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July 29th, 2016

7/29/2016

“Dad’s Few Words”

            My dad, George Zarzana, was a man of few words. It was partly his upbringing, partly his way. He spoke when necessary. And when he spoke, he commanded attention.
I’ve been thinking a good deal of him lately for a variety of reasons. I’ve been retired from fulltime teaching for over a year. Within a month of his retirement, dad was diagnosed with an incurable disease, myelofibrosis, a leukemia-like blood and bone marrow disorder that took him three years later. Last November, on the anniversary of his death, I had outlived him. At times, my thoughts settle on that reality.
            My dad also comes to mind when I think of Notre Dame and my graduate studies there. Some of the most frank and direct words he spoke to me were about Notre Dame.
            A quintessential subway alum although he lived in Sacramento, California, dad never had a chance to sit in the stands and witness a game live. Yet he was a devotee of the Fighting Irish as much as any Domer. His four sons all earned college degrees but none from ND. We attended Catholic colleges in California; he was immensely proud of our achievements.
He had a two-year night degree in accounting earned from a junior college in the 1930s. Even later with the GI Bill, he never had the chance for more education than that. Hard-working, proud, stubborn, he possessed a mind that could mentally calculate numbers faster than any computer. A son of Sicilian immigrants, a young man during the Depression, a member of the Greatest Generation, he never had the opportunity to achieve anything beyond a mid-level, desk-bound state job.
He had a unique parenting style, too, while raising four sons. When my brothers and I were fighting, he’d begin the Fight Song in a low, gravely, ominous voice. As combatants, we had until “Shake down the thunder” to quit or face the consequences.
            And when it came to Notre Dame, degree or no, he remained a loyal son. On autumn Saturdays, he’d dig in the garden with a radio tuned to the Fighting Irish. This was long before cable and regular national TV broadcasts. He hardly missed a game back in those radio-only days.
During the 1973 Sugar Bowl against the Tide, my parents were at a formal dance. Dad called me several times for score updates as I watched the game. This was before mobile phones and ubiquitous flat screens. He had to drop dimes into a payphone for those updates, but he hung on that game as much as anyone in the stands.
            I taught high school in our hometown during the 1977-78, my last year on the secondary level. Dad was already well into the final years of his life. We didn’t know that at the time, of course, and more to the point, we didn’t speak about it. I lived at home to help Mom with him. My three brothers all had settled lives and careers. I was the one free enough to move back home ostensibly “to save money for graduate school” but really because it was expected. Never discussed, but expected.
            A future doctoral program was vaguely out there somewhere. I had sent out ten applications, mostly to schools on the West Coast. At that time, I couldn’t imagine living anywhere east of I-5, at least not after my down-the-way doctorate was completed. In my mind, I would be studying somewhere in California or Oregon or Washington and then be back teaching college somewhere in California. It all made perfect hazy sense. I had applied to a few distant Midwest programs but more as an unnecessary backup plan.
            Dad’s illness was such that he would have periods of relative health followed by periods of decline. He never fully made it back to the previous level of health after each medical crisis; some entailed trips to the ER, and some ended with days in the hospital. He once became severely dehydrated and jaundiced; this led to the removal of his spleen and a touch-and-go recovery.
            His steady decline was obvious. His ongoing blood disorder gave him a pasty, sickly complexion, took his appetite, and left him in a general malaise. His weight loss was clearly noticeable. After a steep decline in general health and spirits, he’d get a transfusion of several pints of blood that gave him some renewed vigor for a few weeks, but then his decline came on again.
            My area of expertise is British literature not medicine, but I knew enough to see the signs. They offered no encouragement. This downward spiral went on for three years.
And yet we did not talk of it.
            In January, 1978, he and I often sat in our living room with the TV on. He glanced at the set over the newspaper or a novel. I graded quizzes or worked on lesson plans. We both became transfixed by the pictures of the Great Notre Dame Blizzard of ’78. Who wouldn’t be? The day after the onslaught of snow that left the campus white and featureless, the Dome stood golden in the sun. Having an NBC affiliate right on campus allowed viewers from all over the country to witness these spectacular scenes of the shrouded grounds. (Turns out, unbeknownst to us, Marianne, my future wife, was a senior, snowbound in her dorm after that storm.)
            I had applied to the Notre Dame Graduate English Program by that time but never intended to go there. I was sure I’d be at Cal or UCLA or at least UC Davis. (Never USC, trust me.) I had a solid MA from Sacramento State, four years of high school teaching, plus a substantial set of educational experiences that showed how ready I was for those last rungs of academe.
            As a boy, the TV show West Point was my favorite. I remember that whenever a cadet was disciplined, he had to march a courtyard, stepping off back and forth, back and forth. Every week it seemed, another cadet was in trouble, and the camera showed the same montage. Starting off on dry pavement, then stepping through blowing dead leaves, then rain, and then snow. Back and forth. I’d say to myself, Who’d want to live where it snows?
            I was 25 before I first saw snow on the ground in my native Sacramento—only a dusting which melted by 10 a.m.
            So here Dad and I were, watching the ND campus under that deep, cold blanket, and I made the same plaintive remark: “Who’d ever want to live in that weather? Who’d ever want to live there?”
            “You’re going to go to Notre Dame!” my dad announced. It wasn’t an invitation to discuss the matter. It was a statement of purpose. Of irrefutable fact. Gandhi declared, “India shall be free.” Martin Luther King stated, “We shall overcome.” George Zarzana made it clear: “You’re going to go to Notre Dame!”
            The Spring came on. The rejections poured in. Cal, UCLA, Washington—the whole West Coast—nixed me. I was destined to leave California. It came down to St. Louis U and Notre Dame, both accepted me. Dad settled that: “You’re going to go to Notre Dame!”
            That August, I packed my car and headed east to South Bend.
*
            I returned home for the summer after my first year in Indiana and knew my dad couldn’t go on much longer. But still we didn’t speak of it. Once I did mention that he and mom ought to talk to the hospital chaplain about “things,” he snapped, “What’s wrong? What’s going to happen?” My suggestion went nowhere.
            Thanksgiving my second year at ND brought on Dad’s final crisis. That gray November day in 1979, when we spoke long distance for the last time, he shared one of the most direct declarations he had ever made to me about his condition. “Look,” he began in a weakened voice over the phone, “if anything happens to me, don’t think you have to come home to take care of your mother. She’ll be fine. You make sure and finish at Notre Dame.”
            “What’s going to happen to you?” I asked, pretending not to but knowing the answer to the question neither of us wanted to discuss.
            “Nothing is going to happen to me. But your mother will be fine. She’ll take care of herself, don’t worry. You just stay at Notre Dame and finish.”
            I never spoke to him again after that Thursday evening. He went into a coma on Saturday. By Tuesday morning when I got back to Sacramento, he had already died.
*
            I never had the chance to get Dad out to a game and see the campus. I met my wife, Marianne Murphy, more than a year later. Our daughter, Elaine, was born six years almost to the day after his death.
            He’s been gone over 37 years, and yet, hardly a day passes that I don’t think of him.
            And of course, any mention of Notre Dame brings him to mind. “You’re going to go to Notre Dame!” Commanding words from the man of few words. In his own way, tender, strong and true.

Top photo: Mom and dad when they announced their engagement, 1941, Sacramento, California.
Bottom photo: Dad near the end of his life, about 1973 or 1974.

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Wild Geese

6/9/2016

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“Wild Geese”

            “Are any of you ‘wild geese?’” the tour guide asked his gaggle of listeners on a busy Dublin street in the summer of 2009. He used the term to mean anyone of Irish descent whose family emigrated away from Ireland. My wife raised her hand. A Murphy, an Ahern, and an O’Connell, she claimed the distinction, as did about half the group.
            Originally, the term “wild geese” applied only to young men who fled Ireland to serve as soldiers for Catholic monarchs as the British Crown made it tougher and tougher for the Irish to feel at home and Catholic in their own land. These escaping Irishmen fought at various times for the kings of Spain, France, even Poland. Many others traveled to the United States, Canada, and Australia, although the vast majority went only as far as England. Liverpool is a short ferry ride from Dublin compared to a crossing of the dangerous North Atlantic. Paul McCartney and John Lennon are descendants of expatriates from Ireland who dominate Liverpool to this day.
            I write all this because I watched Brooklyn the other night. Actually, I watched it twice. I’d rented it on one of those five-night deals and so viewed it a second time before returning it. Part of my obsession with this film is how much the story resonates with Marianne, my wife, and me.
            The main character, Eilis Lacey, (pronounced Ay-lish) comes directly from Ireland to Brooklyn in 1951 and is several generations closer to her homeland than Marianne is to her ancestral home. And Tony Fiorello, a first-generation Italian-American born in NYC, is more like my parents’ generation than mine. Still, their love story parallels ours. It is is one of making a new home when the old home is no longer possible.
            I was an expat of sorts, one of those many wild geese, because I had moved from California to South Bend, Indiana, leaving behind so much of the life I had there. I left a close family, good friends, a satisfying job. I was on this insane quest to earn a PhD in English literature and start anew. Until I got to Notre Dame in August 1978, I did not fully realize that anew meant alone.
            I really was not comfortable at Notre Dame until Marianne entered my life. I met her after three years, much longer than it took Eilis to meet Tony in the film. But like Eilis, I had to endure a death back home. My father died when I was three semesters in. I was 29. It was and remains the most disorienting event in my life. And during those three preceding years before Marianne, I spent as much time as possible in Sacramento trying to build a life in two places.
            All these ideas came together in my mind as I watched and re-watched Brooklyn. The strongest theme in the movie, it seems to me, is that love makes a home, not location. Eilis finds love, deep and true love. That’s what holds her. That’s what gives her a new home.
            When I found Marianne, I felt I was making a home in Indiana. Soon our dating turned into an engagement, which meant we began setting our course to create a home together wherever the job market and fate took us. Together. Home. Two of us, or three, or more—we did not know when we were first planning and dreaming. We only knew we were doing this together.
            One last thought ties in to all this.
            In April, Marianne and I traveled to LA to attend an annual conference, the premier gathering of creative writers nationally. I heard several fine readers and panels. I reconnected with former students, many of them now professors themselves. Of all the panels I attended, the one that hit me hardest was on the need to give up your “hometown” when you move away. Make your spot your home and write.
            One panelist was a NYC man who ended up at a Michigan university. At first as a young prof, every break he had, he spent it back in New York City as though he did not want to sever that link. He sought an authentic New York bagel every few months, to keep himself a New Yorker, not a Midwestern. In the end, a financial advisor told him to stop going to New York, use that money to buy a cabin in northern Michigan, and “go to your cabin and write.”
            When I heard that vignette, I wrote in my notes, “Get to your office and write.” I’m not likely to buy a cabin at the lake in Minnesota, but I have a wonderful office in our home. And here is where I need to be. Because, like the Michigan/New York prof, I was a Minnesota/ California prof. My heart and mind remained in Sacramento for far too long.
            At the close of that panel, one speaker summed up their collective epiphanies about giving up their hometowns. Those towns had changed. And these writers’ roots had been driven deep where they were now living. Besides, their hometowns of memory had become like that former girlfriend you every once in a while wonder about, thinking what if I’d married her and not my wife. But, as the panelist explained, that former girlfriend has aged too. She’s not there anymore. She’s part of your memory.
            So too with place.
            And really, it’s time that changes everything, not space. I have the financial ability to fly to Sacramento any time I want. But I have only a few friends there now. A few relatives. My parents are gone. Only one of my brothers still lives there. No one knows me at the high school where I taught. The other high school where I worked is closed—the campus currently used as a California State juvenile detention center.
            That old expression is so true: there is no there there anymore.
            And so, in a sense we’re all wild geese even if we haven’t moved more than a block from where we grew up. It’s time that separates us from our past more than distance. Time is the greatest distance, not miles. And for those unfortunate enough to not know this or accept this—as was the case with me for years—then the opportunity to have a home right here, right now, is passing us all by.
            Home is where we love. It’s not what we remember or pine for. We will always be connected to that place and those times and those people we loved there, but we have to face up to the reality that we must connect with the people and place who surround us now.
            It’s a hard lesson for many to learn, but we live now, not then, and not in what’s next. If we are not living now, we are not living fully. It all takes place in the present. “For we are here, and the time is now.”
A point we all must learn, especially since we are all wild geese.
***
Picture: Eilis learning to eat spaghetti by twirling it without splashing the tomato sauce.

   ***
Marianne passes the test of eating like an Italian. May 2015 in Modena, Italy.

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Two Sacramento Writers

4/27/2016

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   Two Sacramento Writers

            Willa Cather once wrote that authors should write about what they knew at 15. Where they lived, where they grew up. They should speak of the living Earth they knew in their youth. That particular place where writers grew up never leaves them. They know its moods, its ways, its smells and sounds. Its unique history and its stories. Its secrets and its longings.
            This brings me to a point about a friend from Sacramento—Father Steven Avella. We’re alike in so many ways. As his name suggests, he’s Italian-American as I am. We are both proud products of the Diocese of Sacramento’s school system.
            He is a professor, as I was until my retirement. He teaches at Marquette University in Milwaukee in their History Department. That’s a D-1 school, and I’m not talking about sports leagues. It graduates PhD holders, not just those with bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Big league, to be sure, for a professor.
            Steve earned his PhD from Notre Dame. In fact, our graduate careers crossed there for a few semesters. My initial time in South Bend was while he was finishing; I had taught high school before starting ND. It was great to chat about Sacramento with him, especially during my first winter when I thought hell had frozen over and fallen down on South Bend. And that winter was the one after the famous Blizzard of ’78, a mammoth storm that closed Notre Dame and all of South Bend—the one of legend, as embellished as any Rockne story.
            Besides our Italian heritage, degrees, and professions, we hold another similarity.
            Sacramento is in our blood. Father Steve has written three academic works: The Good Life: Sacramento’s Consumer Culture plus Sacramento and the Catholic Church: Shaping a Capital City. Both would make Cather happy because she is absolutely correct about what a writer knows. His latest and third work, Charles McClatchy and the Golden Era of American Journalism, delves into Sacramento lore again.
            For those of you not up on your history of journalism, Sacramento, and California generally, McClatchy is a significant figure. The McClatchy family owned many newspapers throughout California. I read the Sacramento Bee every day when I lived there. I still check it online. Even my neighborhood high school was named for that powerful dynasty—McClatchy High School. I went across town to Bishop Armstrong, now Christian Brothers—part of my Catholic upbringing in the late 50s and 60s.
            When I got my copy of Steve’s latest work, I thought of Cather’s prescient remark.
            Some of you have read Book I of The Marsco Saga, The Marsco Dissident. No plot spoiler here, but it starts in the year 2092 in Sac City, what my future Sacramento is called in the late 21st Century. My main character is “from” Sacramento and has settled there after living on Mars. As the novel begins, he has been back home again for the past ten years.
            Book II, Marsco Triumphant, begins in Sac City. A troubled Sac City on the verge of unrest and witnessing draconian measures to prevent any further strife.
            This Spring, after launching Book II, I began editing my draft of The Marsco Sustainability Project, the third novel of the four-novel set. Chapter One is not set in Sacramento, but many of the central actions takes place once more in Sac City.
            I now live in Minnesota as I have for nearly 27 years. In a few years, I will have lived longer in Marshall than I lived in Sacramento as a boy and young man. I plan on setting a novel here in this town; I’ve written pages about the plot and the characters. All these characters will be transplants, like myself, who came to my fictional Marshall (“Milton, Minnesota” in this work) to teach at a fictional state college in my fictional part of the prairie we know and love as “the Upper Midwest.”
            Cather rings true. I can’t write of this area the way locals can. I didn’t sit in a school desk here. I didn’t bowl or dance with classmates who grew up on farms outside of Marshall. I didn’t ice fish or play hockey. I didn’t pick rock or drive off tar. I didn’t ask to “borrow me a pen” from a friend or sell Schwan’s door-to-door for the Speech Team. I didn’t see a Marshall sky as a boy—it would have filled me with wonder as it does now, so often clear and star-studded. But, an invented childhood here won’t ring true. Not like when I write of Sacramento.
            You can take the boy out of that Capital City, but you can’t take that Capital City out of the man. Father Steve and I are much like Jim Burden in Cather’s My Ántonia, trying to recapture what we had as youths. Sometimes words fail us, but then again, sometimes the words keep coming.

Here I am holding both Book I and Book II in front of my house in Marshall, Minnesota. Book I was started on the Southwest Minnesota State University campus in my faculty office about a mile from where I am standing.

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That Dizziness

2/15/2016

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That Dizziness
Our daughter, Elaine, came home from Sweden for Christmas. But as Epiphany approached and she readied to leave—a new semester and her students beckoning—it hits me again, she’s truly launched. Fully cooked as she explains it once to her mother, Marianne. Our only child turned thirty last November, but we celebrated in December, first thing once off the plane, so her birthday and Christmas didn’t slide into one another. Never a problem before when she lived stateside.
During her Christmas visit, in our kitchen, her girlhood kitchen, she’d walk in, a young teen looking for ice cream until I blinked and the grown woman stood there brewing tea. Or we three would watch The Muppet’s Christmas Carol for old time’s sake, as we do every Christmas, and we’d have to trace the first time at the theater, then only two screens, now six. And tales of the VHS cassette at a Christmas Past. This time, she downloaded it via Netflix, our DVD gone missing. We three snuggled on the living room sofa under Christmas lights to view it on her laptop. Same movie, same family tradition, fulfilled for another year. Our new family crèche: father, mother, adult child.
Who knew, walking around campus with her would be Memory Lane. She got her tuition in order one last time. She finishes her Master’s in May from SMSU. One online class completes her degree, this girl who as a high school junior took my sophomore-level lit class. She was one of four high schoolers sprinkled amid twenty-some college students. She scored the second highest of the lot, and I was tougher on her than the others. And as a seventh-grader, she went with us to England and France, thirty students and faculty and her, the youngest—impressing the priest giving us a tour of Canterbury Cathedral with her knowledge of Thomas á Becket and his murder. Now, she’s living in Sweden and teaching English.
Who knew her old bedroom would be stripped of high school memorabilia. That her university mementos would be mostly gone as well, as though both her high school and college life belonged to a previous owner’s daughter, moved away long ago from this house.
It made me dizzy. This girl walked in; I double-take when she spoke like an adult. She made sure I’m steady on my feet—she did witness me recently slip and fall on the ice—but I’m robust and resilient, certainly not frail. Her dresses at Christmas that made her luminous, this kid who scoured thrift shops and consignment stores and close-out racks. It made me dizzy, having dinner with her and a high school girlfriend ten years married and living down South for as long. Like the flowers of yesteryear, where are their prom dresses and band uniforms now?
It made me dizzy, this tween of mine who said she’s sprouted her first few gray hairs. She fell asleep on the sofa, jet-lagged; I covered her with a blanket, but she was a junior high kid home from her first ever “didn’t-sleep-at-all” sleepover. We went to the latest Star Wars downtown, but inexplicably she and I were home one bitterly cold afternoon watching the original series on VHS. An unforgettable father/ daughter snow day. She asked for the car keys and I thought, where’s her car? That 5-speed I taught her to shift? That hatchback I taught her to parallel park?
And now, it’ll be full Spring when Marianne and I venture to Sweden before we hug each other again. She’ll have grown more. Not I, I’ll stay the same. But she’s catching me in age, it seems. I am sure I’m staying the same while she rockets ahead in years. My girl a woman. This woman growing up beyond my ken.
This semester, she’ll be the only one of the three of us actually teaching. Marianne’s on sabbatical. I’ve retired from the classroom to write. But Elaine remains in the trenches, prepping, grading, caring for her charges. How could this have happened? I blinked and it did.
And it all makes me dizzy.

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What a Difference a Year Makes 2015 ends soon -- 2016 begins

12/16/2015

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What a difference a year makes

2015 ends soon – 2016 begins

            Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all. The best to you at this season of so many faiths and holidays. I hope you spend time as the year ends with friends and family—those who you love and who love you. It is dark this time of year, at least in the Northern Hemisphere. And as it grows darker, know that light will be coming again. In just over six months, it will be the beginning of summer. “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?” (Shelley)
            What a year of transitions. I moved from teaching part-time with a plan of doing so for two more academic years to retiring fully in May 2015.

            So, here in December 2015, I’m looking back on more than seven months without any teaching, prepping, attending of meetings, advising, grading (and grading and grading). I say that not to gloat but to remind myself how much I did give up. I loved teaching. One way or another, I taught for 41 years. I loved my students, even the challenging, rascally ones. I loved so many of my colleagues. Still in touch with many, but it is a complete change for me.
            Over the past several months, I’ve been a fulltime writer. It is more work than I thought, but I love it. Book II will be published soon after the first of the year. Look for it around the end of January or beginning of February. I’ve entered writing contests. I’ve sent my manuscript off to a publisher for review and possible publication. I’ve done some readings and begun lining up others for Spring and Summer 2016.
            I’m working on Book III plus plotting out and jotting notes for a new, completely different sci-fi series.
            But first, complete publication of The Marsco Saga. It’s on course for total publication, all four works, by winter 2018.
Looking back is looking ahead. In many ways, I’m busier now than when I was teaching. Certainly, writing is no longer a squeeze-it-in event. It is the main event. And my time is more my own. It is easier to schedule in my power walks each day. In our warm autumn weather, much of that walking has been outside, but it will be in the “Y” soon.
            Retirement from teaching has opened me to gratefulness. I landed at Southwest Minnesota State University 26 years ago. Never imagined I would stay that long. But I did and am thankful that I earned tenure, my promotions, and emeritus status at the end. I was excellently compensated and have a fine retirement. It does open avenues to write.
            I am grateful to my friends and readers. Marianne and Elaine and my family members who have supported me and my career and my writing. I am appreciative of readers who have posted kind notes about my book or told me when they meet me how much they loved it. And for those who come to my readings, who set them up, who do the publicity and behind-the-scene work to make them happen.
So, on to 2016. May your upcoming year be filled with love and happiness. With thankfulness and thoughtfulness. With hard, fulfilling work. With plans dreamt and then accomplished. With a smile, a laugh, a tear, and a bit of mischief. With all it takes to be wonderful and wonder-filled.
            May 2016 truly be a year of peace.

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More than just venting about aspects of the publishing world

9/8/2015

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Marianne always says to use “The Sandwich Method” when complaining; say something nice, offer your complaint, close with something nice. Here goes.

Nice #1

I got The Marsco Dissident on the shelves of two bookstores in Sacramento when I visited last August. It is fitting that the novel is for sale there, because I am from Sacramento and the novel begins in Sac City, aka, Sacramento, in 2092. Much of the major action on Earth takes place here. And during this past trip home, I sold two copies to bookstores for resale. A friend bought a copy from me as well.

The novel mentions the Capitol building, the campus of Sacramento State, the old Aerojet General which made rockets for NASA back in the ‘50s to ‘70s. One day I ate lunch at Frank Fats, a place that makes an alluded-to appearance in Book I. I may be on the KSSU radio in the Fall; that’s not SMSU’s KSSU, but Sac State’s KSSU, a student-run FM station. (Both Southwest and Sac State had the initials SSU at one time, before Southwest added Minnesota to its name to become SMSU.) As you can see, a fruitful trip to Sacramento.

Complaint—which ties into part of Nice #1

            Over the July 4th weekend, Marianne and I attended CONvergence in the Cities. This is a sci-fi / fantasy weekend celebrating all such genres. It is mostly a cosplay weekend with many participants dressing as superheroes, their favorite hobbit or elf, space creatures or champions, you name it. Even game and cartoon characters from these genre made an appearance. I had my picture taken with the Dread Pirate Roberts from The Princess Bride.

            We listened to one panel that I thought may help me with self-publishing. It consisted of two young women literary agents and an editor from Baen. They gave their information about publishing. Two main points they stressed were, one, that if you didn’t get an agent and if you went with self-publishing, especially through Amazon, you were doomed. And two, that Amazon was out to crush small mom-and-pop bookstores and actually, you too, the independent author. Next to Amazon, ISIS looks like Medieval monks praying for our welfare. Only agents were your friends, they said, our saviors. For example, they said if you published via Kindle, you had to sell your book only to Kindle e-readers, nothing else, no other electronic device—never ever, not worth mentioning, this can’t be possible, you are toast, sucker.

            I was fuming, but said nothing. I knew for a fact that a Nook reader has The Marsco Dissident, and that an iPhone, an iPad, a HP laptop also have copies. Fortunately, another member of the audience informed these agents that she downloads Amazon books to her iPad all the time.

            They also said that bookstores could not order Amazon self-publish books for their shelves. This is because Amazon is killing them. I knew then that that wasn’t true. I know The Marsco Dissident is on the shelf of our bookstore, and it’s a Barnes and Nobles Campus store. That store had no trouble ordering two sets of ten copies each, thank you very much. And some other bookstore somewhere in the USA ordered 3 copies. I know from my royalty records although I don’t know where.

            Eventually, the two agents began to tout their own product, a self-publishing method exactly like CreateSpace through which only they can launch your work. Where? Onto Amazon, I guess. Where else? Why publish a book that’s not available on Amazon? They’ll do an a la carte service to help with your format, cover design, interior design, and the like. Just like CreateSpace is helping me. But only after the agents get their cut.

I have paid CreateSpace handsomely, but I haven’t paid a cent to an agent. And it used to be that agents didn’t get paid until a novel was sold; agents would get their fee from royalties, just like the writer. And it used to be that the publisher would absorb the publishing costs. Now agents are getting fees upfront, like CreateSpace. And I’m sure, like CreateSpace, they’ll help anyone publish dross. Pay your fee, launch your book. Nothing exists to strain the cream off the top except the market place. Agents were once the keepers at the gate. Now, those gates are wide open. Anyone may rush in. And many are. And since imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, these agents were certainly imitating CreateSpace. And cashing in on the fools who rush by.

I took my steps with self-publishing only after I was damn sure I had a quality product.

            I was angry at this babbling panel. It is appalling enough to give wrong information, but to do so with such authority to people who may not have the background and personal knowledge that I have is upsetting.

            I didn’t want to blast them any more than I have, but they deserved it. (And I hope they see this blogpost.)

Nice #2

            In August, I went to two Sacramento bookstores. Both paid me for a single copy of The Marsco Dissident (which I signed). The book is now in their system. Bookstore #1, Time Tested Books, looked it up through their distributor, Ingraham, and in a few keystrokes found it. They can order it that quickly if they want, which is what the owner suggested if one copy sells. I got an in-store credit for this copy. (I later gave that to my niece who lives in Sacramento.) If they order any further copies via Ingraham’s, I’ll get royalties via CreateSpace. Bookstore #2, Beers, the same—found it on their distributor’s site—only the clerk wrote me a check right there for my copy to resell. A third Sacramento bookstore, The Avid Reader, may have me there to read if we can arrange that this upcoming Spring. Same with Time Tested Books. I also found out a friend ordered a copy via Avid Books and they ordered her a copy via Ingraham. Be in my friend’s hands in a week.

            All this smacks in the face of all that those agents said. Oh, the difference between “they can’t” and “they won’t” is huge. (Trust me on this; I’m an English professor.) The agents said they can’t; in reality, some stores simply won’t. It’s more than a difference in semantics.

            The Marsco Dissident, and soon, Marsco Triumphant, is available worldwide. Wherever anyone has access to the Internet and Amazon.com. 24/7. In two formats: POD and electronic. With the right app, you can download it to any electronic reader: Kindle, Nook, iPad, iPhone, or another such electronic device. Or order a print copy; it comes in about a week. And my work can never be remaindered.

            Wrapping up with some fun news:

            I sent the Sacramento Public Library two copies of The Marsco Dissident. They have a Sacramento Room dedicated to works about Sacramento and one librarian felt they may want a copy for that room to add to their collection. Thick volumes about Sacramento and the Gold Rush alongside a dystopican sci-fi opening in Sac City, 2092, all makes sense to me. Having a few copies of my works sitting in the Sacramento Public Library is a boyhood dream come true.

            I gave a copy to the library at Christian Brothers High School, CBS, where under various names and in at least two locations, all my brothers, two nephews, and I graduated. I actually graduated from it when it was called Bishop Armstrong back in 1968. The name of the game is exposure. Sac City College has a copy, a longtime Sacramento friend and librarian at SCC ordered that one. Redwood City Library got a copy. The librarian who accepted the copy from me took it right away to their cataloguer, whom, he assured me, is a big sci-fi fan. Sci-fi fan in Silicon, makes sense. And I handed a copy to the San Francisco Library system, too, the Stonestown branch near SF State. My cousin lives right down the street.

            (A note to any librarians reading this. If you want a copy and your library truly cannot afford one, message me and I’ll see what I can do. No promises, but I’ll work on it.)

            Book II update. I have opened all the windows at CreateSpace to format Marsco Triumphant. Before I left Marshall for California in mid-August, I finished all my work on the text based on the fine edits by my copy editor. I sent it back to her for one more set of eyes on the text. Once I roll up my sleeves on Book II, it should be only weeks until launch. I hope before mid- to late-September.

            I spent an August weekend with friends at a Camp Pendola reunion. When I lived in California and worked as a high school English teacher, I experienced 5 glorious summers at Pendola. A novel resides in that experience somewhere. A far cry from sci-fi, but a good story. It begins with “Filthy” Foggarty, a dastardly mountain man known to frighten campers, about to spring out from the bushes at the opening campfire to wail, “I put a spell on you! I put a spell on you, baby!” The good fun begins from there.

Giving a reading in the Spring of 2015, Morris, Minnesota.

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Walter Miller's Journal

6/30/2014

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Walter C. Miller’s Journal

Sac City, May 10, 2092
(In 2014, Sac City is known as
Sacramento, California)

            Keeping track of Tessa is a bit daunting, even for me, her father. Bethany and I always gave her free rein, and for most of her life, she stayed pretty much in the range of our own skeptical view of Marsco. Life on Mars afforded us that. And working for Herriff at his Van Braun Center in the gigantic rift valley of the Red Planet, Valles Marineris, a sprawling research complex dug into its cliffs, helped as well. Tessa is now in her early 30s, although physically she’s younger than that due to her hibernation trips. Most space-based Marsco Associates share in that, a protracted life due to icing on space journeys. I’m a good example of that, too. I’m in my 60s, but look like I’m mid-40.

            Now, however, Tessa has her own view of Marsco and of being an associate. Comes with the territory of nurturing an independent, thinking child, I guess.

            Bethany and I raised Tessa on Mars at the VBC from when she was a child until she was 18. We went there because Earth was on the verge of war. We could tell; all the signs were obvious. And we were right.

            Safe at Herriff’s VBC, I researched and Bethany worked on Martian water/ice recovery and reuse. Tessa grew. She was for many years the only child at the Center. Of course, with a war raging on Earth, on or in the orbit around the Moon, out even to some Asteroid Belt colonies, the population at the VBC didn’t increase much. Even in the other colonies, everything flat-lined for the three years of the Continental Wars. When they ended, the Wars that brought Marsco to power, it seemed best to remain in situ and not tempt a return to the Blue Planet. So Red Mars, named for the god of war, became a safe haven for a decade or longer as the atmosphere and politics on Earth settled down. The Blue Planet looked pretty brown from here, seen through a telescope, since its atmosphere was dust-filled, the by-product of war.

            But everything changes after a time. Bethany and I wanted to return to Earth eventually. We knew we were privileged being Marsco Associates, and we also knew Bethany was dying. She wanted to come home and die here on Earth.

            I had planned on returning to my hometown of Sac City, what was once Sacramento, California. (An infamous location during to the Wars.) But Bethany was too weak to take on the task of developing this plot of land, so we stayed in Seattle. By that time, Tessa was a plebe at the Marsco Academy there anyway. We remained as close to each other as possible. Only after Bethany died during Tessa’s first year in the Academy did I venture south to begin salvaging this land that has become my grange.

            That was nine years ago.

            Much can happen in nine years. For one, Tessa’s Marsco career has taken off. She graduated from the Academy and received her commission. She went to MIT, the Marsco Institute of Technology, which is actually the graduate research wing of the Academy. She charged through her course work and research. But before she actually dotted all the “i’s” and crossed all the “t’s” on her final project, her dissertation, she was moved back to the Academy to begin teaching. She’s there now, an officer, but not yet a holder of her doctorate. Pardon me for sounding like an academic, but no one should ever do all her doctoral grunt work, years of research, and not finish!

            But it’s more complicated; she’s more complicated. Makes sense given our complicated Marsco world.

            Once she was so in love with Zot, Anthony “Zot” Grizotti, a fellow Academy cadet, now on his way to Jupiter with his finger disks twitching away on a mysterious, black project for the VBC, my old cadre of engineers and researchers under the auspices of Herriff on Mars.

            I shouldn’t comment on his research, but—against all odds and tradition—Zot had been commissioned an officer after his Academy days then elected to pursue Hibernation Technology. To some, quite a career shift, if not a downright dead-end job for a Marsco officer. Better than Security, I guess, but still, icemen or hibermen aren’t that high up the Marsco pecking order. His clandestine research is tied to hibernation, that I will say.

            I like Zot. I love him like a son. But something happened with them. Tessa can be stubborn. That’s an understatement. And she took up with this pilot who was all smoke and no fire. Zot himself is a solid man, no guessing with him. He came and went here a few times; she refused to visit. Then, he was gone. Trekking to Jupiter, even with the best Marsco and VBC spacecraft (which I helped design), getting there and back safely is a four-year journey with no certainty of success.

            But this is mostly about Tessa. And now, today, she’s in a sort of No Man’s Land: not with Zot, not fully with anyone (not that it matters), and not fully graduated and not fully happy. Fully in Marsco.

            Not fully talking to me, either.

            That another complication in her life—me. Over the past nine years, I have been here, in my grange about 20 clicks south of central Sac City, in a sort of gray zone. And in our Marsco world, such a locale as this one is nearly impossible. Everything is discrete with Marsco, carefully delineated and separated: associate, sid (a denizen of a subsidiary), or PRIM.

            Most of the world is PRIM-listed. I have tried to find exact census data for PRIMS, but I doubt Marsco bothers to count them. I’d have to say probably 80% of the Earth’s population, possibly higher, is PRIMS. (No PRIMS live in space.) There can’t be any more than 5% of the population in Marsco. That leaves about 15% as sids, who have a substantially better life than any PRIM, but who aren’t associates. Their lot can’t be easy. A PRIM’s lot is pretty horrific any way you slice it. And Marsco aims to keep it that way.

            Associates live in Sectors, Marsco Sectors, or protected Cantonments near or in Subsidiaries. Sids obviously inhabit these subsidiaries, which are marginally better areas than PRIM areas: safe, clean, near Marsco hubs. PRIMS live in Unincorporated Zones, guarded by Marsco or their sid henchmen. Used as brutish laborers, kept disenfranchised, uneducated, distant from any self-respecting Associate.

            And here I live, in this gray area. Technically, part of the large Sac City Subsidiary, but not really. It’s populated by too many Independent Grangers, Indies, who aren’t sids or PRIMS, and except for me, never tied to Marsco. And really, we’re not in a Zone, either, although it can look like it. Here I live, in no place really Marsco, although I live exceedingly well.

            To make it work, I’ve adapted selected space equipment like humidity condensers for ample and consistent water, and like my kitchen appliances that run off solar. And I’ve redeveloped these few acres of land to be productive. I do hire PRIMS to help, but pay them well. I’ve even started a small village for them down the road so they can live better, cleaner, safer than in any Zone. From there, some of my neighbor grangers also hire them, but an Independent granger is pretty suspicious of a PRIM. I’ve worked hard to establish mutual trust. Not as hard as those PRIMS work, but hard enough.

            So, I guess that sums it up. I’m technically on sabbatical from Marsco, but practically, I’m an Independent Granger and yet one with all the fingerdisks of a top lefter within Marsco. And my only child, Tessa, is estranged from me because of my writing.

            I should mention that. Even though trained as an engineer, I’ve only marginally kept active in designing any spaceships these days. I mostly spend my time trying to crack (yes, that kind of crack) to break into Marsco encrypted and secure databanks and old cobweb sites to research and write a factual and accurate history of how Marsco rose to power. The Ascendancy of Marsco. It’s mostly just fragmented data at this point. But, nearly fourteen voices tell their story of the prewar world under the Continental Powers, the draconian rulers of the Earth that Marsco took down.

            That was nearly 25 years ago. At the time of the Armistice, Marsco claimed its new role as world leader was strictly temporary until stability returned.

            Two and a half decades down the road, it looks like one group of draconian rulers has been replaced by another. Marsco seems pretty thoroughly ensconced in the power structures of Earth, the Moon and Mars colonies, even out to the Asteroid Belt colonies, the limit of its reach. Except for Zot heading towards Jupiter, Marsco has contented itself with staying inside, on this side, of the Belt.

            But I digress. Tessa is coming. She’s been sent pieces of The Ascendancy. I doubt she’s read any. It will be wonderful to see her, even if we are tense and combative. She is so like her mother—and me—for that matter. It will be great to have her here. I’ve much to show her.

            And she brings kilos of Seattle coffee, a commodity I have difficulty securing in this locale.

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History Being Made

6/14/2014

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History Being Made:

My part of

Southwest Minnesota State University

            I get Harry Potter updates on Facebook, mostly because I do sci-fi and also because I think the Harry Potter books are one of the literary marvels of our lifetime. When the final two books were released, I preordered them for their midnight sales event. One year I was 9th in Marshall (for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince) and for the last one I slipped to 29th (for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows).

            The FB info is often about the making of the films, about the actors, now adults, looking back on the filming and all that excitement.

            Those actors, directors, Rowling herself—they must have known they were making history. I like them all—books and films; they’re masterpieces each.

            What I also think about is that rare gift in life to do something and while doing it, realize you and your actions are changing history. The 70th anniversary of the Normandy invasion just passed on June 6th. On June 5, 1944, as those airmen, sailors, and soldiers geared up for the morning, they knew they were taking part, however small, in something gigantic and fantastic. Something history-making and history-changing.

            I run in a much smaller circle of world events. I’m not likely to ever produce anything nearly as artistically significant as Harry Potter, although The Marsco Saga may be a success. I doubt I’ll ever be in the political or military spotlight like Eisenhower or Bradley or Churchill, or the ordinary (often drafted) soldiers hitting those beaches at Zero Hour on D-Day.

            My place in history will be pretty small, in that regard.

            I am, however, pleased to know I have contributed to Southwest Minnesota State University.

            This university is significant for two main reasons. It produces its growing share of grads who go off to medical school and fine doctoral programs. Two of my students come to mind. One graduated from Mayo Medical and another is beginning her PhD at the University of Notre Dame.

But the most significant reason for this university is Main Street. We educate Main Street in so many small towns around here: accountants, teachers, bankers, small business owners, and farmers. During the boys’ state basketball tournament this past Spring when only eight teams were left, SMSU had graduated five of the head coaches. That’s what we do; obviously, we do it well.

The other significant reason for this university is its affordability and accessibility. For what we do, we are a rock-bottom priced service. Unfortunately, over the past twenty years, I’ve seen the State’s commitment to keeping costs low tip away from students and their parents and towards “tax breaks” and other sham give-to-the-rich schemes. When I came here in 1989, the State paid $2 for every $1 a student paid. The whole state of Minnesota bragged about that. Now, the State reluctantly ponies up about $0.67 (and falling) for every student dollar. Figure out the shift here.

Besides affordability, accessibility is a major reason we’re here; it makes us such a unique and valuable school. We are not the most diverse student body. Even with three Native reservations within an hour in three directions, we don’t attract many Native students. But, we do attract, retain, and graduate many students who need a fully-accessible campus.

And, it’s been like that longer than I’ve been here. I don’t think I have gone a semester without a student in my class in a wheelchair, who needs special assistance (like a note-taker due to mobility issues), or who needs to take exams and quizzes in a separate location from the classroom (due to learning disabilities needs).

I’ve even had students who come in their wheelchairs and with a dog to further help them. For one pair, when I took roll, I noted when Zeus, an 80-pound Lab, was present or when the dog was excused from class. One day I stepped too close to his owner and the sleeping Zeus was up and barking ferociously at me.

These are the students who make SMSU significant. I’ve taken our students to Europe three times through our Global Studies Program, mostly to England and France. And for all the progressive strides these countries have made, they are a generation or more behind us in disability services. Partly, Europe is built around medieval cities, but partly it is cultural. Americans raise their voices at injustice more willingly than many other cultures. Eventually, someone listens.

I may not be changing history, but I am adding to this university which in turn adds so much to Southwest Minnesota, the state as a whole, and the nation. We’ve even graduated students from Europe, South America, Africa, and Asia, so we’re international in our own small way.

Our rising costs concern me, however. For one, the Global Studies Program I am so proud of, has risen in cost so that it’s nearly impossible to enroll enough students to make the trip possible. We used to have a subsidy for the trip and most students received a small scholarship to defray costs. But in the end, it became necessary for students to pick up the whole tab for their trip. This decision raised the cost by nearly 35% to 50%; ruinous cost inflation. 9/11 didn’t help, either.

But the major disaster in higher education in Minnesota was the ill-considered “merger” of the tech and two-year campuses with the seven state universities, which had had their own extremely successful system. “Hostile takeover” comes to mind to describe this, since no one who was part of the universities wanted it or thought this merger was a wise decision.

This merger has made nothing better in the state universities and often has made many aspects worse. We can’t select what general education classes to allow for transfer anymore; if a MnSCU campus says it meets set standards, we have to accept it. The two-week online Speech class, taught via a two-year campus, comes to mind as a shame, but it counts.

It’s a sad state of affairs to see something I’ve worked for nearly twenty-five years hit a wall. If orchard growers thought every apple and pear tree should be cut for firewood, not planted, nurtured and prepared for a future harvest, we’d have no fresh fruit. Higher education, especially public higher education, is planting an orchard; its benefits are far in the future, but they are there. Nurture higher ed and in the end the state prospers. The nation prospers.

I hope in my final years here at SMSU, I see an upturn in public appreciation and in support for higher ed. Our work is that important. And I have hope. Our new President is sharp and on the ball. I see her leadership at work and her vision for this institution consistent with our history and our mission. All that is good.

And I have faith. Good things happen when good people put their minds together to create positive solutions. I’m all for that.

Harry Potter and Eisenhower would agree.

SMSU Pep Band at our last home football game, November 2013. Mustangs won!

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Guest Blog from Tessa Miller

5/31/2014

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Here is the first of several guest blogs written by characters from The Marsco Dissident. I hope you enjoy this insight into Tessa; I imagine this coming from her just before Book I begins in Sac City, in the year 2092.

Tessa Miller, of The Marsco Dissident, guest blog

            Most people don’t know the frustrations of being ABD: All But Dissertation. Of being stuck at the extreme end (the precipice?) of a long, arduous scholarly task. So I’ve got my data collected, my review of previous research completed, and here I sit. The Integration of Computer Systems with Propulsion Optimization: A New Model. Fancy title, long bibliography, clear numbers crunched, blank screen in front of me, and nothing.

            I could speak of my dissertation for hours, of its importance to Marsco, to science and engineering in general, to my plebes, to my career.

            But you’d rather listen to me to talk about my father, Walter Miller, and probably (you’d think?) my former, Zot.

            Procrastination: putting the trivial before the significant.

            Or just shutting down. I’m good at that. Look at that pilot I hung with for far too long, partly to piss off Zot, and partly because everyone needs a companion. But I was shut down that whole time, drifting along, oblivious to all the warning signs of train wreck. You can’t break your heart a second time when you’re using Number 2 to put off dealing with Number 1.

Why am I telling you this?

            So I don’t spill my guts about Walter and Zot, of course. I’m too controlled for that. Too emotionally detached. I have most people convinced I’m totally together. I’m the one without a hair out of place, my uniform impeccable, my exterior a spotless, polished veneer. My inner life? Turmoil replete with my ripped up guts I refuse to deal with.

            Then again, why not spill them?

            Walter C. Miller, Jr., PhD, Astro-engineer, co-designer of the Herriff-Miller’s that propel Marsco and those few Independent Shuttles that ply between the Moon and the Asteroid Belt. That Miller, he’s my father.

You’d think that would help my career, except that he’s gone off the beaten Marsco track and become some sort of dissident. Not really a thorn in Marsco’s side. (He’s totally harmless, I’m sure.) But he’s not exactly a rose in a vase at its breakfast table either. He’s a questioner. More philosopher and historian than engineer now, even though back in his day, his theories garnered much praise.

            I should have visited him sooner, since he’s alone and widowed, but things got in my way. Ok, I let things get in my way.

            Zot was there a few times; he let me know that. Even out and out invited me to visit my own father at Walter’s grange near Sac City, that Sacramento, the former capital of the Continental Powers, Marsco’s last enemy, the last bastion of the Powers resistance. But, I refused to go. My excuse? Grading exams and continuing my dissertation research; used my status as an untenured prof at the Marsco Academy (where I’m an assistant professor of astro-engineering), pleaded that these were all vastly more important.

            Zot, Anthony “Zot” Grizotti. An ensign last I heard. (Which makes no sense: hibernation service doesn’t need officers, but there he is.) He’s an iceman, or a hibernation specialist, but not one on a routine Moon-to-Belt mission; no, he’s on some black mission for the Van Braun Center on Mars. Their ship, the Gagarin, is speeding towards Jupiter. Marsco’s first mission beyond the Asteroid Belt, first manned mission. Recon trip for Marsco, but why? For what?

The crew manifest shows ample icing personnel without Zot. And he never signs any hiber reports, so his duties (even though he’s the sole officer among the hibermen) remain a mystery to me. If he’s in charge (an obvious conclusion), then why haven’t all those posted icing reports come out under his name? If he’s not in charge, what’s he doing on a four-year space flight that’s going beyond Marsco colonies within the Asteroid Belt all the way out to godforsaken Jupiter? What’s he doing?

            I’ve also checked the whole crew manifest: scientists, pilots and other flight crew. Some hot numbers, those gals on the Gagarin. And Zot, a brown-eyed and soulful iceman with a tale to tell and time to tell it, could put every gullible babe onboard into a swoon with his dark features. And if a swoon? But, Zot’s really not like that, all those rumors you hear of randy hibermen, taking advantage of whomever they wish once the crew’s iced.

Those two men aside, I do want to visit my father’s grange. Not to see Zot (who can’t possibly be there) and not really to see my father, Walter, either. I’m not seeking to bury the hatchet with him. A hatchet I put between us over Marsco.

I miss his dogs. They’d be fun to see again. Io and Deimos. Mutts for sure, but loving.

            I have no siblings. No mother, either; she died several years back. At her funeral, when Zot and I were both plebes at the Academy, that’s when I first looked at Zot differently. That epiphany moment. Have loved him since, well, except I’ve stopped loving him now, too, because I don’t really love him anymore, not as much as I did once, so intensely and passionately. That kind of love someone doesn’t forget, except I have, or am forgetting it. And after having a relationship with Zot, rock-solid Zot, why was I with that space-jockey player who’s as sincere as mist and as consistent as smoke?

            Don’t ask.

            Shut down. Denial. Buttoned up. That’s me. And ever-truthful.

            Zot won’t be there.

            Walter will be. And his dogs.

            I have to go, if for my mother’s sake. It’s been three years since I’ve seen Walter. Long enough to forget Zot and return to my father’s place with some adult-daughter distance between us.

            I’m going by ground, too. High-speed bullet from Seattle to a Marsco Sector just north of Silicon. Then a local rust bucket from Marsco luxury to the Sac City Subsidiary. But it will be fine. I want to see how wrong my father is about Marsco. Want to see the transformation, positive transformation, that Marsco reports. Talk of denial. Walter denies all this Marsco advancement.

            I know it’s true. Marsco said so. Why would Marsco lie?

            What does it have to gain by being opaque? It’s always been transparent with its intentions since it seized power, I mean, gained power, reluctantly taking up political power to run the whole world after the Continental Wars devastated the Earth, the Moon colonies, and even some of the sites on Mars.

            It’s a Marsco world, and Marsco’s doing a fine job running it.

            And Zot on the Gagarin and Walter sequestered at his grange, they’ve taken themselves out of the Marsco world. If that’s really possible.

Crazy. Insane. Enigmas both. Men!

*
The Marsco Dissident is available now on Amazon for e-readers only. It will be available in print on July 20, 2014. I hope you enjoy a copy in whichever format you prefer.

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Restarting at Long Last!

5/18/2014

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Restarting at long last!

            After a long hiatus, I’m re-launching my blog with a slightly different format. I intend to post twice monthly, one my own piece and one a guest-written piece. So, here is my first blog in ages.

            As many of you know, Southwest Minnesota State University has a yearly distinction, the conferring of the Cathy Cowan Award, an honor given to a faculty or staff member who has over five years of service and has demonstrated devotion to the campus and the community. I am this year’s recipient.

            With all due humility, here is the text of my acceptance. (For those who do not know, the mascot of Southwest is the Mustang. We are the Mustangs!)

Cowan Award Thank You Speech
SMSU Commencement, May 10, 2014

            President Gores, Distinguished Dignitaries and Guests, Parents and Family of our Graduates, Faculty and Staff, and today’s Graduates, thank you all for acknowledging me as this year’s Cowan Award Recipient. I am touched and honored more than I can say.

            My thanks also to Marianne and Elaine, my wife and daughter, who have helped and encouraged me throughout my twenty-five years here. In fact, today marks forty years of my academic career, from high school teaching and college teaching in four states coast-to-coast and eventually to Southwest in 1989.

            I also want to thank my nominating team for their belief that I am worthy of this distinction, especially since I know all the other 11 Cowan Award recipients. I stand in awe among and with the pillars of this university. Thank you.

            But it is to you, our Esteemed Graduates, that I want to speak:

            A girl enters a wardrobe and finds herself in Narnia. A hobbit leaves his hole and ends up fighting dragons. Dr. Who enters his TARDIS and lands wherever the space-time continuum takes him. You entered Southwest years ago, and here you are today.

            These all seem different, but they are all in fact the same.

            Here’s how: Maybe you came right from high school or maybe as a transfer student. As a graduate of another college or a parent whose children just entered kindergarten, or even a high school student beginning your university career early. You might be someone who crossed a street, the state, a state line, or an ocean; it does not matter. At whatever stage of life you came from, you stepped out of your familiar world into a world you did not and could not truly imagine before.

            This excellent university has brought you to places as far from your previous lives as any magic doorway could. And it has helped make you a citizen of a broader world, a more thoughtful and deeply-concerned citizen, an inquisitive citizen.

Oh, Southwest may have trained you for a job; perhaps you start next week. Or, it prepared you for graduate school, law or medical school, or to return to that family farm or a family business. Whatever and wherever, you return as a traveler from a foreign land. And as you move on from Southwest to the next stage of your lives, you do so with vision and ideas expanded from those you once had when you came. Savor this! Savor all of this!

            Wherever you land next and next and next, you go there transformed by your efforts, indeed, sometimes transformed in spite of your efforts. Savor that transformation! Be proud of it. As Thomas Paine reminds us: “The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark.”

This dark world needs your enlightened citizenship.

            In her address at a commencement several years ago, J.K. Rowling stated, “We do not need magic to transform our world. We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already. We have the power to imagine better.”

And so, Graduates, of whom we are so proud, as your amazing lives unfold, transform your world. Transform our world. Bring it your light. Imagine for us all a better world.

And if in a year or ten or twenty-five, when you look back on the road you’ve just trod, let no one, including yourself, ever say, “You did too little with your life; you shone too dim; all because you dreamed too small.” Dream BIG with your lives and your loved ones, with your communities and your careers.

Play BIG.

            And remember always, you are not Shetland ponies!

You are Mustangs!

Play BIG!

Congratulations once again and thanks to all of you for allowing me this slice of your wonderful day.
*

If you are a longtime reader, thanks for looking once more at my blog. If you are new to the Eclectic Blog, welcome.

At this point in my career, I am off for the summer and will teach only 66% next academic year. The following two academic years, I will teach 50% each year. At that point, I will fully retire. This change allows me to write and publish more. The Marsco Dissident, now available in e-download only, will be available in print this summer. (Details forthcoming.) Marsco Triumphant, Book II of the four-part Marsco Saga, will be available in print and e-download in December 2014. Watch for them.

Thank you all for checking out my blog and for checking out my fiction. I will be posting a guest blog by Tessa Miller, one of the main characters in The Marsco Dissident, in about two weeks. She will be speaking of her frustrations with the Marsco world and her life just before she enters at the start of Chapter 1. I’m sure you’ll enjoy hearing from her.

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