Chair: Kent Baxter
Notes compiled by: Kate Haake
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Announcements
This Friday and Saturday, March 31 and April 1, Highways Performance Space will be featuring a new play by Rick Michell about revolution and performance, Anarchy Chiapas, will be featured. The play will be staged at 8:30 p.m., and feature plays-within-plays, comedy, original music, and a killer cast. Set in rural Mexico, the play crosses multiple borders: of reality, The State, theater, and a place called Trump Village. For more information, please see http://highwaysperformance.org/highways/event/rick-mitchell-anarchy-chiapas/.
On Tuesday, April 4th, from 10:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., there will be a book fair in JR 319, where the publishers will be happy to provide you with examination copies of many books–mainly composition books, but some literature, ESL, and creative writing books as well. Lunch will be served, and all are welcome.
Martin Pousson will be the featured author at the Diesel Bookstore book club in Brentwood on Thursday, April 6, at 6:00 p.m. And he will be reading again for Dirty Laundry Lit, hosted by Natashia Déon, at The Virgil in Hollywood on Saturday, April 8, at 8:00 p.m.
Chris Higgs will read from his newly released experimental memoir, As I Stand Living, on Thursday, April 27, at 1:00 p.m., in the Linda Nichols Joseph Reading Room (JR 319). The event will be hosted by the Northridge Creative Writing Circle and “Higgs’ Homies.” The reading will be open to the public, and all will be welcome to attend.
You are invited to sign up for either (or both) of the remaining faculty/staff book discussions focusing on Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. This book will be CSUN’s Freshman Common Reading for 2017-2018. To sign up, visit http://www.csun.edu/undergraduate-studies/academic-first-year-experiences/between-world-and-me-faculty-and-staff, choose your date(s), and RSVP (use the links on that page or call x6535, Academic First Year Experiences).
Bet Tzedek Legal Services, an organization mobilizing and launching presentations and clinics to address the concerns of undocumented parents in our community, is looking for volunteers and will be hosting a second training session at CSUN’s Nazarian College on Thursday, April 13, from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m., in the Johnson Auditorium (JA100). Back by popular demand, the session will take ninety minutes and promises, like the first one, to be highly empowering. Refreshments will be served. Please RSVP https://csunbusiness.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_blq2OUB9RyqHnCJ.
It being that time of year, again, Media Relations is looking for graduating seniors with compelling stories to feature in a media release. If you have someone in mind, please send Kent the name, student ID, and a brief paragraph about the student, and he will take it from there.
Opportunities
This one is for students: The Nation is accepting applications for two new paid Student Writing Fellows. This year-long program will give two college students the opportunity to regularly write for TheNation.com and to work with Nation staff members to sharpen the skills needed for a successful career in journalism. Fellows should be familiar with The Nation and have a passion for politics. They will contribute 2-3 articles per month, and will be expected to both pitch ideas and write on assignment. Fellows will write on a range of subjects covered by The Nation, with an emphasis on how young people are navigating and combating new and unprecedented obstacles in the age of Donald Trump. The fellowship will run from May 15, 2017 to April 30, 2018. Fellows will receive a $10,000 annual stipend. Applications will be accepted until noon EST on Monday, April 3. All matriculating undergraduate students due to graduate in 2018 or after are eligible. (Current juniors and younger.) The deadline is April 7, which will fast be upon us. But if you have any promising writers with a passion for politics in the age of Trump, please do encourage them to apply. Full information is available here https://www.thenation.com/nation-seeking-student-writing-fellows/.
And for the rest of us, if you’ve ever considered applying for a Fulbright Fellowship, now might be a time to do it. The Core Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program is accepting applications from American academics and professionals until August 1, 2017. There are numerous teaching and/or research awards available in more than 125 countries to be completed in the 2018-2019 academic year. For more information, please see go to to http://www.cies.org/program/core-fulbright-us-scholar-program. One of these opportunities might be right for you!
Achievements
Scott Andrews will have his prose lyric titled “This is a Story about the Plains” reprinted in the 10th anniversary special edition of Yellow Medicine Review. The prose lyric appeared in Fall 2014, and the journal editors nominated it for the Pushcart Prizes. His review of Tiffany Midge’s poetry collection titled The Woman Who Married a Bear is included in the latest issue of American Book Review, which has a special section devoted to recent works of American Indian literature.
Dorothy Barresi has had three poems from her new manuscript accepted for publication: “Little Shits” and “Word as Early Diagnosis” will appear in Conduit, and “Fixx/Plot” will appear in Spillway. On March 12 she judged, along with Eric Moraga and Patty Seyburn, the OC RYSE Poetry Slam for the Orange County School of the Arts. She is currently reading manuscripts as judge for the Patricia Bibby First Book Prize in Poetry.
Over Spring break, Irene Clark attended two conferences: The Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) in Portland, Oregon, where she chaired a panel titled “Activist Academics Advocating for Change,” and the 10th Anniversary Homeland Defense and Security Education Summit, in Washington D.C., where she presented a paper titled “Homeland Security and Metacognitive Awareness of Identity: Insights from Neuropsychological Research,” in collaboration with Dr. Cezar Ornatowski from San Diego State University.
Noreen Lace has been busy! She has a poem forthcoming in April in the journal, Mothers Always Write, and two additional poems, “The Fly” and “After”, forthcoming in May, in Vine Leaves Press, an Australian Journal. Her short prose piece, “Memorial Day Death Watch,” was a finalist in the Writer Advice Flash Memoir Contest, and will appear this April. She also has two short stories forthcoming in April, “Grandma’s Last Secret,” which will appear in, appropriately, Secrets, and “How to Throw a Psychic a Surprise Party” in The Oleander Review!
Sean Pessin published a story, “Tinderbox,” in the Zachary Jensen‘s new magazine, Angel City Review, which also featured two poems by Trista Payte, “Denning” and “Swan Song.”
Martin Pousson has had two short stories selected for 2017 anthologies. “Most Holy Ghost” will be included in Wilde Stories, and “Black Sheep Boy” will be included in Best Gay Stories.
Audrey Thacker presented a paper, “Pop Goes the Professor: Brands, Stands and Reprimands in the Teaching of Jewish American Texts,” in a pop culture panel at the annual conference of the Western Jewish Studies Association, held this year at Claremont McKenna College.