Category: - Marianne Murphy Zarzana

SMSU Reading from Memoir, "My Mother Is Now Earth," by Mark Anthony Rolo, Minnesota Book Award Finalist

1/28/2013

Mark Anthony Rolo, author of the remarkable memoir My Mother Is Now Earth, will read at Southwest Minnesota State University, Marshall, Minn., as part of the Visiting Writers Series on Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013 in Charter Hall 201 at 7 p.m. The reading is free and open to the public.

Rolo's book was named a finalist for the 2013 Minnesota Book Awards in the category of memoir and creative nonfiction. After the reading, you may purchase Rolo's book and have it signed. Please join us for an amazing evening.

A Higher Level: Southwest State Women's Tennis 1979-1992

11/6/2012

Dana Yost, an award-winning journalist and an SMSU graduate, has just published a new book, A Higher Level: Southwest State Women's Tennis 1979-1992, "a classic college sports story,"
according to Dr. Jon Wefald, former SMSU president from 1977-82 who went on to serve as president of Kansas State University for 23 years.

In 1989-90, when my family moved to Marshall, Minn., I served as the assistant coach of the team under Dr. Hugh Curtler, SMSU philosophy professor and director of the Honors Program, who won NAIA Coach of the Year in 1990. The women tennis players were from Minnesota as well as all around the world. Having played on the fledgling women's tennis team at the University of Notre Dame during 1974, my freshman year, I appreciated the chance to once again experience the thrill of college level competition, this time from the sidelines helping to coach these outstanding women athletes. If you like tennis and you like a good story about a team winning against all the odds, this is a book you'll want to pick up.

Dana will be in Marshall to sign his new book on Saturday, Dec. 15 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Marshall Area Fine Arts Center, 109 N. Third Street, and from 6-10 p.m. at the SMSU Men's Basketball game on campus.

Here's a blog post about the book on the Argus Leader website by Jill Callison:
http://arguscallison.tumblr.com/post/35070070444/tennis-in-marshall-minn

Here's an article about the book on the website of the United States Tennis Association:
http://www.northern.usta.com/news/dana_yost_publishes_new_book_about_sw_state_womens_tennis/

And here's a guest blog by Dana Yost about his book on Holly Michael's Writing Straight website:
http://writingstraight.com/

A Higher Level can be purchased online through www.ellispress.com or www.amazon.com and at select local retailers. An e-book version is also available for the Kindle e-reader.

Book Release Party at The Loft Literary Center for Stark and Trujillo

1/15/2012

There will be a book release party for Christine Stark (Nickels: A Tale of Dissociation) and Olga Trujillo (Sum of My Parts: A Survivor's Story of Dissociative Identity Disorder) at The Loft Literary Center, 1101 Washington Ave South, Minneapolis this Wednesday, Jan. 18, at 7 p.m.

I love living in fly-over country most of the time, but sometimes I wish we didn't live a three-hour drive from the Twin Cities. I'd like to attend Christine's and Olga's book release party at The Loft. So if you live in or near the Cities, go in my place.

And if you live in or near Marshall, please plan to join us at Southwest Minnesota State University on Monday, Jan. 23, 7 p.m., CH 201, for Christine's reading from her new novel, Nickels. I met Christine in graduate school at Minnesota State University, Mankato, where we became friends. From the start, she inspired me as a writer. Now as I read her novel, told in a series of prose poems, I'm enthralled by the characters she's created, by the tale Little Miss So and So is telling, and by the heartbreaking and vivid world that has pulled me in. If you can't attend the reading, I encourage you to read the book and share it with others.

Writer Christine Stark to Read at SMSU on Jan. 23

1/6/2012

Here's an article below reprinted from SMSU Today. I hope you'll be able to join us for Christine's reading on the 23rd, which is being hosted by SMSU's Creative Writing Program and the New Horizons Crisis Center. It is free and open to the public. And if you're not able to attend, I urge you to read this beautiful, heartbreaking, triumphant novel (see below) and share it widely.
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Writer Christine Stark will read from her debut novel, Nickels: A Tale of Dissociation, at 7 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 23 in Charter Hall 201.

Stark wears many hats. Besides being an award-winning writer and visual artist, she is also a public speaker and advocate for the sexually abused. Her fiction, poetry and nonfiction have been published in a variety of periodicals and anthologies, including the University of Pennsylvania Law Review; Poetry Motel; Feminist Studies; Birthed from Scorched Hearts; The Progressive Woman’s Magazine; Hawk and Handsaw; Journal of Creative Sustainability; Narratives of Modern Slavery; Woman and Earth: An Almanac in Russian and English; and many others.

She is a coauthor of the groundbreaking research entitled “Garden of Truth: The Prostitution and Trafficking of Native Women in Minnesota.” She is also a coauthor (with Rebecca Whisnant) of Not for Sale, an international anthology about sexual violence.

Stark has won numerous awards for her writing, including a Pushcart nomination, a McKnight Award and a Loft Mentor Series in creative nonfiction. She has also won a McKnight Award for her visual art. She lives in Minneapolis with her partner and teaches writing at Metropolitan State University in the Twin Cities.

Nickels: A Tale of Dissociation follows a biracial girl named Little Miss So and So from age 4 into adulthood. Told in a series of prose poems, Nickels’ lyrical and inventive language conveys the dissociation states born of a world formed by persistent and brutal incest and homophobia. The dissociative states enable the child’s survival and, ultimately, the adult’s healing. The content is both heartbreaking and triumphant. For further information, call 507-537-7251.

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Yesterday an article by Kathleen Barry, professor emerita of Penn State University, entitled "Sexual Politics at Penn State--An Inside Look" published on The Women's Media Center website, referred to Christine's novel Nickels:

"To break through the mainstream media’s problematic language and get a sense of the depth of harm the victim experiences in sexual abuse, I suggest reading Christine Stark’s new novel, Nickels: A Tale of Dissociation. The author, also a poet and visual artist, manages to bring the experience of sexual abuse into a present moment reality through the first-person narrative of Little Miss So and So, from age five to twenty-five, from surviving her father’s sexual abuse at various ages to a world of support created by feminists and lesbians.

"Since feminism broke open this best kept secret decades ago, we have been heartbroken and angered by the testimony and memoirs of women who as children fell victim to a father, stepfather, grandfather or uncle. The effects could be so severe that memory might not contain it—until some experience in adulthood provides the trigger and floods of anguish take over. So the story, Nickels, is not new. But Christine Stark has chosen a style and genre—a stream of consciousness novel—that keeps Little Miss So and So in the present tense.

"Her reality is not segmented into sentences or paragraphs; its monologue is born in experience and expressed in a voice authentic to her heroine at various ages. Nothing could bring her reality—the abuse, the doctors, the courts, her escape, breakdown and recovery—closer to our consciousness. The author knows something about survival, about putting one foot in front of the other to move through a situation we are never meant to experience. Little Miss So and So’s present moments yield immediately to new present moments that the reader cannot escape; yet the pace is fast enough to relieve us of the need to “get through it.”

"This book and its empathetic engagement will be a treasure to anyone working with victims of sexual abuse. And if we want to truly understand the failure in the Penn State scandal, we will look closely to its victims."

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I hope to see you on Jan. 23rd for what I know will be a phenomenal evening.

Christine Stark to Read from New Novel at SMSU in January 2012

12/14/2011

Christine Stark, author of the groundbreaking new novel Nickels: A Tale of Dissociation, (published by Modern History Press) will read at Southwest Minnesota State University on Monday, January 23, 2012 at 7 p.m. I'll be posting the location soon and hope that many of you will be able to join us.

Here is a review of Nickels: "This is the book we've been waiting for. Christine Stark has crafted a language and a diction commensurate with the shredding of consciousness that is a consequence of childhood sexual abuse. She brings us a wholly original voice in a riveting novel of desperation and love. Stark enables the reader to inhabit the intricacy and chaos of this potent inner landscape, and we have not seen this before. Every sentence vibrates with a terrible beauty. Every sentence brings the news." - Patricia Weaver Francisco, Telling: A Memoir of Rape and Recovery

According to Reader Views website, "Christine is an award-winning writer and visual artist whose work has been published in numerous periodicals and anthologies. Christine has also spoken at numerous conferences, rallies, and universities nationally and internationally. She has been on National Public Radio's Justice Talking and she has appeared on national TV. She has been a community organizer and activist for nearly twenty years. She is a 2009 Pushcart Prize nominee and a 2010 Loft Mentorship winner in creative non-fiction. In 2011 her poem, 'Momma's Song,' was released as a CD in collaboration with musician Fred Ho. Christine teaches writing at Metropolitan State University. She lives in Minneapolis with her partner, April, and their dog and cat."

Here is the synopsis of Nickels from the Reader Views website: "Nickels follows a biracial girl named 'Little Miss So and So,' from age 4-1/2 into adulthood. Told in a series of prose poems, Nickels' lyrical and inventive language conveys the dissociative states born of a world formed by persistent and brutal incest and homophobia. The dissociative states enable the child's survival and, ultimately, the adult's healing. The story is both heartbreaking and triumphant."

Christine is also a co-editor (with Rebecca Whisnant) of Not for Sale: Feminists Resisting Prostitution and Pornography,an international anthology about violence against women.

I'm looking forward to reading my copy of Nickels when I finish grading end of semester finals, research papers and journalism portfolios.

Best wishes to all the other teachers out there wrapping it up for the semester and heading into the victory lap.

Streakers, Sprinklers and Colorful Escapades at ND

10/23/2011

In 2002, a dear friend of mine, Sister Jean Lenz, OSF, one of my most inspiring professors at the University of Notre Dame, wrote and published a delightful book, Loyal Sons & Daughters: A Notre Dame Memoir, about her years as an administrator, theology teacher, mentor, minister and alumna of the University. Thankfully, she listened to the countless fellow Golden Domers who urged her to "get these stories into print, otherwise they will all be lost."

Now at 81, after a long, healthy life, Sister Jean is facing serious health issues. Two weeks ago when my husband, Jim, daughter, Elaine, and I were in South Bend, Indiana to visit my parents, celebrate my father's 85th birthday, and to cheer ND on to a victory over Air Force, I spent some time with Sister Jean. She's still telling amazing stories filled with wisdom, honesty and humor. And I'm grateful to have so many of her best stories preserved in her book.

In 1972, after 125 years as an all-male institution, ND threw open their doors to women. As rector of Farley Hall, Sister Jean had a front-row seat at a pivotal moment in ND history. I arrived in 1974 and took a class from her, The Gospels of Christ. After that, we became good friends. When Jim and I got married, we asked Sister Jean to give the homily at our wedding, and she did a terrific job sharing comical stories of our early courtship and reflecting on the mystery of married love.

A good memoir makes me laugh and cry, and I did both reading Sister Jean's book. As a pioneer of coeduation at ND, she dealt with some impossible situations, such as streakers, "brave marauders of spring," arriving outside her all-women dorm near midnight as she graded theology papers: "I suddenly heard the disturbing , heavily-throated chant, 'Farley, Farley, Farley.' . . . I swung the door open toward the crowd that was an arm's length away, only to discover some hundred young men ready to charge the hall in their birthday suits." Cupping her hands around her mouth, she shouted at the top of her lungs, "You're not coming in here dressed like that!" They dove into the nearest bushes and jumped behind bicycles, peeking through the spokes of the wheels. Recently, the father of a current ND student admitted to Sister Jean that he was one of those streakers, she told me with a grin.

In her epilogue, Sister Jean tells the story of a memorable midnight moment. On a sweltering hot June night, there was a knock on the door. Amalia, a young scholar, "overwhelmed with organic chemistry and the heat" asked "'Would you run through the sprinklers with me? I heard them swish on outside, but I don't want to go alone.' For a moment I stood still with a stare and an open mouth. Then I simply closed the door behind me and we left the building laughing.

"There was a great full moon in a hazy southeastern sky that night. I felt a touch of mysticism in the air. We ran south, taking the long way around the Peace Memorial through great sprays of water that arched every which way over the sidewalks, into our faces, and over our bodies. Then we ran north...catching a glimpse of the Dome." Finally, they arrived back at Farley--"drenched, laughing, out of breath, a bit exhausted, and so refreshed." Sister Jean has come to see that moment as "a fitting image of my years of ministry at Notre Dame. Having lived almost thirty years in Farley Hall, there are quiet moments late at night in all kinds of weather when I feel drenched in laughter or sorrow, out of breath, a bit exhausted, or so refreshed."

A good memoir has insight and drama, and Sister Jean's memoir is chock full of both. She is also totally honest, humble and open-hearted as she shares this unusual slice of ND history. Many excellent writers have technical skill, but it's these qualities of the spirit reflected in Sister Jean's words that make this memoir so compelling.

What are some of your favorite memoirs? What makes them rise to the top of the list?

Happy Birthday, Thich Nhat Hanh

10/11/2011

Too often in my life when I'm doing some daily activity--folding laundry, washing dishes--I'm not really there, I'm not present. But as the saying goes, "You must be present to win." Happiness and joy can only be found in the present moment, not by living in the past or projecting myself into some hazy future.

Today is the birthday of poet, peace and human rights activist, and Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, whose writing has helped me to be more fully present for the miracle of daily life. For my birthday this year, a friend gave me a copy of Present Moment Wonderful Moment: Mindfulness Verses for Daily Living. Now as I fold the clean laundry I say the verses or gathas from this book to be more mindful, more fully aware of my loved ones who bless my life, who will wear these socks and t-shirts.

I became more familiar with Thich Nhat Hanh when I read The Fifth Book of Peace by Maxine Hong Kingston after hearing her read at the John R. Milton Conference at the University of South Dakota-Vermillion in 2009. She has worked extensively with war veterans in writing workshops and has traveled with them to Thich's Plum Village in France. An amazing book, which I highly recommend.

Do you have a favorite book by Thich Nhat Hanh that you would recommend?

Happy Birthday, Shel Silverstein

10/2/2011

According toThe Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor, today is the birthday of poet Shel Silverstein who was one of our daughter Elaine's favorite poets when she was a child and one of my favorite children's poets as well. We bought all his books and read them frequently. Some favorites: "The Bear in There," "Sara Sylvia Cynthia Stout," and "My Beard Grows to my Toes."

Silverstein's book Where the Sidewalk Ends is one of the best-selling volumes of poetry ever written. If you're looking for gifts for young readers, pick up some of Silverstein's books. Not only do the poems make for fun, out-of-the box reading, Shel's drawings make readers of all ages smile.

Who are some of your favorite children's poets?

Awakening the Storyteller in All of Us

9/18/2011

Do you have stories about your life that you want to tell, but you're not sure how to get started?

This weekend I attended an inspiring memoir workshop in Ortonville, Minnesota taught by Maureen Murdock. Murdock is the author of the bestselling book, The Heroine's Journey, Woman's Quest for Wholeness. She has also written Unreliable Truth: On Memoir and Memory, Spinning Inward, and Fathers' Daughters: Breaking the Ties that Bind.

The workshop was hosted by the Big Stone Arts Council in an effort to expand high quality art experiences in rural areas. The powerful stories people wrote and shared throughout the weekend moved all of us to laughter as well as tears. At the end of the workshop, Maureen asked us to complete the sentence, "I write because...". The answers were beautiful and as varied as the wide range of our life experiences.

Maureen will be offering a tele-workshop on "Making Meaning from Myth and Memoir" on Tuesday evenings on Oct. 4 through Nov. 1. I encourage you to sign up and attend this workshop from the comfort of your home. Maureen is a wise, compassionate, brilliant teacher. If you have stories to tell, Maureen's books and her workshops may be just what you've been seeking.

\"An Early Morning Cafe\" by Bill Holm

9/11/2011

By now, you've probably read, listened to and watched countless stories related to 9/11 on this 10th anniversary.

Here's a poem about 9/11 that I love because it takes me right into the heart of the story--the beating hearts of real people. Bill Holm, one of my former colleagues at Southwest Minnesota State University who wrote this poem, passed on February 25, 2009. His spirit lives on in all the words and books he left behind. I encourage you to get your hands on some of his books of poetry and prose listed below. If you want to get a better sense of our corner of fly-over country here in Southwest Minnesota, Bill's books are a good place to start.

An Early Morning Cafe
I
One hundred and seven stories into the air
the Windows on the World Cafe
served pate and poached salmon
to diners staring over Manhattan,
but early this September morning,
the sommelier and maitre d’
were still asleep in their faraway flats,
only the sous-chef and banquet staff
had arrived to peel the shrimp,
trim the artichokes and wash
the leaves of the escarole.

II

Simple work with your mates
in a quiet early morning cafe
is a pleasure: jokes, mild complaining,
a hummed tune or two,
when suddenly a berserk machine
decides to murder a building with fire.
Like a badly shot elephant,
the hundred-and-six stories holding up
your peeling knife and lettuce drier
wobbled and shook a little while,
but when flames melted the bones
it all tumbled down on top of itself
in a gray heap, shrimp,
artichokes, escarole, fifty thousand
bottles of elegant wine,
and you yourself, unless you leapt
out one of the windows of the world
to finish with imaginary wings
the flight to the city of angels.

Ill

Humans so riddled with hate they turned
from men to bombs smashed the girders
under your cafe, though they’d never met you,
to murder you for the glory of God
with your apron still smeared with shrimp guts.
It was always thus. Try to kill an abstraction
by murdering a building from the air,
but all you kill is Bob and Edna
and Sollie and Rodrigo and Mei-Mei.
A building is only a set of artificial legs
to hold up human beings in the air,
and an airplane only a sheet of folded paper.
But fifty thousand bottles of good wine
and a hundred pounds of fresh Gulf shrimp,
and Bob and Edna and all the rest–
that is something real!

IV

If you think you’ve bagged the one truth
and that truth wants final sacrifice,
then you’ve stepped outside the human race,
and your plane will not land in heaven
wherever you think it might be.
Heaven is an early morning cafe
wherever you are.

–Bill Holm

(Copyright © 2004 by Bill Holm. From Playing the Black Piano published by Milkweed Editions, Minneapolis, Minnesota. All rights reserved. www.milkweed.org)
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Though born in the middle of the North American continent, Bill Holm was a devotee of islands as well as an essayist, musician, and poet. His books include Windows of Brimnes, Eccentric Islands, Coming Home Crazy, Playing the Black Piano, The Heart Can Be Filled Anywhere on Earth, The Dead Get By With Everything, The Music of Failure, Faces of Christmas Past, Chocolate Chips for Your Enemies and Box-Elder Bug Variations.

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