Writing And Literature News
A Benefit for CCA Scholarships, An Evening with David Sedaris Raises $150,000
Posted on Friday, January 8, 2010, by Jim Norrena
Award-winning Graphic Design associate professor Bob Aufuldish designed the marketing pieces for An Evening with David Sedaris
California College of the Arts saw countless events and happenings during 2009, yet one event in particular stands out for its remarkable success: An Evening with David Sedaris. CCA's benefit for scholarships, which attracted more than 2,000 attendees to the Marin Center Veterans’ Memorial Auditorium on Thursday, October 29, raised more than $150,000 for students in need—a whopping 50 percent above the goal!
Just how did the college persuade Mr. Sedaris, author of the best-selling books Barrel Fever and Holidays on Ice and the collections of personal essays Naked, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, and When You Are Engulfed in Flames, whose sardonic wit and incisive social critiques have made him one of today’s preeminent humor writers, to participate in the robust fundraiser? Well, Mr. Sedaris and CCA President Stephen Beal are friends, which helped pave the way for the preliminary planning.
“We are thrilled that David came to the Bay Area to help us raise funds for student scholarships,” said Beal. “I have known him for many years, and he is not only one of the funniest and smartest writers working today, but also a former art school student. Proceeds from this event are already providing much-needed financial aid to support talented young artists, architects, designers and writers who are earning their degrees at CCA.”
Friendship aside, however, Mr. Sedaris’s kindness of spirit must also be acknowledged; he donated his time for the benefit, which included reading all-new material at the sold-out $35-per-person reading (sponsored by Bay Area's Book Passage, attending an exclusive $250-per-ticket prereading donors’ cocktail party, and generously signing books before and after the event in the lobby. And fans couldn’t have been happier; no one who wanted an autographed souvenir left disappointed.
The stellar outcome of An Evening with David Sedaris was the result of a culmination of months of preparation and dedicated efforts that involved such noteworthy key players as CCA trustees Kay Kimpton Walker (event chair), Tecoah Bruce, Judy Timken, Noel Perry, and Nancy Forster (responsible for selling multiple $5,000 and $10,000 sponsorships); the collaborative efforts of CCA’s Advancement, Communications, and Student Affairs offices; and the support from Stephen Barclay, Mr. Sedaris’s representative.
Also of note, award-winning Graphic Design associate professor Bob Aufuldish designed the event’s collateral pieces, including the poster, which Mr. Sedaris described as, “The most beautiful poster I’ve seen for any one of my events.”
The donors’ cocktail reception was itself as eclectic as any of Mr. Sedaris’s essays, complete with upside-down Christmas trees affixed to the ceiling of a high-end canopied lounge. Other recognizable tributes to the acclaimed writer included two unique featured cocktails (courtesy of Grey Goose Vodka), fittingly called “Holidays on Ice” and “Barrel Fever.” The wine was generously donated by Muscardini Cellars, thanks to alumnus and former alumni council president Michael Muscardini (BFA Printmaking ’72).
During the evening's program Mr. Sedaris shared his larger-than-life anecdotes delivered in his customary wry style. He introduced new material from a forthcoming book (slated for release this year). The selections ranged from his trademark observations of familial life to hilarious and insightful stories about how we as human beings fail to fully understand our relationship to other life forms such as sea and bird life. Mr. Sedaris's unique talent is his ability to make us laugh at ourselves as well as at the behavior of others.
An Evening with David Sedaris put the fun back in fundraiser, while simultaneously benefiting current and future CCA students with added scholarship funding. See Scholarships to learn more about CCA's financial aid opportunities. Also, the college now offers a convenient way to donate online, where you can designate your tax-deductible donation be used for student scholarships. Be sure to review the donor benefits, too!
ShareCategories: Featured Writing Writing and Literature
Writing and Literature Chair Aimee Phan Awarded 2010 NEA Fellowship
Posted on Friday, December 18, 2009, by Jim Norrena
2009 NEA fellowship awardee Aimee Phan
Book cover, We Should Never Meet, by Aimee Phan (St. Martin's Press, 2004)
CCA Writing and Literature chair and assistant professor Aimee Phan, also an assistant professor in the college’s MFA Program in Writing, has been awarded a $25,000 National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) 2010 Literature Fellowship in Creative Writing.
The NEA Literature Fellowship in Creative Writing has two categories: prose (fiction and creative nonfiction) and poetry—and Phan won in the prose category. The winners were announced in early December. Prose grants are issued to published creative writers and are intended to facilitate future travel and research, as well as to promote individual careers.
Phan's first book, We Should Never Meet (St. Martin's Press 2004), was listed among the 2005 Kiriyama Prize Notable Books in fiction. Media praise for the book included the Los Angeles Times: "Phan charts [these] journeys with acuity, sensitivity, and a wisdom that is remarkable for such a young writer" and Publisher's Weekly: "A graceful, spare debut . . . a wrenching, poignant collection laced with pity and horror."
Born and raised in Orange County, California, Phan's fiction has appeared in Colorado Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Chelsea, Prairie Schooner and Meridian. Her nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times, USA Today, and the Oregonian.
Phan also has to her credit a Maytag Fellowship from the Iowa Writers' Workshop (where she earned her MFA) and a MacDowell Colony Residency.
Related
Visit Aimee Phan's website.
Read her blog: fussyriceseeds.vox.com.
Categories: Featured Writing Writing and Literature
MFA Writing Instructor Holly Payne's Novel a Bay Area Best Seller
Posted on Monday, July 27, 2009, by Jim Norrena
CCA’s MFA Program in Writing adjunct professor Holly Payne has been in the spotlight before, having authored The Virgin’s Knot and The Sound of Blue, but this summer seems to be shining the brightest. The spirited novelist, screenwriter, and writing coach released her third novel, Kingdom of Simplicity, in July—and it's already on the Bay Area best-seller list in the quality paperbacks category!
The release party for the novel took place July 9 at Fort Mason Center in San Francisco. The event doubled as a silent auction benefit for Bay Area–based Litquake, a literary-focused nonprofit responsible for the popular annual Litquake Festival, and included an evening of lively musical performances by Blame Sally. Proceeds from the auction, including 20 percent of book sales, amounted to $2,266.
(Payne was overheard the following day: “Very, very happy to have sent [Litquake] the email to tell them the checks are on their way.”)
The evening attracted hundreds of eager fans who came to hear Payne read from her book and support the literary arts. CCA students, staff, and faculty were spotted in the packed auditorium, including Writing and Literature associate professor Tom Barbash.
Despite its serious subject matter, a noteworthy guffaw did occur during the reading when the author had to stop and address a seemingly abandoned cell phone that was ringing relentlessly. “Could someone please turn off my phone,” Payne pleaded to the bemused crowed. She returned to her reading without missing a beat.
Further enhancing Payne’s local celebrity was an impressive July 8 special to the San Francisco Chronicle and a July 13 appearance on ABC’s View of the Bay, among others. She explained how Kingdom is about second chances, openly sharing her ongoing struggle with issues of anger and forgiveness related to having been struck down by an intoxicated motorist in 1994 and left unable to walk for a year. Kingdom was written, she admits, to address the driver’s past request for her forgiveness.
Although written about an Amish community (the author grew up in Pennsylvania whose Amish population is the second largest in the country), Payne uses Kingdom to tell a story that vicariously allows her to extend forgiveness. Ironically, what ultimately came to light for this talented writer was her need to forgive herself.
Press
Read the complete SFGate article.
Watch ABC’s View of the Bay segment with Holly Payne.
Inside Bay Area / Oakland Tribune
Related
Kingdom of Simplicity page on Facebook
Read about the auction's participants and generous contributions.
Skywriter Series (Holly Payne's Skywriter Ranch writing retreat is coming up in August 9–16!)
[Slideshow photos by Jim Norrena]
Categories: Featured Writing Writing and Literature
An Evening with David Sedaris October 29, 2009
Posted on Thursday, July 16, 2009, by Brenda Tucker
California College of the Arts (CCA) presents An Evening with David Sedaris on Thursday, October 29, 2009, at 8 p.m. at the Marin Center Veterans’ Memorial Auditorium in San Rafael, California. The evening will include a reading from new and unpublished materials, a book signing sponsored by Book Passage, and, for leadership donors to the event, a special cocktail reception with the author. All proceeds benefit scholarships at CCA.
David Sedaris’s sardonic wit and incisive social critiques have made him one of America’s preeminent humor writers and radio commentators. A master of satire, keenly observant of the contemporary human condition, he skillfully slices through cultural euphemisms and political correctness. He is the author of the best-selling books Barrel Fever and Holidays on Ice as well as the collections of personal essays Naked, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, and When You Are Engulfed in Flames. There are seven million copies of his books in print, and they have been translated into 25 languages. His essays also regularly appear in Esquire and the New Yorker, and he is a frequent contributor to National Public Radio’s This American Life.
“We are thrilled to have David come to the Bay Area to help us raise funds for student scholarships,” said CCA President Stephen Beal. “I have known him for many years, and he is not only one of the funniest and smartest writers working today, but also a former art student. With this event we hope to raise $100,000 in much-needed financial aid to support talented young artists, architects, and designers who are earning their degrees at CCA.”
Under the name “The Talent Family,” Sedaris and his sister, Amy Sedaris, have collaborated on the writing of several plays, including Stump the Host, Stitches, One Woman Shoe (which received an Obie Award), Incident at Cobbler’s Knob, and The Book of Liz (which was also published in book form). These have been produced at La Mama, Lincoln Center, and the Drama Department in New York. Sedaris’s latest collection of essays, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, was published in June 2008. In 2001 Sedaris became the third recipient of the Thurber Prize for American Humor. He was named Humorist of the Year by Time magazine in 2001. He has been nominated for Grammy Awards for best spoken-word album (Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim) and best comedy album (David Sedaris Live at Carnegie Hall).
About CCA
Founded in 1907, California College of the Arts is noted for the interdisciplinarity and breadth of its programs. It offers studies in 20 undergraduate and seven graduate majors in the areas of fine arts, architecture, design, and writing. The college offers bachelor of architecture, bachelor of arts, bachelor of fine arts, master of architecture, master of arts, master of fine arts, and master of business administration degrees. With campuses in San Francisco and Oakland, CCA currently enrolls 1,740 full-time students. Noted alumni include the painters Nathan Oliveira and Raymond Saunders; the ceramicists Robert Arneson, Viola Frey, and Peter Voulkos; the filmmaker Wayne Wang; the conceptual artists David Ireland and Dennis Oppenheim; and the designers Lucille Tenazas and Michael Vanderbyl. For more information about CCA, visit www.cca.edu.
CALENDAR EDITORS, PLEASE NOTE:
An Evening with David Sedaris
Date: Thursday, October 29, 2009
Time: 8 p.m (donors’ cocktail party with David Sedaris begins at 5:30 p.m.)
Place: Veterans’ Memorial Auditorium, Marin Center, 10 Avenue of the Flags, San Rafael
Cost $35 (reading and book signing only); $250 (includes donors' cocktail party)
Tickets: For tickets to the donors’ cocktail party, please call 510.594.3776, or visit online giving
Description: An Evening with David Sedaris will include a reading and book signing by David Sedaris, one of America’s preeminent humor writers. All proceeds benefit student scholarships at California College of the Arts.
Categories: Press Releases Writing Writing and Literature
Alumna and Poet Laura LeHew Scores Not One, but Two Publishing Accomplishments
Posted on Tuesday, May 5, 2009, by Jim Norrena
MFA in Writing alumna Laura LeHew's poetry is featured in the anthology Eating Her Wedding Dress
CCA Alumna and poet Laura LeHew (MFA in Writing 2003) is one of 100 contemporary poets being featured in Eating Her Wedding Dress: A Collection of Clothing Poems, published by Ragged Sky Press, which includes other noteworthy local writers and literary luminaries such as Kim Addonizio, Margaret Atwood, Billy Collins, Elaine Equi, Jorie Graham, Maxine Kumin, Paul Muldoon, and Charles Simic. Eating Her Wedding Dress celebrates clothing in its many forms and functions as: desire, ghost, body, poetry, talisman, and transformer of the soul.
Amazon reviewer Michele J. Russo describes the anthology as ". . . artfully composed—each poem took me to a different human experience, all with the theme of clothing tying them together. From the introduction to the last piece, it is a delight. Reading it made me realize how complex our relationship to clothing is, and the very important place it holds in our spiritual and emotional lives."
Ragged Sky Press was founded in 1992 by poet and publisher Ellen Foos (a MacDowell Colony Fellow and a member of Princeton's U.S. 1 Poets' Cooperative) and provides quality works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
Additionally, LeHew's poem "Fandom in Six Acts: With No Intermissions" was accepted for publication by Polu Texni (a Greek phrase meaning many arts). The poem, written in an experimental form, is described by the poet as addressing science fiction fandom.
Categories: Featured Writing Writing and Literature
Curatorial Practice / Visual Studies Faculty Julian Myers Awarded Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant
Posted on Monday, March 23, 2009, by Sarah Owens
Scholar, critic, and curator Julian Myers, PhD, associate professor in the Curatorial Practice and Visual Studies programs, has been selected as a grantee for the Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant Program, a first-of-its-kind program "aimed to honor and encourage writing about art." Julian's proposed book project, Mirror-Travel in the Motor City, is one of 27 projects awarded a portion of the $635,000 total grant.
Myers also is the author of numerous articles, including "Notes Within Capitalism [On Tariq Alvi]" in Art on Paper (winter 2008) and "Totality: A Guided Tour" in Afterall (2009). Other articles have appeared in such publications as Documents, October, and frieze.
Edgar Arceneaux, a Los Angeles–based artist who in 2005 also received the Creative Capital Grant, will coauthor the forthcoming Mirror-Travel in the Motor City. The book will investigate subterranean Detroit with discussions of historical and fictional sites alike, such as Michael Heizer's earthwork Dragged Mass Geometric (1971), Rosa Parks Boulevard (the starting point of Detroit's 1967 racial riot), and Drexciya, a fictional underwater city located in Lake Michigan imagined by two techno musicians in the early 1990s.
Myers and Arceneaux will also explore contemporary art practice in Detroit, including the surrounding discourse, focusing on works by Stan Douglas, the Shrinking Cities project, architect Kyong Park, and Mitch Cope.
Myers' works focus on earthworks, American spatial politics, the social and political dynamics of consumer society, and sociohistorical frameworks for contemporary art. He also teaches at the San Francisco Art Institute. He has been working with Arceneaux on Mirror-Travel in the Motor City since traveling together to Detroit in 2006 and again in 2007.
"Spurred on by these visits, the project came to think about a large constellation of subjects, linked by the ideas of drawing, dragging, burial, guerrilla monuments, and history," Julian explains. "These [subjects] included urbanism, the patterns of African and African American migration, forms of labor and urban divestment, and the powerful forms of Afro-futurism that have emerged from Detroit's particular vision of modernism—in particular from the techno scene: Underground Resistance, Submerge, Drexciya, and a song by Etta James and Sugar Pie DeSanto, called 'In the Basement.'"
Myers has been interested in Detroit since his doctoral research at UC Berkeley in 2005–06, which was as a book-length study on earthworks, called No-places. Myers and Arceneaux have twice publicly presented on Mirror-Travel in the Motor City, in San Francisco and New York.
The Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant Program is in its third year of a pilot phase. After the success of this initial phase the organization has announced the renewal of the grant program for another five-year period. Grants range from $7,000 to $50,000 and are categorized by type: articles, books, short-form writing, and blogs / new and alternative media. Grants are intended to support projects that address both general and specialized art audiences.
All 27 grant recipients were selected based on their dual commitment to the craft of writing and the advancement of critical discourse on contemporary visual art.
For more information about Mirror-Travel in the Motor City, visit the Arts Writers Grant Program website.
Categories: Curatorial Practice Featured Visual Studies Writing Writing and Literature
Prestigious Schaeffer Fellowship in Poetry Awarded to MFA Writing Student
Posted on Thursday, October 23, 2008, by Jim Norrena
Hard work and artistic vision paid off for Andy Nicholson (MFA Writing 2008) who was awarded the 2008 Schaeffer Fellowship in poetry
Congratulations to Andy Nicholson, 2006 graduate of CCA's MFA Program in Writing, who is a recipient of the Schaeffer Fellowship in poetry. This fall he began the PhD in English program at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV).
UNLV's PhD in English with a creative dissertation focuses on English and American literature with the goal of preparing students to pursue writing careers—be they instructional at the college or university level or based in editing or publishing. The Atlantic heralded the program as among the top five in the nation.
Initiated in 2001, the highly competitive Schaeffer Fellowship is disbursed over a three-year period. It includes a $50,000 stipend, $25,000 for graduate teaching assistance, and 100 percent tuition remission. The cumulative net worth amounts to $87,000.
The university awards two Schaeffer Fellowships each year: one in poetry, the other in fiction. Each is intended "to support emerging writers of promise." (Review where past Schaeffer Fellows have had their work published.)
As a requirement, candidates for the PhD in English with a creative dissertation must hold an MA in English or MFA in creative writing. Additionally, only Schaeffer Fellowship awardees are admitted to the PhD program. The fellowship is designed to help students build on their existing literary education by having them further explore distinct areas of study: historical, genres, major figures, as well as various subjects in creative writing.
Read the complete description (PDF) of the PhD in English with a creative dissertation program, including requirements for admission.
Read about the MFA in Writing Program, including the impressive lineup of authors who will lecture at CCA as part of the program's Writers' Series.
Categories: Featured Writing Writing and Literature
CCA Alum Wayne Wang Directs Films Based on Yiyun Li's Short Stories
Posted on Friday, October 3, 2008, by Jim Norrena
Director Wayne Wang filming A Thousand Years of Good Prayers (Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.)
(Yiyun Li will speak at CCA as part of the MFA Writers' Series on November 21 at 3:30 p.m. in the Writers' Studio.)
In a recent interview with CCA alum and celebrated writer/director/producer Wayne Wang (The Center of the World, The Joy Luck Club, Smoke), who has been making films for the past 30 years (starting when still a student at CCA) and who has remarkable influence on aspiring Asian filmmakers, he discussed his recent departure from Hollywood big films to focus more on smaller, independent films:
"I got on this treadmill of studio movies and I had fun, made a lot of good money, but I was having a hard time getting off of it so I sort of consciously just got off and said, 'How can I go back to some of my own films, independent films dealing with the Chinese in America again?' I found first of all one of the big changes with the Chinese community here is that there are a lot more new immigrants from China, and second, I found Yiyun Li's book, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers. There were two stories that I really liked in there, so I ended up . . . making two films." (Read the full interview with Wayne Wang.)
Two stories indeed. "A Thousand Years of Good Prayers" and "The Princess of Nebraska" are each featured in Li's award-winning collection of short stories, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, which impressed Wang.
Oakland-based Yiyun Li's debut collection of short stories won the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, PEN/Hemingway Award, Guardian First Book Award, and California Book Award for first fiction. She was recently selected by Granta as one of the Best Young American Novelists.
Li grew up in Beijing and came to the United States in 1996. Her stories and essays have been published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Zoetrope: All-Story, Ploughshares, The Gettysburg Review, Glimmer Train, Prospect, and elsewhere. She has received grants and awards from Lannan Foundation and Whiting Foundation.
So it's not so surprising that a director as talented as Wang would recognize talent in a writer like Li.
Li was able to work extensively on the screenplay for Thousand Prayers (Magnolia Pictures); however, she was knee-deep working on her first full-length novel, and thus less involved in the film production of "The Princess of Alaska," which Wang codirected with Richard Wong under the same title.
The films had a back-to-back screening (as a single feature) at the 2008 Toronto Film Festival. Then Thousand Prayers opened the 2008 International Asian Film Festival. But it was only recently that Thousand Prayers had its theatrical release opening at the Lincoln Plaza Cinemas in New York September 19. (Interestingly, in France the two films were released simultaneously with theater venues offering viewers a choice of either or both.)
However, nowadays when a film releases is less intriguing as how it releases: on October 17 YouTube's Screening Room will air the U.S. premiere of The Princess of Nebraska, also from Magnolia Pictures. (Watch the exclusive YouTube Princess of Nebraska trailer.)
Much like the subject matter of either short story, Wang hopes the innovative release strategy will serve multiple audiences, thus uniting different generations and cultures—be it symbolically or otherwise.
"A Thousand Years of Good Prayers is classical and is being distributed classically," Wong says. "It's about an older generation. The Princess of Nebraska is about a new generation. It's shot in a very contemporary way. It was very guerrilla style, and we used a lot of cell phone stuff, and it made sense for [the film] to go to the Internet." (Listen to the complete NPR interview. Approximately five minutes.)
Categories: Featured Writing Writing and Literature
Eleven Eleven, Volume 5, Now Available
Posted on Tuesday, September 16, 2008, by Jim Norrena
Eleven Eleven, volume 5, is CCA's annual journal of literature and art
On September 15, 2008, the fifth volume of Eleven Eleven, the annual journal of literature and art at California College of the Arts, became available to booksellers through Small Press Distribution.
The journal also can be ordered directly by emailing eleveneleven@cca.edu.
Eleven Eleven, volume 5, is our largest issue ever, features writing by Cecco Angiolieri, Alfred Arteaga, Abby Baker, Aaron Belz, Terry Bisson, Michael Reid Busk, Blake Butler, Jodie Childers, Hannah Craig, Richard de Nooy, Erik Ehn, Jill Alexander Essbaum, Rebecca Morgan Frank, Andy Frazee, Elisa Gabbert, Carrie Hunter, Steven Karl, Katoh Ikuya, Chris Kerr, Bill Lavender, Juan J. Morales, Simone Muench and Philip Jenks, Sarah O'Brien, Pilar Olabarria, Benjamin Parzybok, Barbara Jane Reyes, Lisa Robertson, Elizabeth Robinson, Sarah Sarai, Jordan Scott, Xu Smith, Carol Snow, Jack Spicer, Nicole Steinberg, Nathaniel Tarn, Rachel Tompa, Rodrigo Toscano, Daniel J. Vaccaro, St. Johnnie Walker, Robert Wexelblatt, Andrew Zawacki and Jan Zwicky.
The most recent publication features images by Kirsten Stolle and "Open End Kiss," a project by the MFA Program in Social Practices.
Eleven Eleven, volume 5, was edited by MFA in Writing faculty member Hugh Behm-Steinberg, along with MFA writing students David Aloi, Diane Berry, Autumn Heath, Michael Pakes, and Lauara Quezadaz.
Visit Eleven Eleven for more information.
Categories: Featured Writing Writing and Literature
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