend a Collective Reading Series at the CSU Sacramento Library Galleria, there's new art to enjoy, but mostly I appreciate how the art serves as an interesting background to celebrate the writers.

I step into the galleria. Bridget Mabunga and Robin Martin are reading. There are a lot of people already there. A few from my 230X class. Kylee Cook sits a couple rows ahead of me and she turns in her seat to wave. Adam Crittenden brings in more chairs, adding another row behind Kylee's. I'm impressed by the turn out--about twenty-five people and more coming.

I see Marie Hoffman talking with Bridget. I haven't seen Marie or Bridget since our last Writers In Progress meeting in August--and even then, we were all in our post CSU Summer Arts comas. We talk a little before the reading. Marie's been writing like mad, cultivating the writer's lifestyle, reading everything Carole Maso and just burying herself in books. She comes back to CSUS in the Spring. I can tell she's dreading it, but there's this glow around her because she's been feeding her writer's soul. I envy her.

After a brief introduction from Adam, Bridget reads first. She stands behind a podium, her blonde hair curling down past her shoulders onto a perky red jacket that for Bridget, just seems right. She reads an excerpt from her 500 project, a series of short stories centering around a female cop named Pinky. Over summer break, I read a number of these shorts, starring Pinky and her partner Mumpkin. Bridget's goal--to capture the cop beat realistically. Each story focuses on a call when they're on duty. Bridget will be working on her 500 with Peter Grandbois in the Spring, and I'm excited that we'll be graduating together.

Afterwards, Robin reads. She's wearing a long scarf that dangles down and I watch it swing back and forth as she animatedly reads her stories. I have also heard many of these before in our workshop. I enjoy "The Room Is Glass" again, but my favorite is a short story about a woman living in Orange County suburbs whose house is broken into. She tries to cope with the physical and psychological intrusion, and throughout, the story is edged with Robin's ironic humor. When she announces its title, "Bridget Can Be Faithful," the crowd laughs, and Bridget Mabunga throws her arms in the air.

"This isn't about Bridget," Robin adds, looking towards Mabunga's husband. "So you can relax, Bob."

After the reading, I sit in my seat for a few moments feeling overwhelmed. Robin has already completed her 500 project, and if what she just read is what I'm supposed to aspire to, I know have a lot of work ahead of me. I cringe, imagining my ramshackle novel sitting anywhere near hers in the library. We mill around the galleria talking. I chat with Gordon Warnock, who's growing his hair longer--I haven't seen Gordon since Summer Arts, and his hilarious culmination reading.

Afterwards, we meet at Hoppy, a restaurant and bar on Folsom and 65th Street. There's a giant, yellow neon sign in the front, so it's hard to miss. I still managed to get lost on the way there--somehow I ended up on J and 34th. At Hoppy, I eat some fish and chips, chatting with Marie, Gordon, and Jason, all the time thinking how much Robin looks just like her mother, who's sitting next to me, also eating fish and chips.

There's some talk of bringing new blood into Writers In Progress. Robin describes her 500 project, and the ridiculous hoops writers are made to jump through by the Office of Grad Studies--but to have a copy of your thesis in the "libary", that's really something. Bobby and Bridget are sitting down the table, and I call over to Bridget, asking if she will be walking in the Spring.

"Are you kidding me?" she laughs and makes a wacky face--classic Bridget. "After what I've been through. I have to."

I know what she means--what I've been through. Walking during graduation and being hooded--its the ultimate culmination of everything we've been working so hard for. To me, being hooded bears the same grande ramifications of being knighted. (Notice I added an "e" on "grand" to truly emphasize the elite nature of the accomplishment. I'm ecstatic. I plan to talk to her about starting an elite gang of MAs who sport their hoods around midtown. She probably won't be down, but if Bridget joins, I'm convinced the gang will really take off.

Images in their order from the top:

• Bridget Mabungo & Robin Martin
• Adam Crittenden
• Reading
• Bridget Mabunga
• Robin Martin
• Marie Hoffman, Robin, Bridget, Jen (me!)
• Collage includes above and Gordon Warnock

Classes End But Conrad Lives On

Two days ago.

It's my last class of the semester. Possibly the last class of my graduate career. Next semester, I won't be taking any classes--only working on my novel. I'm swinging my car into a parking space. Parking after 4:30 in the faculty lots is permitted, but I feel privileged, because this semester, I'm not that sucker trekking it a mile to class.

I've got senioritis. Bad. I'm not even sure if a graduate student can get senioritis, since this is only my third semester, but I'm on the verge of finishing. It's that last stretch, when procrastination sets in, and I'm more interested in mailing out Christmas cards than working on a paper. But I like school. I'll miss school.

I get out of my car. I stride happy. I stride big. Fast. Without hesitation. I own this campus. I know that even though it's already dark, leaves are bright orange and red, crisping along the sidewalks in front of Douglass Hall. I know exactly where I'm going. I know where I've been. I've done this hundreds of times. The world stops for me. I step into the intersection.

My backpack lifts, and I feel its ties pulling up, the whoosh of air and fabric being dragged and away from my body. It happens so fast--it's over. I'm in the middle of the intersection, and spin around.

"What the f@#*?"

I've been clipped by an SUV.

The driver breaks hard, a woman, probably an undergraduate, she looks so small behind the wheel, rolls down her window. "I'm so sorry," the woman cries. "Are you okay? I'm so, so sorry."

I can tell she's freaking out, nearing hysteria, and I know I'm alright. I'm not hurt. I don't think the car even touched my body, but it was close. As I stand in the middle of the intersection, part of me sympathizes with her. I probably should have stopped at the curb to make sure she stopped. She probably should have been more careful. I was probably a little distracted. She was probably a little distracted. I was probably thinking how cool I looked with the fingertips cut off my black gloves.

We're both still in the middle of the intersection. "It's okay," I tell her and turn away. I start walking to class, this time looking every which way, trying to ignore the stares of witnesses to my near collision.

Thinking back, I wish I'd done a better job of reassuring her because she was probably really upset. I would have been.

In class, we go from student to student talking about our papers. I briefly describe my thesis: Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim and its influence on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. I can't tell if my professor, Brad Buchanan, thinks the idea is promising or not, but I'm hoping that my 12-15 paged paper will turn out alright, considering it's worth 50% of my grade.

We write a journal entry about Graham Greene's The End of the Affair and talk about it throughout class. I suggest the possibility that Sarah is part of Maurice's own psychological development. What's in an R? An R reflected backwards in a mirror? I'm not sure--though I point out that R is in the middle of both Sarah's and Maurice's names. One of my colleagues, Daniel, of whom I've grown quite fond of because of his bizarre digressions, goes to the chalkboard, scribbling character names. He points out the there are three R's in "mirror" and one R each in the names "Sarah", "Maurice" and "Henry" and at the end of "Affair." I try hard to laugh, and Sue nudges my leg, trying to get me to stop. What? It's funny.

As an aside, once, in our "Roaring Twenties Literature" class with Susan Wanlass, Daniel suggested that Dick Diver, the main character of Fitzgerald's Tender Is The Night, had a "curtain fetish." I'll miss Daniel's far fetched interpretations of the text.

I'll miss a lot of things about class.

I'll miss driving Garrett McCord, whose blog Vanilla Garlic is insanely popular, to his car--he parks off campus because he's a stingy bastard that saves his money for more important things, like living the foodie life, high style dining and posing decorated cupcakes on holiday napkins.

I'll miss joking around with Casey Rene Miller before and during English 230A with Doug Rice. "Hey buddy," Casey'll say when we meet in the hall as we wait for Rice to unlock Calaveras 133. She's funny, and I hope she won't get sick over winter break. She'll working on her 500 project, a collection of short stories, with Peter Grandbois. Yah, I'll miss Casey, but I look towards that big day in May, when we don our hoods, and strut around Arco arena because damn, we own the place.

Did I mention that Doug Rice tore up one of my short story's so badly in class that I questioned my ability as a writer and started reading High School Musical fanfiction? That's right Doug, and it's your fault. Inspiring though his lectures on writing are, I liken them to the liquid codeine I had to take when I got my tonsils out--fun for three hours, until the magic wears off and all that's left is pain and a lack of appetite.

After the Conrad class, I chat briefly with Daniel. He's named his bass guitar Joseph Conrad. I want to point out that "guitar" has an R in it, but I don't. He's graduating in the Spring too. Where does time go?

I exit Mendocino Hall, and head for the faculty parking lot, for the first time thinking about that intersection. A man walking ahead of me calls a greeting and I see it's Buchanan. Here again is another Buchanan I've never seen before--different from the coat wearing one in class, and different from the t-shirt wearing one at Luna's Cafe. He's wearing a long coat and what looks like a leather hat. No wonder I didn't recognize him. His face is hardly visible, mostly beard and a puff of breath that trails around the parking lot as we walk. I ask him how Roan Press is going. Well. He mentions that he's trying to get a book about/by a talented harpist. Sounds interesting. I drive off in my car, and my last glimpse of Buchanan is him searching for his car.

Call For Submissions - Ricepaper

Ricepaper (BC), an arts and lit quarterly that focuses on Asian Pacific arts and culture, seeks submissions of poetry and fiction on any subject, in any form.

Poetry and illustrated submissions: 8 pages max; short fiction: 6000 words max.

Authors must be of either Asian Pacific or mixed descent. Include a short biographical note with submission. For more details, send email to

editor(at)ricepapermagazine.ca replace (at) with @

http://www.ricepapermagazine.ca/

Call for Submissions: Rougarou, U of Lousiana

Rougarou is the new online literary magazine edited by graduate students of the Department of English at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. We seek submissions of fiction, poetry, nonfiction and book reviews for our third issue due to launch Spring 2009.
We are interested in well-crafted, innovative work that gets us excited about the possibilities of language. We accept submissions year-round.

Simultaneous submissions are fine, assuming you will notify us immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere. We do not accept previously published work. For our full guidelines and to read our first two issues, please visit our website.E-mail all work as a Word document or RTF attachment, with the appropriate genre as the subject line of the e-mail.

Send fiction to: rougaroufiction(at)gmail.com (replace (at) with @)
Send poetry to: rougaroupoetry(at)gmail.com (replace (at) with @)
Please send all poems in one file attachment.
Send nonfiction to: rougarounonfiction(at)gmail.com (replace (at) with @)
Send book reviews and all other queries to: rougaroueditors(at)gmail.com (replace (at) with @)

Call for Submissions: New Plains Review

The New Plains Review seeks writing on the theme of Service for its spring issue. Weinterpret "service" broadly: military and community service, school service requirements, jury duty, all forms of volunteering, religious services, food service, customer service,serving a subpoena, etc. We're interested in poetry, fiction, essays and creative nonfiction that is thoughtful and compelling, and we'll reprint previously published work (provided the author controls the copyright). New Plains will also run a "letters" column of short, informal pieces relating experiences of "service." The editors are looking for detail,honesty and brevity in these letters.

Deadline is February 17, 2009. Submit by email (as a Word attachment)to Executive Editor Douglas Goetsch at (replace (at) with @), or send hard copies to:

New Plains Review
Submissions, Box 184
University of Central
Oklahoma, Edmond, OK 73034

Please put email, phone and postal contact on the first page of each piece you submit.

Intermission: Writing Short Fiction With Doug Rice

On Monday, I had my last English 230A class with Doug Rice. Sad, though I am, I'll be working with Rice for my 500 project, so it's not the end. He did give us one assignment over Winter break: Read one good book, slowly (the adverb aside).

I considered James Joyce's Ulysses, but I flipped through it, and decided the read would require eight years, not eight weeks. Don't be fooled by the simplicity of Ulysses's book cover--it's so complex, it might take me a week to read one page!

Still to turn in for my English 230A class: 18 revised pages of my novel and an aesthetic essay.

With the conclusion of the class, I find it necessary to post some of Doug Rice's worthwhile writing anecdotes. Of course, he's very verbose, so I've left quite a few off.

• Write with magic. Write with music.
  
• Writing is about revelation.
  
• Read everything and read it well.
  
• Pay attention to how each scene contributes to how the character changes.
  
• Learn rhythm from reading.
• Write towards an intensity, not towards an intention.
• Eliminate all ornament that is there for the sake of ornament.
  
• Give your characters a name. Give them a good name.
  
• Your characters have a whole life. You have to know it.
• Push your characters to a point where they must reveal themselves.
• Your characters have memories. You better know what they are.
  
• Study writers who are important to you as a writer, not as a reader.
  
• Learn to make demands on your own capacities and not be self-satisfied.
  
• You don't have to know anything. Your story has to know something. Call it into being.
• The symbols emerge from the story. You don't put them in intentionally.
  
• Write all the way through, like white lightning, to find what it's all about.
  
• Read "Ulysses."
  
• Conflict. Complication. Desire. On the first page.
  
• Learn how to manage time.
  
• The more obvious you make a symbol in the text, the less genuine it is because it becomes, so you have to try and do it obliquely.
  
• You have to know what you're doing before you can revise.
  
• Know what is at stake in the scene. Know your characters. Know your story. Know the mood of the scene.
• Be ready to revise what you think.
  
• Make choices. Be exclusive, not inclusive.
  
• There is nothing in the intellect and nothing in your heart except through the five senses first. Cultivate sensuality.
  
• Write through the sense to the heart and to the mind.
  
• Don't distract a reader with a mere detail--take out the fluff.
  
• You don't have to paint the whole pictures. Paint what matters.
  
• Don't try to get a place right. Try to reimagine it.
  
• Reveal something about character and place.
  
• Characters in dialogue should be revealing something about themselves, not just exchanging information.
  
• Make the reader see there were no other choices possible.
  
• The heart of writing is in the writing. Immortality happens inside the writing--inside the words.
  
• Be humbled by your stories.
  
• You don't have to think. You only have to look.
  
• Make your readers hallucinate. Make them see what's not there. They must see.
  
• Do not rewrite for untalented readers.
  
• A symbol is graceful--it's barely there.
  
• Write as if you are a painter.
  
• Linger in the scene. Write what is there and not there. Do not rush to the end.
  

Writing Job: Copy Editing Internship At CSUS State Hornet

Sick and tired of spotting poor grammar in the student newspaper?

Intern for The State Hornet as a copy editor for 10 hours a week and get 3 units of course credit for helping to make the newspaper a better read. Positions are open for Spring 2009. Schedule can be flexible.

Contact Editor in Chief Ashley Evans at editor@statehornet.com about testing for the position.

-------Forwarded from the CSUS English List Proc.

UAW Local 4123 Student Workers Strike Postponed

Never underestimate the power of solidarity. What's that saying? The students united, will never be defeated! The following update was posted on the UAW Local 4123 website:

STRIKE POSTPONED: SENATE PRESIDENT STEINBERG TO WORK WITH UAW/CSU ON REACHING AGREEMENT

Dear Members,

Senate President Pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg has called on UAW Local 4123 to and the CSU to sit down with him in an effort to reach resolution on the current contract dispute. The bargaining team has agreed to postpone the strike, originally scheduled to begin at 7 AM, December 10, pending these meetings with the University and Senate President Pro Tempore Steinberg.

We believe that Senate President Steinberg will be a helpful influence on negotiations, and will move CSU administrators to bargain lawfully and help us reach agreement on a fee waiver. The Senator has been supportive of a fee waiver benefit for ASEs (see his letter to CSU administrators here: http://www.uaw4123.org/news/files/Steinberg_Letter_10272008.jpg, and
we look forward to working with him and CSU to reach a settlement.

We will continue to keep you updated as these meetings progress.

Solidarity,

UAW 4123 Bargaining Team

UAW Local 4123 Student Workers Strike: December 10th

UPDATE: This strike event has been POSTPONED. See the postponement release from UAW Local 4123 here or at their website.
--------------------------------

The following is a press release forwarded by Bridget Mabunga concerning the UAW Local 4123 Student Workers Strike to take place on December 10th across the CSU system. UAW Local 4123 is the Union of Academic Student Employees (ASEs) at the California State University. It represents over 6000 academic student employees.

----------------------------------
December 9, 2008
TAKE ACTION TO SUPPORT ACADEMIC STUDENT WORKERS NOW.

We have called for an unfair labor practice strike for Wednesday December, 8, 2008. You can help by calling Chancellor Reed at (562) 851 4700 and the campus president in your area. The press release and contact information is included.

UAW Local 4123 to Strike at California State University Beginning
Wednesday, December 10 Over CSU's Unfair Labor Practices

(CALIFORNIA) - UAW Local 4123 announced today that Teaching Associates, Graduate Assistants, Tutors and other Instructional Student Assistants will strike at the California State University starting tomorrow, Wednesday, December 10 over the CSU's unfair labor practices. UAW members voted to authorize the bargaining team to call the strike by a 98.5% margin. Striking employees will be eligible for up to $200/week in strike benefits.

The CSU's unlawful bargaining includes not providing information critical to the bargaining process, not having the authority to bargain at the table, and conditioning resolution of one critical issue – a fee waiver for academic student employees – on settling wage "re-opener" bargaining with other unions.

"Our members are prepared to hold CSU accountable for its unlawful bargaining practices," said James Banks, President of UAW Local 4123. "However, we remain hopeful that a strike can be averted." A strong majority of UAW 4123 members have signed on to a letter to Chancellor
Reed calling on the CSU to provide fee waivers to ASEs.

Legislative leaders, including Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, Senate President pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg, Senator Gloria Romero, Chair of the Assembly Higher Education Committee Anthony Portantino, and Chair of the Assembly Labor and Employment Committee Sandré Swanson have called on CSU Chancellor Reed to negotiate a fee waiver with the UAW. Assembly member Portantino wrote, "Despite their valuable contribution to the mission of the University, ASEs took a 7% wage cut when fees increased this year. Without a fee waiver, the average ASE
earns a mere $1.80 an hour, after paying student fees."

ASEs are the only group of unionized employees or administrators at CSU that do not receive a fee waiver benefit. Fee waivers are also a standard benefit for ASEs at universities across the country, including the University of California.

The Union has the support of other campus unions and has secured strike sanction from central labor councils around the state.

You can help UAW 4123 by calling CSU Chancellor Charles Reed at (562) 851 4700 and asking for CSU to bargain lawfully and negotiate and agree to a Fee Waiver for Academic Student Employees to avoid a strike.

###

--
UAW Local 4123
union@uaw4123.org
(916) 498-8452
http://www.uaw4123.org

Writing Job: Visiting Poet, Columbia College, Chicago

VISITING POET, Columbia College Chicago:

The Elma Stuckey Liberal Arts and Sciences Emerging Poet-in-Residence. Annual, one-year nonrenewable position: starts August 2009.

Poets from underrepresented communities and/or those who bring diverse cultural, ethnic, theoretical, and national perspectives to their writing and teaching are particularly encouraged to apply.

Position is named for Elma Stuckey, a poet born in Memphis who lived in Chicago for more than 40 years. Author of THE BIG GATE (1976) and THE COLLECTED POEMS OF ELMA STUCKEY (1987), she has been described as "the A.E. Housman of slavery" -- a poet who recast for contemporary readers "those things that were kept from the ears of the unknowing slavemasters."

Successful candidate will teach one course per semester (undergraduate workshop, craft, and/or literature seminars), give a public reading, and possibly supervise a small number of graduate theses. Qualified candidates will have received an M.F.A. in poetry, or Ph.D. in English (with creative dissertation), or other relevant terminal degree in past five years; demonstrate excellence and experience in college-level teaching; and will have strong record of publication in national literary magazines (but will have published no more than one full-length poetry collection). Salary: $30,000 for the year. Send cover letter, CV, 5-page sample of published poetry (photocopies are fine), sample syllabus for undergraduate or graduate-level poetry workshop or literature course, three letters of recommendation (at least one should address teaching), and statement of teaching philosophy to:

Tony Trigilio
Director, Creative Writing - Poetry
Columbia College Chicago
600 South Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL, 60605

Postmark deadline for applications: February 15, 2009.

The Creative Writing - Poetry Program has a commitment to excellence in teaching and is founded upon strong ties between the study of literature and the practice of creative expression, and features the only undergraduate creative writing - poetry BA program in the country and a single-genre MFA program, a national reading series featuring monthly readings, and two national literary magazines: COLUMBIA POETRY REVIEW and COURT GREEN. Columbia College Chicago is an urban institution of over 12,000 undergraduate and graduate students, emphasizing arts, media, and communications in a liberal
arts setting.

Columbia College Chicago encourages qualified female, Deaf, GLBT, disabled, international & minority classified individuals to apply for all positions.

Collective Reading Series: December 10th

Check out the last Collective Reading Series of the Fall semester at the CSUS Library Gallery on December 10th at 4PM.

Guest Writers include:

• Agnes Stark
• Bridget Mabunga
• Robin Martin, reading a selection from her project collection Watching.

I'll definitely be there to support my colleagues from Writers In Progress, Bridget and Robin.

Claudia Rankine Poetry Reading

What: Poet Claudia Rankine to give a Multimedia Presentation entitled “Provenance.”

When: Tuesday, December 2nd at 3pm

Where: The Multicultural Center inside the Library

Claudia Rankine is the author of four collections of poetry, including Don’t Let Me Be Lonely (Graywolf 2004); PLOT (2001); The End of the Alphabet (1998); and Nothing in Nature is Private (1995), which received the Cleveland State Poetry Prize. She is co-editor of American Women Poets in the Twenty-First Century (Wesleyan University Press).

"The most articulate and moving testament to the bleak times we live in I’ve yet seen…It’s a master work in every sense.” --Robert Creeley Speaking of Rankine’s Don’t Let Me Be Lonely

-CSUS English List Proc