Lone Star Bound

Y'all -

I will be back in Austin next Thursday through Sunday morning. James and I are flying back to attend his brother's wedding. I am anticipating that we will have a fair amount of time to hang out with our friends. Yay! So call me or I'll call you. Or just plan on going out with me to get a drink or laying out in the sun at Barton Springs sometime that long weekend.

PS: Amelia - I might crash at your house one of these nights. Grandma Spears won't let James and I share the same bedroom. How great is that? I think I might have to give him a break from the couch. I love the South !!

Faulknerific

So I just walked to my mailbox to get the mail. The latest issue of Iron Horse was in there, and I got excited, just like I do each time a lit mag comes because it's something fun to read. Something that's not about teaching. But this time is even better. Faulkner's "A Night, An Hour, a Minute" is in this issue. Damn, that story is good Faulk, and the issue looks great.

The work, the product

I just finished a book by an old friend, Carson Mell. We were in a Ron workshop together at ASU, and since then he moved to LA, found an enthusiastic agent, and had this very strange book of his shopped around for a year. When there were no biters, he self-published, and sold out his entire run. An interactive animated short companion to the book appeared in Wholphin. It's a great, funny book. Now I'm looking around for things to mail back.

I guess that's neither here nor there, besides the fact that I hope I'll always find myself looking around for things to send back to each of you, in trade for our little and large successes.

It feels fantastic to quit a crappy job. Carmen got me thinking about this after I quit my crappy job at the fish house. So I figure, here is my advice to the world, whenever you're in a slump in your life, roll down to the HEB or the Blockbuster, fill out an application, wear an ironed shirt and talk about how much you really, really enjoy bagging groceries or stocking movies or whatever, stick around a week, make fifteen bucks, and then go in one day and say, you know what? Fuck this job. Fuck this job.

The key here is to make sure you don't like any of the people at the job, and you don't remotely like the work, and there's no health insurance or growth potential that might make you regret leaving the job. When I left Target, I did slightly regret leaving, because they have this great system set up in their registers that rewards you with the letter "G" if you completed the transaction very quickly. I genuinely liked that. That's all it takes, sometimes.

I cannot believe I am still writing this stupid screenplay. The problem is I love it so much.

Sarah said it best

Not that I've been spying or anything. Okay I've been spying. Describing our blog to her Pa, Sarah said, "My grad school friends and I posting about writing, teaching, publication news, and other MFA-related nonsense. Basically, we miss each other."

So true!

I miss reading fresh writing--early drafts and still warm from the printer--and I miss knowing without having to ask what everyone is reading, what is tugging at your attention. Now more than ever, I miss the things we just learned about eachother from being in close proximity--teaching styles, relationship styles, future plans--the things you pick up unconsiously.

And when my spying taught me that one of us is a baker by night and a writer by day. A really freakin talented cupcake maker from the looks of it (shout out to http://cuppincakesforyou.blogspot.com/). It made me want to know what other dreams you have for yourselves. What besides writers, teachers and tech-writers will we become? And what would we be if we weren't this?

Wedding Bells

Carmen Dee is "The Bride"

Wedding Bells

Me and my ladies. On my left with the black hair is my sister, Kara. Below me is my niece, Sophia-Kara's daughter. On my right is Tasha, one of my close friends since childhood.

New York, New York

I propose a grand adventure. AWP is in New York this Winter. I think I remember Carmen said she was going with Tom. And Bearden will probably catch the subway to go check it out. But what about the rest of us? I'm going to plan on going as well. I say we all do!

This year the conference is from January 30th (a Wednesday) to February 2nd (a Saturday). Now, it won't be sunny, but it's New York! View the line-up here. Oates, Karr, and Hempel . . .
And Dagoberto Gilb! Oh man, good times. Maybe we could even sweet talk our way into getting free passes (Hello, Ms. Rebeckah Love).

Who's in? We could split costs of the hotel . . . .

Anyway, I saw this picture of Foer on the AWP site.
And I thought, here is the kind of guy who could use a punch in the face. Who's with me?

Get those stamps

Belated "Happy September 1" to everyone, as journals open their doors again to our submissions. Here are a few that just opened:

Iowa Review (through November)
The Cincinnati Review (through May)
The Southern Review (through May)
Gettysburg Review (through May)
Indiana Review (through May)
New England Review (through May)
One Story (through May)
The Pinch (through March 15)

Rock it, boys and girls.

green grass is green

I have questions for those of you teaching these days. And for those of you not teaching, I have a need for you to chime in on your experience at TSU. I'm back again, teaching four sections of 1320. I prefer 1320, so this is good for me.

I've been noticing some things, though, lately, about my students. I think I've had kind of a personal problem with TSU since I got here. As many of you know, this is the school where my parents met, where my grandfather got his masters in education, where two of my aunts went, and, most importantly, where all the average and/or sub-par kids from my high school ended up. Only two of my graduating class went to UT. A few ended up at ATM, the valedictorian went to the Naval Academy, and EVERYBODY else went to TSU. I swore I'd never end up here, or end up a (god forbid) teacher like my parents, and everyone else in my entire family.

And here I am, happy for the first time in my life, pretty much, teaching at TSU. The irony is not lost on me. I once sincerely thanked god I didn't have to deal with "a gay thing," too, and look at me now. I think I called TSU "third rate university" way too much. I think I was a jerk about that, and now I'm sorry.

So anyway, I'm finding that I truly love my students. I did last year, and I do again this year. And, in hearing about some other classes that are being taught across the state (St. Ed's, Southwestern), I've really been considering how to meet the differing needs of my students - those of whom I have come to respect as first generation college students, speakers of different languages, immigrants, nontrads, emerging stars (who told me they were "the dumb kids who didn't REALLY get into TSU)...instead of thinking of them as the kids who ostracized me through all four years of Seguin High School. Maybe this is because of the relatively few Greek kids I have in class. Or maybe it's because Julian is a kindergartner whose teachers don't really get him and are having trouble even trying. Whatever the reason, the students look new to me this time.

And I guess I'm wondering how the rest of you are faring in different schools - who your students are and how you find yourself relating to them. Are you discovering you need to change your pedagogy, your standards, your very tone of class? Are the goals of the students different? And are yours?