Scroll cribe creen - English Department

Transcription

S
croll
c r i& b e
creen
Summer/Fall 2013
Written and produced by students in FSU’s Department of English
Craig Blais
STUDENTS
SHINE
(here, there, and everywhere)
Jacob Newberry
Department of English students —
two graduate and one undergraduate —
travel the globe to find success in their
creative and scholarly endeavors . . .
Jacob
Gibbons
. . . and two alumni — Darby Schwartz (left),
and Renée Jacques — land in the Big Apple
I
Letter from the chair
n August 2001, after three years in domiciliary exile across
campus, the English department returned to a completely
renovated Williams Building, with high-tech classrooms,
post-medieval restrooms, a curious courtyard, a meeting room
dubbed the “Skybox,” and faculty offices not much larger
than a library carrel. In this issue, you’ll find a history of this
venerable structure as well as an account of another fine
edifice, The Warehouse. The Warehouse shapes the memories
of literary life in Tallahassee—when I read Paul Muldoon, I
always see him pausing mid-poem to clock the beat of a train
horn, as it blared past Gaines Street, which was right behind his
back as he stood at the podium for his reading.
Ahead in these pages, you’ll also find news about several of
our successful EWM (Editing, Writing, and Media) alums in
New York City and Europe. Before they get away from us,
we have profiles of two award-winning Ph.D. students in the
creative writing program, Craig Blais and Jacob Newberry.
Faculty news scrambles to keep up with the busy projects of
Leigh Edwards, Barry Faulk, Michael Neal, Dennis Moore,
Bob Butler, and Jenn Wells.
Like our scholarship, the building that was new in 2001
becomes new and different almost every year. Two high-tech
classrooms have gone turbo-high-tech with Smart Boards and
work stations. Two low-tech seminar rooms now have Smart
Boards. A new digital studio showcases manifold new forms of
textuality. The Writing Center office has a new, open look of
invitation. A former publisher’s office is now a lab to catalog
and curate manuscripts of William Burroughs, recovered from
obscure rural storage east of Tallahassee.
So, too, as journals formerly housed in the department
move on, new journals move in. After a decade, the Journal
for Early Modern Cultural Studies, founded here by Professor
Bruce Boehrer, has moved to the University of California at
San Diego. At the same time, we welcome to Williams Building
the editorial offices of The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of
America, edited by Professor David Gants. To piggyback on
Ezra Pound, our job in Williams is always to Make it New!
Table of contents
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Summer/Fall 2013
Faces of the faculty
Reality TV’s rites
4
Associate Professor Leigh Edwards explores the cultural
and social signifances of reality television’s popularity.
By Gabrielle Shaiman
Moore excellence6
Associate Professor Dennis Moore cultivates an awardwinning learning environment that students value.
By Monica Sclafani
Students in the spotlight
Blazing creativity10
Ph.D. student Craig Blais flies high with his recent collection
of highly praised poems, About Crows.
By Tina Andrews
Writing from observation
12
The world is Ph.D. student Jacob Newberry’s inspiration for
his award-winning writing.
By Jillian Quinn
8
9
20
A different kind of texting
18
Jacob Gibbons’ undergraduate research brought him to the
Netherlands to study medieval manuscripts.
By Julia Welling
Writing relatives 19
The Graduate Writing Center joins the Reading-Writing
Center to offer more tutoring and help to students.
By Quinn Hartmann
Alums
in the spotlight
Broadcast views
Beyond
the classroom
The music moves them
8
Recent graduate Darby Schwartz discusses how her editing,
writing, and media education enhances her TV experiences.
By Jessica Militare
20
Music appreciation is the foundation for Professor Barry
Faulk’s and two English alumni’s writing endeavors.
By Andres Rodriguez
Jazzed about journalism
9
Mastering the publishing industry is just another challenge
for alumna Renée Jacques to conquer.
By Jessica Militare
The book or the big screen? 21
Professor Robert Olen Butler muses on an age-old question:
did the movie capture the essence of the original book?
By Matt Simons
A rewrite of her career
18
With her newspaper job in jeopardy, alumna Kathleeen
Laufenberg found security at FSU’s Mag Lab.
By Lina Bahri
Advantage authors22
The Warehouse events offer writers and readers the
opportunity to create a professional connection.
By Sami Hershkowitz
The place we call home
24
Getting around the Williams Building can be complicated
and confusing at times, but it still offers a comfortable
setting for faculty and students to teach and learn.
By Priscilla Lauture
Department
in action
Relics of the past
16
Associate Professor Michael Neal leads a team of students
that archives the historical nature of postcards.
By Chelsea Martin
Scroll, Scribe & Screen mission statement
The purpose of Scroll, Scribe & Screen is to foster a sense of
community among alumni, students, faculty, and friends of the
Department of English at Florida State University. Our goal is
to showcase the achievements and events within the department
to connect with our Seminole audience.
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SCROLL, SCRIBE & SCREEN
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Summer/Fall 2013
3
won two teaching awards. Most often, she
teaches Studies in Popular Culture at both
the graduate and undergraduate level. At the
undergraduate level, she teaches Media Studies and What is a Text, which is a course on
“textuality.”
During graduate school is when Edwards’
interest in popular studies began, focusing
on analyzing literature in relationship to popular culture using cultural studies and American studies approaches. For her dissertation,
she researched depictions of interracial relationships, where she compared the legacy
of Pocahontas narratives to recent media
culture, such as the Disney film.
“My interest in media texts grows out of
my literary training. The point is to use the
skills of literary analysis to discuss a range of
cultural expression.”
Edwards continued studying popular culture and media, and their roles in society.
Aside from her teaching, Edwards has dedicated (and continues to dedicate) a significant amount of time to researching and writing. She has produced two published books
and is currently working on her third.
“My research and teaching are about taking the concerns of American literary studies
into a larger frame, tracing those concerns
through media and popular culture.”
In the classroom, Edwards focuses on
helping her students become active learners
by urging them to see close reading, critical
Unraveling
the reality of
pop culture
Associate Professor Leigh Edwards
talks about her books, her teaching philosophies, and her studies
on media and popular culture
By Gabrielle Shaiman
F
rom early on in her life, Leigh Edwards had ambition to become an
English professor.
With a love for writing and literature, she
spent summers in high school taking part
in Duke University’s Young Writers’ Camp
and their pre-college program, where she explored writing genres and soaked up knowledge from professional educators.
Edwards went on to gain her undergraduate degree from Duke and graduated as an
Angier B. Duke scholar. She continued her
education as a national Mellon fellow at
the University of Pennsylvania, where she
earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in English. During graduate school, she returned to Duke
each summer to teach in their Talent Identification Program.
Edwards, who joined the faculty at Florida
State in 2001, is remarkably the third generation of her family to become a professor at
FSU and an eighth generation native Floridian. Her father, Steve Edwards, was the Dean
of the faculties and is a retired physics professor. Edwards’ grandfather, the late Milton
Carothers Sr., was an education professor,
the first dean of the graduate school, and
acting president of FSU after Robert Strozier. In fact, the FSU education building,
Carothers Hall, now bears his name.
“My family history has made for some
vibrant intellectual links for me,” Edwards
says.
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Summer/Fall 2013
“
Leigh Edwards (left) teaches courses
on media and popular culture, and she
has published books on reality TV and
Johnny Cash.
She enjoys the opportunity to send her
editing, writing, and media students to
FSU’s Strozier Library to do projects involving the history of their special collections
of rare books – and it adds an extra thrill
to the job when her excited students make
discoveries from the Carothers Memorial
Collection, a collection of rare Bibles and
books that was donated to Strozier Library
in 1982 by Edwards’ uncle in honor of her
grandparents.
“My professional values of intellectual
work and preserving and furthering knowledge are also my family values too,” she says.
Edwards teaches courses on media studies
as well as American literature, and she has
Pictured (left to right) is Edwards’ maternal grandfather,
Milton Carothers Sr., and her father, Steve Edwards. Leigh
Edwards is the third generation of her family to become a
professor at FSU.
because Edwards offers so much knowledge
about contemporary popular culture during
her lectures and discussions.
“I think it means a lot to students to have
this incredibly accomplished academic talk
to them about their favorite television shows,
pop songs, and music videos and not demean or devalue them, but instead give them
the critical tools necessary to situate that
cultural form in a particular sociocultural
moment and help them make a case for its
My family history has made for some vibrant
intellectual links for me. My professional values of
intellectual work and preserving and furthering
knowledge are also my family values too.
— Leigh Edwards
thinking, and analytical writing as interrelated skills. She also encourages her students
to engage in the cultural expression they see
around them every day.
“Teaching courses in American literature
and popular culture is exciting and rewarding,” Edwards says, “because I see my students becoming independent thinkers who
can develop insightful theories to help them
explain the world around them.”
Caroline Burkholder was a student in Edwards’ spring 2012 course, Literary Experience of American Pop Culture. She says that
the class was an engaging experience, mainly
”
existence,” says Burkholder, who is completing a dual degree in sociology and interdisciplinary humanities with a concentration in
English. “It literally made me see the world
differently and gave me a lot of confidence
going forward.”
Burkholder adds that Edwards’ personality and humility also help the professor build
a strong relationship with her students.
“I tend to think she runs a really democratic classroom, where everyone’s opinion
matters, and Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, and Dolly
Parton have a lot to say about gender, race,
and capitalism,” Burkholder says.
Recently, Edwards published her second
book, The Triumph of Reality TV: The Revolution in American Television. In this book, she
investigates media trends, including transmedia storytelling (narratives that evolve across
multiple media platforms such as films,
books, TV series, videogames, websites, music albums, etc.), emotional appeals to viewers, and turning real people into characters.
She also examines how reality television explores the anxiety of our current digital era,
in which any digital image can easily be altered in Photoshop.
The Triumph of Reality TV also focuses on
the changing model of the American family.
“As people redefine what family means
and it becomes a more flexible category, reality TV is engaging in its own family values
debate on shows ranging from ‘Teen Mom’
to ‘Wife Swap,’” she says.
Edwards argues that the genre of reality
television is able to embody a certain feeling
about a period of demographic change in the
family identity. Some reality television shows
“embrace changing family models while others are nostalgic for an older modern nuclear
family ideal, one that was never the reality
for most families in America,” Edwards says.
“Reality TV is fascinating, usually in a
trainwreck way,” she adds. “They literally enact what it would be like to turn your life into
a narrative that fits into fictional TV genres.”
Edwards says she tends to enjoy reality
shows that are about people achieving
See EDWARDS, page 27
Summer/Fall 2013
5
Setting
standard
the
Associate Professor Dennis Moore’s award-winning
teaching philosophy pays off for his students
By Monica Sclafani
F
rom the moment Associate Professor Dennis Moore greets you,
he has this familiar feel about him
— a recognizable voice coming
out from behind a warm smile. After only
minutes of conversing, Moore’s enthusiasm
as a teacher becomes as evident as his passion for early American literature and culture.
His teaching has brought him many
awards, including most recently another University Teaching Award for 2013 in recognition of excellence in teaching at Florida State
University.
With three decades of teaching experience
under his belt, Moore explains how exciting
it has always been to work with students who
really want to learn rather than only being
interested in earning those
three credits or getting
through the semester.
“I relish the opportunity
to work with people who
have curiosity and the desire to learn,” Moore says,
referring to the approach
that characterizes FSU’s
Bryan Hall Learning Community, which he served as
faculty director for seven
years. Located inside the oldest building on
the FSU campus, this interdisciplinary residential community focuses on providing an
environment that assists 128 first-year students each year with realizing their full potential in a research university.
“We appreciate Dennis’s many contributions to the teaching mission of the university,” says Eric Walker, chair of the FSU
English Department.
Moore’s excellence in teaching brings
praise from inside the classroom as well.
FSU student Zachary Morris, an English
major with a focus on the editing, writing,
and media track, has taken multiple early
American culture classes.
“Dr. Moore was a motivating professor
providing accommodations for his students
to succeed at the highest levels,” he says.
Moore brought an impressive educational history with him when he joined FSU’s
faculty in 1991. After completing his undergraduate degree at Clemson University,
Moore continued his education by obtain-
Photo by Bob Howard
“I relish the opportunity to
work with people who have
curiosity and the desire to
learn.”
— Dennis Moore
ing an M.A. and, later, a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In
between those graduate degrees he gained
experience in writing and editing, including his time as a staff member at the South
Carolina Arts Commission. He made his way
to Tallahassee from Chapel Hill by way of
a tenure-track teaching position at the University of Texas at El Paso. Many years later,
Moore finds himself happy to be living at the
heart of another educational hub with Barbara Stevens Heusel, whom he describes as
“my better half.”
Mark Zeigler, a faculty member in FSU’s
College of Communication and Information, a fellow recipient of FSU’s Univer-
Moore has published multiple articles and two books, including “Letters from an
American Farmer and Other Essays,” on French-born writer J. Hector St. John de
Crèvecoeur, who wrote about early America.
6
Summer/Fall 2013
sity Distinguished Teacher Award, and a
long-time friend of Moore’s, acknowledges
Moore’s successes within the community.
“As the long-time director of the Bryan
Hall Learning Community, Moore set a standard for how these innovative programs are
set up and successful,” Ziegler says.
Both Moore and Zeigler have given presentations in the long-running Faculty Luncheon Series, and Moore chose to end the
spring 2012 series with a twist: leading a discussion rather than giving a speech.
“As a colleague, he is always interested in
what fellow faculty members are doing and
is happy to see their success,” Zeigler, continues, commenting on Moore’s April 2012
session, “Listen. Reflect. Discuss. Repeat as
Needed.”
That session wrapped up the semesterlong series “Why We Still Teach,” which
planners based on the year-long series
Moore had organized in 2006-2007. Pointing
to Moore’s many accomplishments and service to the university, Zeigler observes that
Moore is one reason for considering FSU as
a truly student-centered university.
Moore has earned a total of five campuswide teaching awards at FSU, including three
University Teaching Awards – one that he
received in his second year on the faculty
– as well as a 2013 Undergraduate Teaching Award, plus the 1999 University Distinguished Teacher Award.
Nine years ago, Moore noticed that while
several “caucuses,” or small groups of scholars sharing similar interests, had begun forming within the interdisciplinary American
Studies Association, none focused on American culture from before the 20th century.
So, Moore convinced two dozen of his colleagues within the A.S.A. to join him in proposing a caucus to focus on early-American
culture and history.
“We gave it an admittedly corny name,”
Moore says, laughing as he shares this group’s
name, the Early American Matters Caucus. It
has grown to nearly 400 people from a really
wide range of disciplines: history and literature, as well as gender studies, race and ethnicity studies, sociology, art history, material
culture and much more.
Photo by Monica Sclafani
Dennis Moore, shown here in his Williams office, has been teaching for three
decades, with 23 of those years spent in the English department at FSU. He has
received numerous teaching awards.
At its recent conference in Charleston,
Moore completed a two-year term as president of S.A.S.A., the A.S.A.’s southern regional chapter.
“I’m happy to have colleagues in the
organization who are willing to contribute
toward our first-ever mini-travel grants for
graduate students,” Moore says, “and to
have finally gotten a fine website started,
southernamericanstudiesassociation.org.”
He has served on its board since 2005 and
since 2007 has led the essay-prize competition that recognizes the most impressive paper by a graduate student at SASA’s biennial
conference.
For the past two years he co-chaired the
competition with a young colleague from a
small liberal arts college in South Carolina,
in order to nurture new leadership within the
organization.
An added benefit of being a
“Dennis Moore is one of the
faculty member, Moore says, is
the opportunity to teach in FSU’s
reasons FSU is seen as a studentprestigious international studies
centered university.”
program.
— Mark Zeigler “Yep, getting to teach literature
courses for four, hmm no – make that five
summers, now,” he recalls while counting
on his fingers, “at FSU’s wonderful London
Study Centre – a block away from the British
Museum – as well as one summer at FSU’s
magnificent study center in Florence, has
been a pleasure, plus an opportunity for me
to learn a great deal.”
He was back in London to teach in summer 2013 and took his class to the National
Portrait Gallery to see the painting of Dame
Iris Murdoch.
Recently, he gave a presentation at Clemson University on the book Harvard University Press published earlier this year: J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur’s Letters From an
American Farmer and Other Essays. The book’s
cover features this line below an early-nineteenth-century painting: “Edited and with
an Introduction by Dennis D. Moore.”
In November 2013, Moore gave a talk as
part of the “Books and Beyond” series hosted by the Library of Congrees, where Crèvecoeur’s original 18th-century manuscript is
locked safely away in a vault, among numerous other treasures.
Summer/Fall 2013
7
Taking on
the
Big Apple
T
he youngest academic track
in the Florida State University Department of English
is growing up. With about 240
students graduating from the editing, writing, and media track each
year, its alumni are taking jobs
and pursuing advanced degrees in
journalism, television production
and transmedia entertainment.
“I have had students land jobs
in the media industry based on
their work for their EWM major.
It helps to have training in media
theory,” says Leigh Edwards, associate professor of English at FSU.
Darby Schwartz, a 2012 EWM
graduate, is currently a production coordinator at ABC Studios in New York, where she
works alongside notable broadcast journalists and assists
with bookings for the network.
Renée Jacques, a 2012 EWM
graduate, has channeled her love
for journalism in graduate school.
Currently pursuing a master’s
degree in magazine writing at
New York University, Jacques
has been published in Outside magazine and The Village
Voice since her move to the city.
With résumés of practical, handson courses under their belt, these
graduates are rooted in the analytical, compositional foundations of
English, while savvy in the everevolving nature of the digital age.
— Jessica Militare
8
Summer/Fall 2013
W
By Jessica Militare
I
t’s not every day that you pass Diane Sawyer in
the hall at the office, or coordinate bookings
with Barbara Walters on the telephone. Darby
Schwartz is a production coordinator in special
units at ABC Studios in New York, where these
chance encounters are commonplace. But she
isn’t immune to them.
“Diane Sawyer says hi to me in the hallways. It’s
crazy to me,” Schwartz says. “I still can’t believe
that I work with her and she knows who I am.”
After graduating from FSU, Schwartz moved
back home to Marietta, a suburb 30 minutes northeast of Atlanta. She was readjusting from life in
football-obsessed Tallahassee (she’s a diehard
Seminoles fan) to the relaxed, country life of her
childhood, and interning at an event planning
company in nearby ritzy Buckhead. Six months
later, after submitting an application to work at
ABC, she got a call that would soon land her at the
network’s bustling Midtown Manhattan campus.
“I took the initiative and said, ‘I want to come
meet you face to face,’ because I don’t think phone
interviews are a good idea,” Schwartz recalls. “I
came in person, and the next thing I knew I was
moving to New York.”
Before she enters the fast-paced news milieu,
Schwartz wallows in the lull of morning. Even at
the start of spring, when it’s usually still freezing
in the city, she drags herself out of a warm bed
See SCHWARTZ, page 28
Exploring the
broadcast world
EWM alumna Darby Schwartz
is a production coordinator
at ABC Studios in New York.
Photos courtesy of Darby Schwartz
Magazine journalism
and broadcast production
provide exciting career
paths for former students
Surviving the
magazine capital
hen Renée Jacques moved to New
York City after graduating from
FSU, her feet began to hurt.
“You’re walking so much, it’s insane,”
Jacques says.
Burdened with blister-ridden heels,
Jacques’ second nuisance was the strain
of a weekly 15-minute grocery haul to
her Williamsburg apartment. Rather than
throwing her bags in the backseat of her car
and driving a mere two minutes to her house
as she did in Tallahassee, she quickly realized
New York is the big leagues.
“It’s a little bit of a hassle, but it’s really a
small price to pay for being here in this city,”
Jacques says.
A master’s student in journalism at New
York University, Jacques’ concentration is
magazine writing. Between school, working
in the multimedia room at the university,
and working at Huffington Post, the budding
journalist is certainly busy. And graduate
school isn’t a slice of pie. After a swift
20-minute subway commute to NYU, her
marathon begins.
Jacques is enrolled in a biweekly workshop
class and a craft class; her six-hour workshop
is spent evaluating student pieces, discussing
the logistics of major publications and
hearing from guest speakers. NYU’s solid
relationship with major figures in the
journalism world has its perks: “Talk”
columnist for The New York Times Magazine
Andrew Goldman stopped by her class
earlier in the semester. The university’s own
carry their weight as well. Jacques’ workshop
professor, Caroline Miller, was the editor-inchief at New York magazine for eight years.
“It’s very collaborative but also very
independent,” Jacques says. “You’re
becoming best friends with people because
you’re trying to do the same thing, but then
it’s also competitive because we’re all trying
to do the same thing.”
A native of Boca Raton, Fla., Jacques
gained an interest in writing after her high
school English teacher told her to become
a journalist.
“I guess that’s a very typical story,” Jacques
says. “But he would read my stuff, and tell
me ‘Go into English,’ [and that] I’m really
Photos courtesy of Renée Jacques
EWM alumna Renée Jacques works at Huffington Post.
good at analyzing and writing, and proving
the ‘why’ of how people are.”
Jacques’ dream of majoring in journalism
was crushed when she noticed its absence
from FSU’s degree list. But that didn’t stop
her. Jacques interned at Tallahassee Magazine
and served as news editor at the FSView &
Florida Flambeau, the university’s independent
student-run newspaper. She soon discovered
her passion could also grow in the Williams
Building.
While in Assistant Professor Ned
Stuckey-French’s personal essay class,
Jacques contributed to a digital archive he
is assembling of scanned original essays
from magazines. The collection includes
surrounding advertisements, art, letters to
the editor, and contributors’ notes that shape
the rhetorical context of the pieces.
Jacques says the experience “was really
helpful in shaping my voice, especially for
NYU. NYU’s Journalism School is more focused on finding your own style of writing,
and more of a creative nonfiction narrative
type of journalism. I wrote a lot of essays
in [his] class that really expanded what I
thought could be good nonfiction.”
If only Jacques knew her fondness for
personal narratives would later manifest in
a reflective essay about extreme obstacle
challenge, Tough Mudder, and would be
published in prominent outdoor publication,
Outside. The event transported her from the
urban landscape of New York City to the
See JACQUES, page 29
Summer/Fall 2013
9
Cults, Crows, and
Love Motels
“Everything
loses its glow.
A look into the haunting poetry
of the new book “About Crows” by
Craig Blais, Ph.D. candidate
C
By Tina Andrews
Craig Blais sinks down in the deep, cushy seat he managed to
steal outside the swarming campus coffee shop. Even though he
brought his own coffee thermos to campus, he has stopped at Starbucks to grab his next cup.
Blais is embracing his final year as a student in Florida State
University’s Ph.D. program; he is majoring in twentieth-century American poetry, minoring in the long poem. It is a
bright, crisp Tuesday afternoon. The steam from his boiling coffee cuts the air. He is wearing his teaching assistant
tuxedo: corduroys, wrinkled dress shirt, cardigan, messy
shoes. He leans over.
“Every time I walk up, I order one black coffee, and
every time the barista asks, ‘Would you like room for
cream?’”
Blais is a devoted soul, dedicating his life to his passions:
black coffee, running, and poetry. Blais ran his first marathon in 2013, completing the St. George Marathon in Utah,
and as he spoke about his life, he says he is expecting a longawaited package: the very first shipment of his first book,
About Crows. It is a collection of poems written and rewritten
over the past decade. The oldest poem, “A River,” has become
the newest, after a round of intense revisions.
Barbara Hamby, a Guggenheim Fellowship professor at FSU,
was instrumental in Blais’ final editing process. Before Hamby took
a 12-month fellowship, she offered her renowned editing skills to any
graduate student’s manuscript. Blais, then in the first weeks of the Ph.D.
program, took her up on the offer.
“Although we only met for one afternoon,” Blais says, “Hamby gave me
direction I would use for the rest of the manuscript.”
One of the most important revisions Hamby made was sectioning the
collection. The University of Wisconsin Press picked up About Crows after
the revisions, and the press awarded Blais the Felix Pollak Prize in poetry.
His work also recently garnered The Florida Book Awards’ Gold Medal in
poetry, and Blais, who successfully defended his dissertation in February
2014, was named the winner of the 2014 Dean’s Prize, an annual award
given to an English department Ph.D. candidate.
Maybe art is
an attempt to
reclaim some
lost magic or
innocence or
purity of
imagination.”
The Lost Town
Blais uses his hometown of Springfield, Massachusetts as the backdrop
for the first section of About Crows. “The Lost Town” splices Springfield
10 Summer/Fall 2013
Photo by Tina Andrews
After being a finalist for the Walt
Whitman Award in 2010 and the
National Poetry Series in 2011,
Blais came out on top and won the
2013 Felix Pollak Prize from the
University of Wisconsin Press and
selected by former National Book
award winner Terrance Hayes.
The Love Motel
Experiences in Korea led to the title of
the second section of About Crows,“The
Beverly Hills of Korea (or, My Life in
the Love Motel).”
Blais was told he was to stay in a Love Motel for the first month of his stay. The motel
staff put him in the first room of the first
floor.
“I think they wanted to keep an eye on
me,” he says, laughing.
When he entered, he faced a wall of mirrors and dumbbells, a rack of adult entertainment VHS tapes, and a bathroom filled
with supplies (i.e., aftershave). The seedy environment served as an educational experience for Blais.
“I invited over a female friend, to meet
me for dinner, and she refused to come in-
side. I learned then that merely being seen
going into a place like that might damage a
woman’s reputation.”
American analogies are used to explain
just about anything to foreigners in Korea;
desperate to make a connection, yet the analogies are completely off. A ritzy neighborhood is notoriously known as “The Beverly
Hills of Korea,” a popular actor is described
as the “Al Pacino of Korea.”
“Maybe he was better than Al Pacino.”
A friend dubbed a volcanic island near the
coast of Seoul the “Hawaii of Korea.”
“It wasn’t anything close to Hawaii,” Blais
explains. “It was its own thing.”
Blais concludes his collection with “The
Cult Poem.” While working in an English
with neighboring town Enfield. Blais explains in reality, Enfield was flooded. It currently sits under a reservoir that feeds drinking water to Boston.
“We all lose our towns; it’s called growing
up,” Blais says, as he takes a sip of coffee.
“Everything loses its glow. Maybe art is an
attempt to reclaim some lost magic or innocence or purity of imagination. Suddenly you
witness things that point directly and unmistakably at a darkness and tragedy that lingers
beneath it all.”
Blais grew up playing hockey and delivering newspapers in Hungry Hill, a working
class neighborhood 90 miles outside
Boston.
“I felt like I belonged elsewhere,
doing something else, living a different life.” He “skipped town” and
headed west for the University of San
Francisco after earning an associate’s
degree at Holyoke Community College. It was in San Francisco where he
met John Tierney, who has remained a
close friend. Tierney connected Blais
with his first teaching job in Korea
after a Kerouac-esque road trip from
California to Alaska, then Massachusetts.
“Truth is my time in Korea was
really confusing, and not poetic,” Blais
says.
With two bags at his side, Blais set
out for Seoul, a city he would return
two more times over the next five
years. He left American-brand democracy, equality, and political correctness
Blais at The Doors bar in a neighborhood of Sookdae, Korea.
behind.
See BLAIS, page 26
“I have an
unhealthy
attraction
to being
invisible.”
Photo courtesy of Craig Blais
Summer/Fall 2013 11
Newberry shares “no common denominators,” in regards to his heritage, with Palestine or Israel. His desire to live abroad in Jerusalem was fostered by his Southern Baptist
upbringing in Mississippi.
“When I was growing up, in all of our
Sunday school classes we had an American
flag on the wall and a map of the Holy Land,”
Newberry said. “Just the geography of that
place was something that was really essential
to me from an early age, so even though I’m
not religious now, it’s still this pivotal place…
which shaped me as a person.”
When the opportunity to live in Jerusalem
at least, he wasn’t confronted by the separation wall, also known as the Apartheid Wall,
looming just beyond his apartment, which
was a constant reminder of the conflict at
acob Newberry was in his rooftop
hand. His anxiety, however, was never far
apartment in Jerusalem, the separation
from the surface. Often, there were two curwall that partitions Israel from Palesrents of thought warring back and forth in
tine visible to him in the distance, when
his mind.
news from the United States found him. His
“You’re not doing anything to make this
essay, “What You Will Do,” a nonfiction
tremendous injustice better,” he would think
piece about his experience living abroad in
to himself. “You’re just sitting around writJerusalem for a year as a Fulbright Scholar,
ing. Go do something!” At other times he
had won the 2012 Emerging Writer’s Contest
would wonder, “What gives me the right [as
in Nonfiction from Ploughshares, one of the
an American] to do anything?”
most esteemed literary journals in the
“I could not, in good conscience, find
nation.
a way to wrap my head around what I
The announcement was an encourcould do that would not just be another
agement for Newberry, a creative writelement of imperialism and colonialism
ing doctoral student at Florida State
versus sitting back, and being apathetic,
University, who just earlier that day had
and accepting injustice, and doing nothbeen venting his concerns about his reing,” Newberry says. “The impossibility
cent attempts at writing to his Fulbright
of resolving that paralyzed me on an
advisor.
emotional and spiritual level. I just had
“I had been trying to write,” Newber- Jacob Newberry’s essay about
so much anxiety all of the time because
ry says, “but I was feeling a bit stifled.”
I did not know how to resolve that cenNewberry’s essay stuck out to the ed- his time spent in Jerusalem won tral conflict,” he says. “The only thing I
itor-in-chief of Ploughshares, Ladette Ploughshares 2012 Emerging
could do was write about it.”
Randolph.
Newberry channeled his energy into
“Jacob’s essay, like other semi-final- Writer’s Contest in Nonfiction
crafting “What You Will Do.” He says
ists in the nonfiction contest, was well
that, while he doesn’t generally set out to
written, so it wasn’t the writing alone that as a Fulbright scholar presented itself, New- achieve catharsis through the act of writing
stood out to me,” Randolph says. “Instead, it berry set off on a journey to satiate a lifelong when creating a story or poem, he wrote this
was his honesty, his ability to illustrate a mind fascination.
particular essay “to heal.”
at work, his meticulous tracking of the inBefore arriving in Jerusalem, he had a few
In his essay he pokes fun at himself and
dividual consciousness through a process of expectations of what his time in Israel might his anxieties, which Randolph says is one of
discovery that set it apart from other essays.” be like. However, the challenge of being in- the greatest strengths of his essay.
Before crafting his prize-winning essay effectual in the effort to solve the conflict
“I found his ability to laugh at himself
though, Newberry was first humbled by the between Israel and Palestine was not some- very refreshing,” she says, “He’s willing to
experiences he had while living in the Holy thing Newberry was prepared for.
admit to being uncool at times in the piece,
City, a place central to the long lived conflict
Sometimes he tried to distract himself and I find that sort of risk-taking essential in
between Israel and Palestine, which was an by going Tel Aviv to visit with friends in at- the best nonfiction writing.”
issue he hoped to help reconcile on his own. tempts to escape his fretfulness. In Tel Aviv,
In Newberry’s essay, there’s a scene that
By Jillian Quinn
J
Turning a lens
on the world
12 Summer/Fall 2013
demonstrates this quality, in which, he describes how doing something as simple as
taking a shower in Jerusalem could make
him feel guilty and anxious about the IsraeliPalestinian conflict:
“Just find a way to be happy. Just find a
way to accept the great pleasure of a hot
shower. Now turn the water off. You have
been in there too long. This is wasteful, and
water in this country is in short supply. In
fact, some people fear a war over resources
will break out soon. Do not contribute to the
coming war with your wastefulness.”
It’s moments of prose like this that makes
“I came to nonfiction totally by accident.
I was here [at FSU] as a poet, and I still consider my home base as poetry, but I took a
nonfiction class and I found my voice very
quickly in nonfiction in a way that I have
not found in fiction and in a way that I have
found much more difficult for me to find in
poetry,” he says.
Perhaps, as Roberts points out, this is
because Newberry has keen journalistic instincts.
“He’s a great reporter,” she says. “I mean
that in the writerly sense, in that he can observe and describe the world around him
with a positively Jamesian
“I found his ability to laugh at himself precision, translating his
very refreshing. He’s willing to admit to impressions into beautifully-crafted sentences, and
being uncool at times in the piece, and [in] the journalistic sense
I find that sort of risk-taking essential that he strives to be accurate, fair, and probing.”
in the best nonfiction writing.”
“There’s a hunger for
— Ladette Randolph true stories that I think we
would be foolish as writers
Newberry stand out in the writing world. to not exploit,” Newberry says. “With nonFlorida State Professor Diane Roberts, one fiction the reader’s heart opens up a little bit
of Newberry’s mentors, recognizes her for- more to you if they know that this is a real
mer student’s prowess as a writer, a quailty thing that happened to you. So you get that
she witnessed when Newberry was in her advantage from the beginning, then you have
nonfiction workshop.
to treat that with respect.”
“Jacob Newberry is one of the most talented writers I’ve had the pleasure teaching at
FSU,” she says. “Unlike many creative writing
students, who prefer to draw their material
out of their own heads, Jacob likes to talk to
people, to interview them, to ask uncomfortable questions of them--and himself. That’s
one reason why he’s won so many awards.” Surprisingly, Newberry didn’t realize until
recently that he had a knack for the nonfiction genre.
Though Newberry went through challenging times in Israel, he was fortunate enough
to have the support of other Fulbright scholars. He has also found support and community in FSU’s creative writing program, which
he chose over others, in part, because of its
recognition as one of the top creative writing
programs in the nation.
“The best thing is being in an environment
with excellent writers who are driven to succeed. Here, among the writers, it’s a very
positive, uplifting atmosphere. If somebody
gets a publication, somebody else is posting a
link to it on Facebook, and saying, congratulations. There’s none of that seething envy or
back biting. For me, having that community
of writers who are not only driven and excellent, but who are also good people makes all
the difference.”
Newberry will graduate from FSU in the
spring of 2014, and among his plans to continue his already successful writing career,
he also has a range of desired professions.
Newberry expresses interest in finding a
place in the publishing world and in the
academy as he likes the “university life” and
enjoys teaching.
While Newberry is glad to be home in
the United States, there are things he truly
misses about Jerusalem. Though he inevitably had moments of feeling isolated while
submersed in a culture far different than his
own, Newberry found the bright side and
advantages of being an outsider.
“Outsider access sharpens the mind, and
I think that’s an essential human experience
that a writer has to have, to be a totally removed in order to be a pure observer. Now
that I’m back here [in the United States], I try
to turn that lens on the world I’m living in
now, but it’s much more difficult.”
Summer/Fall 2013 13
Taking his textual
research abroad
Undergraduate Jacob Gibbons took a creative path by traveling to
the Netherlands to study texts from the Middle Ages and Renaissance
W
By Julia Welling
hile many undergrads
return home for the
summer months, or
remain in Tallahassee for classes, Jacob
Gibbons’ 2012 summer was much different. After receiving a $4,000 Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity Award
for his research in the humanities, Gibbons
purchased a ticket and jet set to the Netherlands to further his research.
It was a beautiful summer day when Gibbons, an undergraduate in Florida State University’s Department of English, set foot on
14 Summer/Fall 2013
Dutch soil in May 2012. With a great head on
his shoulders and research ideas in mind, he
traveled to Leiden, a small city about 45 minutes outside of Amsterdam. Here, he spent
the next three months, months that he now
calls the best of his life.
“The city of Leiden is like the love of my
young life, and I’ve never felt anything like
the intellectual and personal stimulation I
had there,” Gibbons says.
During his time in Leiden, Jake spent most
of his time in the archives at the Leiden University Library and the Royal Dutch Library
where he worked on his project, “Textual
Revolution and Mulitmodality.” There, he
analyzed the physical aspects of the texts
that he found.
Gibbons studied incanabula, or texts written before 1500. He studied the ways in
which the early years of printing, the late
Middle Ages and the early Renaissance,
changed the way texts were produced, transmitted, and received. These early printing
revolutions directly correlate to the recent
textual revolution of the twenty-first century
that is digitization.
His main point of study was rubrication,
a technique used in medieval manuscripts in
which the scribe or illuminator strategically
places red ink on the page to guide the reader’s eyes to important parts of the text (ways
to navigate the text, offset chapters, points of
reference, or section breaks in a time when
tables of contents and chapters did not exist). Gibbons also studied typography, which
is the use of different typefaces, font sizes,
and space that is found in modern books.
Leiden gave Gibbons access to primary
resources that he otherwise would not have
been able to access.
“Many FSU students are familiar with
the inscription above the main entrance to
Dodd Hall that reads, ‘the half of knowledge
is to know where to find knowledge,’ and I
love that Jacob acted on that philosophy by
traveling to the Netherlands to further his
research,” says Brandy Haddock, Gibbons’
English department advisor.
In Leiden, he also found the basis of his
honors thesis, which he perfected with the
help of his mentor Professor David F. Johnson of FSU’s English Department.
“There are a number of adjectives that
seem to have been invented for Jacob Gibbons: driven, focused, assiduous, curious and
inspired are among them,” Johnson says, in
an article that was published on FSU’s main
website. “He is a careful and meticulous
writer and researcher, with a fine-tuned eye
for detail. I think everyone who has worked
with him expects great things from him, and
justifiably so.”
In April 2013, Gibbons won the Department of English’s Louis and Mart P. Hill
Award for Outstanding Undergraduate
Honors Thesis.
Gibbons’ thesis, titled “From Rubrication
to Typography: Die geesten of geschiedenis
van Romen and the History of the Book in
the Low Countries,” examines the large shift
from rubrication to typography in the early
printed book, and using the Geschiedenis
Photos courtesy of Jacob Gibbons
When in Leiden, Gibbons found time to sightsee and take photographs.
vidual Study classes through FSU.
Like most who go abroad, the transition
home was not easy for Gibbons. After being
immersed in this new culture, and meeting
so many interesting people, he had a difficult
time returning to the United States.
“I was kind of depressed,” he explains.
Once he returned to Tallahassee, however,
Gibbons continued his research, while also
inspiring the research of others.
Gibbons, along with Joe O’Shea, director
of undergraduate research, helped create and
structure the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program, which allows undergraduates to serve as research assistants to FSU
faculty members and to learn more about
undergraduate research.
Gibbons recently co-taught Florida State’s
UROP Leader Seminar, which trains future
colloquium
leaders.
Like the freshmen and
“Many FSU students are familiar with the
sophomores that he
inscription above the main entrance to Dodd
mentored through the
program, Gibbons also
Hall that reads, “’the half of knowledge is to
had to get a jumpstart
know where to find knowledge,’ and I love that
into undergraduate reJacob acted on that philosophy by traveling to
search.
the Netherlands to further his research.”
When Gibbons first
— Brandy Haddock became interested in
senior English advisor humanities research
van Romen text to do so.
In May 2013, Gibbons won a Fulbright
scholarship to continue his research at the
University of Leiden in 2013-14.
Though Gibbons calls his time in the
Netherlands “the most intellectually fulfilling experience” he has had thus far, it is clear
that he gained more than just intellectual
stimulation during his time abroad.
“The whole experience really changed my
life,” Gibbons says. “I met people from over
27 different countries, [including Sweden,
Malaysia, and Columbia] and I fell in love
with the language.”
Though the $4,000 he won for the URCA
award may not seem like much, Gibbons
managed to get by in Leiden, with the additional help from financial aid money he
received by enrolling in two Directed Indi-
through the History of Text Technologies
class, a core requirement of the English department’s editing, writing, and media track,
he presented his future plans to former FSU
English Professor Elaine Treharne whose
words set him in motion.
“‘I’m going to major in this and minor in
this and this, and I’m going to make a lot of
money,’ I said to her, to which she just gave
me this stunned look and [said] ‘I always
placed you as a scholar,’” Gibbons recalls.
Though he focused on being a scholar,
Gibbons still found time to have the full college experience.
“Sometimes I didn’t even answer text messages, or emails during the day, because it
just doesn’t fit into my set schedule,” Gibbons says.
Gibbons shyly admitted that he sometimes
overslept, procrastinated, and even missed
class from time to time, but he mastered the
art of time management.
“Sometimes I’ll bust my ass from 9 a.m. to
9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, so that I do
have time to have a beer on the weekends,”
Gibbons says.
With his extensive resume, e-portfolio,
and research experience, it is clear that Gibbons will easily fit in being a scholar with his
daily routine.
Summer/Fall 2013 15
Michael Neal, left,
and his team of
graduate students
gathers around
a group of postcards, identifying
major details in
each one.
Adventures
with
postcards
F
Photos by Chelsea Martin
By Chelsea Martin
Florida State University Professor Michael
Neal buys antique postcards in hopes of revamping the visual rhetoric course available
to Editing, Writing, and Media (EWM) students. What started out as a fun experiment
has turned into a full research project involving doctoral students and undergraduate interns. Neal, along with graduate assistants
Katie Bridgman, Stephen McElroy, and Jeff
Naftzinger, shed new light on an old form
of media.
As part of a digital humanities course in
the Rhetoric and Composition graduate program, Bridgman and McElroy decided to incorporate the postcards into their final project. After talking with Neal, they discovered
the opportunity to digitalize the postcards.
The final result: an online digital database
16 Summer/Fall 2013
for the cards.
“What mostly prompted it was the desire
to let people who could not access the physical archive see what the postcards look like,”
says McElroy.
What makes this postcard archive different from the rest? The database displays
both front and back images of the postcard,
analyzing postage, copyrights, writing, and
rhetoric associated with each card. With
nearly 1,000 cards entered to date—out of
the 2,000 the group has accumulated—the
archive is thriving.
Starting out as a way to revamp an existing
course within the department, the research
has grown to a team of 12 undergraduate interns who tackle the editing and data
entry of new cards. Interns initially joined
the project at 100 cards, and again at 300,
jumping the total number of postcards in
the database from 300 to 1,000 in a single
semester.
“Word is starting to get out there nationally, so it’s important that it’s as professional
looking as it can be,” says Neal. “We don’t
want any errors in the exhibits or archived
cards, that’s where the interns come in.”
Neal purchases cards that may be of interest to his students. Many of the postcards in the archive are from a World War II
veteran who personally collected postcards
throughout Europe while serving in the war.
Postcards have been purchased from other
various sources, some even donated to the
project. The team buys in quantities of 60
cards at a time.
With nearly 2,000
cards, keeping track of each
individual postcard takes work. Each card
has a sticker that tells the type of card, the
contributor, and number that is assigned
sequentially as the postcards are entered in
the database. Shelves full of boxes containing the postcards line the walls of Neal’s office, so students can come by and check out
physical cards, although Neal wishes more
would do so.
“There’s more to examine with the actual
card in your hand, finding things to stumble
upon that may get overlooked in a digital
space,” says Neal.
Since purchasing the postcards, both Neal
and McElroy have incorporated them into
their teaching. Each semester, students in
certain Visual Rhetoric classes participate
in a project that includes creating an exhibit
for the postcards of their choice and looking
at the text-image relationships within them.
Neal expresses he wants a new experience
for students, rather than the contemporary
mediums the course originally encompassed.
The vision behind incorporating the postcard database was to give variety to the assignments throughout the course.
“Each card has so many stories woven
into it. I want students to explore and tell
those stories,” says Neal. “That’s why it’s
such an important project in Visual Rhetoric
classes.”
Neal was recently selected as the 2013
winner of FSU’s Ralph Stair Prize in Innovative Education, for his work with the postcard archive. Stephen McElroy has also begun utilizing the database as a tool in teach-
ing the Writing and Edit- tell stories about that past. We just have to
ing for Print and Online be willing to listen to them.”
(WEPO) course, required
During the time Bridgman has worked
for EWM students. with the archive she has purchased a batch
McElroy incorporates of cards sent to one woman in Jacksonville
the postcards into the in the 1920s and 1930s. Because of
course by assigning the number of cards and nature of the
students a project to correspondences, Bridgman speculates
design their own post- that the woman may have been a teacher
cards, after looking or mentor because the cards read as if
through the database. her students are writing to her about their
The project allows summer adventures.
for WEPO students
“You look at the cards long enough, patto become familiar terns emerge,” Bridgman says. “The most
with Adobe Pho- captivating part of the postcards is the
toshop and InDe- personal insight you get into these people’s
sign.
lives.”
IncorporatThe postcards have unlocked a door to
ing the cards into standing the past, allowing students and teachers alike
exhibits allows for display. These displays to explore untold stories of travel and adanalyze Florida, gender, race, and World venture. With the help of the digital dataWar II. Students produce three-quarters of base, these stories have a place to unfold.
these standing exhibits featured on the site. There’s no telling how large the database will
Each semester, Neal acquires permission continue to grow. The team never wanted to
from students to display their work on the have a huge collection, but a smart one that’s
archive. Two to four rotating student exhib- accessible.
its are showcased on the archive.
“The goal is not to be big, but to be use“It’s essentially a publication opportunity able,” says Neal.
for students in a digital space,” says Neal. “You look at the cards long enough,
Bridgman, McEl- patterns emerge. The most captivating
roy, and Neal express the presence part of the postcards is the personal
of stories among the insight you get into these people’s lives.”
postcards. When ex— Katie Bridgman
amining a newly acquired postcard, the
back plays a significant part in revealing stories within the
card. After spending
countless hours with
these cards, they find
the Florida postcards
to be especially interesting because they
show the tourism industry slowly building in the twentieth
century.
“They each represent traces of contact with, between,
and among people
who came before
us,” McElroy says. “They’re relics of the A snapshot of the Florida State University postcard archive
past, and they each homepage, created by Stephen McElroy and Katie Bridgman.
Summer/Fall 2013 17
Thinking outsi
de
of the office cu
be
An award-w
inning new
spaper repo
and FSU En
rter
glish alumn
a
lands on he
following a
r feet
n unexpecte
d downsizin
g
By
A
s the stress of graduation and the
worry of having to join the real
world nears, it is difficult for English students to see the bright side
of things.
The economy has stolen jobs from every
department, and the gradual death of print
does not help the situation. Fortunately, with
some imagination and helpful connections,
English majors can find jobs with less obvious companies while also learning more
than they would in conventional publishing
houses.
Kathleen Laufenberg, a former staff
writer for the Tallahassee Democrat, knows
what it is like to work in a conventional
publishing setting. However, after Gannett
Company acquired the Democrat in 2005,
Laufenberg watched as her career and the
newspaper began to change.
The acquisition required downsizing,
which meant fewer employees and less out
of office reporting and more desk work for
those who were chosen to stay. The excitement and freedom of journalism slipped
away as the walls of the publishing office
crept in.
Five years later, Laufenberg came to terms
with the fact that her work at the Democrat
was done. Luckily, a friend at the National
High Magnetic Field Laboratory informed
her that they had a job opening—not for a
scientist, but for a writer.
Not knowing anything about giant magnets, Laufenberg applied anyway and got the
job. Today, she continues to work as a nonfiction editor for the Apalachee Review, but
in 2010 she added editor, writer, and media
specialist for the MagLab’s many publications to her resume.
This includes writing and editing for the
MagLab’s science and technology magazine,
flux, along with updating the lab’s Twitter
and Facebook pages while giving the majority of the tours for their Public Affairs office.
Now Laufenberg lives in a world of probes
and coils with scientists who come from all
over the world with their choppy English just
to see “What happens if I stick this molecule
in this magnet?”
She politely and amusingly explains her
new struggle with writing articles for flux as
a friendly battle between her and these scientists. First, she watches as they place microscopic samples into the magnets and listens
as they explain their extensive research and
results.
Next is the kicker—turning the data heavy
interviews into understandable English. This
step takes much back and forth between
See LAUFENBERG, page 30
Photo by Quinn Hartmann
I
By Quinn Hartmann
n a quiet nook of the William
Johnston Building, students pair
off at tables, talking and looking
over papers and laptops. No, it
isn’t love in the air; it’s tutoring at
its finest.
The steady hum of voices, with intermittent laughter, is a comforting sign that work
is being done in an amiable environment.
Both graduate and undergraduate students
alike are giving and receiving advice on their
research papers, essays, personal statements,
and dissertations.
Last semester, Jennifer Wells, director of
FSU’s writing centers and digital studios, noticed that thirty percent of all Reading Writing Center (RWC) appointments were being
made by graduate students, second only to
freshmen.
After attending the International Writing
Center’s Association Summer Institute and
reading a proposal on the rationale of having a graduate writing center from an undergraduate intern, Wells became intrigued with
the idea of FSU having its own center.
Although the GWC is designed specifically for graduate students, it harnesses the
same principle as its predecessor, the RWC.
says Wells, who received her doctorate in
English with a specialization in composition. “Also, nobody really reads dissertations for fun, so it’s this high-stakes thing
that people have to write…which makes it
an unfamiliar genre. And we’re trying to be
a guide for that.”
Students are able to make appointments
with tutors who have specialized training
and offer assistance with various projects,
including dissertations and material for publication.
In addition to making appointments with
tutors whenever they want feedback, graduate students are also able to take a class that
enables them to meet with
the same tutor each week,
giving them a specific time
to focus on their work and
develop a relationship with
an established tutor.
“For graduate students
who are working on their
dissertations or long term
projects that are more independent, having the class
enables them to have a little
bit of structure and accountability and it
makes the whole dissertation writing process
less isolating,” Wells says.
Explanatory Journalism, First Place
Florida Society of Newspaper Editors; 2002
Research, dissertations,
and publishing...oh my!
Genesis Award for Best Newspaper Coverage
Humane Society of the United States; 2002
The RWC paves the way for its successor, the GWC
Best Short Feature
American Association of Sunday
and Features Editors; 2001
Since its opening on the ground floor of
the William Johnston Building in late January, the Graduate Writing Center (GWC) has
already become a vital resource for graduate
students at Florida State University.
Kathleen Laufenberg’s awards
Laufenberg explains direct
current magnents during a
tour at the MagLab
General Excellence in Feature Writing
Florida Press Club; 2009
18 Summer/Fall 2013
“It’s the same philosophy always. With all
students you should always be talking about
genre and expectations and readers’ expectations. So, maybe it’s just more critical to
have that discussion at the graduate level,”
Barret Beck,
left, a Graduate
Writing Center
tutor, helps Ryan
Witherspoon with
his master’s thesis
See GWC, page 30
Summer/Fall 2013 19
Photo courtesy of ofr.fsu.edu
“For most of my career, I kept my
interest in music separate from
my interest in nineteenth-century
culture.”
— Professor Barry Faulk
“I can bring a lot
of my experience,
both as a trained
academician and an
artist, to my writing
about that album.”
— Jonathan Dean
Making note
of the music
By Andres Rodriguez
M
usic appreciation can be expressed in many ways. Some
people go to live shows and
concerts while others put on
the performances themselves. Some people
hunt down the physical album at record
stores and thrift shops to enhance the listening experience.
Then there are those who channel their
passion for music into writing.
For example, Florida State University
English Professor Barry Faulk uses historical perspective and thoughtful analysis to inform readers in his recently published book,
British Rock Modernism, 1967-1977: The Story
of Music Hall in Rock.
Mark Hinson writes for the Tallahassee
Democrat, updating readers with news of loSee MUSIC, page 32
“It’s not really relaxing when you are at a concert and
you know that, at 10 p.m., you will have to leave the
venue, find a quiet corner and pound out a coherent,
mistake-free review in 30 minutes or less. That’s
called pressure. That’s called deadline work.”
— Mark Hinson
Photo courtesy of Mark Hinson
20 Summer/Fall 2013
A movie
within
the pages
Our fascination with
books continues to come
alive on the big screen
By Matt Simons
In
the past decade the
winner of the Oscar
award for Best Picture
has gone to a film based
on a book five times,
including the 2013 winner, “Argo.”
Five out of ten may not be a majority, but it’s
pretty darn good for a medium said to be on
its way to extinction.
Yet, even though books seem to be
managing just fine in a world constantly
seeking newer, better forms of entertainment,
it’s hard not to wonder whether they are
being slowly edged out by their story-driven
brethren on the big screen.
When Hollywood announces that it’s
going try its hand at re-creating a popular
book, it is generally met with two very distant
emotional responses: either sheer excitement,
or fearful anxiety. Seeing beloved characters
jump off the page and onto the screen can
be fun, making it seem like movies are far
more exciting than books. But sometimes
it’s astonishing how audiences with high
expectations based on the book label an
objectively decent movie as unsatisfactory.
Perhaps there will never be a definitive
“ consensus on which medium is better, but
Florida State University English Professor
Robert Olen Butler seems hardly bothered
by the question.
“The desire for narrative is the foundation
of human entertainment,” Butler says. “I
don’t think movies are the big danger here . .
. movies are still in the shape of fundamental
narratives.”
Essentially, movies and books are simply
agents in the quest to satisfy that desire.
Though they differ greatly in the manner in
which characters and themes are understood
by the audience, both are basic stories at
their core, as Butler suggests. Neither poses
a real threat to the other in terms of winning
over audiences’ attention.
Well then, no harm done, right? Maybe
not. It seems that somewhere in the midst
of transcribing characters and plotlines
The desire for narrative is the foundation
of human entertainment. — Professor Robert Olen Butler
”
from a book to its screenplay adaptation,
the story on screen is tweaked just enough
to make it different than the one known
between the pages.
And it takes a lot for readers to be satisfied
with the movie adaptation of their favorite
books. Some films get it right, and others just
don’t measure up. Consider movies such as
The Godfather, Fight Club, and Jaws. All three
are very popular movies, and are all based
on books. Then there are those adaptations
that virtually disrespect acclaimed novels
like Animal Farm, Atlas Shrugged, or even The
Chronicles of Narnia.
Julianna Baggott, a bestselling author and
former English professor at FSU, wrote the
Pure trilogy (which is being adapted into a
film) and she knows a thing or two about
transitioning from novels to screenplays.
She says the process of creating a screenplay
from a novel begins with finding the essence
of the work and building from there.
Simple enough. The Godfather is revered
for mirroring the dark tone of Mario Puzo’s
book and working around the rise and fall of
the Corleone family as a metaphor for the
See BOOK TO FILM, page 31
Summer/Fall 2013 21
Creative
connections
By Sami Hershkowitz
are open to anyone. Several times each
semester, about six to eight well known,
published guest authors come to read at
the Warehouse. FSU graduate students read
every other Tuesday and are also given the
opportunity to interact on a more personal
t the front of The Warehouse,
level. This reading series is an event that can
Kerry James Evans stands
open networking doors and bring the FSU
and waits as he is introduced.
creative writer’s career to a professional and
He wears an Atlanta Braves
marketable level. Most authors allow for
T-shirt with a blazer, which
private manuscript consultations and workhe takes off and throws on the speaker as
shops where the students get to interact
if it is a coat hanger. Several of his students
and gain insight into the author’s developare in attendance, sitting in the audience.
ing career path. Then, based on seniority,
The first thing James says when
select students get to introduce
he walks on stage is, “I sold my
the writers before they get on
bronco.”
stage to read.
Evans received his Ph.D. in
“Sharing your work is what
English at Florida State Univerreally changes it. It helps you
sity. The reading series at The
to revise and understand that
Warehouse creates an environyour not just doing this in a
ment that is special and specifibubble, this is important; you’re
cally for writers. It has become
sharing it with other people and
much more than simply enterforging these connections. You
tainment, it is a place to connect
are writing for a reader and you
and create a network.
need to understand how the
On most Tuesday nights at 8,
reader responds to you and if
published quality writers share
you need to change something,”
their work with an inspired
says Brandi George, assistant
crowd. FSU’s creative writing
to the Florida State University
department sponsors the readcreative writing director. ing series at The Warehouse
Guest authors who come
All photos by Sami Hershkowitz
on Gaines Street. Inside, it is The Warehouse attracts a crowd for a recent Tuesday
to Tallahassee share the same
lit sparingly by Christmas lights night reading.
purpose and goals as every
The Warehouse readings provide a
perfect opportunity for student writers
to not only share their work but also
to network with other published writers
A
22 Summer/Fall 2013
with tea light candles arranged at the center of each table. Above everyone there is
a colorfully painted owl on the ceiling, the
universal symbol of wisdom. A certain
comfort sets in while sitting in this dim
wooden cabin. This is the place where aspiring student writers can leave their blinking computer cursor behind, step out of
their sweat pants, and instead network with
talented writers who know what it’s like to
face tough career decisions.
The bulk of attendees are students in
FSU’s English department creative writing graduate program, but the readings
dedicated creative writer. Many well-known,
award-winning authors have read at the reading, such as Travis Mossotti, Don Bogen,
and John Hoppenthaler. These authors,
among others, are
also furthering
their careers by
growing their
list of contacts, shaking hands,
selling
and
signing books, and getting to know fans as
well as fellow writers.
Jessica Primiani, a senior English major on
the editing, writing, media track, says, “that’s
what I like about being an English major, you
can go to a comfortable place with a cool
vibe and chat freely with others who enjoy
all kinds of writing.”
George often organizes dinners at Bird’s
Aphrodisiac Oyster Shack with the guest authors and fellow students.
“I’ve made a lot of great friends with the
writers,” she says.
There, they can all get to know each other
before the reading while enjoying conversation over meals and drinks. George’s favorite
reading so far, she says, was Erica Dawson’s.
She is a young writer with only one book out
but George describes her as “particularly
wonderful as a person.”
Getting to know other writers in the proximity is important. A place like The Warehouse connects everyone with an interest in writing.
It is key for future opportunities, according to George.
“As creative writers, we believe in professionalism, but I think that’s an important thing for creative writers, to hang out
in a non-academic setting,” she says.
At the moment, specifically
graduate students and guest
speakers read their work at the read-
ings. However, there is talk of allowing undergraduate students to read. It might just
give them the head start and experience that
many undergraduate writers are looking for.
Opening up The Warehouse readings to undergraduates could help this weekly literary
event grow and develop into a stronger creative writing hub, connecting the whole FSU
community, not just graduate students.
“Something like a submission process and
then a quick reading could be very interesting, absolutely,” George says.
The readings at the Warehouse tighten the
creative writing community. Creative writing
is personal, even if it’s fiction. It’s important
for writers to support each other as they
strive for success in publishing and any career path.
Undergraduate creative writing students at
FSU are talented and many of them want to
continue on and make writing a career. Getting experience by reading at The Warehouse
would give undergraduates a better idea of
what this job is going to be like. They will
learn what they are expected to do and in
George’s words, get the chance to ask themselves, “Is this what I love?” and answer the
question self-assured.
“Ultimately, creative writing is so hard,”
George says. “You have to love it and it has
to be your life. It’s too competitive for it not
to be your life.”
Former English graduate
student Kerry James Evans
during a Warehouse reading
Summer/Fall 2013 23
The
Life
of the
Williams Building
Photo courtesy of fsu.edu
S
The home of FSU’s Department of English
By Priscilla Lauture
tudents travel quickly around
Florida State University’s Arthur
Williams Building every semester
searching for their scheduled
classes and instructors’ offices.
They ride two elevators or go
up and down stairs leading to
maze-like floors, and then step
over students scattered in narrow
hallways catching up on the
assigned reading of Gorgias.
Getting around the Williams Building, the
Department of English’s home, is effortless
for some, but can be complex for others.
Built in 1926, this gothic-style building is
24 Summer/Fall 2013
cubed-shaped with four stories, and houses
classrooms, offices, and the Augusta Conradi
Theatre. Known as the History Building
when it was first built, the Williams Building
was renamed in 1963 in honor of Arthur
Williams, the first chair of the history
department. It has been through several
renovations since 1926, with the goal to
keep up with the current-day architectural
standards.
In the late 1960s, the first substantial
renovation occurred. Air conditioning
was now flowing through the vents of the
Williams Building. In order to add this
luxury, major change in the building had to
occur. The inner courtyard, known as “The
Well,” had to be filled in. This renovation
was an improvement, but it sacrificed the
windows and view.
“If you found your way into the Williams
Building,” Professor Emeritus Fred Standley
says, “you made sure you didn’t do it in the
dark because doing it in the daylight was bad
enough.”
Standley has been working in the Williams
Building since 1963 and has been fortunate
to see how the building has evolved over the
years.
“It would help to take a ball of string with
you so you can find your way back out, and
if it’s at night you need to take candles and a
flashlight and a ball of string,” Standley says.
In 1963, the Williams Building housed
five departments: English, the Classics,
Humanities, Speech, and the Northwest
Regional Data Center (NRDC). The number
of students and faculty roaming the hallways
increased during this time. The building’s
elevators could also stop at half floors,
which allowed the installation of heating
equipment. There were two openings in the
elevators, north and east.
In the next renovation, “The Well”
appeared again, which allowed for natural
sunlight, but less floor space. Although the
space was limited, many students and faculty
agreed that the interior outside space was
worth having.
In 2001, the skybox was added to the
building, allowing for conferences, meetings,
and a great view of “The Well.” In addition,
the Reading-Writing Center was located on
the second floor, a place where students
could catch up on homework between
classes or get help with a paper.
Standley points out something that many
students and some professors may not
know about the Williams Building: it wasn’t
until 2001 that the building finally became
the home of the English Department.
The English faculty members and staff
and students were now able to get more
comfortable in their home.
“Being an English student, I am always in
the Williams Building. I actually love it,” says
Jasmine Johnson, a fourth-year student on
the editing, writing, and media track. “I am
able to catch up with other students that I
have had in previous classes or just lounge
on the floor waiting for my next class with
no worries. I just wouldn’t suggest walking
around the building with your eyes closed!”
Today, the Arthur Williams Building can
still bring a new adventure to any faculty
member, staff, or student.
“My first day in this building was the
worst,” says third-year English student John
Stevens, with exasperation in his voice. “I
had a class in the basement, but I didn’t
know that the elevator to the far left didn’t
take you there so I ended up missing class.
“If you found your way into the Williams Building, you
made sure you didn’t do it in the dark because doing it in
the daylight was bad enough.”
— Professor Emeritus Fred Standley
Photos: (below left)
view from the second
floor to the Williams
courtyard; (center) the
buidling in the 1930s,
when it was the History Building; (right)
the current facade of
the building.
I still sometimes do the same thing today.”
Whether its getting on the wrong elevator
or meeting a new friend sitting on the same
bench as you, the Williams Building is truly
a life of its own, one that only those who
teach, learn, or work in it will ever, or never,
understand.
Ode (or How I Love the Williams
Building) by Jen McClanaghan,
PhD in creative writing, 2009
I’m not sure the Williams building knows, in fact, I’m not sure it’s
love at all, but there’s some chemistry there. She’s beautiful and big
boned—warm, welcoming, wireless… I’ve only been here a year,
but already I’m monogamous; O
how I never set foot in another
building.
There’s the endless rise of the
roofless courtyard. The classrooms—equipped each with a
teacher’s console including a
touchscreen computer, camera
projector, dvd/video/cd player
and a motorized projection screen
which can display the internet,
sonnet 73 or any educational film.
This building attests to FSU’s
ranking as one of the most technologically advanced campuses in
the country. And just as Williams
is in its infancy (less than five years
old), so are my remarks about it;
I’ve only just begun, but to talk
about the intimacy of the computer lab/lounge/mailroom or the
good-looking TA offices, the better
looking staff and professors and
the spaces to spread your wings:
common room, skybox, courtyard
is also part of the allure—and now
I’ve come full circle.
How I love the Williams Building? Easily.
Summer/Fall 2013 25
Blais from page 11
translation program in Korea, he worked
with a student who would bring him documents weekly. She was persistent in asking
him to attend soccer games with a club.
Eventually, he realized she was a member of
an infamous cult, and he had been transcribing their documents all along.
In the poem, rhetorically the speaker is
admittedly in a murderous cult, and asks the
reader to join him. “His argument is that it’s
better than what others are doing, he is asking the reader to turn to God, but is confusing God with religion.”
After returning to Korea from five
months of studying in the graduate program
at Wichita State in Kansas, Blais was walking to school when a shopkeeper came running out of his store. The man wore a giant
smile and shook Blais’ hand excitedly, saying
“You’re back!”
“I’d never met him, but he must have seen
me walk by a thousand times. Then I disappeared. And reappeared like nothing five
months later . . . the reason it made such an
impact on me was because largely I just felt
invisible . . . unlike a lot of people, I like that.
Walking at night thousands of miles from
home. No connections.”
He crosses his legs to reveal bright orange
socks: “I have an unhealthy attraction to being invisible.”
The Ultra Talker
“Reality TV is fascinating, usually in a train wreck way.
They literally enact what it would be like to turn your life
into a narrative that fits into fictional TV genres.”
— Leigh Edwards
Edwards from page 5
“Craig’s an ultra-talker, though he’s a little quieter
than most. But that’s a good thing — we don’t all want
to sound alike, do we?”
David Kirby, a Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor at Florida State University
and Blais’ major professor, agrees.
“From the first, he was calm and self-assured. He has always seemed to know what
“Blais is lyrical,” she says. “And he knows
he’s doing, and he does it without fanfare,” how to invite his readers in.”
Kirby explains. “His voice has become a
Hamby was not just a great editor for
lot more public; he’s connecting with more Blais, she also offers up a lighthearted recipe
readers now.”
for crow soup — Japanese noodles, poison,
Kirby’s own poetry is
unani (long lasting, balancing,
known for following a
mouth watering), root vegstyle called “ultra talk,”
etables (elemental, mysterious,
which recreates the aesdeep), and duende for soul —
thetic of fast-paced, witty
saying her inspiration stems
conversation.
from a quote by Federico Gar“Craig has a voice that’s
cia Lorca: “At the heart of all
all its own,” Kirby says,
great art is the essential melan“it sounds older than he
choly.”
is, more experienced.”
While About Crows is not auHamby says she knew
tobiographical, Blais borrows
she had something spe- Barbara Hamby worked
images from the dark and concial when she read Blais’ with Blais to revise his
fusing scenes in his life. A town
manuscript.
About Crows manuscript. floods, a cultist makes his plea,
26 Summer/Fall 2013
— David Kirby
while other poems were bore from personal
tragedies. His life experiences abroad as well
as domestic have lent generously to his voice,
relatability, and knowledge of humanity.
In the vast city of Seoul, Blais felt less
alienated than on his own soil in Massachusetts; perhaps he had grown to love the detachment, as an observer, as a poet.
In Tallahassee, he has perfected his craft.
He has established himself as an author. And
today, he has found a comfy place to rest, in
the busiest part of campus. He maintains his
post into the late afternoon as he nods goodbye. Book in hand, tortoise shell Ray Bans
shielding his eyes from the glaring sun.
“Craig’s an ultra-talker, though he’s a little
quieter than most,” Kirby says. “But that’s
a good thing — we don’t all want to sound
alike, do we?”
something, like NBC’s “The Voice,” even
though TV singing competitions have altered
the music industry. Edwards is specifically
interested in how mass culture’s nostalgia
for the folk culture of the past turns popular
music into a “contradictory mixture of art
and commodity.”
“Analyzing that contradictory mixture can
be quite revealing, and it demonstrates the
vital role popular culture can play in people’s
everyday lives, becoming a repository for
identity, community, a sense of history, and
a map for reading the world,” Edwards says.
Edwards’ research and ideas are of the
same mind as American studies scholar
George Lipsitz, who believes popular culture
responds to the ruptures of modernity in an
attempt to build a bridge with the past, lending continuity and memory. Edwards agrees
with his claim that “perhaps the most important facts about people have always been
encoded within the ordinary and the commonplace.”
Edwards’ most recent project, Dolly Parton and Gender Performance in Popular Music,
is about gender performance and popular
music in our current digital media culture.
Currently under contract with Indiana University Press, this book uses Dolly Parton as
a case study to look at how popular culture
shapes and reflects the way ideas of gender,
race, and American identity are constructed.
Edwards’ research on Parton builds on her
earlier book, Johnny Cash and the Paradox of
American Identity.
FSU Professor of Musicology Denise
Von Glahn is teaching a doctoral musicology seminar on American biography in the
Spring 2014 term, and she chose the latter book as a way to introduce students to
thinking about biography as a scholarly pursuit. Edwards’ Johnny Cash is one of several
publication tools that Von Glahn will be
using, which she says will be a mix of “authors coming from a variety of disciplinary
backgrounds, perspectives, and methodologies, and a variety of subjects from ‘high-art’
composer types to popular performers and
musicians including blues women, jazzers,
and country music ‘stars.’”
Edwards discussed with Von Glahn the
book’s ideas and progress as she researched
and wrote it, and Von Glahn says she appreciates that the final version stays true to the
book’s title, presenting Cash as an embodiment of “the paradigm of ambivalence that
characterizes so much of the nation’s culture
and identity.”
“It was important to me that my students understand that musicologists are
not the only people expert enough to write
something meaningful about musicians’
lives,” Von Glahn says,
further explaining why
she included Edwards’
text in her teaching. “It’s broadening
for my students to engage with Edwards’s
nuanced readings of
Cash, the music industry, and popular culture.”
Von Glahn took the
interaction a step beyond by inviting Edwards to address the
students in her seminar, saying there was
“sincere excitement”
when she announced
the visit to her class.
“I’ve never watched
Leigh teach,” Von
Glahn says, “but I can
imagine that her directness and honesty,
her joy in playing with
ideas, her love of literature and language,
and her desire to help
people understand –
all qualities that come
across in her book and
make it such a powerSCROLL, SCRIBE & SCREEN
ful and persuasive read – are palpable by her
students.”
Burkholder says she appreciates Edwards’
approach to instruction, which “pushes her
students to synthesize key critical theories
from different academic disciplines.”
“Dr. Edwards effortlessly incorporates
technology in the classroom as well, requiring more creative multimodal projects in
addition to more traditional written work,”
Burkholder adds. “She is a real forward
thinker — her classes almost seem to be designed with the millennial in mind.”
Summer/Fall 2013 27
on a daily basis; she simply says she’s blessed. she honed blog platform and cloud-based
But with any job comes challenges. Book- presentation websites like Prezi and Wix.
and spends about an hour choosing the per- ing a hotel for a correspondent abroad fell
“[In broadcast] you just need to be able
fect outfit. The office allows for Casual Fri- through and the reporter had to pay out of to learn fast, and I think [the EWM track]
days, but she considers every other day of pocket. The correspondent was later reim- helped prepare me,” Schwartz says. “The
the week an occasion to dress up.
bursed, but it was an eye-opener to Schwartz, heavily influenced research that we have
If you ask Schwartz what she does at who Darby learned the
ABC, she’ll tell you that is one of the hard- news business is no-frills. “When they say, ‘I’ll have my people call
est questions you can ask her. This week she
“You’re going to be
might be handling bookings for anything tested
everyday
and your people,’ I’m talking to the people.”
legal, medical, travel or business related, or it’s how you handle it,”
— Darby Schwartz
she might be compiling a list of the most in- Schwartz says. “You can
fluential people in the world. Next week she choose to let it stress you out, or you can take to do has really helped me in finding and
might be contacting Taylor Swift’s people.
a deep breath, shrug it off and go with it.”
coordinating things [at my job].”
“When they say, ‘I’ll have my people
At ABC, stories move as quickly as the
Schwartz gained hands-on experience
call your people,’ I’m talking to the people,” people telling them. One of Schwartz’s working the teleprompter at WFSU, the
Schwartz says.
coworkers started out as an intern when university’s television station. And her
Schwartz isn’t the linear coffee-fetching she was 18. Now in her mid-20s, she is an English department newsletter class with
intern—her boss urges her to buy herself associate producer at 20/20, and was recently Susan Hellstrom was unforgettable in
a latte too—and she works in close contact on assignment in South Africa.
shaping her approach to stories.
with seasoned journalists. Her supervisor is
“When I see people around me getting
“What stuck with me is when [Susan] said,
news veteran Bob Woodruff, who suffered promoted it makes me want to work harder,” ‘What makes a good journalist is to question
everything,’” Schwartz says. “It sounds so
basic, but it’s so crucial to what I do.”
Schwartz has plenty of questions. She
recently heard about a special breed of
lawyers who show up at a hospital room
within hours of a car accident victim’s
injury—she wants to know how these
lawyers know when accidents occur, how
they know where to find patients and
whether the practice is rooted in compassion
or plain greed.
Kathryn Cole, a close friend of Schwartz’s
at FSU, believes Schwartz’s inquisitive,
determined nature will set her apart in her
broadcast endeavors.
“ABC couldn’t have found a more
wonderful person to work for them,” Cole
says. “Darby is just the real deal—she’s
authentic, passionate, a hard worker and just
a wonderful person to be around; she lights
up a room just by being in it, and I know
that she’ll bring that light to her work in New
York.”
Darby Schwartz works alongside ABC’s Chief Health and Medical Editor Dr.
New York is light-years away from
Richard Besser.
Shwartz’s hometown of Marietta. Her life
a traumatic brain injury in 2006 after he was Schwartz says. “There are people who move in the suburbs revolved around family;
caught in an explosion while reporting in up and it’s always a good thing to see.”
“perfectly Southern” as Schwartz describes it
Iraq.
Schwartz hopes to be an anchor on her and the entire town congregates for football
“He made an almost complete recovery,” own show. She’s always gravitated toward games and school plays.
Schwartz says. “To be working alongside him writing, and taking acting classes as a child
“There’s not really much to do [in
is unbelievable.”
quelled any shyness in front of a camera. Marietta],” Schwartz says. “Chain restaurants
Schwartz usually books Woodruff ’s travel, She credits her strong research skills for and the high school and middle school. It’s
and she works in the same department as succeeding in the paper-laden classes in not like New York where there’s so much to
ABC’s chief health and medical editor, Dr. the editing, writing, and media track of her do. I could never have the same experience
Richard Besser. Schwartz isn’t pretentious English major. In the foundational course, twice [here], and I think that’s what I love
about mixing with influential media figures Writing and Editing in Print and Online, about [it].”
Schwartz from page 8
28 Summer/Fall 2013
Renée Jacques participated in outdoor challenge Tough Mudder in Englishtown, N.J. She wrote
a personal essay about her experience that was published in Outside magazine.
Jacques from page 9
rolling hills of Englishtown, N.J., where
she embarked on a string of challenges,
including submerging herself in a pit of
freezing water, climbing a series of 16-foot
walls and running 12 miles, to name a few.
“I decided to write a personal essay on it as
I was doing it,” Jacques says. “In the middle
of doing it I was like ‘Wow, I need to write
something about this.’”
Getting published wasn’t difficult with
Outside; she pitched her story and they ran
with it. But for a piece she submitted to The
Village Voice about an NYU graduate student
and a Staten Island family he saved during
Hurricane Sandy, the timeframe was much
longer—an editor at the newspaper spent
about a month working with her to perfect it.
Once a story is polished at NYU, professors
work hard to land student work on editors’
desks at major publications. Jacques says her
professors are her final say.
“They’re the only people I trust knowing
what’s good and what’s not.”
Switching gears from the small-scale news
style at the FSView, her current beat at NYU
is the vast New York dating scene. The
massive city makes it harder to find a true
companion, so matchmakers use methods
out of the ordinary.
“Right now, I’m interviewing a girl who
goes up to people on the subway and
matches them,” Jacques says.
Jacques recently worked on a Q&A with
Elle relationship advice columnist, E. Jean
Carroll. Interviewing Carroll was a milestone
for Jacques, who has been reading the love
guru’s column since she was in high school.
As an editorial intern, Jacques helped pitch
stories and did research for the print issue
over the course of three months.
Working at a consumer publication is a
dream for her, but the slim realities of writing
in the bureaucratic sphere are very real.
“I work[ed] under an editor who has been
there for two years,” Jacques says. “She has
only been able to write one story in the
[magazine] in the time she’s been there. It’s a
little intense. They’re very picky.”
Like many other fashion and beauty
publications, the office culture at Elle is a
mixed bag. Some of her coworkers worked
hard to get their jobs, while it seems family
connections worked in others’ favor. The
high fashion world can be glutted with
entitlement.
“Some of the editors are really nice,
because they actually had to work to get their
job, they’re normal people,” Jacques says.
“The editor who hired me, she is super cool.
She went to Berkeley for grad school. She
actually had to hustle to get her job.”
But Jacques is gaining bylines through
other avenues. She now works at Huffington
Post as a style intern, where deadlines are
fleeting and news can be found on any corner.
She recently wrote a post about the diverse
models in British retailer Debenhams’ spring
look book.
Jacques isn’t sure where she’ll end up after
graduation. She will be happy at any major
hard news publication, like TIME or New
York magazine, but she is open to what the
future holds for her. Her ultimate goal is to
write an investigative book. She knows the
road to making a stable living as a writer will
not be an easy one. Fears of loan debt and
the stability of a journalism career bombard
her. Jacques is always on full speed, but she
knows her efforts have to get her somewhere.
“If journalism is the only thing you can
see yourself doing, and you wake up and you
love to report and you love to investigate,
then going to grad school is completely
worth it,” Jacques says. “You’ll become the
best writer you could ever be.”
Summer/Fall 2013 29
“Tutoring at the graduate level differs a lot from tutoring undergraduates
because you’re essentially working with your peers. You’re much more of a
partner than a guide, and graduate students have a really strong idea of what
they want for their paper.”
Barrett Beck, a GWC tutor
GWC from page 19
She hopes that the GWC will be a source
of stability and reassurance for graduate students working on their dissertations.
Additionally, Wells hopes to implement
dissertation boot camps. This program
would accompany the workshops she has already put in place with the graduate school.
They would offer advice on finishing dissertations and how to overcome things that get
in the way.
“And I would love to do one away, like a
full-on retreat, but that’s expensive and ev-
eryone would have to pay for it,” Wells says.
While both writing centers harness the
same philosophy, there are a few differences
between the Reading Writing Center and the
Graduate Writing Center.
“Tutoring at the graduate level differs a lot
from tutoring undergraduates because you’re
essentially working with your peers. You’re
much more of a partner than a guide, and
graduate students have a really strong idea of
what they want for their paper,” says Barrett
Beck, a GWC tutor.
As the Graduate Writing Center is in its
pilot semester, Wells is mainly focused on
“With all students you should always be talking about genre and
expectations and readers’ expectations. So, maybe it’s just more critical to have that discussion at the
graduate level.”
— Jennifer Wells
director of FSU’s writing centers
and digital studios
Laufenberg from page 18
Laufenberg and the scientists as she assures
them that not every bit of their research information is necessary and as they correct
her misunderstandings in translation. She
knows what is needed so that the articles are
readable to others but understands their attachment to the details and says that they are
“my stories and their stories, too.”
Working for a nontraditional publication
was not as difficult of a transition as one
would imagine. Laufenberg says that by being a journalist you have to also be a generalist. You can be thrown into all sorts of stories and you have to be able to learn quickly
and meaningfully.
The amount of information about magnetic fields and superconductivity that
30 Summer/Fall 2013
Laufenberg gently explains to visitors make
it hard for her to believe that she learned all
of it after only eight months of working at
the lab. Laufenberg continues to learn, however, saying that now she is learning to articulate verbally rather than just on paper, a
problem that most writers have.
She will always be a journalist, however—she makes that very clear. When giving
tours she’s still nervous someone will ask her
something she does not know the answer to.
“As a reporter, you always want to know all
the answers,” she explains.
It’s refreshing sometimes to not know the
answer. Laufenberg did not know her path
“It’s fun to take a new job
and say ‘I can do this.’”
— Kathleen Laufenberg
evaluating its effectiveness and meeting the
needs of multi-lingual graduate student writers. Even though they are well-educated in
their respective fields, a large number of
ESL graduate students did their undergraduate studies abroad, and they sometimes have
difficulty communicating their ideas in a different language. The GWC helps to ease the
frustration that many of these students face
when writing their dissertations.
One tutor in particular had a difficult session that turned into a success. A doctoral
student struggled after having his prospectus rejected by his advisor five times and was
wary about proceeding with his dissertation.
Once the tutor and student discussed dissertation as a genre and looked over some
examples, he was able to approach his work
with fresh eyes.
“He came in anxious and left immensely
relieved, and the work he’s done since has
been very different,” the tutor says.
The aim of the GWC is for students to
feel that sense of relief with their writing,
which will become feasible as more tutors
and students become comfortable with the
processes involved.
after leaving the Democrat. It’s every English
major’s dream to work for a major publication after graduation, but what if it does not
work out? What then?
“It’s fun to take a new job and say ‘I can do
this,’” Laufenberg says, happily.
Robert Olen Butler receives F. Scott Fitzgerald Award
By Scroll, Scribe and Screen staff
Francis Eppes Professor Robert Olen Butler, Professor of English, is accustomed to
winning awards: a Pulitzer Prize in fiction; a
National Magazine Award in Fiction (twice);
a Pushcart Prize (twice); and both a Guggenheim Fellowship and a National Endowment
for the Arts grant. The list could continue.
In October 2013, Butler traveled to Rockville, Md., to receive yet another honor, one
that acknowledges his entire literary career:
the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Outstanding Achievement in American Literature.
Rockville is the burial place for Fitzgerald
and his wife, Zelda, and is home to Montgomery College, which hosts the F. Scott
Fitzgerald Literary Festival each year. Previous winners of the award include Norman
Mailer, John Updike, William Styron, Joyce
Movies from page 21
American dream, just as Fight Club stays fairly
true to the theme of chaos and corruption
present in Chuck Palahniuk’s book. The
underlying spirit, theme, and message of the
book’s story are what fans look for most in
its movie adaptation.
It’s never that easy, however, and Baggott is
well aware of the fact. “A kernel of the novel
can be used for something completely new,”
she says, regarding the translating process
from one media to another. And when an
author envisions something as specific as a
facial expression during the pause in his or
her character’s climactic speech, it’s hard to
imagine any screenwriter could replicate a
book perfectly on screen.
But that’s not necessarily a bad thing in
the world of fantasy. Baggott notes that in
writing a movie, individual roles are far more
collaborative than the total omniscience of
a novel writer. The film is no longer hers to
develop, but that does not negate the story
she originally penned. It would seem Baggott
is suggesting the relationship between books
and movies is one of “live and let live.”
Butler agrees.
“The vision of the book is inviolable, and
I’m happy to let the book go to the film
makers, artists, doing their own mediation on
the material, which has to be quite different.
It’s naïve for writers to get bent out of
shape,” Butler says.
Carol Oates, Edward Albee, Elmore Leonard and E.L. Doctorow.
“I am, of course, delighted for my life’s
work to be honored by the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award,” Butler says, in an article on Florida State University’s main website. “Since 10
of my 20 books have been written in the 13
years I’ve been at FSU, I feel that the award
was in large part due to the creatively nurturing atmosphere of this splendid university.”
Eric Walker, chairman of the Department
of English, praises Butler’s time spent in the
department.
“Bob Butler indeed has a long history of
contributions to American letters, not the
least of which is that he was an early mentor
of Adam Johnson, an FSU Ph.D. student in
2001 who is the most recent winner of the
Pulitzer Prize in fiction,” Walker says.
Butler’s most recent publication, “The Star
Movies and books are two separate things,
and should be treated as such, both born of
narrative exploration, but raised in separate,
different imaginations to take hold of the
same story, Butler explains, to allow artists
to explore their own understandings. The
important thing to consider is that audiences
are seeing a redefinition, “. . . of the way [we]
encounter the world that is in the moment,
through the senses…” as Butler puts it.
In fact, Butler believes that video games
and internet surfing are more of a threat
to the world of literature than movies ever
could be. The culture of entertainment has
changed with the advances in technology
that have come in recent years, and quicker,
more interactive forms of brief narrative,
like those in many video games or short
YouTube clips, are vying for our attention in
place of novels.
So in retrospect, movies aren’t so
threatening. Still, they seem to have a bit of
magic within them that books are lacking.
According to Baggott, “films will always
win out over novels in one very specific way:
music. The swell of emotion from a great
score is unbeatable.”
Music can prove to be a perfect supplement
to picture, creating an indeed magical effect
on audiences. Many films, like Inception, or
those in the Dark Knight series, generate
much of their emotion from musical scores,
something books cannot do.
However, books have one thing hidden
between their pages that keep us coming
Robert Olen Butler
of Istanbul,” appeared in early October, and
it is the second book in a series, following
his 2012 publication of “The Hot Country.”
For the fsu.edu article, see news.fsu.edu/
More-FSU-News/Robert-Olen-Butler-winsF.-Scott-Fitzgerald-literary-award.
back to them time and again. What is so
unique about books is the fact that, “…
only books are able in narrative to render
the interaction between the inner life – our
perceptions inside our skulls, inside our
bodies, inside our hearts – and the outer
world,” Butler says.
Only in a novel can we delve into the
minds of fictional characters to see the world
as they do. Only in a novel can we understand
the human perceptions and emotions of
another person, though they may be only a
character, so intimately that they become our
own in a way.
Butler says that the old “reflex answer”
most writers will give about why they write
– because they have to – holds true. And
perhaps every reader reads because just
like those that wrote the story, they must.
Imaginative escape is a desire no person can
ever successfully resist. Books allow us to
experience that escape for ourselves.
Despite all that film has to offer, most
people will tell you ‘the book was better
than the movie.’ Why is that, exactly? Sure,
the movie won’t include everything in the
book. Sure, the characters may appear a little
differently. But why is the book that much
better?
Butler puts it simply: “What the literary
writer creates is a kind of cinema of the
mind; you see and smell and taste and feel…
In many ways the reason the book is always
better is, in some deep way, you’ve already
seen the movie.”
Summer/Fall 2013 31
Music from page 20
cal performances coming into town and a little of what the artist may sound like. Hinson
studied creative writing at FSU under Jerome
Stern, former Department of English chair.
Jonathan Dean, a graduate of the English
department’s literature program, found his
writing specialty at the music review website
Tiny Mix Tapes, where he reviews albums.
Renaissance Man
With his responsibilities as Director of
Undergraduate Studies for the Department
of English added to his workload as professor and researcher, Faulk has plenty to keep
him busy but his music-obsessed side also
shines. When Faulk talks about music, it is
clear that he takes on a scholarly approach
but also that he is a bit of a music geek. Faulk
is at ease whether he is discussing the writing
process of his book, British Rock Modernism,
1967-1977: The Story of Music Hall in Rock, or
chatting about his favorite records.
Faulk’s first book dealt with customs in
Victorian England. It was not until after
publishing his first book that he began to observe a parallel between this Victorian style
and contemporary rock music. Through his
32 Summer/Fall 2013
reading on 1960’s British rock groups, Faulk
realized music scholars of the time were observing Victorian music. In particular, the
music hall, a variety show format of entertainment that featured a particular style of
music.
“It’s very catchy,” Faulk says. “Heavy on
the chorus, heavy on the sing-along, usually
with bright and jaunty melodies.”
Essentially, he argues that these musical
groups not only acknowledged the music hall
influence, but they claimed to be better and
more complex by adding emotional depth
and experimental characteristics to this earlier generation of music.
“For most of my career, I kept my interest
in music separate from my interest in nineteenth-century culture,” he says.
Later, though, throughout his own reading on British rock groups of the 1960s,
music scholars were observing the influence
of Victorian music hall. So with his second
book, Faulk was thinking about some of
his favorite British rock bands of the 1960s
through this lens.
“When music critics were talking about
bands like The Kinks, The Beatles, they
said, ‘Oh, it’s a lot like music hall,’ and then
stopped right there,” Faulk says. “What I
wanted to do was write a book that starts
from there.”
To write the book, Faulk had
to familiarize himself with modernist cultural scholarship—not
only music but literature, too. He
mentions that rock musicians of
the 1960s shared the same aims
as the modernists. These artists
were trying to develop the Victorian-era form, pushing music hall
to new directions.
“If ever a band straddled the
avant-garde and mass popularity,
it’s The Beatles. But all the bands
I talk about in the book have
that kind of dual vision and I’m
equating it with modernist scholarship,” he says.
Faulk had been attending live
shows since his time studying at
the University of Illinois at Urbana. This area was the cradle for
alternative rock bands like Hum
and Red Red Meat. Faulk also saw
the rise of a prolific independent
record label, Parasol Records, in
the early 1990s. This experience
has stayed with him, as he freSCROLL, SCRIBE & SCREEN
quents live shows in the area and stays up-todate with new releases and rising artists.
In the Limelight
That academic form of writing is certainly
one way to write about music, but there are
other forms, too. At the Tallahassee Democrat, writer Mark Hinson highlights upcoming performances with concert information
as well as some background for the artist..
For Hinson’s job, professional promoters and public relations representatives will
sometimes notify him of upcoming concerts
and shows. Most times, however, Hinson will
have to seek out the show information (like
ticket prices and show times) himself.
“It is one of the few pains of my job,” he
says.
Hinson feels pressure from his workplace,
which expects his writing to be delivered
promptly. The upside: no writer’s block.
“There is nothing like the hot poker of a
deadline shoved up the orifice of your choice
to summon the muses in a moment’s notice,”
he says.
Aside from advances for shows and concerts, Hinson also provides coverage of
some of the live performances. Most notably, every winter he covers most of the performances during the Seven Days of Opening Nights arts festival. Hinson listed performances he has covered from jazz trumpeter
Wynton Marsalis to classical violinist Hilary
Hahn, Richard Thompson to Mavis Staples,
to The Chieftains.
“That makes for long days and long
nights,” he says, “but it usually lasts less than
a month.”
During a live show, Hinson takes notes
in what he calls a weird state of heightened
awareness. His job is to capture and recreate
what it was like to be there for the people
who missed the show by highlighting moments of exceptional skill and talent and
also by commenting on mistakes. This writing also serves as an honest assessment for
people who were there: whether or not it was
worth their time and money.
Even when not reporting on a live show,
Hinson remains attentive.
“Many of the musical acts will return to
town a few years later and it’s nice to have
those performances in the memory banks.
I’ve been doing this job since 1991, so the
memory banks are pretty full,” he says.
Getting paid to enjoy a concert might
See MUSIC, page 33
Music from page 32
sound luxurious, but Hinson points out
some of the job’s drawbacks.
“It’s not really relaxing when you are at a
concert and you know that, at 10 p.m., you
will have to leave the venue, find a quiet corner and pound out a coherent, mistake-free
review in thirty minutes or less,” he says.
“That’s called pressure, that’s called deadline
work.”
He also stresses the importance of knowing the material.
“If you try to fake it, people will see
through it in a hurry. Knowing your subject
is essential,” he advises.
This is where Hinson’s favorite part of
the job comes in: musical research. He gathers information on touring artists from
several sources: online, through magazines,
books, interviews, and his extensive album
collection.
“It’s like having homework for the rest of
your life but I love this kind of homework,”
he adds.
Hinson also raves about the thrill of discovering a new artist while on the job. He
was assigned to write an advance for the
indie rock group The National, who were
booked to play at FSU’s Club Downunder
in 2005. The record label reps had sent an
advance copy of the group’s latest album at
the time, “Alligator.” While Hinson regularly
receives advance CDs, “Alligator” was one
that took him by surprise.
“It was love at first listen. That is a rare
and beautiful thing,” he says.
For The National’s return to Club Downunder in support of their 2007 album,
“Boxer,” he was able to arrange for their
photo to be featured on the cover of the
newspaper’s weekend magazine, Limelight.
The members in The National told Hinson
that it was their first time being featured on
the cover of any city newspaper.
“The National has since gone on to become one of the biggest and most critically
acclaimed bands in the country,” he says. “I
am glad that I played a small role in their
career.”
Answer to the Dean
In addition from Hinson’s job as reporter
and Faulk’s profession as a scholarly writer,
there are music critics. These writers must
possess analytical skills, a colorful and descriptive vocabulary, and consistent taste.
Music criticism may filter the good from the background, album name, song titles, cover
bad for readers who trust the writer’s taste; art, genre or lack thereof, instrumentation,
it may add a new perspective to albums a production, and lyrics,” Dean says. “When
person knows and loves; or it can validate you are responding to a specific piece of art,
some views a person may already have about the writing comes easier.”
a piece of music.
The context surrounding the artist also
FSU alumnus Jonathan Dean writes for plays a big role in Dean’s assessment. This
the alternative music webzine known as Tiny goes beyond the artist’s location, cultural
Mix Tapes. Dean was already writing reviews when he enrolled at
FSU, but he wanted to improve his
technique with academic credentials and intellectual sophistication.
“I had done extensive self-study,
but nothing can really replace the
academic environment, with knowledgeable professors who research
and publish in your field of interest,” says Dean, who graduated
Summa Cum Laude with his English degree, concentration on literature, and a minor in world literature
and cinema.
Dean also volunteered at FSU’s
on-campus radio station, WVFS
(V89). The music department at the
station handles the piles of albums
that come through each week, deciding which albums receive airplay
and writing up a review for each.
When the web-based review site
Tiny Mix Tapes held an open call for
writers a few years ago, Dean was
Dean photos courtesy of Jonathan Dean
one of three V89 music depart“I had done extensive self-study,
ment members to apply. Two were
accepted but Dean was the only but nothing can really replace
one to stick with Tiny Mix Tapes.
the academic environment, with
Tiny Mix Tapes allows Dean to
choose whichever album he wants knowledgeable professors who
to review, as long as it is current:
research and publish in your field
recently released or soon to be released. Despite the free range to of interest.”
explore different genres, he prefers
— Jonathan Dean
writing about artists that are already in his scope of interest.
“This is generally because I can bring a lot context, race, gender, and career thus far.
of my experience, both as a trained academi- Dean probes into the context of the surcian and an artist, to my writing about that rounding culture.
album,” says Dean. “You probably won’t see
“What would it mean for someone to remy writing about the new Wavves album, not lease an album in 2013 that contains referbecause I don’t like it, but because I would ences to ‘90s rave culture? Why would this
have no idea what to say. I haven’t developed particular genre or time period be subject to
a critical approach to that kind of music.”
renovation and revision? Is there something
While Dean has written special features about this specific cultural moment that can
for Tiny Mix Tapes, he prefers writing album explain why this kind of artistic response is
reviews.
necessary or logical,” Dean asks.
“They offer the chance to organize your
“Those are the questions that I attempt to
thoughts via an analysis of the album as text: answer,” he says.
Summer/Fall 2013 33
and humanities minor, with future plans to write and design for
independent arts & culture magazines.
Monica Sclafani
Sclafani graduated in spring 2013 with an English degree (EWM). She
worked as an editorial intern for VISIT FLORIDA while in school
and is now attending New York University to obtain a certificate in
digital media marketing.
About the
contributors
Gaby Shaiman
Shaiman is an English major (EWM) with a minor in communication.
After graduating from FSU in spring 2014, she hopes to travel the
country before moving to New York City to pursue a career in the
publishing or editing world. A native of South Florida, she enjoys
spending time outdoors or at the beach and attending live music
events.
Matt Simons
Born and raised in Jacksonville, Fla., Simons is an English major
(creative writing), interested in what journalism has to offer. He enjoys
playing soccer, and reading and writing as much as he can. Simons
hopes a recent internship with The Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville)
will help point him a direction he wants to go.
Tina Andrews
Andrews has moved nine times and is temporarily settled on
the outskirts of Florida State University with her dog, Roxie. She
graduated in December 2013 with a double major in environmental
studies and English (creative writing). She wants to become an
environmental lawyer.
Lina Bahri
Travel enthusiast Bahri is now a postgrad English major (EWM) with
plans to teach English abroad for a year before entering into the
American publishing industry.
Quinn Hartmann
Hartmann graduated in spring 2013 with an English major (creative
writing focus) and a minor in classics. Although originally from
Orlando, Fla., she is moving to Jackson, Miss. to be closer to her
parents while hopefully working as a teacher. In a few years, she
hopes to attend graduate school at the University of Mississippi to
pursue an MFA in fiction.
Sami Herschkowitz
Herschkowitz is a senior English major (creative writing) from Coral
Springs, Fla. In her free time Sami loves dancing, playing with puppies,
intriguing movies, writing poetry, and reading classic novels. She plans
to one day work in the magazine industry and live in New York City.
34 Summer/Fall 2013
Priscilla Lauture
Lauture is a senior majoring in English (EWM) with a minor in
Communication. She is an aspiring news reporter and loves to relax
on the beach or shop with friends.
Chelsea Martin
A Colorado native and fourth-generation Seminole, Martin graduated
in spring 2013 with a degree in English (EWM) and a minor in
education. Martin enjoys baking, spending time with family, and
everything sports. She will pursue a career in sports communications,
with goals of working for ESPN in the future.
Jessica Militare
Militare, who graduated in spring 2013, was a double major in
English (EWM) and Media/Communications Studies. She was the
Arts & Life editor at the FSView & Florida Flambeau, and she enjoys
writing human interest stories about underrepresented figures in
the community. She will be attending New York University for her
master’s in magazine journalism beginning in the fall of 2013.
Jillian Quinn
From Sarasota, Fla., Quinn is a senior majoring in English (creative
writing) with a penchant for the fiction genre. She wants to pursue a
career in the editing or publishing fields.
Andres Rodriguez
Rodriguez is an avid music collector and radio announcer at WVFS.
After his current internship in New York City with Musée Magazine,
this Miami native will graduate with an English major (EWM)
Julia Welling
Hailing from Lighthouse Point in sunny South Florida, Welling
graduated in spring 2013 with an English major (EWM) and minors
in communications and hospitality management. Her career goal is to
combine her two passions, writing and dance, into a fulfilling career,
preferably in New York City. Welling also hopes to attend graduate
school for journalism.
Erika Wuelfrath
Wuelfrath, from sunny Sarasota, Fla., is an English major (EWM)
with a minor in mass communications. After graduation, she plans to
move to Chicago or Washington, D.C., and aspires to work within the
fields of digital marketing and social media.
Advisors: Elizabeth Bettendorf and Jack Clifford
Student editors: Kathryn Cole, Max Greenwood, and Shari Roach
Summer/Fall 2013 35
Scroll, Scribe & Screen
The Florida State University
College of Arts & Sciences
Department of English
405 Williams Building
Tallahassee, FL 32306-1580
Visit the English department online
and stay up to date with our news.
english.fsu.edu

twitter.com/#!/fsuenglishnews
36 Summer/Fall 2013

Scroll cribe creen - English Department

Transcription

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