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The English Department of Willamette University invites applications for the tenure-track Hallie Brown Ford Chair in Writing. Review begins November 9. Online Application Form

The University of Nevada, Reno Department of English announces an entry-level, tenure-track position in creative writing, with a specialization in poetry. Oct 29

Penn State York invites applications for an Assistant Professor of English (tenure-track, 36 weeks). Dr. Joseph McCormick, Director of Academic Affairs. Review begins November 10.

University of San Diego Assistant Professor of English in Creative Writing, specializaiton: fiction writing. Sr. Mary Hotz, Chair, Creative Writing Search Committee, Department of English. Nov 1

Miami University (Oxford, OH) Assistant Professor in British poetry of the Romantic period. J. Kerry Powell, Chair, Department of English. Screening begins immediately until Oct. 31.

For appointment beginning in the fall of 2010, The George Washington University seeks a writer of creative non-fiction to teach two semesters at as the Jenny McKean Moore Writer-in-Washington. Nov 1

Cleveland State University Assistant Professor – Creative Writing (Fiction). David Larson, English Department. Nov 2

The Amherst College Department of English invites applications for a tenure-track assistant professor (beginning or advanced) specializing in medieval literature, in particular, medieval poetry taught in the original language. Nov 1

The Amherst College Creative Writing Program invites applications from fiction writers for the position of Visiting Writer, to begin July 2010. Nov 15

Educational Center for the Arts, CT. Writer in Residence in fiction and/or poetry sought to teach in New Haven, part-time, on Mon and Tues afternoons from 1-4:00 in the Creative Writing Dept. in a high school for the arts for gifted students. Compensation includes five hours prep time and five hours teaching time. Students are highly motivated and graduate to pursue further study at NYU, Barnard, Columbia, Wesleyan, Sarah Lawrence, etc. Please email crosenstone_at_snet_dot_net immediately if interested.

While we are sorrow to hear of bookstores closing, it’s great news to hear of a new one opening. The Open Book co-operative has signed a one-year lease to take over a former Harry Schwartz bookstore space on Oakland Avenue in Shorewood, WI. A spokesperson for Open Book says “we’re about halfway there” in raising the money needed to actually open a store. They have raised about $50,000, and are hoping supporters will come forward and donate and/or purchase memberships to help raise the remainder.

From the Volcano Press website, Adam Gottstein, Publisher and Ruth Gottstein, Publisher Emerita:

Volcano Press has been publishing books on domestic violence and women’s health for forty years.

Forty years ago, the domestic violence movement consisted of a handful of grass-roots shelters, struggling to survive.

And yet the struggle to end domestic violence is still a movement. Although today there is the federally funded Violence Against Women Act (authored by Senator Joe Biden), and many dedicated community agencies, activists, counselors, attorneys, law enforcement, and caring families and friends, there is still a long way to go.

We are living in a time of violence. “33 MILLION is the number of U.S. adults–representing 15% of the population–who say they have been victims of domestic violence.” (Source: Harris Poll)

If we can develop tools and understanding to effectively stop intimate violence, perhaps we can develop tools and understanding to end all violence in our time.

Towards this goal, we continue to pledge our allegiance. We hope that the Volcano Press books you see listed here will be of assistance. You will note that we are now making available some fine books and pamphlets from other publishers, and plan to add more as we learn about them.

And so it begins…

All Free Library of Philadelphia Branch, Regional and Central Libraries Closed

“We deeply regret to inform you that without the necessary budgetary legislation by the State Legislature in Harrisburg, the City of Philadelphia will not have the funds to operate our neighborhood branch libraries, regional libraries, or the Parkway Central Library after October 2, 2009.”

The six finalists for the Man Booker Prize have been named. A winner will be named in October.

A S Byatt, The Children’s Book (Chatto and Windus)
J M Coetzee, Summertime (Harvill Secker)
Adam Foulds, The Quickening Maze (Jonathan Cape)
Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall (Fourth Estate)
Simon Mawer, The Glass Room (Little Brown UK)
Sarah Waters, The Little Stranger (Virago)

Martin Scorcese will direct the pilot of a new 2010 HBO series Boardwalk Empire based on the novel by Nelson Johnson. Aside from Mad Men, I don’t watch series television, but I’m going to have to give this one a try: “The series stars Steve Buscemi as Nucky Thompson, a Prohibition-era bootlegger and prominent figure in the Atlantic City of the early 1920s, someone who’s described as “equal parts politician and gangster.” Kelly Macdonald (“No Country for Old Men”), Michael Pitt (“The Village”), Michael Kenneth Williams (“The Wire”), Michael Shannon (“Revolutionary Road”) and Dabney Coleman also star.”

The Summer 2009 issue of College Literature is another of their “General Issues” which includes a wide range of articles helpful for both college and university teachers. This issue includes the essays “‘Bodied Forth in Words’: Sylvia Plath’s Ecopoetics” (Scott Knickerbocker), “The Orients of Gertrude Stein” (Josephine Nock-Hee Park), “The Postcolonial Orphan’s Autobiography: Authoring the Self in Jamaica Kincaid’s Mr. Potter and Calixthe Beyala’s La Petite fille du reverbere” (Julian Everett), “Speakers and Sleepers: Chang-rae Lee’s Native Speaker, Whitman, and the Performance of Americanness” (Christian Moraru), “Pride and Prestige: Jane Austen and the Professions” (Alice Drum), “‘Other and More Terrible Evils’: Anticapitalist Rhetoric in Harriet Wilson’s Our Nig and Proslavery Propaganda” (David Dowling), “Shakespeare, Faulkner, and the Expression of the Tragic” (Duncan McColl Chesney), “‘Energetic Space’: The Experience of Literature and Learning” (Maria Takolander), “Prepreprofessionalism: Rankings, Rewards, and the Graduate Admissions Process” (Craig T. Fehrman). Also included are review essays and book reviews – a usefully packed professional quarterly journal.

From the Boston.com:

“Cushing Academy has all the hallmarks of a New England prep school, with one exception. This year, after having amassed a collection of more than 20,000 books, officials at the pristine campus about 90 minutes west of Boston have decided the 144-year-old school no longer needs a traditional library. The academy’s administrators have decided to discard all their books and have given away half of what stocked their sprawling stacks – the classics, novels, poetry, biographies, tomes on every subject from the humanities to the sciences. The future, they believe, is digital.”

[Read the rest here.]

Tim Carmody takes a closer look at this “technology bump” – which he had tweeted as “not about technology or pedagogy but remodeling – and only accidentally the other things.” His commentary with reader feedback offers a much more in depth consideration of the effects of such decisions.

Dalkey Archive Press has launched an innovative fellowship program at the University of Illinois with the first six fellows: four in Applied Translation and two in Literary Publishing. The program is part of a series of innovative educational programs that the Press has been developing over the past two years, in cooperation with the University’s Center for Translation Studies.

Funded in part through foundations and the University of Illinois, Dalkey Archive’s fellowship program is designed to offer unique opportunities for young people to develop as translators, publishers, and literary advocates. The Applied Translation program was created in response to the need on a national and international level for providing practical experience to young literary translators. As part of the program, each fellow will translate a complete book to be published by Dalkey Archive Press by the end of their fellowship year.

The 2009 fellows in the Applied Translation are: Rhett Warren McNeil (USA), Ursula Meany Scott (Ireland), Jamie Richards (USA), Kerri Pierce (USA).

The Literary Publishing fellowship program is designed to offer young people an opportunity to gain experience in the publishing industry while working full-time at Dalkey Archive Press. The 2009-2010 fellows for Literary Publishing are: Stephen Sparks (USA) and Shir Alon (Israel).

For more information on Dalkey Archive’s fellowships programs, contact Martin Riker: riker_atdalkeyarchive_dot_com

“A recent study from Cleantech finds that e-readers could have a major impact on improving the sustainability and environmental impact on the publishing industry, one of the world’s most polluting sectors. In 2008, the U.S. book and newspaper industries combined resulted in the harvesting of 125 million trees, not to mention wastewater that was produced or its massive carbon footprint.”

An Interdisciplinary Graduate Student Conference Hosted by The Program in Literature
Duke University
November 20 & 21, 2009

NEW DEADLINE: September 15, 2009

UPDATE: Travel support is now available for some presenters due to generous support from the Duke University Center for International Studies, with priority for international speakers.

Keynote Speaker: Stanley Aronowitz (CUNY), author of How Class Works and Just Around The Corner: The Paradox of a Jobless Recovery

Around 5:00 AM on Nov. 28—the day after Thanksgiving—a Wal-Mart employee was trampled to death by shoppers eager to participate in the store’s annual “Black Friday” sales blitz. On Dec. 1, after three months of violent upheaval in the banking sector, the National Bureau of Economic Research announced that the U.S. had been in economic recession for almost a year. On Dec. 5, a group of mostly Hispanic workers staged a sit-in at Republic Windows and Doors after being laid off from the Chicago-based factory with only three days’ notice. Throughout mid-December 2008, critics lauded the “tightness” and “economy” of Kelly Reichardt’s Wendy and Lucy, an 80-minute long independent film featuring a young woman, a dog, the Pacific Northwest, and not much else. Meanwhile, the country of Iceland—designated a terrorist state by Britain in an effort to freeze some of its assets—has declared bankruptcy. Widespread economic and institutional breakdown has resulted in a new wave of urban radicalism spreading across Greece, France, Italy, Spain, and the U.K. In China, mass deprivation and joblessness riots have escalated as authorities struggle to prop up a falling GDP. Despite unprecedented bailout and stimulus spending by the Bush and Obama administrations, the U.S. stock market has receded to levels last seen in 1997, with the unemployment rate crossing 10% in some states.

This conference invites graduate students from humanities and social science disciplines to think about how the idea and experience of recession—a sustained national or global-economic downturn that makes itself visible through declines in industrial production, employment, sales, and income—frames the cultural life and livelihood of affected communities, places, and governing bodies. This shift in communal and political makeup opens space for discussion about the impact of recession on cultural forms. What sort of cultural phenomena—artistic, political, or otherwise—find expression during times of recession? Are there features of recession that seem to transcend history or geography? Are certain socioeconomic climates more or less poised to give birth to recession—and what sort of political positionalities or modes of thought find themselves competing to “solve” recessive crises? How does recession change the parameters of social and political institutions? Within the governing structure, how do power dynamics shuffle as blame is distributed between institutions and people? How might the idea of recession compare to related concepts like depression, inflation, deflation, unemployment, crisis, or overproduction? Can we identify specific literary or artistic forms, motifs, and icons that emerge during times of recession?

Possible panel or paper topics
• Recession and cultures of work
• Recession and the global economy
• Recession and the language of loss, failure, or decline
• Recession and establishment discourse
• Recession, labor struggle, and “class warfare”
• Recession and the banking-sector bailout
• Recession and debt
• Recession and the politics of greed or waste
• Recession, crisis theory, and the logic of capital
• Recession and radical political resurgences
• Recession and nostalgia
• Recession and consumer culture
• Historical recessions: the post-war ‘40s, the 1970s, Japan’s Lost Decade, etc.
• Recession in an age of Facebook, blogs, and “instant” information
• Recession and cultural production
• Recession and the politics of religion
• Recession and the politics of race, gender, and/or sexuality
• Recession and environmental/energy crises
• Recession and the university

Please send a 250-500 word abstract to culturesofrecession_at_gmail_dot_com by September 15, 2009.

ORGANIZERS
Sara Appel
Gerry Canavan
Alex Greenberg
Lisa Klarr
Ryan Vu

Having been to this historic home, I can say with certainty that this is an idyllic location for a residency.

Carl Sandburg Writing Residency

Mrs. Paula Sandburg first generated the idea of a writer-in-resident at Connemara when her family’s North Carolina home became a unit of the National Park Service shortly after her husband’s death in 1968. Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site is pleased to host its first Writer-in-Residence Program in March 2010.

This program offers poets an opportunity to live and work at Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site. The three-week residency is scheduled for March 2010. Housing is offered in an historic cottage near the Sandburg Home, with a studio and stipend provided.

As part of the program, writers will be required to do two public programs, the first a short fifteen-minute presentation describing their work during a welcome reception. The second will be an outreach program to an audience of the writer’s choice. Writers must also donate one original piece of their work to the park’s permanent museum collection, copyrights will remain with the writer.

The deadline for submissions is October 15,2009. Selection for the 2010 residency will be announced during the second week of December 2009.

This program is made possible through support from the Friends of Carl Sandburg at Connemara.

The Black Market Review (annual) is edited exclusively by Creative Writing undergraduate and postgraduate students at Edge Hill University. BMR publishes poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction, translations, art/photography, reviews and interviews.

This first issue is an enormous effort – with nearly two dozen staff members working on the variety of content. It is dedicated to Lisa Ratcliffe, who was a student at EHU and who it appears passed away in February from some type of cancer. Robert Sheppard writes a piece in tribute to her, and the issue itself includes a fiction piece written by Lisa, “Las Cartas.” There’s also a link to her blog, which is tough but touching read of her final weeks.

BMR also features the following authors and artists: Robert Sheppard, James Reidel, Kimberly Johnson, Rupert Loydell, Nicholas Samaras, Galvin Selerie, C. E. Chaffin, Carol Parris Krauss, David Toms, Donal Mahoney, Felicia Zamora, Ginna Wilkerson, Rodrigo V. Dela Pe

Eastern Illinois University has a tenure-track position in Creative Writing to start Fall 2010. Dr. Dana Ringuette, English Department. Nov 6

The English Department of Willamette University invites applications for the tenure-track Hallie Brown Ford Chair in Writing. REview begins Nov 9.

The Department of English at CUNY’s Brooklyn College Assistant or Associate Professor of Poetry. Review begins Oct 21.

The American University of Sharjah, UAE seeks candidates for a Department Head for the Department of English as well as Department Head for the Department of Mass Communication for Spring 2010.

Shippensburg University Assistant Professor of Creative Writing—Fiction, tenure-track. Richard Zumkhawala-Cook, Chair. Review begins Nov 2.

Brooklyn College Assistant or Associate Professor of Poetry. Michael T. Hewitt, AVP for Human Resource Services. Review begins Oct 21.

George Mason University, tenure-track assistant professor of creative writing, poetry. William Miller, Chair/Search Committee. Review begins Oct 1.

Aspen Book Store in Little Nell will close September 8 for what owner John S. Edwards says are a variety of reasons, including his desire to spend more time reading after 20 years of bookselling. Happy reading John!

This article on the Decatur Book Festival (Sept 4-6) includes some great comments from poet Thomas Lux – worth reading the whole piece – but here’s a couple clips:

Lux thoroughly appreciates poems with humor. “Why shouldn’t poetry be funny? Life is funny. I don’t like the kind of turd-in-a-punchbowl professor who says ‘Poetry can never be funny! It has to be serious!'”

…Lux’s classrooms take an approach that offers an easier gateway for students and adult readers alike. “I’ve always done something Billy Collins described as ‘teaching backwards.’ You start by having [the students] read the very contemporary poems, the stuff in the language of today, even hip-hop lyrics, then go backward to the classics. For several generations, our students’ introduction to poetry was through great poets, essential poets, who nevertheless didn’t speak in the language that we speak today.”

A couple former NewPages Review Writers who just keep keeping on in their literary endeavors:

Dan Moreau has a story, “Submission Guidelines” in the new issue of Swink.

Aaron Gilbreath has a “short thing” – also known as “Try Mailing This to Alpha Centauri” in Front Porch Journal.

The final episode of Reading Rainbow aired today. With no further support from PBS or any other sources (some faulting Bush administration decisions), the show will not go on.

NetPoetic digital poetry portal is a new Electronic Literature/Digital Poetry portal founded by Jason Nelson and Davin Heckman. With over 30 writers, thinkers and artists, NetPoetic is a group conversation, updated near daily with posts, news, theory, artworks and all manner of E-Lit related material.

Currently on the site is feature about The Longest Poem in the World “composed by aggregating real-time public twitter updates and selecting those that rhyme. It is constantly growing at ~4000 verses / day. You can see more verses by clicking the three dots at the bottom (• • •) Made by Andrei Gheorghe.” And you can read more about the project on NetPoetic.

Those who want to “play” do need to send in a request, and once approved will receive a user name and password to log into the portal. Plans for later in the year include the first NetPoetic exhibition and a peer reviewed journal.

Littoral, the journal of the Key West Literary Seminar, has a new interview with Billy Collins. In it, the two-time U.S. Poet Laureate and “most popular poet in America” discusses his rivalries with poets from Emily Dickinson to Ron Padgett, explains why “transparency” has no place in poetry, and celebrates the pleasures of disorientation in the age of the GPS.