Ben Costa (MFA Writing 2008) recently received a Xeric Grant. The Xeric Grant provides financial support for up-and-coming self-publishing comic book creators.

The Xeric Foundation is a private, nonprofit corporation established by Peter A. Laird, cocreator of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Planet Racers.

Costa’s awarded project, Shi Long Pang, is a historical fiction/fantasy about a wandering Shaolin monk in 17th-century China. You can read portions of the comic online at his blog.

Seven Sacraments
Deconstructed Artichoke Press, 2009
Chapbook, n.p., $7

This chapbook of prose poems by Nikki Thompson (MFA Writing 2002) recounts the author's experiences as a working-class Jewish student at an affluent Catholic school. Thompson says, "Both my working process and my artist's books consist of layers and layers that must be picked at, like the leaves of an artichoke with a heart at the center." Deconstructed Artichoke's production occurs either in a living room with a terrific view of downtown or on a red Formica kitchen table in a San Francisco apartment. The letterpress printing happens in a Berkeley carriage house with a rich printing history and many small critters.

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.

Read the web feature.

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!