Teaching Post

I've been teaching a "transitional" class this summer. Transitional is what we used to call remedial English back when I started this gig.

I've been teaching Comp pretty much non-stop for well over 25 years (I just did the math, and yes, well over), but I haven't taught remedial English since I was a Visiting Assistant Professor in Idaho. The university I taught at in North Carolina just didn't offer it -- though it needed it badly -- and when I started here in the Fort, all the remedial classes, which were called something else then (I can't remember what), were in separate department.

But a couple semesters go, that department was dissolved, and the Transitional classes became part of their departments -- transitional math with the math department, in other words, and Transitional College Writing with the English department.

All of which is a long way of saying that I am teaching remedial English for the first time in nearly 20 years, and liking it a great deal.

It may be because this is a summer class. All my students are either older students or immigrants. None of them are here because their parents signed them up for the class, in other words. They show up with the assignments done, ready to work. That's just so pleasant.

Also, despite the class, they are both engaged and fairly literate, if not uniformly well-read.

Mind you, some of them are also well-read. One of them quoted Plato at me today! It was great. We had a sidebar about The Republic together before returning to the less-engaging question of how to build an essay map.

Beyond all this, however, almost all of them are here to learn. When I told them that the arguments in their essays had to be supported with sources, and that those sources had to be valid sources, they took notes on what a valid source was. Not one of them turned in an essay with anything other than valid sources supporting their claims.

One of them explained to me that they'd had to change their topic. "I thought this," they said, "but when I tried to find valid sources to support it, I couldn't. So I knew it couldn't be supported. So I changed my thesis to this."

I just nodded seriously and told them they'd done a good job. But in my head?

Pride Parade in NWA

We spent yesterday up in Fayetteville, at the Pride Parade (if you're LGBTQ in Arkansas, Fayetteville is your oasis).

It was the Kid's first Pride parade -- mine too. "Whaat?" the Kid said.

"Well, they're always in June," I said. "Obviously. And you know how I feel about summer."

"Oh, right." The Kid thought this over. "You must really love me."

But it was a wonderful parade. The Kid said they might happy-cry. I don't know if they did, but I'll admit I did, once or twice.

Before the parade, we walked up and down Dickson Street, admiring the crowd: sassy girls wearing rainbow flags like capes, lovely shirtless boys holding hands, tiny toddlers in rainbow tutus running through the crowd, stately grandmothers with canes and rainbow flowers in their hair, and so many dogs. The sole sour note was an Evangelical standing on wall with a bullhorn telling all these wonderful, happy, celebrating people they would burn in the fires of hell. The Kid flipped him off as we went past.

We stopped at the little grocery store where the Kid shops when school is in session, to buy bottles of water, and stayed inside there in the AC to drink them.

Then we went out again, and down the street to sit on the curb in the shade of a big tree and wait for the parade. Some of our friends and their kids found us there -- I'd been looking for them, sort of hopelessly, because the crowd was huge -- and we spent the ten or fifteen minutes before the parade started catching up.

Also still enjoying the crowd.  More dogs! More trans and gay and genderqueer and Lesbian people! A set of tiny redheaded twins in fairy-princess costumes! A tiny poodle in a rainbow tutu! A large man with an impressive beard wearing a shirt that said: TRUMP IS THE ONLY DICK I CANNOT HANDLE.

The parade itself began right on time. It was pretty wonderful.

The best parts, I think, were the UA-Pride organization, which the Kid has not yet been able to join, because their studio art class conflicted with it all last year; and the Socialists For LGBT Rights (there was a guy from the IWW there -- Dr. Skull shouted out to him something about Joe Hill, and made his day); and the local Jewish temple, Temple Shalom, marching in the parade.



Lots of religious groups marched, by the way -- not just the Jews! But obviously we were very pleased to see the temple there.

Also the atheists marched. That was nice too!

Also, two of my ex-students were in the parade. (That's not them above!)

All in all, a wonderful experience.

Review of The Enclave

My latest review is live at Strange Horizons.

This one is of Anne Charnock's award-winning novella, The Enclave, which is set in the same world as her novel, A Calculated Life, which I highly recommend.

Lift-Off!

More on Fault Lines from my publisher!

Fault Lines received terrific reviews in Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and from SF legend Gwyneth Jones and Ditmar award winner Tansy Rayner Roberts (and nabbed today’s spot at Scalzi’s Big Idea). Review excerpts:

In this fun, intrigue-laden space opera, // Jennings gives an intriguing glimpse of a much larger setting. // Fans of found family will love the portrayal of Velocity and her crew of scrappy underdogs. — Publishers Weekly

Kelly [Jennings] has been compared with C. J. Cherryh, and I think deservedly. Fault Lines isn’t burdened with the awful angst of Cherryh’s [] Cyteen, but it has the same intensity and conviction. — Gwyneth Jones, author of the Aleutian trilogy, winner of the World Fantasy, Clarke, Dick, and Tiptree awards

More political intrigue and gamesmanship than a standard space-battle story… // Solid world building, likable characters…nifty plot twists… — Craig Clark, Booklist 

A sharp, character-rich space opera packed with angry, capable women and attractive, vulnerable men. Jennings builds a large, politically complex world // but expresses this through an intimate slice… — Tansy Rayner Roberts, author of the Creature Court trilogy, winner of multiple Ditmar and WSFA Small Press awards

Fault Lines is available on Amazon, B&N, Kobo – and of course on our website, where buying the lovingly prepared trade paperback also brings along the full digital bundle (PDF, Epub and Mobi) . All C&G ebooks are DRM-free. As a reminder, it may take a couple of days post-launch for full linkage between print and digital versions on Amazon and B&N.

Come explore Fault Lines with us; sail the perilous skies of the Pirian/Combine ‘verse with genetic outlaws and hierarchy subverters!

Fault Lines? Big Idea?

Yes, you read that right -- my novel, Fault Lines, is today's Big Idea over on John Scalzi's blog, Whatever.

Go here to read all about it!

Also, you can buy my book!  AT LAST!

Pre-Order Fault Lines!

You can pre-order my new novel, Fault Lines, on Kindle, or in a print version.

You can also get it from B&N, or from Kobo!

Big announcement coming on Monday, by the way!

New Recipe up at Cooking With Delagar

I used to make this entirely non-authentic stir-fry all the time when I was a grad student. Lately I've been making it with the Kid, because it's quick and cheap and tasty.

Have the recipe!

What's This?

You can pre-order someone's book!

Your Last Week to Win!

Sign up to win my book! The Give-Away is in its last week!

Go here for more details!

(The book will debut on June 11 -- you can order it then! And don't worry! I'll be posting ALL THE LINKS!)

Summer I

Summer teaching starts tomorrow. My Comp I class made -- hurrah! -- but my fiction writing class did not. However, I picked up a transition writing class, which doesn't have quite full enrollment (and so I won't quite be getting full pay for it), which means we'll have almost enough money to make it through the summer.

Also, I won't have to teach Summer II. That's five weeks off to write.

Boo-yah!

Take My Poll!

So I'm doing research -- I'm sorry, make that "research" on the interwebs, trying to find out what most people would wish for if they could have one wish granted...

Holy smokes*, y'all, you would not believe the number of people who would wish for unlimited weed.

Meanwhile, go take my highly scientific poll over on the Twitter.




*Pun definitely intended

Booklist likes my Book!

Aw, look!

Booklist likes Fault Lines!

Though it's not my debut novel. But otherwise!

Twenty-Five Years

Dr. Skull and I have been married for 25 years, as difficult as that is to believe. As I often tell my students, we didn't live together before we got married -- in fact, we didn't live together after we got married. He was working in LA and Georgia both before and after our marriage.

But in fact this isn't entirely true. I was in graduate school in Fayetteville, and when he was in town, which was often, we lived together. So we've really been together somewhat longer than 25 years.

Anyway! Here's what he gave me for our anniversary:

 It's a stained glass window that you hang up in an actual window. When the sun shines through it, it's very lovely.

He also gave me this little guy:

because I write SF, get it?

I have the best husband.

Podcast Galactic Suburbia

Galactic Suburbia podcast discusses Fault Lines (at the very end! Skip ahead to like the last seven or eight minutes if you just want to hear about my book).

https://galactisuburbia.podbean.com/e/episode-186-16-may-2018/

Summer School

As I noted in an earlier post, I'm teaching two classes (let's hope -- one hasn't made yet) this summer.

The Kid is also taking a class at my university this summer. This is for two reasons -- one, it's much cheaper to take a class here than up at the flagship U; and two, it's their math req, and taking it all by itself will allow them to focus just on math. They're much better at math than Dr. Skull and I are, but it's not their strongest subject.

Anyway! My point! Signing the Kid up for a class has let me see the mechanics of university life from the other side. While it's much easier than it was in our days, in that lots of it can be done sitting in your living room via your computer, rather than walking all over a miserably hot campus from building to building, it's still a heap of fiddle to collect and stick in the right slots -- transcripts, shot records, SS#, official # for high school, dates for same, official # for all universities attended, dates for same, ACT/SAT scores...

All to take a single summer class.

I can see why each bit of data is necessary, mind you. But I can also see why some prospective students, who don't understand the need for all this data, might give up and decide to work at the water park instead.