Justus’s Faculty Blog

Reprinted here for your amusement is the spammy email I just sent out reminding people of a looming deadline:

Hello, friends of Building 45!

For the spring issue of Building 45 (Chemeketa’s online literary/arts publication), we’re soliciting submissions for what we like to call a “contest.” Don’t worry: you’re not in danger of winning anything.

Anyone* can enter, and the rules are simple.

In 100 words or fewer, simply respond to the following question:

“Who cares?”

That’s it. To submit your entry, visit our Who Cares Submission web page.

The deadline for submissions is May 3, 2009.

Also, for those who are interested in passing the information along to students, the deadline for regular submissions to the spring issue of Building 45 is May 3, 2009. You can find our regular submission guidelines here.

As always, we’re looking for poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, video, music, art, photography, and anything else that can be digitally reproduced and accessed via the magic of the InterWebs.

And, as always again, you can view our winter issue here.

Thanks for reading, and if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

Justus Ballard
Managing Editor, Building 45

*By “anyone,” we mean students, faculty, staff, other unnamed employee categories, and any living person who may or may not be affiliated with Chemeketa Community College.

Here’s the flyer, which you may have seen around campus:

From the publisher’s blurb:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies features the original text of Jane Austen’s beloved novel with all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie action.

I know you’ve been putting off reading Jane Austen for many years now. But you really don’t have any more excuses, do you?

Just a reminder, folks:

The deadline for submitting to Issue 2 of Building 45 is Monday, January 26.

Celebrating the Ordinary

A reading and workshop with poet and carpenter Clem Starck

Download the flyer.

Workshop:

Saturday, Feb 7, 8:30am to 4:30pm
Chemeketa Building 3, Room 118
Includes poetry, snack, and lunch

Readings:

Friday, Feb 6, 11:30am
Chemeketa Multicultural Center, Building 2

Friday, Feb 6, 7:00pm
Blue Pepper Cafe, 247 Commercial SE, Salem, OR

Some people are built for blogging on a regular basis. I am obviously not one of those people.

It’s not that I’m shy about sharing my random, interminable musings with the world. Rather, I think I have TOO MANY opportunities to do so, and so blogging seems somewhat redundant.

First, I carpool from Portland to Salem and back again. It’s not a long drive; in fact, it often takes less time than it used to take me to get across town when I lived in Los Angeles. However, those hours add up, and I spend plenty of time airing my views on anything at all to people who are as sick of the scenery as I am.

Next, I teach. Five classes this term, two online and two face-to-face. Which means I get to spout off in front of students for a substantial portion of the day. And they, being students, have to listen to me, even if I get tired and start talking about 1) the time when my cousin tried to lasso my grandpa’s dog, and 2) how the literary tradition of the bildungsroman might relate to the films of the Coen brothers. (Just to take an example from today’s class…)

Finally, in my spare time not teaching or commuting, I make artsy-type things. There’s not much of an audience for the sorts of things I produce as an artist, but even so, it still counts as an avenue of expression.

I’m not even mentioning my poor wife and cats, who constantly have to listen to me (or at least have to be in an adjacent room while I’m muttering).

Looking over this list, it appears obvious to me that I am communicating WAY too much. Which makes me feel me feel much less guilty about the irregularity of these blog posts. Phew.

Remember two weeks ago, when I was in the middle of grading the first batch of WR121 essays? How I said, “I’ll have more to say about this shortly”?

I guess I lied. Here it is, November 1, and I’m once again in the middle of grading a big stack of WR121 essays. After about three weeks into a term, my definition of “I’ll get to that shortly” changes substantially. During the summer, “shortly” usually means “a day or two.” During the school year, as I keep assigning essays, and students keep writing those essays and turning them in, and I keep grading those essays and handing out assignments for new essays, and students keep writing those new essays and turning them in, and–you get the point, right?–anyway, during the school year, the definition of “shortly” becomes entirely relative to what week of the term we’re in.

For instance, if I say during week three that I’ll get to something shortly, I mean “in eight weeks, after I’m done grading the final portfolios.” If I say the same thing in week seven, I mean “in four weeks, after I’m done grading the final portfolios.”

I suppose I should just strike the word “shortly” from my vocabulary for the duration of the school year.

I’m in the homestretch of grading the first big batch of essays from my WR121 courses. I’ll have more to say about this shortly, but in the meantime, please enjoy:

Leonard Nimoy singing “Ballad of Bilbo Baggins”

There are many benefits to carpooling; one of them is that the conversation can remind you of forgotten gems from yesteryear such as that song.

I just got a question from a creative writing student that usually doesn’t show up until much, much later in the term. There are some questions that we teachers hear all the time, and over the course of our teaching careers we develop stock answers. I think I’ve answered these questions better in the past, but for the sake of posterity (and anyone reading this blog who might be interested) here are my responses:

In terms of getting someone to look at your work, the best advice I have is to write some short fiction and send it to any literary journal you think might be interested. Of course, that involves researching all the literary journals across the country, especially the small ones… it’s time consuming, and there’s a massive amount of rejection, but if you keep writing and submitting, you’ll eventually start to get publication credits. After you get a few things published, you then have something to show publishing houses: “Hey, look, someone not related to me thought my stories were good enough to publish.” That’s kind of how the industry works. Unless you happen to find yourself in a position to make friends with a famous writer with connections or an editor at a publishing house (that also works).

I do have a suggestion for someone who would one day like to become a full-time author: marry someone rich, so you either don’t have to work or can work a part-time job, and can spend all your time writing. Barring that, you might try winning the lottery. But there’s only one real piece of advice: if you really want it, don’t give up. That’s harder than it sounds. First, you have to accept the fact that you might never be a full-time author. Next, you have to accept that you might work all your life pursuing a dream only to end up dying without that dream coming true. Finally, you have to decide that even if your dreams never come true and you never end up publishing anything, you still want to write because you love writing and can’t live without it.

And as for the challenges of making ends meet between publications: most authors aren’t full-time writers. Only the big ones who sell millions of books and have those books turned into movies. Most publishing authors, even highly respected ones, do other work, even if it’s just part-time (teaching’s pretty popular).

Pretty depressing, right? The best thing you can do after reading this is think to yourself, “That Ballard guy is full of crap. I’m going to be a successful novelist.”

Good news, everybody!

Celebrated Portland author Monica Drake (who wrote Clown Girl) will be visiting Chemeketa for a reading and a fiction workshop.

You can check out the postcard designed by Chemeketa’s VisComm students here.

And for those of you who would like to click through links but just don’t have the time, here’s the vital information:

The readings are free. The workshop costs $125 (lunch is included!), and you need to preregister using CRN 38712. Spaces are limited.

WORKSHOP
“Stolen Truth: Bringing Your Life into Fiction”

An interactive workshop with craft talk, writing time, examples, feedback, and more. No experience or prior writing necessary; just bring your memories and a pen. Saturday, November 8, 8:30am - 4:30pm
Multicultural Center, Building 2

READINGS

Friday, November 7, 11:30-12:20
Multicultural Center, Building 2

Friday, November 7, 7:30pm
Blue Pepper Cafe, 241 Commercial St NE
503-371-4600

Last year, the poets seemed to have a pretty good time at the Lawson Inada workshop. Those poets. Always having fun.