These educators are dedicated teachers with a range of classroom experiences — from graduate teaching associate positions at Fresno State, to area high schools and community colleges — and they represent the latest standouts among our English and Creative Writing graduate program alumni who’ve decided to keep their higher-ed teaching work at home in the Central Valley.
Fresno State English major Rodolfo Avelar never imagined himself sitting on a balcony overlooking downtown Minneapolis for his work, reading poetry manuscripts and thinking about graphic design.
Lacy M. Johnson is author of “The Reckonings” (Scribner, 2018), which was named a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist in criticism and one of the best books of 2018 by the Boston Globe, Electric Literature, Autostraddle, Book Riot, and Refinery29.
The fall 2019 Fresno Poets’ Association reading series lineup will celebrate past and present Fresno State faculty, including an opening reading with an accomplished novelist and a retiring poet professor from the Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing.
Dr. James E. Walton, a professor emeritus of English at Fresno State and the first faculty to serve as coordinator of the university’s Africana Studies Program, passed away in Fresno on August 15, 2019. He was 74.
Fresno State’s locally grown, nationally known literary magazine, The Normal School, will become an online-only publication starting this fall, ending an 11-year run as a printed periodical. The Spring/Summer 2019 issue of the magazine, due to hit bookstores by late August, will be its last physical issue.
The Fresno State Creative Writing Alumni Chapter presents “Hot Off the Press 4” from 4 to 6 p.m. Saturday, June 8, at Collect Coffee Bar (3142 E. Campus Pointe Dr.) at Campus Pointe. The reading will celebrate new books from Fresno writers Sara Borjas, Lena Mahmoud and Monique Quintana.
“I strongly believe in the value of not turning away from science or business or social sciences if you are grounded in the arts, and vice-versa.” – Leo Rowland
As grand marshal, bearing the mace — the ornamented wood staff carried by the Commencement ceremony’s senior faculty member — carried added significance for Henson. Her husband served as the ceremony’s grand marshal and mace-bearer at least three times before his retirement. Zumwalt was back in attendance this year to watch Henson march in.