Fall Recap

The end of autumn.  It’s been a busy semester.  The student group I advise has created an awesome new online literary magazine called “jenny”.  I posted about this a little over a month ago, and now the site is live.  We had a launch party with over a hundred people in attendance at Dorian Books on the Northside this past week, and presented the site and held excerpt readings from those writers in the issue who were local or who traveled to be at the launch.  It was an awesome evening, and the magazine has been well-received so far.  We’ve received a lot of support in the local community and people from other states and even countries (!) have sent us email saying how much they like the magazine.  We have probably a 75/25 ratio of local or regional writers to writers from the wider world in this issue, and hope to bring it to a 50/50 balance as we continue to produce more issues.  One of the main goals in the magazine is to bridge the local with the global, if possible.  I keep hearing that we live in a global world–it’s all over the internet and in magazines and newspapers, right?  But I also keep hearing this call for local cultures to be lived in, embraced, encouraged, from buying locally grown food to growing a local literary culture.  Jenny will hopefully serve to be a bifocal lens, through which we can see the local and the global in one place.  Do take a look at the first issue.  It’s really beautifully designed and I think we’re going to just keep getting better.  You can read it at www.jennymag.org.  For those readers of my blog who love SF, at least three or four of the stories in this issue should ring some of your bells.

Otherwise, my fall was busy for reasons beyond launching a new magazine.  Classes, classes, and more classes.  Lots of local events to attend and support.  I remember a time in my life not long ago when I had buckets of free time to sit within and dream for hours, but that seems like another life to me right now.  I’m looking forward to the winter break to rejuvenate and replenish my well.

I was also busy, though, because I did some rewriting on the novel I’d finished a first draft of this past summer, and I started writing a new one not long after.  A young adult novel.  I’m three chapters in and really having so much fun with it.  Not going to say much about what it’s about, though, until I get further in.  Mum’s the word for now.

Soon my Map for a Forgotten Valley series of flash nonfiction or meditations or vignettes (I’m not sure what to call them) will be published by the New Haven Review and Muse (in December, I believe), so I’ll be popping back in here to point you in the right direction soon.

Last week of classes this week.  I’m pumped for the holiday break, but I’ll also, as always, be sad to not see some of these people I’ve spent the last fifteen weeks with as often or possibly ever again.  It’s weird, being a teacher, getting close to people quickly, lots of people, and then saying goodbye to the majority of them four months later.  And then, a month after that, starting up that same process all over again.