James Owens at IU South Bend 11/20/08

Here's a quick clip of a very short poem:



History of the Moon

Nights go, sitting up
to tend this flame:

not the center,
where it burns fat and yellow

--the edge,
thin, blue and infinite.

(from Frost Lights a Thin Flame, Mayapple 2007)

Blog has relocated

The IUSB Creative Writing blog has permanently moved to: http://iusbcreativewriting.wordpress.com/

All videos will be posted here at blogger until further notice.

To DO: Check out the New Blog...& go to Fiddler's Hearth

Here's your to-do list for Spring Break:

1. Check out the really, really new IUSB CW Blog at its new home: http://iusbcreativewriting.wordpress.com/

(Feel free to leave feedback. The main goal was to have a site with tabs for more info and static content. Still working it out.)

2. Report to Fiddler's Hearth, Wed. 3/12 at 7:00. Bring a friend or foe.

And the Winners are...

Congratulations to the following winners of the First-Ever IUSB CW Blog Writing Contest:

WINNERS: RYAN SMITH AND CHARMI KERANEN
HONORABLE MENTION: ERIC GINGERICH

Despite the promise of no prizes, all three winners will receive $5 gift certificates to (where else?) The Chicory Café!

Thanks to all who participated. We loved reading all of the entries and are happy to report that we think we've got some of the most talented writers around. While each judge voted for several entries, the winners were those entries that received the most votes from judges.

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Let’s get together at the Fiddler’s Hearth over Spring Break!
7:00 p.m., Wednesday, 3/12
Pass it around…

First IUSB Blog Writing CONTEST! ~~~~~~~~~~~ submit by Friday at noon

We're going to try something a little different: We're going to have a IUSB BLOG WRITING CONTEST. Dedicated blog readers should take a moment from exam review and paper-writing to WRITE A VERY SHORT STORY (200 words max) based on the following prompt.

Post your story to the comments section before 12:00 noon on Friday 3/8. Winners to be decided by anonymous creative writing teachers and posted later that afternoon. Winners will be listed on the blog and will receive warmest wishes for a wonderful spring break.

So, here's the first contest prompt:

Write a 200-word short story that begins with the following line:

"When I came home from school for lunch my father was wearing a backpack made of stone."


(first line originally from Aimee Bender's story, "The Girl in the Flammable Skirt")

Greg Rappleye's reading: pictures and video!

Greg reads from his poem, "Caller, What is your Question?"

Greg Rappleye TONIGHT!

Thursday, Feb. 28 at 7:00 p.m.
Join us in the lounge on the third floor of Wiekamp Hall for a reading and discussion with the poet, Greg Rappleye.
In the meantime, check out his blog. Just click this link: http://sonnetsat4am.blogspot.com/

Interview with Sam Sheridan in The Preface

Eric Gingerich has published an interview with last month's visitor, Sam Sheridan, in this week's Preface. Check it out!

Submission Opportunities @ New Pages

This is the blog to check for ongoing writing news and submission activities:

http://newpagesblog.blogspot.com/

The main site has regular reviews of literary journals, and links to more info and web sites.

http://www.newpages.com/

Summer Writers' Retreats & Workshops

Now is the time to look into Summer Writing Workshops--and apply for scholarships! Here are a few nearby. Just click on the links:

Ropewalk: New Harmony, IN (June 14-21)

Kenyon Review: Ohio/Italy (June 14-21)

Antioch Writers Workshop: Yellow Springs, OH (July 12-18)

Interview with Vince Bauters in the Preface

There's still time to pick up last week's issue of The Preface, which features an interview with Analecta's editor, Vince Bauters.

Our Next Event: Greg Rappleye, poet

Mark your calendars for Thursday, Feb. 28 at 7:00 pm. The poet Greg Rappleye will be reading from his latest book, Figured Dark, in the third floor lounge of Wiekamp Hall.

A blurb from the U. of Arkansas press: "The voices in Greg Rappleye's Figured Dark call across a vast landscape of myth, memory, and horrific wreckage. He is a poet who refuses easy categories. These poems are by turns wise, elegiac, ironic, and wickedly funny. Here are dreamy raptors, dome-lighted Firebirds, flaming bodies, junk cars, deadly archangels, the musician Brian Wilson, and a young John Berryman."

Click link to Rappleye's blog: http://sonnetsat4am.blogspot.com/

Thanks for coming out!

Sam Sheridan's reading was a huge success. Thanks so much to all the students, faculty, and staff who braved the weather to be there. (And there were lots of you!) Thanks also to Sam Sheridan for coming, to the fighter Rory Markham for adding to the conversation, to the Howe Military Academy students who joined us, to Heidi Eakins who supplied the wonderful food, to Anne Richmond who makes everything happen, and to Elaine Roth for sacrificing precious sabbatical time to host Sam and Rory this week. Look for photos and coverage of the event, as well as an exclusive interview with Sam to be published in The Preface!

Sam Sheridan Reading is ON

Despite the weather, Sam Sheridan will read from his memoir, A Fighter's Heart, tonight at 7:00 in the third floor lounge (venue change) of Wiekamp Hall (DW 3001).

I met Sam and his friend Rory, a Milatech fighter from Chicago's south side, and they are both excited to be here, and it should be a great event!

See previous post for additional info.

Sam Sheridan to read Wed. 1/30

Sam Sheridan will read from his new book, A Fighter's Heart: One Man's Journey Through the World of Fighting, on Wednesday, Jan. 30 at 7:00 on the third-floor bridge of Wiekamp Hall. Check out his myspace page for video clips of funny interviews on Jon Stewart's Daily Show and on Fox News. (That's him on the book cover.)

Summary:

An extraordinary memoir of the author’s adventures in fighting, as well as a look behind the scenes of one of America’s fastest growing sports. In 1999, after a series of adventurous jobs working construction at the South Pole, ranching in Montana, fighting wildfires in New Mexico, and sailing private yachts around the world Sam Sheridan found himself in Australia, loaded with cash and intent on not working until he‚d spent it all. He quit smoking and began working out at a local gym, where it slowly occurred to him that now, without distractions, he could finally indulge a long-dormant obsession: fighting.

Within a year, Sheridan landed in Bangkok to train at the legendary Fairtex gym with the greatest fighter in Thai kickboxing history. Driven by a desire to know what only a fighter can about fear and violence, about the dark side of being a man, and most of all about himself he stepped through the ropes for a professional bout.

That one fight wasn’t enough. Sheridan set out to test himself on an epic journey in the world of fighting. From small-town Iowa to the beaches of Rio, from the streets of Oakland to the arenas of Tokyo, he trained, traveled, and fought with Olympic boxers, Brazilian jiu-jitsu stars, and Ultimate Fighting champions. A Fighter’s Heart is the dazzling chronicle of Sheridan’s quest. In part, it’s an insightful look at violence as a career and as a spectator sport, a behind-the-pageantry glimpse of athletes at the top of their terrifying game. At the same time, it’s a dizzying firsthand account of what it’s like to reach the peak of finely disciplined aggression, to hit and be hit.

Sam Sheridan joined the U.S. Merchant Marines after high school and then attended Harvard College, from which he graduated in 1998. He has written for Men’s Journal and Newsweek. This is his first book.

Open Mic

Analecta Open Mic TONIGHT

See you at 6:30 in the third floor lounge of Wiekamp! I'll have my camera and I'm not afraid to shoot.

Writers' Group is meeting tomorrow

Next Writers' Workshop

Wednesday, January 16th, 7:00, Chris O'Brien's.

New Chicory Time: 4:00!!!

January's Schedule:

One Friday at The Chicory, January 11 at 4:00.

Two Wednesdays at Chris O'Brien's, January 16 and 30, 7:00.

Contact Charmi at: CAKeranen@yahoo.com

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Note to writers' group: Sam Sheridan reads from his memoir A Fighter's Heart on Wed. 1/30. Maybe you can have your meeting there!

Quote of the Day: Vivan Gornick

"Every work [of literature] has both a situation and a story. The situation is the context or circumstance, sometimes the plot; the story is the emotional experience that preoccupies the writer: the insight, the wisdom, the thing one has come to say."

Analecta Open Mic, Thurs. 1/17 @ 6:30

Open Mic next Thursday, 1/17 @ 6:30
Third Floor Lounge, Wiekamp

IUSB student writers are invited to read original fiction, poetry, drama, and creative nonfiction--or just to come listen to the work of others. The event is sponsored by Analecta, our literary journal, and is an extra opportunity to submit your work for this year's issue.

All Analecta submissions will also be considered for the Wolfson and English Department writing awards, which will be judged by this year's featured speaker, Brock Clarke, author of the critically acclaimed novel, An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England.

A Challenge: Gertrude Stein

Gertrude Stein, "What are Master-pieces and why are there so few of them" (1936):

"The tradition has always been that you may more or less describe the things that happen you imagine them of course but you more or less describe the things that happen but nowadays everybody all day long knows what is happening and so what is happening is not really interesting, one knows it by radios cinemas newspapers biographies autobiographies until what is happening does not really thrill any one, it excites them a little but it does not really thrill them. The painter can no longer say that what he does is as the world looks to him because he cannot look at the world any more, it has been photographed too much and he has to say that he does something else. In former times a painter said he painted what he saw of course he didn't but anyway he could say it, now he does not want to say it because seeing it is not interesting. This has something to do with master-pieces and why there are so few of them but not everything."