SewaneeLetters.com

Great news: Don Parker’s poem, “Blood Chit,” was accepted by the California Quarterly (CQ) for publication in their current issue. Congratulations Don! I couldn’t find it online, so here’s the entire poem:

BLOOD CHIT*

A young marine, his weapon left behind
walks quietly into the night alone . . .
away from comrades, all fatigued, supine.
He’s done. Bonds severed, he feels he can’t atone

for all his killing and the cries of grief:
the sight of body parts— a baby’s arm,
a mother’s breast among the kumquat leaves:
the guilt a sore, a mine he can’t disarm.

More guilt: code requires his unit search for him
and give their lives and limbs because they share
what it is to be Marines in battle trim.
Checks his pocket, feels no blood chit there . . .

The Taliban won’t welcome him as friend;
Afghanistan, no Arkansas, will be his end.

*A patch given to the military when in hostile territory. On one side there’s an American flag and on the other, in several local languages: “Anyone helping this person to safety will receive a reward.”

April Alvarez forwarded this fantastic meditation on fiction writing by Robert Jackson Bennett. I particularly liked this confession:

I can say that the more I learn about stories, the less I know what they are. The narrative construct is one of our greatest and most mysterious tools, and I often doubt if we wield it as much as it wields us.

April has also promised to send in photos of John Grammer sledding. Stay tuned.

Attention curious students: All courses and faculty for summer 2010 are now listed online. Time to start daydreaming about next summer on the Mountain.

And now back to your hectic holiday schedule…

Congratulations to Cheryl Whitehead! She was a finalist for the New Letters Literary Award and received Honorable Mentions for two of her poems– Requiem for A Trumpet and Distant Relations. Cheryl is writing and submitting while the rest of us sleep…

Check out this from the Chicago Tribune, whose reviewers were invited to recommend only two “favorite books of 2009.”  Critic Julia Keller picks  “Girl Trouble” by our new faculty member Holly Goddard Jones. It’s just the most recent endorsement of a book that has gotten a lot of attention since appearing at the end of the summer.

Rachel Van Horn Leroy emailed to let us know her poem Life Cycle has been published in the online journal “Snow Monkey.” Congratulations Rachel!

makes me want to pen a few query letters today, regardless of the lack of material at hand:

A Good Author is Hard to Find

Here’s a great sounding opportunity from John Grammer:

Finally, after a winless football season, a competition in which Sewanee has a chance. I’m talking about the “MFA Program-Off” sponsored by “Creative Nonfiction” magazine. It’s an essay contest, in (obviously) Creative Nonfiction, for students in any MFA program. The prizes are publication in the magazine, a reading at the Associated Writing Programs Conference in Denver this spring, and (above all) “bragging rights” for the program whose student wins

.If–I mean, when–we win, naturally we’ll be sending the School of Letters Marching Band and Flag Corps to Denver to help the winner celebrate. Gimme an “S”! (”ESSSSS!”) Gimme an “O”….

Details are at this site.

I hope some of us will give this a try.

This just in from Melinda Haines:

Available January, 2010:  two story unfurnished house for rent, approx. 2,500 s/f, three bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths. Attached furnished guest quarters with bath and office. On secluded cul-de sac off Virginia Avenue, within walking distance to campus and elementary school. Open floor plan and fireplace, full kitchen with dining area, large decks and screened-in porch overlooking cleared woods and Running Knob Hollow Lake. Easy access to lake for boating, swimming, and fishing. $1500/mo.or make offer. Contact Daniel Thompson at 931-598-0889.

If you haven’t noticed yet, the School of Letters website has been updated with some fresh photos and the 2010 courses and faculty. Have a look, but don’t freak out– John Grammer says “more will be added to both lists.” I see that some former profs are back, some awesome profs are not on the list, and the new folks and classes look intriguing. What do y’all think?