Students, faculty, and alumni of the College of Arts and Humanities have created some exciting products that would make fantastic gifts this holiday season!
“Out Here on Our Own” by J.J. Anselmi (alumni)
Anselmi’s third nonfiction book tells the story of Rock Springs, Wyoming, a mining boomtown with a history of brutal racial violence, widespread addiction, and a high suicide rate. The oral histories he stitches together offer a searing snapshot of a resilient community where rugged individualists face contemporary realities.
Buy online from The University of Nebraska Press
“Sweetbitter” by Stacey Balkun (alumni)
Balkun’s fourth poetry collection — and her debut full-length book — examines youth, gender, sexuality, and yearning at an atomic level. From sapphic longing and poisoned baptisms to contaminated bodies and the gendered erosion of autonomy, the book is the product of a restless coming-of-age story.
Buy online from Sundress Publications
“Winter Evening” album by Dr. Maria Briggs, soprano; Dr. Limor Toren-Immerman, violin and viola and Dr. Drew Quiring, piano (faculty and staff)
Just in time for the holidays, the album “Winter Evening” is perfect for those cold nights relaxing in the warmth, watching the tule fog shroud your surroundings in pale secrecy beyond the window. The collection of luscious romantic songs by Tchaikowsky, Rachmaninov, Medtner and others written to the poetry of Pushkin, Goethe and Baudelaire was released through Centaur Records and is available on most streaming platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music and Amazon Music.
“Singer Distance” by Ethan Chatagnier (alumni)
Chatagnier’s second book — and his debut novel — is a genre-bending tale of ambition, loneliness, exploration, and love that asks: What does it really mean to know we’re not alone in the universe? The book explores how far we’re willing to go to communicate with a distant civilization and the great lengths we’ll travel to connect with each other on Earth.
Buy online from Tin House Books
“Like everything else we loved” by Sarah A. Chavez (alumni)
Chavez’s second book of poetry is a micro chapbook that explores the body and grief in all its messiness. This epistolary collection is both haunting and haunted, the speaker’s voice well-crafted and sure, with poems intimate and woven like a vivid spell in a dream.
Buy online from Porkbelly Press
“Academy of Dreams” by Glover Davis (alumni)
Davis’s seventh book is a masterwork collection of new and selected poems that transports a reader with precision and grace. Reckoning with mysteries of time and haunting legacies, his poems offer elegies and insights with a clarity of imagination and deep humanity. Includes his tour-de-force nine-section poem “August Fires” from 1978.
Buy online from Lamar University Literary Press, via Bookshop
“Sunny G’s Series of Rash Decisions” by Navdeep Singh Dhillon (alumni)
Singh Dhillon’s debut novel is a young-adult romantic comedy about a Sikh teen’s search for love and identity. Sunny G’s brother left him one thing when he died: his notebook, which Sunny is determined to fill up with a series of rash decisions. He stops wearing his turban, cuts off his hair, shaves his beard, and heads to the prom. Enter Mindii Vang, a Hmong girl with a penchant for making rash decisions of her own, including stealing Sunny’s notebook. When Sunny chases after her, prom night turns into an adventure.
Buy online from Penguin Random House
“Bad Hobby” by Kathy Fagan (alumni)
Fagan’s sixth book of poetry is a perceptive collection focused on memory, class, and might-have-beens. In a working-class family that considers sensitivity a “fatal diagnosis,” how does a child grow up to be a poet? The author thinks hard about lineage, caregiving, and time.
Buy online from Milkweed Editions
“The Boom Sessions”; Limited Special Edition 5-Cassette Box Set (Faculty)
Recorded straight to 1/2” tape over 5 concerts at one of Los Angeles’s premiere hubs for creative music, ETA in Highland Park, The Complete Boom Sessions documents 400 minutes of quartet improvisations featuring some of LA Scene’s most compelling voices. The album includes tracks by Fresno State faculty Richard Giddens, bass and Mark Ferber, drums.
Buy online here
“The Bones Stay” by Aaliyah Green (alumni)
Green’s debut story collection is a book of five imaginative tales twined together by magic, consequences, and the influence of three root-working sisters. Between a cursed fortune, a cul-de-sac where jealousy bakes a fateful pie, and the horror of eternity, there is a common thread: fear, love, and the absence of love.
Buy online from Passengers Literary Press, via Barnes and Noble
“Cenizas” by Cynthia Guardado (alumni)
Guardado’s second poetry collection offers an arresting portrait of a family whose lives have been shaped by the upheavals of global politics. The speaker of these poems — the daughter of Salvadoran immigrants — questions the meaning of homeland as she navigates life in the United States, while remaining tethered to El Salvador by the long shadows of personal and public history.
Buy online from The University of Arizona Press
“Halfway from Home” by Sarah Fawn Montgomery (alumni)
Montgomery’s fifth book is an essay collection that blends lyric memoir with cultural critique, as the author examines longing and desire, sorrow and ache. The book grieves a vanishing world while offering — amidst emotional and environmental collapse — ways to discover hope, healing, and home.
Buy online from Split Lip Press
“Vintage Typewriter” Fanny Pack/Crossbody bag and “Alice” Fanny Pack/Crossbody bag by María Dolores Morillo (faculty)
Description: This is a convenient medium-sized bag that can be worn as a fanny pack or a crossbody bag. It’s made in two choices of beautiful cotton canvas prints: a. “Vintage Typewriter” features fun Ruby Star Society’s Darlings 2 Typewriters in Merry (pink) and 100% cotton lining by Ruby Star Society; b. “Alice” features whimsical Rifle Paper Co.’s “Wonderland” fabric and periwinkle waterproof canvas.
This bag has two zippered pockets and an adjustable strap. The large compartment fits an iPhone X comfortably with plenty of room left for other essentials, such as a glasses case and a wallet. The strap is made with cotton webbing to avoid slipping when wearing it around the waist. Bag measurements (w/o strap): 16” Long x 6” Tall approx. Bag circumference with a strap at the shortest length: 38-39”. Do not hesitate to contact me.
Buy online from Etsy
“Broadcast News in the Digital Age” by Faith Sidlow and Kim Stephens (faculty)
Fresno State MCJ professors Faith Sidlow and Kim Stephens co-authored this book drawing on their combined 60+ years of experience as writers, producers and reporters in local TV news. Broadcast News in the Digital Age is helpful for anyone who wants to improve their writing and video storytelling. It’s a step-by-step guide with anecdotes and advice from 45 media professionals from around the country.
Buy online from Amazon
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