17.) What a gift I was given! Years and years with the freedom to structure a class around anything I deemed significant and worthy of a closer look. I was paid money to do that! Incredible. Higher Ed is messed up these days, but I'm so grateful for those 35 years. Hard to throw away the evidence.
14.) I found teaching notes on books and stories I don't even remember reading. 😭 15.) I found folders bearing the names of students I worked with long, long ago who are now my friends. 16.) I found stuff from special topics classes that were so special to me at the time but stopped mattering to me
13.) Remember when students handed in their final portfolio inside a brand new folder purchased at the book store? I found an old Mankato State University folder from 1997 or so. Shortly thereafter, they became Minnesota State University, Mankato.
11.) I saved so many issues of Glimmer Train's newsletter and STORY magazine (the OG, run by the Rosenthals) 12.) I found so many xeroxed copies of the stories I've taught over the years. I'm going to put them in the Little Free Library in my department.
9.) Wow, I was only 22 when I started teaching as a TA. 10.) I was going to write about so many things! The American Short Story Cycle, nonfictional fiction, living and teaching through 9/11, creative writing pedagogy, and the MFA program era.
7.) I found course rosters from the days when a student's ID number was their SSN. I put those rosters in the "shred" box in my current department. 8.) the students on those rosters are now in their 50s, ffs.
But man, I needed that stuff in 2024 when I taught intro again and had no idea what I was doing! 6.) My syllabi were 2-3 pages long once upon a time. Now they are 15 page terms and conditions documents my students scroll through without reading.
4.) I could not bear to throw away anything from the class I took in grad school with Ted Solotaroff, who taught me to read fiction like a writer. 5.) I found all my teaching materials from teaching intro to creative writing from 1993-2005. After that, I mostly taught upper level and grad classes.
1.) I didn't look back at most of this shit for the last 35 years. 2.) I remember when it all seemed incredibly important to save. 3.) I stopped saving paper files around 2014 by which point I'd digitized everything.
This week, I went through 35 years of paper files. Notes from every class I took in grad school. Notes from every class I taught in grad school and since. Transported from AL to MN to PA to NJ and back to PA and then to IN. Observations....
Horrifying and also as predicted. This is genocidal shit. The only hospital in Tennessee that offered this kind of care. www.them.us/story/vander...
Can't wait until March 1st? Read an excerpt from THE HEART FOLDS EARLY in THE WRITER'S CHRONICLE. Thank you, @awpwriter.org! This is getting real, isn't it?!
awpwriter.org/TWC/2026-feb...
A smiling Jill with her nails painted to match her book cover!
Did I get my nails done to match my title shade? Why yes, thank you for noticing. Turns out it’s pinker than it looks in font form 🤣 @univnebpress.bsky.social @cassmannes.bsky.social @riverteeth.bsky.social
If America still had the rule of law, this would be the easiest prosecution ever, but we all know absolutely nothing will happen.
My exhusband died about a year ago. Tonight I tried calling his phone number to see if his voicemail message was still there. It was not. His phone is in my filing cabinet. It did not ring. Somehow, this makes me even more sad.
I don't know why the federal government has declared war on my state, but this is clearly because their attempt to conduct an invasion was thwarted. So they're now retaliating economically.
The closing of African American Studies and GWSS at Iowa is absolutely heartbreaking. It is such an important time to study these subjects. Words really cannot express how upsetting this decision is. www.thegazette.com/higher-educa...
Good for him. 👍
Who knew the thumbs up would be the swastika of our times
we are close to go time, and the man who tried to end democracy and whose admin is executing citizens and noncitizens alike is set to talk for perhaps two or more hours.
i have prepped many, many graphs that feel pointless because what does lying about the budget matter when he's executing people?
In any other timeline, this would bring down everyone involved.
www.startribune.com/ice-fourth-a...
Indiana University's football crown was the feel-good story of the year. Off the field...not so much
Ranked last for free speech, DEI cuts, slashing the humanities while paying its coach $13M under MAGA trustees
My column on how IU ranks No. 1 in moral bankruptcy www.inquirer.com/columnists/a...
Everything is fine.
Feds: if grads in your discipline aren't making more than a high school graduate, we will cut federal student loans to cover your major. Indiana: Hold my beer, Linda McMahon. Let's just cut the programs, period. #AcademicSky #Indiana
www.insidehighered.com/news/governm...
More than 75,000 Post readers cancelled their subscriptions after the recent cuts. An even larger number bailed after Bezos killed the endorsement of Harris, but now the decline feels terminal. Bezos does not want a great paper with a conservative opinion page (like the Wall Street Journal). He seemingly barely wants a paper at all, treating one of the most important American media institutions like an embarrassing child from a previous marriage that no longer fits his lifestyle.
This sounds unbelievable but its true: since Bezos acquired The Post, his wealth has grown tenfold and the Post has been cut in half.
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-trust-...
That drop is more than the entire NSF budget.
This really feels like an important question to be talking about right now! Gift link.
Cover of banning books in America, not a how to. Empty book shelves.
"This is a book about banning books in America, and so it is a book about America." From the introduction by editor @samcohen.bsky.social Just out from Bloomsbury. Maybe you should teach this book in your classes? Chapter 14 is a syllabus! #academicsky #bookbans
i've decided not to listen to the audio of a teacher reporting a kindergartender because frankly I don't want to become the person that that event would turn me into. but one thing I hope we are collectively coming to grips with is what it meant that we have lived among such people this whole time
