Author: YSNews

 

 

The third in a series of Antioch College Fireside readings will feature two African American writers, Gariot Louima and T.J. Jarrett, reading short fiction and poetry on Sunday, Feb. 27. The event begins at 2 p.m. at the Corretta Scott King Center on the college campus.

Louima, director of communications at the college, is a fiction writer and former journalist. His stories have appeared in The Caribbean Writer and Carte Blanche, and are forthcoming in the anthology The Haiti I Knew, The Haiti I Know, The Haiti I Want to Know. He was a finalist for the Glimmer Train Short Story Award for New Writers.

T.J. Jarrett is a writer and poet whose recent work has been published or is forthcoming in the African American Review, the Boston Review, Calaloo, Linebreak, and Third Coast. Her manuscript, “The Moon Looks Down and Laughs,” was a finalist for the Tampa Review Poetry Prize.

When the Sun Nears the Earth in the West

by T. J. Jarrett

we chase it.  The ghosts follow, followed then?by the dark.  It has come to my attention that it is possible,

due to recent technological advances, to live only?in sun.  You could fuel mid-air if you like; you could simply

quit the earth.  Someone could do that.  That someone?could be you.  You could read this and nod, yes, yes.  Take me to a

place without darkness. It would be unwriterly for me to do so.?Worse— Irresponsible.  Uncharitable.  Let me tell you how

to withstand the dark: The dark will go on only as long?as you let it.  You must forgive the dark.  It never takes you

into account.  Forgive the earth that bears the dark?on its back.  Forgive then, the ghosts you carry.  Touch them

on the cheek tenderly, each one, and send them on ahead?of you.  Forgive the stars their disinterested twinkling.  Forgive the

air and trees.  You will experience weightlessness.  Forgive?the gravity that holds you.  Behold the spinning earth.  Choose.

Antioch College recently admitted four out of the college’s first class of 25 students who will come to campus next fall. The college has been getting ready for its first class since it was revived as a liberal arts college in September, 2009, after an alumni group successfully gained independence for the college from Antioch University.

“We continue to attract some of the most talented and community-minded graduates,” Special Assistant to the President for Enrollment Kristen Pett said in a recent interview.

The first four students — two from Ohio and two from Texas — were admitted during the college’s early admission process. Students can still apply through the regular admission process, which has a March 1 deadline. The college will notify those accepted by April 1, according to Pett, and students then have until May 1 to accept.

Applications are currently coming in from across the country, Pett said, with an especially strong showing from Ohio, New York and California.

All of the entering class of 25 will be awarded Horace Mann Fellowships. Tuition is free for four years, and there is also possible grant money available for room and board fees. The fellowships also include mentoring from Antioch College alumni.

For a more detailed article on the first members of the college’s first class, see the Feb. 24 issue of the Yellow Springs News.

As part of the Antioch College fireside reading series, writer and teacher Rafael Torch will read from his recent creative nonfiction work on Sunday, Feb. 20, at 2 p.m. at the Coretta Scott King Center. His collection of raw personal essays about the realities of cancer treatment is titled Pacific Coast Time: A Recurrence of Days.

Torch, who graduated from Antioch in 2002, is a writer and high school literature teacher in California. His work, part of the rapidly growing body of Latino literature in America, has been published in the Antioch Review, the Indiana Review, the North American Review, and the Crab Apple Review, among other places. His story, “The Naming of Frank Torch,” won the Grand Prize from the online journal Memoir (and). Torch’s MA thesis from the University of Chicago, The Garcia Boy: A Memoir, received numerous awards, including the Catherine Ham Memorial Award for Excellence in graduate work.

Rafael’s Torch’s gripping blog detailing his ongoing experiences with cancer is called “pacific coast time: cancer, las vegas, god, illumination, and a hint of existential dread.” The following is an excerpt from a February entry:

since i began this blog a year ago i’ve had cancer four times and i’ve beat it thus far. how much luck does a person have? is it even a matter of luck? i used to ask if it was fair, but now i know better — fair and luck have nothing to do with it. those are meaningless words…

jonah, i knew, was going to be a good student. i don’t quite remember his exact score, but i know he earned a high B on the test we had the first or second day of school. i never got to read his first essay. after he was diagnosed with cancer and i had gone to his house to see him before he flew to houston for treatment, he said he had his essay for me to grade. i told him that he didn’t need to worry about it, that he had other things much more important than salinger or holden’s dilemma to worry about now. but he was adamant. he had heard that those first essays were dismal, that i had graded hard. he wanted to see where he stood. i told him to email it to me if he wanted. i never got the email.

The fireside readings are sponsored by Antioch College Morgan Fellows Anne Bohlen and Jean Gregorek. The events highlight both established and emerging multi-ethnic writers, poets and memoirists who offer a variety of voices and fresh perspectives on contemporary life in North America. The events all take place at the Coretta Scott King Center for Cultural and Intellectual Freedom.