The Southern Indiana Review Blog

Parting is Such Sweet Celebration

2009-12-14T13:09:00.001-06:00

Let's start in the lab tonight, since the only thing on the agenda is to finish your final projects.

Current chip count, in case you're keeping score at home:
1 Doritos Spicey Sweet Chili
1 Lay's Kettle Cooked
1 Lay's Classic
1 Ruffles Original
1 Archer Farms Tortilla (insert salsa here).

Stocking Stapler

2009-12-08T13:32:00.007-06:00

Chapbook publishers of the world, unite!

'Cause when you're fifteen and somebody tells you...

2009-12-07T13:45:00.003-06:00

1. Personal project presentations are tonight.
2. Due to a "communication breakdown," Josh L and Kara W's chapbooks weren't available in Gayle's office until this morning.
3. After presentations, we'll head for the lab.
4. Hi, I'm Robert Plant.

Semana Catorce

2009-11-30T14:38:00.002-06:00

Esta Noche
1. Since we have so much to finish this week (service-learning final draft and personal project first draft), let's start things off in the computer lab this week.

2. Since it is my no-longer-secret dream that you all start your own magazine or press, I want to make sure you experience mass production; therefore, you need to make catorce copies of your individual project draft to distribute for next week's peer review.

La Semana Que Viene
1. Personal project presentations/peer review

Lucky Thirteen

2009-11-23T16:03:00.002-06:00

Dining Room
1. Service-learning presentations/peer review
2. Giblet snacks

Living Room
1. Giblit snack digestion
2. Service-learning projects due

For Next Time
1. Final project draft due

The Twelve Weeks of Eng 459

2009-11-16T16:15:00.004-06:00

Classroom
1. Service-learning project follow-up q & a
2. Turtle doves
3. Assign final project

Computer Lab
1. Service-learning project draft due by the end of the period

For Next Time
1. Service-learning presentations/peer review (beginning of class period)
2. Service-learning projects due (end of class period)
3. French hens (sautéed with a hint of thyme & rosemary)

Most classes only go to ten...

2009-11-09T17:29:00.003-06:00

Week 11 Agenda

Classroom
1. Discuss Lili Wright program draft
2. Re-re-re-assign service-learning project (no, really)
3. Eng 498 groveling

Lab
1. Lili Wright program due
2. Maximus dwadlus unite!
3. Service-learning project proposal due

For Next Time
1. Service-learning project draft due

Ten Spot

2009-11-02T11:24:00.002-06:00

Classroom
1. Individual presentations conclude: Natalie (The Virginia Quarterly Review), Terri (Poetry), Josh U (Shenandoah), Jenni (Crab Orchard Review), Brandi (The Ghettysburg Review), Kristen (Zoetrope: All Story), Jason (The Missouri Review), Jamie (New England Review), Jennifer (Glimmer Train).
2. Service-learning assignment re-tooled.

Computer Lab
1. Lili Wright progam draft due
2. Literary analysis paper due date postponed until next week (11/9)
3. Max cover due.

For Next Time
1. Literary analysis paper due
2. Max wrap-up
3. Lili Wright program due.

NumbernineNumbernineNumbernineNumbernineNumbernine

2009-11-02T10:45:00.005-06:00

Classroom
1. Begin lit mag presentations: Kara (The Paris Review), Sarah (Tin House), Josh L (Indiana Review), Breck (The Kenyon Review), Roger (Ploughshares), Casey (McSweeneys), & Mallory (Black Warrior Review).

Computer Lab
1. XX Eccentric Women program due
2. Lili Wright flyer due
3. Max printed chapbook due

For Next Time
1. Individual presentations conclude
2. Literary analysis paper due
3. Lili Wright program draft due

The Great (Week) Eight

2009-10-19T16:26:00.002-06:00

Classroom
1. The return of Dominic Micer
2. Destination: Home's Kat Isbell
3. The New Yorker template

Laboratory
4. Eccentric Women flyer due
5. Eccentric Women program draft due
6. Lili Wright flyer draft due
7. Individual version of Max due.
8. I forget what eight was for

For Next Time
1. Begin magazine presentations: Kara, Sarah, Josh L, Breck, Natalie, Roger, Casey, Mallory
2. Printed version of Max due
3. The West Ender

Service-Learning Project Assignments

2009-10-17T15:07:00.005-06:00

Group #1
-Kara
-Jenni M
-Jamie

Group #2
-Josh U
-Jason
-Brandi
-Jennifer R

Group #3
-Terri
-Natalie
-Kristen
-Casey

Group #4
-Breck
-Roger
-Josh L
-Mallolry

This Monkey's Gone to Seven

2009-10-12T16:50:00.004-06:00

Opening Acts:

1. Guest baritone, Dominic Micer
2. Service learning assignment in theory
3. Literary magazine analysis in practice
4. Eccentric Women & Lili Wright flyer drafts

Main Attraction

1. Ladies & gentlemen, Max!
2. Brett Ralph program due

For Next Time

1. Complete your version of Max chapbook

Week Six

2009-10-05T14:50:00.004-06:00

Tonight's Menu

Appetizer
1. Distribute Max and The Broken Zoo manuscripts.

Main Course
1. Discuss Casa Marina's theme and content, including individual poem selection and arrangement

Dessert
1. Quark à la mode: Brett Ralph flyer due; Brett Ralph program draft due; discuss chapbook & program layout & design.

For Next Time

1. Read Melanie Jordan full-length manuscript, The Broken Zoo, & Ghost Season chapbook
2. Read Max full-length manuscript
3. Evaluate Max overall theme and individual poem inclusion/order for chapbook-length manuscript
4. Suggest cover art/image(s)

Week 5.0

2009-09-28T15:18:00.002-06:00

Tonight's Menu

1. Discuss standards for SIR fiction (in reference to fall 2008 and spring 2009 issues)
2. Decide fate of short story under consideration
3. Saunter to the computer lab; discuss nontraditional approach to flyers; Ralphites have flyer draft due.

Checkout these web sites:

http://www.concertposters.com/

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wpaposters/highlights.html

http://vintageconcertposters.com/_main/Index.cfm?page=api/gallery/view.cfm

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/10/12/50-beautiful-movie-posters/

http://www.premiere.com/List/The-25-Best-Movie-Posters-Ever/25.-Gun-Crazy

For Next Time

1. Read Casa Marina chapbook manuscript
2. Evaluate overall theme and individual poem inclusion/order
3. Suggest cover art/image(s).

Week 4 Agenda

2009-09-21T14:01:00.006-06:00

Tonight's the Night (to)

1. Discuss obtaining your copies of other magazines.
2. Discuss poems for fall issue (which to include and in what order)
3. Team RopeWalk assignments:
-Martinets: J-mo, Kristin A, Jason O', Kara W
-Ralphites: Mallory C-S, Natalie W, Josh U, Jennifer R
-Los Eccentricities: Teri M, Breck B, Josh L, Brandi S
-Wright-ons: Jamie G, Sara J, Casey B, Roger G
4. Off to the lab for RopeWalk Visiting Writers Reading Series poster design(s).

For Next Week

1. Contact managing editors of your magazines--This is a preliminary inquiry, not an actual interview. Start by looking at what contact info is available online: do editors have individual email addresses listed, or is there a single contact address? Basically, introduce yourself and provide a little background info as to why you're emailing, and then ask if they would be available for a future interview. The primary goal at this time is just to see if someone responds to your email...and if so, how long does it take them?
2. Read short stories in fall 08 and spring 09 SIR to establish standards of acceptance.
3. Read submitted story and decide whether to accept for publication.

Week 3

2009-09-14T14:16:00.002-06:00

Tonight's Agenda

1. SIR web color scheme (2-3 good partners for the cerulean blue).
2. Proofread your bios (stapled to the Kyoko Mori interview, unless you picked it up before I had the chance to do so...if that’s the case, there are extra copies in my mailbox).
3. Compare Mori’s excerpt of "Cardigan’s" to the original (don’t forget I gave you specific questions to address at the end of the excerpt).
4. Mark a favorite section (think paragraph) or two from the "Cardigans" excerpt to consider for promotional purposes.
5. Proofread Mallory’s interview that will be posted on the SIR web site.
6. Head to the computer lab: http://www.sarabandebooks.org/?page_id=1053

Week One Agenda

2009-08-31T16:32:00.008-06:00

1. Introductions and Expectations
2. Discuss Kyoko Mori assignment for next time
3. SIR web page re-design colors
4. Email a brief bio (and photo, if you have one)
5. Claim your lit mag:

o Mallory: Black Warrior Review (http://www.bwr.ua.edu/)

o Jenni: Crab Orchard Review (http://craborchardreview.siuc.edu/)

o Brandi: The Gettysburg Review (http://public.gettysburg.edu/academics/gettysburg_review)

o Jennifer: Glimmer Train (http://www.glimmertrain.com/)

o Josh L: Indiana Review (http://indianareview.org/)

o Breck: The Kenyon Review (http://www.kenyonreview.org/)

o Casey: McSweeneys (http://www.mcsweeneys.net/)

o Jason: The Missouri Review (http://www.missourireview.org/)

o Unclaimed: The Mid-American Review (http://www.bgsu.edu/studentlife/organizations/midamericanreview)

o Jamie: New England Review (http://cat.middlebury.edu/~nereview)

o Kara: The Paris Review (http://www.parisreview.com/)

o Roger: Ploughshares (http://www.pshares.org/)

o Teri: Poetry (http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/index.html)

o Unclaimed: Prairie Schooner (http://prairieschooner.unl.edu/)

o Josh: Shenandoah (http://www.wlu.edu/x31904.xml)

o Sara: Tin House (http://www.tinhouse.com/index.html)

o Natalie: The Virginia Quarterly Review (http://www.vqronline.org/)

o Kristen: Zoetrope: All Story (http://www.all-story.com/)

English 459 Weekly Schedule

Week 1
-08/31: Introductions and expectations

Week 2
-09/07: Labor Day

Week 3
-09/14: SIR nonfiction & interview (Kyoko Mori); Quark software intro

Week 4
-09/21: SIR poetry; RW Reading Series flyers; Lee Martin flyer draft due
-09/24: Lee Martin RopeWalk reading

Week 5
-09/28: SIR fiction; RW Reading Series programs; Brett Ralph flyer draft due

Week 6
-10/05: RopeWalk Press chapbook Casa Marina; Brett Ralph flyer & program draft due

Week 7
-10/12: RopeWalk Press chapbook Max; Brett Ralph program due; Eccentric Women flyer draft due
-10/15: Brett Ralph RopeWalk reading

Week 8
-10/19: Individual versions of Max due; Eccentric Women flyer & program draft due; Lili Wright flyer draft due

Week 9
-10/26: Individual lit-mag presentations begin; Eccentric Women program due; Lili Wright flyer due
-10/29: Eccentric Women RopeWalk reading

Week 10
-11/02: Individual lit-mag presentations conclude; Lili Wright program draft due; Max cover due

Week 11
-11/09: Literary magazine analysis paper due; Lili Wright program due; service-learning project proposal due
-11/12: Lili Wright RopeWalk Reading

Week 12
-11/16: Service-learning project draft due; final project assigned

Week 13
-11/23: Service-learning project presentations/peer review; service-learning project due

Week 14
-11/30: Final project draft due

Week 15
-12/07: Final project presentations/peer review

Week 16 (Finals Week)
-12/14: Final project due

Keep Pilin' it on Why Don't Ya?

2009-04-28T21:57:00.004-06:00

I hate the end of the semester because nearly every professor seems to get it into his or her head that his/her class is the only class every student is taking and it's the student's responsibility to make up all the work that the professor failed to assign the rest of the semester. It would be great if these professors would keep things in perspective; it'd make both their lives and the lives of their students a lot easier. We wouldn't have as much work to do and they wouldn't have as much half-baked work to grade.

On a semi-related note, grad school is really scaring me. I don't apply for another two years, but this next fall I have to take my GRE, which means I'll be studying for it all summer (as well as taking Cognitive Psychology while I'm in Germany, visiting parents, and studying Lifespan Development when I get back). I took a practice one a few weeks ago and got an 1100 altogether, which isn't bad at all for someone who just walked into it without studying. It wasn't a full test though, nor was it on the computer, so I definitely have some things to look over.

I'm also questioning what I want to go into. Part of me so loves literature and writing that I want to teach English for the rest of my life, but another part of me has found a new love--psychological research. I find research fascinating, and I'd love to do it for a living, especially since that would more than likely mean I get to teach Psychology as well, which would be fun. I have until the spring of next year to figure it out; otherwise I will probably have to take both the English GRE Subject Test as well as the Psychology one... just in case.

Tomorrow I need to make Ron a scroll bar today for the new SIR issue. I told him I'd do it today but I was really absent-minded. If I still had Photoshop on my computer, I would have been able to do it at home, but alas.

I can't wait for summer.

2009-04-24T20:10:00.003-06:00

Two weeks before this semester is over, and I don't know how I feel about that, exactly. On one hand, HOORAY!, the semseter's nearly over! This means that the majority of my stress will be gone and all I have to worry about is work. On the other hand, it also means I have only two weeks to finish all my term papers that are due (and there are SEVERAL) and undergo the agony of finals. I just want it all to be over, but now is not the time to daydream about the end; now is the time to get focused and crank out the papers and cram for the tests. It's the last big battle, and I intend to come out victorious. Maybe a little bruised and exhausted, but that makes it all the more impressive. It's time to prepare for the big finale.
Another rather thrilling viewpoint on this semester's end is that it marks the end of April, which means that I have only to wait two and a half more months before I get to once again embrace my fiance. It will have been a year in July that he's been gone overseas and I have been anxious for his return and more than ready to finally have him home to stay. I have to say, this semester has kept me so busy that I was forced to concentrate more on my numerous obligations and less on the emptiness I felt. Having dated since we were freshmen in high school, the sudden separation was not an easy one, despite the fact that we knew it was coming nearly a year prior. It will be another crowning victory to have survived this long year and yet to have also grown in our relationship in leaps and bounds. Alas, the wedding date is still not set....something about financial security...I don't know. Seems a trifle to me but they say it matters.
On a more intern-ish note, there has been a steady flow of submissions for the SIR and I have to say it is exciting to open the envelopes and prepare your submissions for the readers. I often wish I received such bulging envelopes from my fiance...
Everybody on campus seems to be caught in the frenzy of last-minute cramming; I'm glad not to be the only one. Plenty of late nights await, as well as energy drinks, snacks, and books piled high around the computer, all in aid of the completion of the dreaded term papers. Wish us luck. Wish us inspiration. Wish us determination.

Wrapping up the semester!

2009-04-21T15:53:00.002-06:00

We are wrapping up the semester and it's about time. This semester seems to have been a drag for everyone, students and faculty. You can see it on their exhausted faces. Although it was full of excitement for the interns (AWP, RopeWalk readings, MCM winner interviews, etc.) it has been difficult to get all of us interns together to collaborate on projects, but we appear to have made it into a clearing. Congratulations to Adrienne on her acceptance into Carbondale. It's going to be rough without her because she is a great help but it is time for bigger and better things.

The rest of us here are moving on to better things as well. There is a new class being offered next semester: ENG 459, a course in editing and publishing. Why it hasn't been created before is beyond me, but to have the opportunity to take the class my last semester at USI is exciting. It will be nice to work with a larger group to help smooth out the editing/publishing "problems" (this may be to strong a word) that we encountered as a smaller group. The class is filled already which is a great sign. Who knew we had so many people interested in a course like this. Most students weren't aware of the English internship opportunity and now they have the chance to prepare for it. The internship has been a great experience for me in these last couple years and I count even count the number of things I have learned.

As for the remainder of the semester, the RopeWalk Anthology is coming to a completion and the new SIR issue is on a roll. I can't wait to see how it turns out.

I guess it wouldn't be prudent to post all 20 something photos...

2009-04-21T14:07:00.006-06:00

So I actually ended up going to Carbondale on Saturday. My parents, sister, and I loaded up and headed out to SIU to look at the campus. Luckily, they were having an orientation day for undergrads so I was able to grab one of the leaders and have her teach me the complicated method used for navigating Faner Hall. Actually, she didn't know and had to call for help, but I was able to find the English Department anyway.

The Student Center is glorious and filled with all manner of tasty, fattening things for me to enjoy and is conveniently located right next to Faner Hall so I don't have to worry about getting lost on my way to lunch during those first few days of the semester. This trashcan, by far, was the greatest thing about the Student Center:

We kept finding random Easter eggs all over campus with jokes inside. A joke: Why was the little cookie so sad? Because his mother was a wafer so long. Har har har...

I also had some appointments to check out appartments. I found the one I want (not the one I thought I'd want going by websites) and though I haven't yet, I will pay the deposit and it will be mine. It's not too far from campus, so I am excited.

The Last Reading

2009-04-15T11:08:00.003-06:00

Norman Minnick came to USI yesterday. He attended our Poetry Workshop class, taught by none other than Matthew Graham, and gave us advice about the writing process, and, more pressing, graduate school and what to expect. He seemed like a pretty chill guy, if I must use slang, and I was pretty excited about the reading.

After I went to Poetry Workshop and Psychology of Gender, I immediately went to my friend Jenn's place where she cut and colored my hair for $5. I'm not a really picky person, so I just said, "Keep it shoulder length or longer," and let her have her way. I like the way it turned out, and got a couple compliments while at the reception. At first, it seemed the professors were going to hog all our Norman Minnick time, but he was able to make his way over to us sooner or later and we had some pretty fun discussions.

The reading itself was wonderful. Minnick has a great personality; he was very funny and I found myself laughing most of the time. I really enjoyed hearing his poetry read aloud. His poetry is very simplistic but beautiful. He lets us know exactly what we're looking at in our imagination, but invites us to see below the surface. I borrowed some money from Ron to buy a book (I grabbed all the cash I had in my room but that was only like seven dollars... Poor college student is poor) and asked him to sign it. He wrote me a very nice message on the inside. It said, "To Crystal, and the author who will blossom and continue to blossom." Reading that made me smile.

On a side note, I had chosen "Her Image" as the poem to go on the poster, and I was surprised to learn that he saw it as a sad poem. I believe he even called himself a "jerk" for not playing with his daughter.Basically what happens in the poem is that his daughter is playing with a spoon, looking at her image in it and flipping it over and back as if she's trying to trick the spoon. The last line of the poem is "Eat, I tell her." I saw it as a funny and cute picture of his daughter, and the last line elicited more of a lighthearted laugh than scorn. To each his or her own, I suppose.

In any case, I imagine that since the Ropewalk Reading Series has come to an end (for the semester anyway), most of our work will be focused on working on the next issue of SIR, logging submissions, and making sure stuff goes to the right place. That really doesn't sound too bad, though this is the time of the semester where everyone starts freaking out about final projects (thank you, Research Methods and Statistics I), papers (thank you, 20th Century Poetry), tests (thank you, German 204 and Psychology of Gender), portfolios (thank you, Poetry Workshop), and finals (thank you, Research Methods and Statistics, German 204, and Psychology of Gender). We can manage, I'm sure. We're college students; we don't need sleep!

Oh and blogging. We have to do some of that too.

SIUC

2009-04-05T21:01:00.002-06:00

So, I made my choice about which grad school to go to. After being accepted by Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Minnesota State University Mankato, and University of Memphis, I've decided to go to SIUC. Their program is ideal for my needs and goals and the funding package is great. I have yet to hear from University of North Carolina Greensboro and Bowling Green State, but an acceptance from either one of these programs, great though they are, will not change my decision. I've gotten used to the idea of living there.

I was going to visit this weekend at attend part of the first Little Grassy Fesitival, but various things came up and I ended up not going.

So I simulated my own visit:

-Read a ridiculous chunk of their website and reviewed the list of course offerings for MFA students.

-Googled photos of the campus and looked at the map.

-E-mailed a current student and asked various questions.

-Reread a story by Pinkney Benedict from New Stories From the South and read all the poetry by the faculty that I could find on the internet.

- Checked out Craigslist and carbondalerent.com to check out apartments and cost of living in the area.

-Had my dad look at the atlas and show me how to get there in the fastest way possible for when I am able to visit.

I am pretty excited about all of this, I tell you what.

Molly Giles Reading

2009-03-25T19:19:00.002-06:00

Molly Giles visited USI today to do her Ropewalk reading. I have to admit I wasn't familiar with her work, but she was a very personable... person... and I enjoyed talking to her during the reception. Her reading was excellent; I especially liked her poem about Noah's daughter-in-law and the short short of the father discussing the family dog with his son. The short story she read was very good as well. I was talking to Dr. Kearns after the reading and he said he was surprised at how dead-pan her expression was when she was reading, seeing as she had a lot of irony and other funny material in her pieces. I had noticed that too, and I don't think I would have been able to do that.

Um, I don't really know what else to talk about. My life, personally (which I'm sure you all care about), has been really hectic: this week I had to finish the Molly Giles program handed out during the reading and last week I installed software on the new Mac (yay for being an adaptable computer nerd!). Most of the stuff I have to do is related to being a resident assistant: Monday I had a program start (It's called The Water Challenge, see more information here), as well as census (making sure people still live there) and health and safety checks (basically making sure no one has screwed up the room so far). I also have a staff meeting to go to today, and a program tomorrow. I also have a meeting with the Housing Director and some other RAs on Friday. School-wise I'm just as busy. I was supposed to have two tests and a paper due today, but thankfully one test was moved to Friday and the due date for the paper has been moved to Monday. I also have a bunch of homework to do, Relay For Life and a practice GRE exam on Saturday, and the Honors Symposium on Sunday. Basically, my life is an eternal black hole in which all free time is devoured, never to return again, even in the form of regurgitation, also known as naps.

Okay maybe that metaphor was too heavy. Cut me some slack; it's been a long day.

Jumbled Mess

2009-03-23T10:51:00.002-06:00

So in the SIR office we have a metal cabinet right above this computer. It has a lot of word magnets on it. Various words that I don't have the patience to list for you. But interns before me have created sentences, traditional or not, that I thought were interesting enough to share. One says, "blushing boys will bleed from the poison of blazing desires." The alliteration is cool and the meaning actually makes sense. But then there is one that says, "pierce the eye of a waking fool." And it makes me realize that maybe Gertrude Stein was right. Words don't mean a thing. Each word can be torn apart to nothing or everything at the same time and who the judge is, no one knows.

Because I am a vain writer like so many I know, I'll share my random concoction with you. "celebrate ferocious dazzle, you child of angels."

Take what you want, oh, judger of words.

2009-03-19T09:43:00.002-06:00

Spring Break is only exciting for those who have time and money: the two things I never have enough of. I didn't even bother to make any plans. The secret life of this college student is mostly filled with the mundane and obligatory routines of work, school, and sleep. Not so much of the latter these days. Needless to say I worked and studied my way through spring break.

I don't know why I was so anxious about going back to my classes, but I was. I thought it would be difficult to get back into the swing of things. Turns out, some things take more than a week to lose their swing. And so I returned, sans renewed vigor.

This has been an easy semester class-wise, but very difficult in just about every other aspect. Lots of demands for my attentions from every angle. I'm staying on top of things now, but there is little room for relaxing, sleeping in, or slacking. If I got behind, I'd probably never catch up.

Let's see, did anything exciting happen during my spring break? Mmm, no. Just the usual. Oh, wait! I celebrated my twenty-second birthday. I suppose I should be happy I made it this far, what with my propensity for car accidents. I went home to visit my parents for my birthday. When did their home become a haven? I can remember feeling like a prisoner in that house, now it's one of those places I want to run to just to get away from everything else. I spent time with my mother, my sister, and her three year old little girl during the day, then Mom made supper when my dad got home and then there was cake afterward. When the dishes were cleared we watched a movie; everyone was attempting to sit on the couch, including the two large dogs. We managed to fit five people and two dogs on a couch that is supposed to only seat three. We're a close family. As usual, Dad falls asleep on the first half-hour, Mom and my sister chat throughout the movie, and the dogs jam bony elbows and knees into our laps trying to get comfortable. It was familiar, comforting, and refreshing. I stayed the night and left early the next day for work. Back to the grind.

In the meantime, I think of the future, elusive though it seems. I plan my wedding, I write resumes in my head, I schedule next semester's classes. Eventually, it will all get done. And then there will be more to do. There is always more to do.

Some good news for me

2009-03-15T19:56:00.002-06:00

So, after months of waiting and more rejections than I'd like to think about, I've finally gotten some good news.

This past week I was accepted to the MFA programs at both Minnesota State University Mankato and Southern Illinois University Carbondale for fiction. I got the email from MSU and before I was even done freaking out I got the letter from SIUC. It was completely amazing and I still haven't really gotten used to the idea that not only am I lucky enough to attend an MFA program next year, I get to choose a program and funding situation that's best for me.

I haven't heard anything from MSU about funding yet, but at SIUC, as per usual, I received a teaching assistantship which gives me a tuition waiver, a nice monthly stipend, and two sections of undergrad English a year. There are many things about this program that I'm excited about. It's three years long, relatively small, gives you an opportunity to work with the Crab Orchard Review, and requires that you take at least one workshop in a different genre than you are working on.

My decision will ultimately be based on funding, I think. Though I have yet to get my funding info right from MSU and have yet to hear from five schools, I'm leaning pretty heavily toward SIUC. I think it's going to work best for me and my needs and interests, plus I'm excited about the faculty. It's going to be hard to turn down a program, but I feel good that someone from the waitlist wherever I choose not to go will get a spot. I know how hard it is to wait.

AWP was amazing, instead of details I present you with the food we ate.

2009-02-20T12:41:00.008-06:00

The First of Many

2009-02-19T22:12:00.006-06:00

Hello, All.
I travelled the vast, (remarkably flat) expanse of northern Indiana and crossed into the unknown of Illinois. I'd never been to Chicago or seen it even from a distance. When I did though, I looked like a little kid, bouncing around in the back of the school van, leaning over people in the annoying way everybody hates but I did it anyway because I wanted to see EVERYTHING that I could and commit it to memory. Little did I know that later I would change my mind about that.
By now the other interns will have regaled to our readers the awesome places we ate and all the different ways we managed to spend money, even though we tried not to....or at least I did. So I'll tell you about my personal experience, and hope that I do not offend or seem as small-town as I most probably am.
We entered city limits after six hours of the close, confined quarters of the van and everybody perked up and stared out the windows. I got stuck in the middle; in hindsight I should have aimed for a window seat. I was stunned by the fantastic view of the Chicago skyline rearing up before me. I stared, trying to make it seem real to me and not just another image from a movie. Movies had made this city seem familiar to me, yet it was utterly foreign.
We pulled up to our hotel and I got out and stared-straight up- there was no other direction my eyes could go. Everything was up! My eyes were used to staring out at the open fields and valleys of the South, and here the scope was more narrow, like I was looking through a rectangular tunnel towards the sky. The "L" train terrified me the first time it roared past. I squealed, but luckily no one heard me over the noise. I realized quickly that the intersections were deathtraps, the people were not exactly 'friendly conversationalists', and that I had to adapt quickly lest I be eaten for breakfast at one of the many corner bakeries.
I did, surprisingly, adapt to the pace quickly enough. Or maybe it just pulled me along. Either way, I went. I wasn't afraid to go out at night by myself and find something sweet to eat when the urge struck. I had only to cross the street anyhow. Everything was right there. Maybe there was danger and I was oblivious. I would not doubt that. There were so many windows peeking out at me as I walked through the streets. In my mind I knew that not every window had a happy scene on the other side. That's the city, I guess, and I got used to the concept rather fast. I don't think it would be hard to lose your humanity in the city. There are so many people with needs unmet, it becomes overwhelming to the point you just look away and try to ignore it all. I'd never seen a beggar in the street until now.
I had so many first experiences, I may have to blog several times this week to get it all out. I like to keep things short and interesting. If only more things were that way....like class.
The next time I blog, I'll share some more "firsts" with you and, perhaps, attempt a lighter subject than homeless people. You just don't see them in the fields of Southern Indiana, at least, not when the corn grows tall.

No infants were harmed in the writing of this blog.

2009-02-17T22:40:00.005-06:00

I never thought so much chaos could be so much fun. Chicago is a huge change of pace from southern Indiana and I'm glad to learn that my life isn't so hectic after all. A lot of good things happened in Chicago. We gave away a lot of Spring 2008 issues of SIR in an attempt to get the word out. A lot of people also grabbed up our submission guidelines, brochures for Ropewalk, and pretended to know where Evansville was.

The volunteer work for AWP was crazy. Some of the other interns and I were placed behind the counter that contained nametags for everyone attending the conference/book fair. We're talking thousands of people. I had L-O.

Some cool people that were there: Allison Joseph, Holly Goddard Jones, Gary Fincke (though I'm upset that I never saw him), Ben Percy, Nickole Brown, and Michael Martone. Most of them stopped by our table to say hello and some were tracked down by the stalkers we are. :)

Other things that are not as literary connected: We ate at Giradono's, Miller's Pub, Tamarin, and India Grill. We didn't get to shop because most of us took taxis everywhere and ran out of money really fast. I did at least.

*Footnote regarding title: Towards the end of our ride there (6 hours with the same genious/borderline-insane people) resulted into a slip up of words--or acronym I should say. STDs was replaced with SIDS. I don't think I should explain past that.

Crystal's Perspective on the AWP Conference

2009-02-17T17:33:00.002-06:00

After I updated all my friend details for friends on Facebook (that's 218 people, and yes I had it down to 100 but I gave up... too many people know me) my dearest cousin Sydnie reminded me I hadn't yet posted about Chicago. So here I am, posting.

Wednesday was a pretty crappy day. I woke up to it absolutely pouring outside, so I decided to drive my stuff down to the South Annex. I did so, and asked Ron where I could park my car without getting a ticket, and he said in front of the fleet, and that he was emailing Security about whose car was there and everything so they wouldn't give us tickets. So I parked in front of the fleet and went to the library to check my email before German. I got an email from Amy Price saying I needed to fill out some paperwork so I can be rehired as an RA. I figured I might as well do that before German and went back to my parking space (it was raining horizontally by this point) and what do I find when I get to my car? A ticket. Sighing, I went to Residence Life and filled out my paperwork and figured it'd probably be best for me to drive to the Parking Office and take care of my ticket, despite the fact that this would make me miss German. I went to the Parking Office, where the lady very offhandedly told me to fill out an appeal form. I was peeved, but I filled it out anyway. I then went to park my car back by my apartment, on the way realizing that I hadn't turned in my paper for Kearns' class; it was in the South Annex. I thought about printing off another copy when I got to my apartment, but then I realized that my laptop was -also- in the South Annex, so I'd have to go back anyway. I parked my car, hopped on the bus, soaking wet, and went back to campus. I decided that I should try to take my Research Methods and Statistics I test early before I went to turn in my paper, but Dr. Schuster had some stuff to do so I couldn't really do that. I went down to the SA and grabbed my paper and went to turn it in. I glanced at the paper and realized I had titled it "Paper One." Thank you, Crystal, for being a moron and forgetting to retitle your paper before turning it in. I turned in the paper and took my test (which I ended up with a 96% on).

Anyway, the trip up there was pretty funny. Ron Mitchell, Matthew Graham were the professors, and Adrienne, Marielle, Jenni, Whitney, Tristin, and I were the interns. I'm sure Ron and Matt were absolutely thrilled to be with six girls on the trip (that's sarcasm, in case you're not familiar with my writing). We drove up to Chicago, which took about six hours, and stopped at a Chinese place on the way. Somehow the lady lost the order form for us and was freaking out, saying she'd have to pay for our food if she didn't find it or something, I don't know. I mean we weren't charged extra but it was really weird. Anyway, we got there and we stayed at the Palmer House Hilton. Ron stayed at Hilton Chicago and I don't know where Graham stayed. I roomed with Marielle and Whitney.

Thursday was the first day of the AWP Conference. This was a new experience for Tristin, Whitney, and I. I think the other three had been to something like this before. Anyway, basically our job as the interns was to sit at the book fair in two hour shifts, and I took the first one. Graham stopped by every once in a while and I sat with Whitney for most of it. Then I went to help with Pre-Registration (doing that would make registration free) and when I was done I walked around the book fair for a while and got some free stuff and submission guidelines.At 7 the group went to eat some deep dish pizza. That night I stayed in the room, took a nice relaxing bath, and called Michael.

Friday I was late for my book fair shift because Marielle and (mostly) Whitney took so long to get ready, and then we went to try to find this breakfast place that ended up not existing. After my shift I went to this seminar on creating online literary communities, and then I went to a seminar with Adrienne and Jenni about writing across multiple genres. Marielle ended up not feeling well, which made me sad. That night Jenni, Adrienne, Whitney, and I ate at Miller's Pub and then Jenni, Adrienne, and I went to a reading by ZZ Packer and Joe Meno (which was amazing!) prefaced by Mucca Pazza, the punk marching band. Then we went to a flash fiction slam and Tristin joined us. The flash fiction slam was really fun, despite the fact Gertrude Stein managed to sneak up during one of the readings (not the actual Gertrude Stein, someone did a reading that was much like hers, except infinitely better) and the fact that the first guy who read made me think he was going to kill us all in our sleep. We went to the dance party that was being held a floor up, but it was boring so we left.

I actually ended up throwing up when we got back; I think it was the food at Miller's Pub. You can't tell me that it's not suspicious that Jenni's burger, Whitney's pulled pork, Adrienne's fish, and my shrimp all came out at the same time, and I mean like ten or fifteen minutes after we ordered it. We didn't think anything about it after time, but the fact that I was so violently sick makes me think that I had food poisoning. That actually lasted throughout Saturday. I tried to tough it out and go to the book fair to sit a shift, but after about thirty minutes of just sitting there I was felt really sick, so I went back. The taxi driver on the way back talked way too much and was very political, but I didn't care as long as I got back. I actually felt better near the evening, but then I ate and it came back, and gave up on trying to feel better. The girls tried to invite me to eat Indian food with them, but I think that would have had a worse effect on me than the McDonalds I ate (hey, food at the hotel would have been like 20 bucks and that was the closest thing there).

Sunday we went back; I was still feeling pretty ill after eating brunch at Maxwell's on the way back, so Ron and Graham were kind enough to give me their spot (they were switching back and forth with driving). I got dropped off at my place and then I basically just went to bed after studying for the Psychology of Gender test I had to make up yesterday (and got an 88% on). Today I had to make up the German test I missed; it didn't take very long but I hope I didn't make any stupid mistakes.

And that's Chicago. I really enjoyed going and seeing everything, even though I got sick. It was nice meeting some established writers. I've organized my submission guidelines and maybe sometime soon I'll start sending stuff out. Wish me luck!

Yay, AWP!

2009-02-10T15:05:00.003-06:00

It's AWP time! Tomorrow Ron, Graham, and all of us interns are piling into a van (can we fit all that luggage?) and driving to Chicago. I am so excited! Things are kind of crazy in the office right now as we all try to get last minute projects rolling and ready for the conference. I think I'm finished with everything I needed to do (save this blog) and now it's time to pack. Lightly, of course. No trash bags full of shoes this year. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. I'm a little nervous about volunteering to help out with registration, but it's only a few hours of my time and it's well worth the waived registration fee that comes along with it.

I want to attend the following sessions in addition to the book fair:

R132. Multi-Genre Mentorship.

R154. Bob Hope, Joey Ramone, the Wolf Man, and Me: The Use of Pop Culture in Fiction.

R187. This is the Midwest? Landscape in Narrative.*

F138. The Duty of a Writer.

S117. Rising from the Cornfields: (Re)vising the Midwest. *

S143. Midwest Confidential. *

S173. The Steady Gaze: Writing Frankly about Sex and Sexuality in Fiction.

AND most importantly:

S193. Twenty Years in Utopia: The RopeWalk Writers Retreat Aniversary Reading. **

Sidenote: This conference coincides with the official opening of response season for MFA applicants, however, and I will be away from my mailbox, email, and I can't really answer my cell phone while working or watching a presentation. It's very frustrating. Also, many of the programs I applied to will have booths at the conference and it will be very hard for me to walk nonchalantly by and refrain from shaking the collar of the poor sap manning the thing, demanding acceptance into the program. Oh well. It will be easier to see and visit these booths still believing I have a shot at getting in than it would be to see them knowing I'd been rejected.

* I seem to be drawn to these Midwest writing sessions.
** If any of you are going to be there, please attend our session! It's sure to be amazing.

Breaking Out of the Matchbox

2009-02-07T09:42:00.005-06:00

Okay so, I'm new at this whole blogging thing. That is my disclaimer in case I do something wrong. I've been interning at SIR since the start of this semester, so about four weeks. This is my first intern job, my first experience in the production of a publication of any sort. These days we're gearing up for a trip to Chicago to attend the AWP conference. I've never been. I've always wanted to go to Chicago; I'm a museum kind of girl and I know there are plenty of those there. However, most of my friends are not, and everytime I tried to organize a trip they were all suspiciously busy. What else is there to do? My parents were the ones who informed me of Chicago's attractions so I'm guessing they only filled me in on the things a biology teacher and an art teacher would appreciate. I'm thinking they left out a lot.
I'm told I need to layer my sweaters- we're going to Chicago in the dead of winter. I hate the cold, but it's Chicago. Need I say more? I might, actually. Or someone does. Since I've never been, I could be grossly over-estimating the city. It doesn't take much to impress me;I gape at everything when I go to Indianapolis. I probably seem very naive to those of you who know Chicago and think it's small potatoes. If so, then pretend your world was the size of a matchbox. Now imagine you were painfully aware of the confines you lived in. That's me. My parents travelled the world. I've only been to Florida. I'm embarrassed by that truth. So next week I will broaden my horizons just a little bit more, and report back to you as one who can give an interesting first impression of her first trip to the famed city of Chicago.

Well, the power's back...

2009-01-31T14:46:00.002-06:00

You never truly appreciate the little things like taking a hot shower or sleeping in a warm bed until they get taken away. I honestly had a little bit of fun with the blackout. I felt like I was roughing it...I gathered around candles with a bunch of people and made the best of a bad situation. However, it really made me think not only about how much we take for granted, but also how dependent we've become on technology to communicate with each other. I think people were freaking out about not having charged cellphones and laptops more than not having heat! I think that says something interested and kind of sad about how, in the modern world, the devices that we base our lives around can betray us in a second...and most of us are so used to having them available that we don't have a backup plan. Well, that's all the deep thinking I've got in me for now. Oh, I am officially accepting cash donations to replace all of my food that went rotten when my fridge stopped working. I also take Visa, MaterCard and American Express. Think about it.

Busy Weeks Ahead

2009-01-21T12:17:00.008-06:00

These past couple weeks have been sort of a blur in this office. The interns have spent several hours logging submissions to The Southern Indiana Review, Marielle and I are working on Lee K. Abbott's poster, and Tristan and Whitney have been working on the program for his Ropewalk Reading on January 29. Ron, Jenni, and Adrienne have been getting things set up for the The Association of Writers & Writing Programs (commonly known as AWP) conference in early February.

I am really excited about the coming weeks. Yes, they'll be insanely busy, but man will they be fun. I have never been to a writers' conference before, nor have I had an internship, so this entire semester is going to be filled with new experiences. I look forward to working with Ron and the other interns. We're going to have a blast.

New Semester

2009-01-16T19:26:00.003-06:00

Well, it's the start of a new semester, coincidentally, my last here at USI. From here I will hopefully be going to graduate school and not back home to my cats (who I love very much but... grad school...).

SIR has a whole bunch of new interns this semester (Tristin, Marielle, Crystal, and Whitney), who I am sure will be introducing themselves and blogging later and it's shaping up to be a good semester. We have three great authors coming for the RopeWalk Reading Series: Lee K. Abbot, Molly Giles, and Norman Minnick. I've had a chance to pick up a book by each and can't wait to read them.

In other news, we're all excited about AWP in February and have signed up to work as volunteers. None of us have gone before so it's going to be an education experience for us all, plus it's in CHICAGO. If anyone reading our blog is going, we hope to see you at our table!

Some Non-SIR Related News

2008-11-14T13:21:00.007-06:00

Yesterday was the launch party for this year's issue of the Aerie, USI's student literary and art magazine. Jenni, Nicole, and I, as well as the rest of the members of the Student Writers Union (SWU) and the Aerie editors worked really hard on this event and were so pleased with the turnout. Basically we booked a room in the Liberal Arts Center, ordered food and a cake, and asked all of the writers and artists to attend to read their works or see them displayed on a continuous PowerPoint. Quite a few contributors were in attendance and I would say we had about thirty students show up. It was a very professional and well-done event, if I do say so myself.

Also, yesterday was the last day for turning in contest entries for SWU's first annual Write Away Hunger Poetry and Short Short Fiction Contest. Instead of entry fees for the contest we had writers pay us in pop-top canned goods and foods easily cooked by children. These foods will go to the local food back for their Backpacks for Kids program. The program puts food in a backpack and distributes the bags to area children who are at risk for having no food at home to eat over the weekend. We had a really great response to the contest and are confident that next year we will have even more entries.

I would also like to announce that I have ten papers due in the next few weeks. I can't even really comprehend it. Oh, Lord...

Registration

2008-11-03T13:00:00.003-06:00

This week I have been working on a poetry chapbook for Miss Melanie Jordan. Issues with images have me held up, but otherwise it's a fairly fun task. [Oh the alliteration...] I'll update more when I have more to say about that.

While everybody around is concerned about registering for classes for the Spring Term, I have the fun of simply attempting to register to the school. I have respect for full transfer students, because this process is horribly inefficient. With work, this internship, and the class I am taking as a guest student, I have very little time during "work hours" to request my transcripts from my previous school, which of course is in a different time zone which adds just a little more chaos to the process. And requesting transcripts costs money, because apparently college students aren't quite poor enough on their own. I am looking forward to becoming a full-time student though. ^_^ When you see a transfer student, remember to give them a smile. They probably need it after the ordeal they went through trying to register.

Midterm Blues

2008-10-24T11:50:00.007-06:00

The semester's half over. Doesn't really seem possible, but it's gone by so fast.

I've been working on a flyer detailing submission guidelines. I was feeling pretty good about it until I realized that the color scheme is reminiscent of the interior design of a Long John Silvers restaraunt. Not good. I'll be changing that one soon.

So, it's my goal to get my MFA in creative writing and because of this, I will be subjected to the horror known as the GRE. I'll be taking this on November 1st (oddly enough, four years to the day since I took my SAT). I'm not sure how ready I am. I studied for it all summer but since the semester started I've had a bit of trouble finding time to work on it in between homework, classes, etc. I decided not to worry about the quantitative section at all and I'm putting all my focus on the verbal. Oh, flashcards, I hate you already.

Last Reading...Until Next Year!

2008-10-15T23:04:00.005-06:00

The Fall 2008 RopeWalk Reading Series has successfully come to an end, and if I may say so myself, it went out with a BAM! this year. Gary Fincke shared his techniques, ideas, stories, and his life with a rapt audience last night (October 14). I personally, along with a fellow creative writing student, had the privilege of picking him up from the airport and bringing him to USI to attend a couple classes before his reading. He joined my Child Narrative Techniques class and as a group we discussed his style and technique and his process in developing a story, most frequently beginning with character and voice. I’m impressed by his multi-genre capabilities and his success in all areas. I could see his characters. I believed their lives. I felt their shame and desire.

It was interesting to pick at his brain as he did not hesitate to share everything with the class. He read Piecework for the open reading, but I also had the chance to read his Rip His Head Off and Sorry I Worried You. His reading was wonderful and left the audience wanting more.

I lucky enough to join our guest and his wife, along with the creative writing faculty, for dinner, where I learned that Fincke’s son is a member of one of my favorite bands, Breaking Benjamin. So it was exciting to talk to him about the band, an experience which Fincke wrote about in his nonfiction piece, Amp’d. After dinner, my classmate and I dropped our guests off at their hotel, thanked them for sharing an eventful evening with us, and bid them a safe drive home.

Second RopeWalk Reading

2008-10-06T12:28:00.008-06:00

Hello, and welcome to another week of the Southern Indiana Review blog. It has been such a busy week and weekend here. We all spent a lot of time logging submissions and sending out rejection letters, which is not the most fun part of the job, but it definitely needs to be done. Editing brochures, creating posters, and even occasionally reading over submissions to see if we can offer any constructive criticism are by far my favorite (and the most educational) parts of my internship here. And it’s also fun to learn how to focus with the ever-looming sounds of bulldozing going on right outside our door.

And much more importantly, tonight is the second RopeWalk Reading Series event. Today’s featured reader is the 2007 Mary C. Mohr Poetry Award winner, Kristine Anderson. I’m sure I’ll be able to update this later in the week with photos and stories from the reading, and hopefully there will be a good turnout. We’re all really looking forward to seeing this amazing poet read her work. I had the job of working on the poster advertising this reading, which was really a lot of fun to work on. (I chose to go with a "skin" theme, since that was the title of her award-winning poem.) I really like when my job doesn’t feel like a job at all because I get to have so much fun with it.

First RopeWalk Reading of the Semester

2008-09-25T21:49:00.004-06:00

So I’ve had almost four official weeks of SIR interning. I’ve learned how to log submissions, make posters, and how not to make a program. And now I’m writing my first blog. It’s all been rather exciting and educational. I look forward to seeing what the rest of the semester brings.

We had the first installment of our RopeWalk Reading Series, one Holly Goddard Jones, author of the upcoming Girl Trouble from Harper Perennial last Thursday. An interesting turn of events (read illness) led to Jones teaching my Techniques of Creative Writing: Child Narrator class and it was one of the best experience of the rare "college substitute teacher day" that I’ve had. Fresh from her car trip all the way here, she jumped right in and led a great discussion about the importance of point of view and voice. It was excellent. Not only did we get to attend a reception to hear her talk about her writing and go to her reading later on, we also got the added pleasure of seeing how she teaches. Overall, I’d say it was a great way to start out the reading series.

Hacked by Dickens!

2008-09-25T16:13:00.005-06:00

I'm taking advantage of the fact that I still have blog access, a fact that Mitchell (aka RM, according to some of his recent blog activity) has inadvertently pointed out to me by asking for my blog help, and which I'm not 100% certain he wants me taking advantage of. But what's he gonna do, fire me?

Exactly.

I'm here in Greensboro, mid-semester or not quite, getting into the groove of MFA life at UNCG. To anyone interested in applying to the program here, know that it's a good one to get things done in. The program is really set up in a way that allows one time to sit around reading and writing and thinking and searching with a metal detector for abandoned Confederate gold, or at least that's the case for me, and in this particular semester. I do know other first years who have RAs (that's Research Assistantships to you noobs) doing horrible things like answering the incessantly ringing phones in the graduate office or grading papers for classes of like four thousand students--but who cares about them. I've got this cush job in the English office where occasionally the phone rings and I have the option of ignoring it if I'm really doing some hard thinking, or of picking it up to see what department they were actually trying to call (in many cases, they are actually trying to reach the Greensboro unemployment office. Go figure that one out.). The remainder is updating the MFA and Greensboro Review web sites, because someone leaked to them that I have some experience in that area.

I'm taking a class on Publishing, as well as Structure of Fiction and Fiction Workshop--all great classes that take place in the same building on the same floor and two of which are even in the same room at roughly the same time, so it's tough to get confused, though I have managed it.

But there are also nights when you will still be up at 3am dealing with a cast of characters of your own creation who need to do something other than stand in a circle on a street talking to each other.

UPDATE: Ron hacked my hack and posted this before I was finished writing/editing it. Foiled again!

One from the Archives

2008-09-25T15:00:00.005-06:00

I was cleaning up the iMac desktop today and discovered an SIR staff photo with 2006 Mary C. Mohr Fiction Award winner Dana Kinstler--in town for her RopeWalk Reading Series appearance--and despite the the fact that Ben Percy later told me I looked like a World Championship Wrestling reject, I decided to share...(L->R: Matt, Nicole, Dana, Tom, former WCW villain)

Signaling the End to Our Summer Slumber

2008-09-24T15:39:00.011-06:00

OK, we've officially been back in business for a few weeks now, but things are quite chaotic at SIR-central. Most of all, we're trying to adjust to life without web/computer guru Christopher Dickens (safely ensconced at UNC-Greensboro), but we're also "adjusting" to the fact that we're an island in a sea of construction for the new ceramics studio (30 paces to the south) and Business and Engineering Center (six inches to the north). To move or not to move has been the question. We decided to stick it out.

Here are a few photos, including two of the new SIR intern crew:

Interview With Kristine Anderson

2008-04-24T10:45:00.001-06:00

Go here to see my interview with poet and Mary C. Mohr award winner Kristine Anderson. Smart lady!

Sam Witt Interview

2008-04-17T10:32:00.002-06:00

At SIR one of the benefits of an internship is the ability to interview contest winners! Below is a link to my interview with Sam Witt. I enjoyed it thoroughly!

http://www.usi.edu/sir/2007MohrWinners/witt.asp

Greensboro

2008-04-13T13:13:00.006-06:00

Is it merely a coincidence, or does it reveal the subtle innerworkings of a fated universe, that

A) I'll be visiting Greensboro, North Carolina, in a little over a week for the first time, for the Southeastern Literary Magazine and Small Press Festival, and that
B) In the same month (basically yesterday) I have accepted an offer from the MFA program at University of North Carolina at Greensboro?

Regardless, it feels good to be finished with the grad school application/decision process, and to know I'm going somewhere that feels right.

Percy Interview

2008-04-08T16:41:00.002-06:00

My interview with Benjamin Percy is now live, right here.

Did Anyone Notice...

2008-04-08T09:49:00.004-06:00

Melissa and Shawna featured in the Chronicle ad for AWP in NYC? Here's what I want to know: If the question posed to the crowd was How mnay of you prefer the Southern Indiana Review above all other literary journals? why is Melissa's hand only at half-mast?

Small Press Festival at UNC-Greensboro

2008-04-03T09:40:00.005-06:00

The SIR crew is going to the 2nd Annual Spring Southeastern Literary Magazine & Small Press Festival April 23rd-26th, 2008 at
UNC Greensboro. We'll be having a table set up for the small press exhibition and will be plugging away at spreading the word about The Southern Indiana Review and RopeWalk Press.

Some great authors are going to be there, including:
Kelly Cherry
Leigh Anne Couch
Michael Chitwood
Michael McFee
Rick Campbell
Quinn Dalton
Jeanne Leiby
John Picard
Warren Rochelle
Andrea Selch
A. Van Jordan
Natasha Trethewey

I am most excited about A. Van Jordan.

Very excited about Ben Percy. He was at SIU-Carbondale before I was, so I never met him. But the ghosts of Ben Percy still lingered in Faner Hall in his absence.

Also excited about Robert Pinsky coming to USI to be the speaker for the RISC showcase. I'm reading a story based on my research on the controversial austism therapy called chelation and a family's struggle with the condition.

The Student Writer's Union is taking submissions all the time for The Aerie, the student literary publication, ALL OF THE TIME, I was told. So, students who are just bursting with talent send your submissions to: writetheaerie@gmail.com.

Spring Fashion, Take 2

2008-03-31T08:30:00.003-06:00

Readings and Interviews

2008-03-28T14:55:00.005-06:00

Keep an eye on the website for forthcoming interviews with Benjamin Percy, Michael Martone, and this year's Mary C. Mohr Poetry Award Winners, hopefully all posted within next week. We've got some more great readings coming up too for the RopeWalk Reading Series, including Benjamin Percy, Nickole Brown, and Lynnell Edwards.

Spring Fashion

2008-03-27T20:08:00.005-06:00

Ok, the upload has caused the colors to change in an extremely bizarre manner (the primary scheme is actually blue), but either way, you can see that we’re going to look a little bit different this time around. Many thanks to art editor Joan Kempf deJong for all the hard work. SIR is also indebted to the family of Mary C. Mohr for underwriting our annual contest. This year Brian Mohr of Boggstown, Indiana, donated additional funds, allowing us to print a color portfolio of our featured artist, Michael Aakhus.

In addition to the MCM Poetry Award winners, the spring issue celebrates National Poetry Month by featuring new work from Stephen Dobyns, Bob Hicok, Sarah Kennedy, Leslie Adrienne Miller, and Dave Smith--and others.

Ron

Sudden Anthem

2008-03-23T11:57:00.009-06:00

Matthew Guenette, friend and former reality television star, just had his first book Sudden Anthem go up for purchase on Amazon.

You can find it here.

Support him, he's an amazing writer and is going to have a bebe soon.

Told a lady in my fiction class I'd go first in turning in stories, and trade her. I have a thing I thought I could have shaped up enough to take a beating, but I've been sick all week, so basically I am turning in my notes.

Oh well, so it goes, etc.

Jason Brown , grad student at SIU-C started a program called Writers on the Road, where schools basically exchange writers for readings. It's a good thing to do, I think, even if you figure in the travel costs. I myself am a pretty HORRIBLE public speaker at times, and practice is the only thing that makes that better. And whiskey? I don't know, I've just heard.

Top Ten

2008-03-05T08:17:00.003-06:00

My top ten this week includes:

1. Adobe CS software on the big SIR Mac. So much faster. Our efficiency level just went way up.
2. Coffee from a French press. The whole process is just more fun.
3. Michael Martone's contribution to the forthcoming Spring issue of SIR. You're going to like it.
4. Getting acceptance letters from MFA programs. Best mail/email ever.
5. Random spring-like days out of nowhere.
6. HBO's The Wire. Picks up right where Homicide: Life on the Streets left off (in a way).
7. Anything by Sam Cooke
8. "It Makes no Difference" by The Band. A song composed of clichés, but it's somehow still beautiful.
9. Using Alt + the number pad to do things like this: é, á, ñ, ó, ú. Really helps with using online translators for Spanish homework. If I'd discovered this two years ago, my GPA would be higher.
10. "Creve Coeur" by Jacob M. Appel, from The Missouri Review Spring 2007.

The Warming Up of The Cossak

2008-02-23T10:27:00.003-06:00

Finished my interview with Mary C. Mohr contest winner Kristine Anderson. I really like finding people I can be completely dorky with in terms of talking about prosody and other poetry related junk. In my mind, it would be a much worse place in the world if people like Kristine Anderson weren't in it.

Some interesting things are going on in Evansville. This place is starting to grow on me. Last night I saw pianist Philip Thomson at Wheeler Hall (University of Evansville). He was so outrageously amazing. He performed selections from Beethoven, Liszt and Blumenfeld. Thompson actually recovered long lost compositions by Felix Blumenfeld (like in dark and dusty archives, crazy!) and made it his life's work to play and record them. He was such an interesting looking man. Shawna and I met him in the hallway on the way to the restrooms and now I have an enduring crush.

Tonight, the Philharmonic Orchestra is doing "American Flair", so that should be fun. It is always nice to get dressed up and go to the Victory.

Also, I'm interested in seeing Bill Kristol and Mark Shields on Super Thursday. Oh come on, you want to see them, too- They're on the TV!!! hahahaha

Plugging away at SIR stuff, posters and poems and interviews, Oh My. I'm excited about new design ideas; it is a good thing. Now if it would stop snow/icing us in, I'll be able to get back in to the swing of things and get more work done.

Goings-ons, and a Top Ten list

2008-02-22T11:25:00.003-06:00

Lots of things are in the works around here, so keep an ear to the blog. We're plugging away at the RopeWalk Anthology, and even have a cover design all but finalized. Laying out the spring SIR issue, which we're pretty excited about. Some forthcoming interviews with the latest Mary C. Mohr poetry award winnners will appear on www.southernindianareview.org, and I'm currently conducting a Benjamin Percy interview for the blog (should appear in a few weeks or so), in advance of his reading at the RopeWalk Reading Series.

AWP was a flying success, and we have photos (below) to prove it. Gave away lots of free issues and bookmarks and magnetic poetry and subscriptions (if you signed up for the drawing, you might keep an eye on your mailbox--we're a little behind sending notification to the winners).

And in the spirit if one of my favorite living little-known rockstars, Jesse Malin, my top 10 list for the week:

1. "My Brother Eli," by Joseph Epstein, from the 2007 Best American Short Stories anthology.
2. "I Clap for Strangers Now" by Robert Pollard (Coast to Coast Carpet of Love)
3. "The Underdog" by Spoon (Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga)
4. Howl on the Haunted Beat - new album by The Go
5. The Confidence Man by Moby Dick - props for being maybe the strangest novel ever...
6. Listening to music on headphones. Everything is so crisp and clear! I'm hearing lyrics I've never noticed!
7. Google Reader - makes it much easier to obsess over MFA acceptance blogs.
8. Actually, anything at all by Robert Pollard!
9. There Will be Blood by P.T. Anderson.
10. The historic Chelsea Hotel - stayed there during AWP, and it was nuts!

AWP in NYC 2008

2008-02-20T16:47:00.005-06:00

The Cossack and the Lady

Melissa and Chris at the table

Where the hell am I? Nice hair, Andy!

I still don't know where I am.

Sushi at Crazy Joe's after two hours in the rain

Matt Guenette, Josh Bell, and Shawna

Crazy Joe and Sha Sha

AWP, part 1

2008-02-11T09:42:00.000-06:00

Our chapbook heroes, Jeffrey Thomson and Matthew Guenette

Everyone manning the table at once. Must be the first day! Ron Mitchell, Nicole Reid, Andy Mullins

Shawna Rodenberg, Mitchell

Andy Mullins and Chris Dickens, at the Chelsea Hotel, 5AMish

Chelsea Hotel, 5AM

Bright lights, Big city.

2008-02-11T09:26:00.000-06:00

Our trip to NYC went way too fast. There was much to see inside and outside of the conference. I think it probably unfair to lots of great writers that they had to compete with the rest of the city.

I managed to see a lot of really cool people anyway. Some highlights were: Joyce Carol Oates, Johnathon Saffron Foer, James Tate, and Stephen Dunn. I hope to one day sit on a giant velvet pillow beside Joyce Carol Oates and have her talk about herself while I crochet pot holders for her fans. I think mostly she reminds me that we can't take ourselves too seriously, that that is the mark of the dead or dying artist in all of us, and to have some perspective.

I also went to several panels, including Writing and Motherhood with Jacina Townsend and Joey Flamm-Costello. I have a sixteen month old son so it was nice to hear women speak about finding ways to balance their lives as writers and their lives as mothers.

Shawna (ghost intern) and I spent a night out with Josh Bell (my favorite poem of his here) and Matthew Guenette (check out his blog) going to the Met and eating Sushi. We would have pictures of this but Josh and Matt are both vampires and so their images cannot be captured on film.

Thanks to Ron for keeping us in line. (Seriously, he made us all wear matching outfits and we had to walk everywhere in single file)

I had a great time, an excellent time, and saw many people from my former lives, though I wish I had more time to do everything I wanted to. This would have been contingent on being able to compress time in NY to not affect time in Indiana and also winning the lottery.

Next year, Chicago!

AWP!

2008-01-29T14:25:00.000-06:00

Here we come...Keep an eye out for us! We look like this!

Spring Unsprung

2008-01-21T10:38:00.000-06:00

Hellew- I'm the new intern for the SIR, Melissa "tough bones" Cossey.

I'm a senior at USI majoring in English with a focus on exploiting the human condition.

Evansville is my 30th city to live in, which should be commemorated in some way, so I decided to finish a degree here.

I'm a fiction writer, which is the toughest of all the genres because there are less tethers to keep you from floating out in outer space. I have been working on a story lately that hurts me- none of the decisions are easy and none of it is easy to write. It seems like this kind of resistance would mean to be telling you that you shouldn't be writing- that, like any visceral markers in anything we do, if we are met with too much opposition then it seems the natural order of things isn't going to allow for it.

But Rodney Jones says that you should be met with opposition at every single turn, that you should second-guess every decision. And he's so much smarter than me, or you.

AWP New York is just around the corner. I'm excited to be out of Indiana to have some perspective again- spending too much time in the heartland shrinks the world and suddenly my sensitivities settle on believing everything to be much smaller than it really is.

My MFA Search + Google Spreadsheets

2007-10-25T18:35:00.000-06:00

So, in addition to work I do for SIR, I also have this other life in which I attempt to finish my degree at USI and in which I am going through the grueling process of applying to graduate schools. Only, I haven't even gotten to the grueling parts yet, maybe.

A month ago I thought I had my MFA list down to a sure 10 or so, but I've since discovered a few more programs I might like (Virginia Commonwealth, Brown, Vanderbilt...), and so had to go back to charting and tabling (which is what I do best in life, perhaps...). It's a time-consuming process involving two open reference books (AWP Guide [borrowed from Mitchell like a year ago...] and Kealey's Handbook); five Firefox tabs opened at all times to the U.S. News MFA program ratings, Kealey's MFA Blog, GMail, New Pages list of programs, and Google (to get to programs' websites, which usually offer the least info out of all of these methods); and a comfortable swivel chair. It's a freaking mess, and that is where a nice clean spreadsheet comes in.

I get obsessive, yes.

From the above link you can keep up with which schools are still on my list (I know like 1/2 a person who is actually interested in this)--I'm deleting them as I rule them out, and hopefully not adding many more, although some have mentioned that I need some safety schools thrown in there, so over the next week or so I might add a couple of those.
And then, someone please stop me.

Fall Readings! Pictures!

2007-10-03T14:37:00.000-06:00

So far this fall the Ropewalk Reading Series at University of Southern Indiana has hosted Mike Magnuson, recently the author of Heft on Wheels: A Field Guide to Doing a 180; Michael Martone, with his latest collection, Double-wide: Collected fiction of Michael Martone; and Gary Gildner, whose latest collection of poems is titled Cleaning a Rainbow. We've implemented a new and fun thing this semester, in which students do a kind of "meet and greet" with the visiting writers before their readings. This includes punch, cookies, questions, and sometimes pictures. For the pictures of the readings and the receptions, please take a look at our new Photobucket account, which is linked below. And we've added a big backdrop with a sharp-looking 3-D logo, which just makes our readings that much more enjoyable.

On November 8 Dana Kinstler, winner of our 2006 Mary C. Mohr fiction award will be reading as well, so keep an eye out for that.

Don't forget to check out our pictures...

Photobucket Album

Fall Issue Update

2007-09-23T13:09:00.001-06:00

In the office today making final edits. If all goes as planned, the fall issue will be shipped to the printer tomorrow (Monday) morning. It never fails that just when you think that everything is perfect, another error (or two) rears its ugly head. This morning I was flipping through the poetry, confident that all that was left to proof were the book reviews, when I noticed a couple of errors that somehow made it through four levels of proof reading (my original layout, the author, SIR staff, USI's Print Services): "imaging" instead of "imagining" and "breath" instead of "breathe."

Ah, the spellbinding life of an editor...

R

Back to Business, But Not as Usual

2007-09-20T17:04:00.000-06:00

From the fall introduction:

...America likes to think

Every one can recover from every thing,
But about this,
Especially, America is wrong.

—Liam Rector, "Back to Country with Pulitzer"

The editors note with regret departures by three friends who have helped and inspired us and whom we have loved as a part of Ropewalk, the Press, the Reading Series, and the Review. One of these, the departure of former managing editor Jim McGarrah for sunnier climes in Florida, is not such a painful loss for Jim but for all his friends here in Indiana who will miss seeing him on a daily basis.

The other two departures, however, are causes for sadness and alarm. The death, in August, of Jim Blevins, dean emeritus of the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Southern Indiana, came after a long bout with prostate cancer and deprives us of a friend who was instrumental in creating the structures--financial and intellectual--which permitted our projects to flourish. We will miss his wise counsel, his optimistic outlook, his enthusiasm regarding all the creative arts, and the particular interest he took in our success.

The death of Liam Rector at age fifty-seven in New York City came as an especially severe blow to his many friends here at USI. It was at the time of Matthew Graham’s wedding in 1987 that Liam, a member of the wedding party, first proposed that New Harmony would be an ideal place for a literary retreat. Out of that notion, and with Liam’s encouragement and support, Ropewalk itself was born, followed in time by all of the ancillary programs.

Liam continued to be a close friend and follower of our projects. He led panel discussions at Ropewalk, read several times on campus, and continued to advise us in long, often late-night phone calls (for which he was famous). While Liam’s program at Bennington often put us in competition with him for workshop leaders we would have liked to recruit, his warm friendship and advice more than compensated for the loss. Nothing, however, will compensate for the death of such a close, close friend. Our sympathies in particular go out to his wife, Tree Swenson, and his daughter, Virginia Rector.

TW

Web Silence

2007-06-29T13:53:00.000-06:00

Note to self: finish spring issue. Check. Finish spring semester. Check. Keep up with the blog over the summer while the interns are on break. Uh-oh.

So, here's what I've been up to since the last post:

1. Attended The Missouri Review fundrasing dinner in Columbia, MO, to hear Rodney Jones read. Here's a photo taken by TMR's promotions director, Kris Somerville...the contents of Rodney's right hand may or may not have been altered. At said event, I "secured" (OK, swiped) Rodney's poem "Willows," which appeared in the spring issue of SIR.

2. Helped coordinate (actually, Linda Cleek does all the work) the 19th RopeWalk Writers Retreat in New Harmony, IN. This year's faculty members were Marianne Boruch (poetry); Michael Waters (poetry); Jennifer S. Davis (fiction); and Kevin McIlvoy (nonfiction). Bich Minh Nguyen was the guest artist.

3. Started working on the 20th anniversay Retreat (June 14-21, 2008) NEA grant.

4. Started the layout of Twenty Years in Utopia: The RopeWalk Anthology, which will (hopefully) be available by April '08.

That said, the blog will probably be inactive until the fall semester begins in September.

See you then,

R

Spring issue has arrived!

2007-05-25T07:02:00.000-06:00

The new phone book is here! The new phone book is here!
So, Ron and I drove my deathtrap S10 across campus to print services yesterday to pick up the just-completed spring issues, and they look great. There's just something about holding the thing in your hands that makes it all worth it.
Things are going to start happening to us now.

In other important news, I've discovered a new, really practical keyboard short cut for Firefox. If you close a tab by mistake, just click CNTRL-SHIFT-T, and watch as time folds back on itself and corrects a small part of your sad life.

Have I told you people why you should get Firefox, by the way? Let me just make this my recommendation of the week, or day, or whatever calendar cycle this blog pretends to adhere to. Get Firefox, and then go to their add-ons page and install the following:
1) Inline Google Definitions. With this you can highlight any word, right click on it, and see in a convenient little window its definition(s).
2) Foxmarks. Have more than one PC? One at home and another at the office? Foxmarks keeps your bookmarks synchronized. It's how NASA employees do it, I bet.
3) Super DragAndGo. Drag a link to a blank part of the page and watch it instantly open in a new tab for you. How fun is that?
4) FoxyTunes. Control whatever program you use to play music files directly from your browser. No need to minimize your browser to pause Itunes or to skip that ten minute monotone track at the end of A Ghost Is Born! Welcome to the future, where laziness reaches whole new levels.

Intern Issue #1...

2007-05-15T17:29:00.000-06:00

Coming soon...

Hot Fuzz, etc.

2007-05-10T08:07:00.000-06:00

Have you seen "Hot Fuzz?" I laughed, a lot. It's a very strange blend of British slapstick, Patrick Swayze parody action, and other things I haven't figured out yet. A unique, hilarious movie, through and through. This is the first movie I've watched in months, which is something else I'd like to recommend: Stop watching movies for a while, then when you return, they're all amazing.

So, summer is here, at least for the academic world. Which means we're all just wishing it was already time for Ropewalk. It will be my first time there, and I'm pretty schoolboy giddy about it. I mean, a week away from computers and (worse) computer chairs, workshopping with great writers, swimming, eating free food, rolling around in the grass and stuff...I can't wait.

Other upcoming summer events include:
- The Spring issue
- The debut of our intern issue
- my interview with Dana Kinstler, 1st place winner of the 2006 Mary C. Mohr Fiction Award

Catching up

2007-04-04T12:02:00.000-06:00

Okay, there haven't been that many posts lately, but what to write about? I suppose I could regale everyone with my tales of data entry. We just started laying out the intern issue on Quark, which seems to be going OK so far. Knock on wood.

My interview with Marika Lindholm, third place winner of the Mary C. Mohr Short Fiction Award, is now online. Jordan's interview with Mark Lindensmith and Chris' interview with Dana Kinstler are coming soon, so keep checking back here for those. I know we've all spent a lot of time on our interviews, so I hope people will read them and enjoy them.

Go here to read my interview with Marika Lindholm, author of "Fall Seven Times, Stand Up Eight." Seriously. Do it. Right now.

Yours Truly,
Katie Guthrie
(SIR Intern)

a reading, a duck, an interview....

2007-04-03T07:50:00.000-06:00

So much news:

First of all, last week's Ropewalk Reading Series brought in the first two poets published by Ropewalk Press, Matthew Guenette and Jeffrey Thomson. They read from their chapbooks, as well as some things we hadn't heard, and we were all pretty blown away by how good it was. No one rioted, as in Guenette's reading nightmare, although Ron Mitchell did do a bit of heckling, as prophesied in the dream. (But really, it doesn't take a soothsayer to predict that...)

Our first Mary C. Mohr Fiction Award winner interview will be up soon (today?). Marika Lindholm, who won third place with her story, "Fall Seven Times, Stand Up Eight," is interviewed by Katie Guthrie, one of this semester's SIR interns. Keep checking the MCM Award page for that and for upcoming interviews with the other two winners.

We're also working hard on putting together the first intern issue of SIR. The cover will look something like this:

The painting on the cover is by Stephen Cefalo, my good friend of old. Check out his other stuff.

Also keep an eye out for the spring '07 issue of SIR, due very soon. We're excited to publish the award winners' stories, a poem from Rodney Jones, and much more.

Change is in the Southern Indiana air...

2007-03-20T14:42:00.000-06:00

We're getting back into the swing, as they say, now that AWP is behind us and the future ahead. We've decided on a logo - some version of the bike. We just like it, OK? Does it have to make sense? Need we point out other reviews and their seemingly-arbitrary logos? Sorry, we get defensive sometimes.
We're also gearing up for a new site design and some new pages, including one just for our beloved interns, as well as exclusive interviews with the three Mary C. Mohr award winners.

We will soon look something like this:

AWP

2007-03-05T17:47:00.000-06:00

We've returned from the AWP conference in Atlanta. It was a huge thing, with a lot of people, tables, and books. We walked around in a conference-induced-daze and pawed at these books, and we sat at our table a lot, pawing at our own books. Lots of nice AWP-ers dropped by the table and left with copies of SIR and with Ropewalk Press' newest release (Jeffrey Thomson's poetry chapbook). We thank those people.

We ate a lot of bad food, as the Hilton is poorly placed in a barren part of Atlanta, where the best food one can find is at Quiznos. We went to Buckhead, froze to death (yes, in Atlanta!) walking around trying to find where the part everyone talks about is, and then froze to death some more coming back, and were nearly killed by stray bullets on the subway (a story that gets worse with each telling, of course).

On the ride home, we discussed very literary and philosophical things. Now we are home, ready to start working on this logo again, and some other stuff. I'm going to call the interns now, and yell at them for no reason.

Here are some pictures:

on the marta:

brittney and jordan:

jordan:

john, thinking he is on the hood of a camaro:

brittney, john, ron:

brittney, chris:

In Chattanooga:

Buckhead:

In the van on the way back:

...or how about...an old bike?

2007-02-19T10:50:00.000-06:00

Here's one I came up with this morning:

Intern

2007-02-19T00:50:00.000-06:00

My name is Jordan Cory and I am the other intern for the Southern Indiana Review this semester. Along with the duties of submission entries and mailing of rejection or acceptance letters, the internship also provides the opportunity to witness the duties of acting editors. It is a fortunate experience for an undergrad, since normally literary magazine experience is only open for grad students. We also work on a student version of the review for further practice on the procedure of developing a literary journal.

Outside the internship I have been rereading Saul Bellow's "Herzog" for a critical assessment paper. Trying to find a way to write something new and true about something that has been written on widely already. A lofty choice of literary work for the assignment, but it was mine and now I have to go with it.

Introduction

2007-02-18T17:46:00.000-06:00

Okay! I finally got signed on to this thing! That was forty-five minutes of my life I'll never get back. Apparently, I was at eblogger.com, instead of blogger.com, and I couldn't understand why it kept saying "incorrect log-in information." I don't even know. In my defense, the B in the Blogger.com logo does look a lot like an E.

My name is Katie Guthrie. I am a senior majoring in English and French, and I am an intern at the Southern Indiana Review. So far, my duties have included logging in and sorting submissions, sending out rejection letters, and researching turtles and top hats. (The turtle logo is still my favorite, by the way.) I've never been an intern before, but it's been a good experience so far. It'll also be nice to have something besides fast food restaurants on my resume.

Speaking of food, what is going on lately with all these recalls? First, it was E. coli in spinach and green peppers, and now they're apparently finding salmonella in peanut butter! I was just watching the news today, and they were saying those pre-cooked rib meat chicken strips are also being recalled. Honestly, what kind of a world is it when eating has become a high risk activity?

In search of a new logo

2007-02-18T11:20:00.000-06:00

We need a new logo. We've held meetings, drawn funny pictures on scraps of paper in the office, smacked our foreheads in frustration, and given each other supportive, friendly slaps on the back. But we've still got basically nothing. Here are the problems with choosing a logo:

1) Do we want to emphasize the regional nature our title suggests, or do we want to suggest that we are more than just southernmost Hoosiers, and that while we strive to be the "voice of the Heartland" (doesn't Tom Petty already do that anyway?), our scope and view is much broader than that? How do we say both? Do we want to say both? Do we want to say either?

2) A logo: a single, simple image that sums up an entity. What can do that in this case? A leaf? A bird? A salad fork? A turtle with a top hat? What does any of this have to do with literature, or with Southern Indiana, or with us? How does anyone ever decide on a logo?

3) Must literature always be represented by leaves and trees and fountain pens? Are we earthy? Have any of us ever used a fountain pen, and so what if we have? Can literature not also be represented by a turtle with a top hat, or by a dancing bear, or by a car in flames?

In addition to my duties for SIR, I also run an online literary venture at www.theedwardsociety.com. It's been dormant for a long time now, shoved to the bottom of several piles of seemingly more important things. But I bring it up to illustrate (no pun) how arbitrary and meaningless a logo can be, while still doing a fine job. I chose, for no reason at all, to place a bird on a bald man's head and stick it at the top of every page. It looks like this

and it has been well received. People have offered their own interpretations, none of which ever occurred to me. For SIR, here's what we've done so far:

What do each of these say about us? How can we ever decide?

Things Need to Look Nice

2007-02-16T08:06:00.001-06:00

Among the problems we try to solve here at SIR headquarters is the ongoing problem that Things Need To Look Nice. We're constantly designing things: chapbook and SIR covers, posters, a table layout for the upcoming AWP conference, a new website, and a new SIR logo. In nature, plants and animals are born and they grow naturally into aesthetically-splendid things, but in the artificial world of literary publishing (despite all of the parent-child metaphors writers love to use for their relationship to their work), everything is faceless and without personality until we have sat for days in front of a bright screen, manipulating lines and text until our eyes are puking.

We're amateurs at this, of course. It takes us entirely too long, and the revision process is grueling. I hesitate to put a percentage on the amount of our office time that goes into graphic design - a thing we never claimed to be qualified for (Well, I once did, and faked it well enough to land a job as a graphic designer/web programmer in New York City, but that's another story that ends just as pathetically as it begins...), but it's somewhere around 100%. It's almost all we do. Editors, ha! Let's be honest here. We're underqualified, overworked, graphic designers.

- Chris Dickens, Associate Graphic Designer for the Southern Indiana Review

Pictures

2007-02-13T12:07:00.000-06:00

A few images from yesterday's SIR meeting (Top to bottom - Ron, our Managing Editor; Katie, one of our University of Southern Indiana interns; 3/4 of the group hard at work; Katie and Jordan, our other semester intern; and Chris, Associate Editor):

- posted by Chris

Welcome to the SIR blog

2007-02-13T11:12:00.000-06:00

SIR is a bianual literary journal published by the University of Southern Indiana in Evansville, featuring original artwork, poetry, and prose. The journal is also associated with RopeWalk Writers Retreat, a conference held each winter and summer in New Harmony, IN. Here are our two primary websites:

www.ropewalk.org
&
www.southernindianareview.org