Poetry Reading in honor of Veteran's Day

Coming Home: Soldier/Poets
Remember Veterans of Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan
Sunday, November 1, 2009
1:00pm-2:00pm.
EXPRESSIONES
74 State Street
New London, CT
860-501-4278

This event, a program from the William Meredith Foundation, features poets from the Veterans Arts Council in West Haven, CT reading from the “Season of Now: A Collection of Poetry by Vietnam Veterans.” Allan Garry, veteran and poet, will also be reading his newly published poems. The event will be moderated by award winning poet Lisa Siedlarz, author of “I Dream My Brother Plays Baseball,” a collection of war poems that draws from her brother’s deployment to Afghanistan. Ms Siedlarz is also the editor of the CT River Review.

This event is free and open to the public.

Paola Corso Article

Paola Corso has a terrific article in November's issue of The Writer magazine. She writes about publishing with a University Press. Great article!
Don Lowe

Adventures of a Dog Whisperer Wanna Be

Hi all-

Check out my blog for the first in a series of essays on my adventures as a dog whisperer wanna be. Read how Dallas, a rescued dog from a killing house in Ohio, comes to live with us, and my ongoing attempts to create a happy pack life for him and our first dog, Layla.

http://schachabybaby.wordpress.com/2009/10/16/the-leader-of-the-pack/

Tonia

All things good!

Well today I appeared on the live radio show "Meet the Author" with the gracious host, Harry Rinker. Thanks Harry! If anyone wants to hear a re-broadcast it will air on Sunday at 9:30 on 91.7 FM or on www.WXCI.org (I think I got that right)

Other good news....I am reading with my Vietnam veterans in New London on November 1 at a gallery called Expressiones. I believe that begins at 1:00 but will confirm in case anyone wants to come out.

I am also reading with the Veterans on November 11th at 5:30 at Bru Cafe on Orange St in New Haven. This event is a fundraiser for "The Homefront." The Homefront is Columbus House's Veterans Transitional Housing Program that will provide housing and support for 14 veterans returning from the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They must raise another $110,000. So I was asked to be the featured reader for a fundraiser, and I suggested that the veterans whom I worked with be included as they are very supportive of the veterans who are coming home now. So if anyone wants to come out and support this great event - please do!

I am also reading on January 18th in downtown New Haven in the Mermaid Room of the Anchor Bar. I believe that starts at 7:00. So anyone wanting to come to New Haven we can perhaps go have dinner afterwards!

Finally, I met with the director of the New Haven Vet center in West Haven Ct and I am putting together another writing workshop. This one will be open to veterans, and their immediate families. That includes spouses, children, siblings, and parents. We hope to start on Wednesday, November 18 and run for 5 weeks. If all goes well, I will restart it after the first of the year.

As I said - all good things!!!!!!

"Escapism" in Nature

My latest story, the short-short "Escapism" is in the current issue of Nature, the hybrid magazine/scientific journal.

If WestConn's library system happens to subscribe to the journal, the whole story can be seen from the link above. If not, hold out for a hard copy. Many newsstands carry it, or perhaps a daring raid on the biology and environmental science department will turn up a copy.

For those interested in flash fiction and SF, Nature is one of the best venues. Submission guidelines are here and the pay is significant—$135 or £85 (contributor's choice) for stories between 850-950 words.

Faculty Requests for Spring '10

It's that time again! Unless you will be a first-semester student in Spring '10 (in which case your mentors are assigned) please email me (clementsb@wcsu.edu) with your faculty requests.

NOTE: Because we will be registering online this semester, I need to know exactly which courses you are going to take in which term (Winter Intersession or Spring). This applies only to students who are taking part-time loads (4-8 hours) and students who are registering for a combination of Intersession and Spring hours. If you plan to register as a full-time student in the spring, there is no need to indicate that. If you do not specify the number of hours in Winter/Spring, I will assume that you are going full time in the Spring. All sections of the Online Multigenre are in the Spring.

So please email your requests to me no later than noon on Wednesday, October 21. If I do not receive your requests by then, your mentors will be assigned.

Again, your requests must include 1) the courses you plan to register, 2) which semester you plan to take each of those courses, and 3) the faculty you would like for each of those courses (do not request faculty for the online workshops). I recommend that you rank first, second, and third mentor choices for each course.

Also, if you are going to be a 3rd-semester student in the spring, you should begin planning your internship now, if you haven't already started doing so.

First semester students: you will need the computer account information mailed to you by Graduate Studies in order to complete your online registration.

Registration will take place in early December.

One Book/One Community Programs

Click the title link for information on the upcoming on-campus events for the One Book/One Community program. This week, the authors of Divided Minds, Pamela Spiro Wagner and Carolyn Spiro, will appear. There are also film screenings and lectures coming up,culminating in Hurry Down Sunshine author Michael Greenberg's appearance on October 28. If you're in the area, take advantage of this good programming, and bring a friend! Some of you who need to make up residency workshops will want to take advantage of the Greenberg day.

MIchael Greenberg to Meet with MFA Students

Michael Greenberg, author of Hurry Down Sunshine, will meet with MFA students in a special session on Wednesday, Oct. 28th, from 2:30 pm to 3:30 pm in Haas Library, room 508. I strongly encourage those of you in the area and available at that time (both current students and graduates of the program) to attend. I do need a list of attendees by this Friday, October 16. If you are interested in attending, RSVP to clementsb@wcsu.edu

Francine Prose Reads Like a Writer - Again

Those of us who were assigned Francine Prose's Reading Like a Writer in 2007 may be interested in her interview on NPR this weekend. She talks about her new book Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife. In it, Prose revisits The Diary of Anne Frank as an adult reader and discovers just as much craft in the way young Anne wrote (and rewrote!) her story as courage in the way she faced its events.

New Story at HOBART

I'm pleased to have my short story "Grass" come out at the wildly irreverent and eclectic HOBART today.
Funny, I submitted this piece for their print edition, which had the theme "The Great Outdoors." Realizing that my story only had a tenuous connection I said, "I offer this for the theme issue or however you see fit." Apparently this "however you see fit" invitation opened the door for them accepting it for their website. There's a lesson there somewhere...I think.

Lovecraft Unbound

I'm very excited to have a story in Lovecraft Unbound, which will be out, officially, next week, but which is in stock at amazon.com and probably on some bookstore shelves already.

Lovecraft is one of my favorite writers and though long dismissed as a pulp hack has recently gotten the star treatment. Penguin Classics has issued a number of collections of his short fiction and a few years ago many of his stories were collected in a Library of America edition.

Lovecraft Unbound continues the trend of literary "legitimization", which if one looked at the current issue of The Writer's Chronicle and Debra Spark's nasty little missive, is apparently still an issue. In addition to "genre" writers such as Caitlin Kiernan and Laird Barron (both of whom would probably object to the classification on some level), the anthology contains Lovecraftian stories by Joyce Carol Oates, Brian Evenson, and Michael Chabon.

My own piece, which is in the "hot spot" at the very end of the book, is a Lovecraft/Carver mash-up called "That of Which We Speak When We Speak of the Unspeakable." It was fun to write and publish, and it's not as though anyone was soliciting me to submit to a Raymond Carver tribute anthology!