rjfranklin54′s blog

Portals, Cape Fear Community College’s annual literary magazine, cordially invites you to an evening of readings by 10 CFCC students and faculty. Join us on Thursday, Nov. 10, from 6:30-8 p.m. at Old Books on Front Street (249 N. Front St.). If time permits, members of the audience may volunteer to read their work.

If you have questions about the event, feel free to contact Jada Ach at jach@cfcc.edu. To learn more about Portals, check out our webpage (http://www.cfcc.edu/portals) or visit our facebook page (CFCC Portals Literary and Arts Magazine).

CFCC’S PORTALS LITERARY AND ARTS MAGAZINE
About Portals

Portalsis Cape Fear Community Colleges’ annual literary and arts magazine. CFCC is calling all current CFCC artists and writers for submissions for the 2012 Portals Literary and Arts Magazine. Submissions are being accepted for Poetry, Creative Non-Fiction, Short Fiction, and 2-D Visual Art.
GET PUBLISHED IN 2012

Cash prizes include a $350 Louise McColl Award for Literary Excellence, as well as prizes of $100, $50, and $25 for 1st through 3rd Place in all three writing categories. A $100 Cover Art Prize and $100 Faculty/Staff Literary Award also will be awarded.

All entries must be submitted by Tuesday, November 29. Only work that adheres to our formatting guidelines will be reviewed. Previously unpublished submissions only.

Award-Winning Authors to Host Writers’ Roundtable Series at CFCC

Cape Fear Community College will conduct four free creative writing workshops for the public beginning next month.

Each workshop will meet on a Saturday afternoon from 11:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in Room S-302 of the McLeod Building at 411 North Front Street in Downtown Wilmington.

Workshops are free, but require pre-registration and are limited to 15 participants each. Please register at 910-362-7316 or email: roundtableseries@cfcc.edu.

The first workshop is called “The Driver’s Seat: Creating Memorable Characters in Fiction” and will be held on October 29. The workshop will be taught by Michelle Boyajian, author of Lies of the Heart (Viking 2009) and a graduate of NYU, Miami University, and UNC Wilmington. Her stories have appeared in Third Coast, Timber Creek Review, and she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

The second workshop, “Tension in Poetry,” will be held on November 12 and will be led by the current NC Poet Laureate, Cathy Smith Bowers, whose poetry has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Georgia Review, Poetry, and The Southern Review . She is author of four volumes of poetry and was awarded the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet Award.

Two other workshops will be held in January and February. Topics and authors will be announced later.

The series is made possible through a contribution from Louise McColl of Wilmington.

Cape Fear Community College Writer’s Roundtable Series

Funded by the generous contribution of Louise McColl

Free Writing Workshops         Open to the Public      First 15 participants will be registered.

Contact rountableseries@cfcc.edu

Workshop 3  February 12, 11-1:30 Room S-302 McLeod Building 411 Front Street

Forms of Free Verse: Momentum Poetry is a free workshop that will focus on various approaches to what poet Barbara Anderson terms the Momentum Poem, a spontaneous poetic “form” infused with speed, vertigo, chaos, and suspense. Participants will also view and discuss momentum in the visual arts.

Facilitator Jada Ach, a poet and full time faculty member in the English Department at CFCC. Her work has appeared in Barnwood Press Magazine, MT Cup Review, Ink & Ashes: A Journal of the Senses, and Talon Magazine. In 2010 her poem “To Whom It May Concern” was made into a short film and presented as part of the Arts Poetica III Poetry Festival.

Workshop 4   March 19,  11-1:30 Room S-302  Mcleod Building  411 N. Front Street

He Said/She Said: How Dialogue in Fiction Advances Story

Dialogue is a vital tool in the process of storytelling. When characters speak to each other, they reveal not only basic plot, but the intricacies of human conflict, the difficulties inherent in relationships, and who they are in their best and worst moments.The workshop will cover how characters expose themselves and the elements of fiction through what they say to each other, and sometimes what they refuse to say to each other.

Facilitator  Michelle (Mel) Boyajian holds a BFA in dramatic writing from NYU, an MA in English and Creative Writing from Miami University, and an MFA from UNCW, where she has taught in the Creative Writing and English departments. Her short stories have appeared in Third Coast and timber Creek Review, and were nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Her first novel, Lies of the Heart, was published by viking Press in April 2010. For more information log onto www.michelleboyajian.com.

My mother taught middle school for over 30 years, so one can hardly blame her for telling me never to become a teacher. I listened for a long while, settling instead into a career as a manager and book buyer for a chain of stores after graduating from UNC-Greensboro with a B.A. in English.  However, the time came when the retail business held no appeal for me. I tried out a few other jobs here and there, and then went back to school for an M.F.A. in creative writing at UNC-W. Upon graduation, I applied here at CFCC, where I had been teaching part-time for over a year, and was hired in 2001.

I am fortunate in our department to have a supportive and incredibly accomplished faculty and staff. We share ideas and techniques and consult with each other constantly about the most effective methods for reaching and teaching our students. In addition, the administration works to keep our facilities updated technologically, which allows us to employ the latest techniques for keeping our students fresh and competitive.

Right now I primarily teach Argumentative Research, Introduction to Literature (another form of argumentative research), and Creative Writing. On top of our classroom responsibilities, our  faculty and creative writing students work to produce projects such as our literary journal, Portals, and our annual community arts performance, Arts Poetica.

From developmental courses to creative writing, we always encourage our students to push harder and produce better. We emphasize effective writing through a mastery of grammar and mechanics, as well as carefully written and organized essays and research papers. We stress critical thinking in our students, not only through analysis and discussion, but also through teaching them to examine the particular approaches they use to assess and learn.  I truly believe that the higher order skills we teach our students are essential for success, and from what I often read, I suspect they aren’t getting these skills in very many other places. That’s why I usually love my job. What my mother did not admit for a long time is that she loved most of those thirty years that she taught, and when I finally became a teacher, she was proud and happy for me.