Some Non-SIR Related News

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

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

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!

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

Sam Witt Interview

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

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

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

Did Anyone Notice...

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

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

Readings and Interviews

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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!

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

Spring Unsprung

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.