Leah Garchik on CCSF, 5/25, sfgate.com

City College of San Francisco threw its eighth annual fashion show last week, in the campus' new Wellness Center. Bleachers were crowded with students sporting an array of shiny pants, dirndls, ruffles and fishnet flourishes that reflected major interest in the subject at hand.

The show's energy and pizzazz were all the more impressive because it was totally student-produced, and I was also captivated by descriptions of the student designers provided in the program.

City College has more than 100,000 students, with 100,000 backgrounds, including Sara Axelrod, a Google ad saleswoman with a bachelor's degree; Stefanie Barriere, Jonathan Ochoco and Linda Lingren are lawyers; Lauren Davidson is a faculty assistant at UCSF; Shelly Foster has a bachelor's degree from Stanford and a San Francisco State teaching credential; Liza Hebb has a degree in biology; Ukraine-born Olena Holoulina works at the Ukrainian Consulate and has a master's in computer science; Caroline Jacopy, from France, has a degree in sociology; Juliana Loo is an Abraham Lincoln High School student ... I can't mention every one. But City College makes following one's passion affordable to all.

P.S.: Elisa Stephens, president of the Academy of Art University, which held its own polished fashion show a few weeks ago, was there cheering on the City College students, and announcing that her institution was giving a full scholarship to CCSF student Antonio Luna.

Liam Greger!

--from Laury Fischer of DVC--

The phone rang with some wonderful news this morning that you will all want to celebrate:

William Albin DuLaney Greger (no hyphen for this one) was born this morning, May 25, 2009 at 2:31 am Alta-Bates hospital. The baby — Liam to the world — is by all accounts simply wonderful: 8 lbs 4.5 ounces of perfection, 21.25”, and Apgar Scores of 8 and 9 — all excellent. Dad is doing great; mom is exhausted but completely excited and exhilarated -- having gone into the hospital at 3:30 am Saturday morning and finally giving birth this morning.

For now, as excited as we all are, Keri and Christoph are welcoming emails and preferring them (please no phone calls — and please no hospital visits until Keri can rest up). They think they’ll be in the hospital for three or four more days before heading home, if you want to send a card or something else wonderful.

What a blessed way for all of us to start the summer. Congratulations to Christoph and Keri — and Liam — we welcome you.

Area Man First In His Family To Coast Through College

MINNEAPOLIS—At first glance, Daniel Peterson seems no different than any other student: Wearing a ball cap, he's spent most of the evening browsing YouTube. Soon his buddies will . . .

My Precious

Live like a Hobbit . . .

JACK WAKES UP in stores now!

That's right, everybody, you can now buy JACK WAKES UP in stores everywhere and on the web here: You can also get free audio, and buy your copy here:
http://sethharwood.com/jack-wakes-up

Want to give it a trial first? Here's where you can read the first three chapters:

Open publication - Free publishing - More thriller

Hope I'll see you at a reading event soon!
http://booktour.com/author/seth_harwood

Seth

NY Times Piece on Higher Ed.

Web 2.0 to Book Deal in 3 Minutes

Re: posting this from Open Culture with thanks to Dan Colman.

After Seth Harwood got his MFA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he began publishing in traditional magazines and journals, as most young writers do. But those publications were slow to launch his career. Things changed, however, once he started publishing online. And they really changed when he released his crime novel Jack Wakes Up as a free podcast (via iTunes, RSS Feed, & MP3) and distributed it through social networks. Web 2.0 broadened the reach of his work, attracted fans worldwide, and ultimately landed Harwood a nice book deal with Random House. (RH will be publishing Jack Wakes Up in print early next month). In the short video above, Harwood gives you a quick look inside the making of his podcast, and how it brings exposure to his work. If you’re an up-and-coming writer, there’s certainly something here to think about. You can find out more about Seth’s work at SethHarwood.com.

This guy went to CCSF!

Jon Hammond, CCSF student, circa 1972.

NYTRB to review my novel JACK WAKES UP

YES!! I just found out today that my novel JACK WAKES UP (out May 5th from Three Rivers Press/Random House) will be reviewed in the Sunday NY Times Book Review on May 10th!!

Help me celebrate by hooting when you read this! (Please.)

I'll be giving a series of readings in SF and around the Bay Area that you can find out about here: sethharwood.com/readings Look for postcards about these events to show up on Diane's desk very soon, as well as COUPONS to buy the book at a discount from Books, Inc.
You can also view the postcard here.
All best!
Seth

Plugging My Blog: "Matt Duckworth Underwater"

Dear Fellow Faculty and Students,

I have started a blog that I invite you to check out. Here, I have started a collection of mini-essays, postcards, ruminations, artwork, favorite quotations, short-short fiction, and bibliographical annotations (more fun than it sounds!) in a forum organized, sometimes loosely, around an aquatic theme.

http://mattduckworthunderwater.blogspot.com/

I hope you will be amused, at least.

Thanks,

Matt

Lunch with writers?

Greetings, fellow wordsmiths!

In addition to our work at CCSF, we (Anna Mills and Erin O'Briant) are
both writers and are interested in socializing with other writers (of
any stripe) on campus. Therefore, we're planning an informal lunch at
PCR at noon on Thursday, April 30 for all who are interested in meeting
other self-identified writers who work here. If it goes well, we'll do
it a couple of times per semester.

At the first lunch, we can all talk about what we'd like to get out of a
regular writers' lunch--support, check-ins, a chance to seek out
critique partners, or just the opportunity to think of ourselves as
writers for an hour. We can also consider different times.

Sound fun? Please email Erin at eobriant@ccsf.edu or Anna at
amills@ccsf.edu by Monday, April 20 so we'll reserve enough room at PCR.
Staff, faculty, and administrators from all corners of CCSF are welcome;
please forward this email as you see fit. Of course, we have no funding,
so folks will have to buy their own lunches. Maybe there's something in
the stimulus package for writers eating salad together?

Happy writing,
Anna Mills and Erin O'Briant

Ocean-Balboa Progress? Maybe . . .

Argumentation!

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Intro - Brawl Street: Get Ready to Buy Low! And Sell Die

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things w/ Demetri Martin

Political Humor
Jim Cramer

Responding to Student Writing

Harvard Study
Underscores
Importance
of Feedback

The Batmale Hall Food Chain: High Fructose Corn Syrup Contaminated w/ Mercury

Why have I been such a sucker for those Batmale junk machine Pop Tarts for all these years? Because I love the sweet ambrosia of mercury-laced hfcp and its side-effects . . .

A Fructed-Up Factory. Yum.

--a list of problem food products
--a press release summary of the problem
--more info
--The SF Gate story
--The UK Guardian