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University of North Texas tenure-track assistant professorship in fiction, beginning 9/2009. Prof. David Holdeman, Chair, Department of English. Postmark deadline for applications is October 15.

University of Colorado at Boulder Department of English announces a tenure-track assistant professor position in Creative Writing to begin August 2009. Seeking a poet; especially interested in candidates with a second genre specialty and/or experience in publishing. Review of applications will begin on October 24 & will continue until the position is filled.

The English Department at Washburn University is seeking a poet to join a vital undergraduate writing program with colleagues in fiction and creative nonfiction writing.

Beware the Button Police
by Scott Jaschik
Inside Higher Education
Sept. 24

Sporting an Obama or McCain button? Driving a car with one of the campaigns’ bumper stickers? You might need to be careful on University of Illinois campuses.

The university system’s ethics office sent a notice to all employees, including faculty members, telling them that they could not wear political buttons on campus or feature bumper stickers on cars parked in campus lots unless the messages on those buttons and stickers were strictly nonpartisan. In addition, professors were told that they could not attend political rallies on campuses if those rallies express support for a candidate or political party.

Faculty leaders were stunned by the directives. Some wrote to the ethics office to ask if the message was intended to apply to professors; they were told that it was. At Illinois campuses, as elsewhere, many professors do demonstrate their political convictions on buttons, bumper stickers and the like.

Cary Nelson, a professor at the Urbana-Champaign campus and national president of the American Association of University Professors, said that he believes he is now violating campus policy when he drives to work because he has a bumper sticker that proclaims: “MY SAMOYED IS A DEMOCRAT.”

[Read the rest – along with LOTS of reader comments – on Higher Ed Online.]

Narrative‘s Story of the Week feature this week:

Gargoyle
By Joyce Carol Oates

What to make of loneliness. Can you imagine? Three-fifteen a.m. and you lie spread-eagled in bed in your cocoon of a bed in your ripe swollen cocoon of a body while I drive through the snowy drizzle querying myself about life.

Driving along a deserted boulevard. Yellow street lights high atop slender poles. Rain, snow. Mist. Wind. What to make of loneliness. Not anger, not rage, not the wish to die or even the wish to murder. I’m too exhausted for all that. Just loneliness. What to make of it. Aloneness. Can you hear me? Can you guess? Never. You are eight months pregnant now and lie sleepless beside my lover, your spine aching, your stomach bloated, you are a beached bewildered mammalian creature gasping in the air…

[Read the rest on Narrative]

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The Poetry Project burns like red hot coal in New York’s snow.– Allen Ginsberg

Since its founding in 1966, the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery has been a forum for public literary events and a resource for writers. Over the past 40 years, hundreds of poets, writers and performers, including Allen Ginsberg, John Ashbery, Adrienne Rich, Alice Walker, John Cage, Sam Shepard, Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones), Terri McMillan, Robert Creeley, Alice Notley, Bernadette Mayer, Kenneth Koch, Patti Smith, Yoko Ono, Sherman Alexie, and Michael Ondaatje, have shared their work at the Poetry Project.

With three different reading and performance series a week, plus lectures and special events, the Poetry Project is a vital and hospitable hub for the writing community in New York City. The Poetry Project was the scene of the only joint reading by Robert Lowell and Allen Ginsberg and has been the site of historic memorials to poets Paul Blackburn, Robert Duncan, Charles Reznikoff, Frank O’Hara, Ted Berrigan, Edwin Denby and many others. Staffed completely by poets, the Poetry Project consistently achieves an integrity of programming that challenges, informs and inspires working writers, while remaining accessible to the general public.

Now in its 41st season, the Poetry Project continues to furnish encouragement and resources to poets, writers, artists and performers whose work is experimental, innovative and pertinent to writing that proposes fresh aesthetic, cultural, philosophical and political approaches to contemporary society.

The Poetry Project offers:
A Wednesday night reading series, a Monday night reading/performance series, and a Friday late-evening events series
Four weekly writing workshops
The Recluse, an annual literary magazine
A quarterly Newsletter
Membership in the Poetry Project
A biannual four-day Symposium
Tape and document archives
Special events, such as the Annual New Year’s Day Marathon Reading

A syllabus from a a class taught by David Foster Wallace has been posted by a former student on her blog. Interesting to see in combination with all the responses it has received.

Why is punctuation important Jeff Rubin the Punctuation Man and founder of National Punctuation Day explains that without punctuation you would not be able to express your feelings in writing not to mention know when to pause or stop or ask a question or yell at someone and without punctuation you would not be able to separate independent clauses and show an example of how a business lost millions because of an errant comma so dont forget the most important punctuation mark $$$$$$ OK so a dollar signs isnt a punctuation mark but its important dont you agree

(Editor’s note: Without punctuation, you also can’t show that you have quoted material directly from another source.)

A cool feature on Breavity Magazine – great for teachers – “Essays on the Art and Craft of Creative Nonfiction.” Newest additions include “Tiny Masters: An Artful Trick to Writing the Personal Essay” by Sherry Simpson, and “On Bridging the Distance Between Therapist and Theorist” by Barrie Jean Borich. Three years of articles are archived and availbe on the site (about a dozen), as well as a link to the blog You Gotta Teach This Essay: A blog for those who teach the essay form.

Want to contribute to this feature? Brevity is accepting submissions of craft essays, author Q&A or podcast interview for upcoming issue of Brevity. See the site for more details.

Read Me a Story, Brad Pitt
When audiobook casting goes terribly wrong.
By Nate DiMeo
Slate Magazine
Thursday, Sept. 18, 2008

“…Audiobooks can be spectacular. But too many fine books are still being turned into bad audiobooks; worse still, their producers are making the same mistakes over and over. What follows are the three most common pitfalls—and how to avoid them.”

An insightful article for those interested in making this still-lasting medium for readers/listeners (esp. with easy access to downloads). I know I still enjoy listening to books when I walk, most recently working my way through A Long Way Gone read by author Ishmael Beah. It doesn’t always work to have authors read their own books, just like not every poet is great at public readings, but when you can find the right combination of reader (whether author or not) and text, audiobooks are their own literary magic.

Read the article here.

Posted on Spalding Universities MFA website – of course with their answers – but a helpful list of questions for those new to the pursuit of MFA programs. Not only are the questions important to ask, but so is being able to compare answers and make the right choice for yourself – for this major investment of both time and money. You might very well be able to find the answers on program websites, but if not, making a contact with the program director or faculty in the program with your questions will help them to know what’s important to prospective students. Check out NewPages to Creative Writing Programs in the US to start – or add to – your research. If you don’t see a program listed there, let us know!

From Narrative Magazine: “We love finding and promoting well-written stories from talented writers. Each week a notable story is selected and featured prominently in the Story of the Week column on our Home Page. An announcement of each new Story of the Week goes out to our readers, and the story is eligible for selection as one of the annual Top Five Stories of the Week. The story is also permanently available in our Archive. We accept fiction and nonfiction manuscripts up to 10,000 words in length, from both published and unpublished writers. We would love to see your stories.”

Currently in the story archives are works by Elizabeth Bloom Albert, Tom Grimes, Yuvi Zalkow, and Heather Brittain Bergstrom.

There will also be a “Poem of the Week” feature open for submissions soon!

The Village Voice is taking applications for the fall 2008 Mary Wright Minority Fellowship. The Mary Wright fellowship is a fulltime, three-month writing job with the Voice that provides an opportunity to work alongside veteran Voice journalists. For recent college graduates with impressive clip files who can demonstrate that they have unique story ideas, excellent writing skills and a desire to do non-intuitive, deeply reported stories about New York City.

Online Literacy Is a Lesser Kind
Slow reading counterbalances Web skimming
By Mark Bauerlein
The Chronicle of Higher Educaiton
September 19, 2008

“…Those and other trials by Nielsen amount to an important research project that helps explain one of the great disappointments of education in our time. I mean the huge investment schools have made in technology, and the meager returns such funds have earned. Ever since the Telecommunications Act of 1996, money has poured into public-school classrooms. At the same time, colleges have raced to out-technologize one another. But while enthusiasm swells, e-bills are passed, smart classrooms multiply, and students cheer — the results keep coming back negative.”

New Zealand author Patricia Grace has been awarded the 2008 Neustadt International Prize for Literature at the University of Oklahoma. Grace is the fourth woman to win the prestigious prize, which is given every two years by OU and its magazine World Literature Today.

She has written six novels, five short-story collections and a number of children’s books since the mid-1970s. Her works often describe the everyday life and traditions of Maoris, the indigenous people of New Zealand. Grace received $50,000, a silver eagle feather and a certificate at a ceremony yesterday on campus.

Pending budgetary approval, the English department at the University of Colorado Denver seeks applications for a tenure-track position in creative writing, specialization in poetry. Search committee chairL Dr. Jake York. Initial screening of applications will commence on October 1, 2008.

Northwest Missouri State University seeks to hire a tenure-track assistant professor of English, specializing in creative writing: fiction, with a secondary interest in creative nonfiction, to teach at the beginning, intermediate, & advanced levels, as well as general education classes. Dr. Michael Hobbs, Chair, Department of English. Screening will begin November 1 & will continue until position is filled.

Emory University two-year Creative Writing Fellowship in fiction in lively undergraduate English/Creative Writing Program, beginning fall 2009. Load 2-1, all workshops; $26,000 salary, and health benefits. November 14, 2008 deadline.

Ohio State University Department of English invites applications for a tenure-eligible assistant professor or an early associate professor in creative writing. Valerie Lee, Chair, Department of English. Review of applications will begin on November 3 & continue until the position is filled.

University of Wyoming English Department invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor in nonfiction to join the MFA faculty, appointment to begin in Fall 2009. Beth Loffreda, Director, MFA in Creative Writing. Review of applications will begin November 1.

University of Missouri English Department seeks applications from senior poets for the Miller Family Endowed Chair in Literature & Writing. Patricia Okker, Chair, English Department. Review of applications will begin November 14 & will continue until the position is filled.

Susquehanna University Creative Writing: Assistant Professor of English & Creative Writing, concentration in fiction. Gary Fincke, Director, Writers Institute.

New Mexico State University Assistant Professor of Creative Writing – Poetry. Dr. M

Well, here’s a unique call for submissions: Holly Rose Review is looking for poetry and tattoo photos for its premier issue due up in December. For now it’s a blog site, but will have a website for the actual publication. Believe it or not, Editor Theresa Edwards says it has been difficult getting any tattoo photo submissions. Seriously? Alright ye poets, give a shout out to your neighborhood tattoo artists and get them in on this. More poetry is also welcome, Theresa says, so you can do your part there as well.

Literature Prize, it’s new writers’ turn
By Gregory Austin Nwakunor
Excerpted from Guardian Newspaper

The new generation of Nigerian writers has never had it so good. Since 2004, when the Nigerian Literature Prize was instituted, this is the first time a new writer will mount the podium to receive the country’s most prized literary award.

Only last Thursday, September 4, after months of intensive scrutiny by eminent judges, the Nigeria Prize for Literature committee announced a shortlist of two books, Kaine Agary’s Yellow-Yellow and Jude Dibia’s Unbridled, as potential winners of this year’s Prize.

Both Kaine and Dibia are not only new writers, they were equally born in the 70s. If one of them emerges winner of this year’s award, he or she will walk away with a $50,000 prize money, an increase from last year’s $30,000. [read the rest]

Summer Literary Seminars Kenya is now accepting applications for the 2008 program, December 13-28 in Nairobi and Lamu. SLS produces a blended program of workshops, lectures and unique cultural experiences, and has hosted faculty such as Dave Eggers, George Saunders, Padgett Powell, Denis Johnson, Jayne Anne Phillips, and Binyavanga Wainaina. Academic credit is available through Concordia University. See a list of program activities here.

Poetry Politic: A Blog in 50 Days provides daily political poetry news — from September 15th through November 4th, 2008 — brought to readers “by the citizens at Wave Books.” Thus far on the site “Dream Occupation,” a poem by J.W. Marshall and Muriel Rukeyser’s FBI File – no kidding – the whole thing as a PDF download – as well as links to some of the original works cited in the document. Much more chilling to view than I had at first thought it would be. Certainly a blog worth watching to steel us through these 50 days.

Can intelligent literature survive in the digital age?
The Independent
September 14, 2008

“Is the paper-and-ink book heading the way of the papyrus scroll? Can serious literature survive in the brave new world of web downloads, e-books and ever-shortening attention spans?”

In addition to John Walsh’s commentary on the subject, several experts are called upon to predict the future in “What’s the word?”: Clare Alexander (agent), Sue Thomas (new-media lecturer), Tracy Chevalier (author), Santiago de la Mora (google-guy), Richard Ovenden (librarian), Jeremy Ettinghausen (publisher), Chris Meade (digital convert), and Andrew Cowan (teacher).

Comp/Creative Writing: Illinois Valley Community College, located in North Central Illinois, anticipates filling this position to begin January 2009. Glenna Jones, Director of Human Resources.

The Department of English at Salisbury University is accepting applications for the tenure-track position of Assistant Professor in creative writing specializing in fiction. November 17, 2008.

The English Department of Bowling Green State University seeks applicants for the Arts & Sciences Distinguished Visiting Writer. The successful candidate will be in residence spring 2010; teach one workshop in our BFA program and one workshop in our MFA program; give a reading and a lecture; and advise theses. Dr. Kristine L. Blair. Screening of applicants will begin March 16, 2009 and continue until the position is filled.

The School of Arts and Humanities at The University of Texas at Dallas invites applications for a tenure track position, rank open, in Creative Writing, with an emphasis on prose fiction.

The College of Idaho announces a tenure-track position in environmental literature and creative writing (non-fiction prose) at the Assistant Professor level to begin fall 2009. Application review will begin on November 1.

The Washington College Department of English seeks to hire a tenure-track Assistant Professor with specialization in creative writing (poetry). Dr. Kathryn Moncrief, Chair, English. Applications must be received by Nov. 1, 2008 for full consideration.

University of Central Oklahoma: Teach First-Year Composition classes and serve as Executive Editor of New Plains Review; qualified applicants may teach occasional Creative Writing classes, as needed by the department. Dr. David Macey, English department Chair.

Marshall University tenure-track position; rank open. Ph.D. in Creative Writing required at time of appointment; strong record of creative publication; teaching experience; primary area in creative non-fiction with secondary emphasis in fiction or poetry or literature or screen writing. Donna Spindel, Interim Chair English.

Iowa State University Assistant Professor of English in creative writing. Tenure-track. Beginning August 2009. Accomplished writer in one genre with the ability to teach undergraduate and graduate courses in a second genre for the newly-formed MFA program in Creative Writing and Environment. Interviews with selected candidates may be conducted at the AWP Conference in Chicago (2009). Apply online by November 1, 2008.

San Jose State University, California: Creative Writing – Fiction/Non Fiction. John Engell, Chair, Department of English & Comparative Literarture.

Central Michigan University, Creative Writing: Fiction. Tenure-track position as Assistant Professor of English. Dr. Marcy Taylor, Chair, Department of English Language and Literature. Screening of applications will begin on October 20, 2008, and continue until filled.

Texas State University MFA program invites applications for a tenure-track position in poetry writing. Prof. Tom Grimes, Chair, Poetry Search Committee, Department of English,