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goodbye

Posted by wahida

Martindale Literary Prize for Short Fiction

Posted by wahida

Remember that short story contest I mentioned a little while back? Well, somehow---I won! For a short story I first wrote in 2007, called "Wet Season."

I still can't quite believe it. My first writing prize! And the first time I've actually made money through my writing. I totally got all teary and shaky when they called me up to the little podium last night, even though I'd promised myself that I wouldn't.

They made the announcement at the opening reception for the 2009 Pima Writer's Workshop. A reading by Peter Turchi, (the judge for 2009 and a faculty member at the workshop), was the main event.

Linda Lyons won second runner-up for her story "Footsteps." Tom Printsner (sp?) won first runner-up for his story "Leonard and Martha," but unfortunately he was out of town.

Peter Turchi was nice enough to sign my copy of his short story collection, Magician, even though I was all mumbly and nervous.

Meg Files was super-sweet, and she signed my copy of her craft book, Write from Life. (Laura Van Etten, my workshop instructor from this past semester, gave that to me as a going-away-to-Minneapolis present! If you're ever looking for a writing class in Tucson, check out one of Laura's, it was great. And she recommends Meg Files' class highly. Judging by this book, I absolutely agree, and I'm sorry I never had the chance.)

Nancy Wall gave me the call to tell me, last Tuesday. She was really nice. I cried. She made me promise not to tell anyone until after the announcement---it was so hard to keep my mouth shut!

Nancy Wall, reading Peter Turchi's comments about "Wet Season." Meg Files, taking a picture.
(PLEASE disregard my terrifyingly bad posture, eesh.)

Peter Turchi was the judge for 2009. Here he is reading his work. (Pardon the craptastic photo quality.)

Linda Lyons getting her certificate from Nancy Wall

Meg Files, Chair of the Pima English Dept. and Pima Writer's Workshop founder

It's called the Martindale Literary Prize. It's an annual prize for short fiction, it began in 1988. The rules are that you can only submit one unpublished story, you can't have won before or be Pima faculty, the story has to be between 5,000 and 10,000 words AND you have to be taking at least one class at Pima Community College---so the applicant pool is pretty much limited to people in Tucson.

And the award is $1000! I'm still hyperventilating. I can't even explain how much this will help with my move to Minnesota. Things have been looking really grim on my financial front, lately.

As much as the money saves the day for me, this really does mean even more to me on an emotional and professional level. I feel SO grateful and so lucky. I hope this post doesn't come off as braggy, because that's not what I want. I'm just really happy---the MFA, and now this? It's like the world is telling me: Go ahead, do this. I've got your back. (And I go: Well, I was going to go for it anyway, but this really helps!)

The prize is a bit obscure, I have to admit. You'll have trouble finding information about it on the internet---apparently they don't have a website set up for it. (I'm tempted to ask them if they'd like me to make one for them! But I know that's crazy talk.)

So please forgive me---I'm going to indulge myself a bit here, and tell you everything you'll ever never want to know about the Martindale Literary Prize.

I'm warning you ahead of time. I'm going to blab and blab, so feel free to skip this. Okay? Okay.

Kaleidoscope, published by Pima Press in 2007.

Kaleidoscope is an anthology of nineteen winning stories from a yearly contest at Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona.

The competition, sponsored by the Martindale Educational Foundation, awards an annual prize of $1000. As Mr. Robert C. Martindale explained in 1987 at the first meeting to discuss this competition, his foundation was offering a substantial award, and he therefore expected substantial stories.

The judge for each year's competition is a well-known fiction writer, and all of the judges have commented on the unusually high quality of the work submitted. Several of the authors appearing in Kaleidoscope have had short story collections or novels published, while the work of others has appeared in serious literary journals, some publications containing the stories from this anthology.

Hey, wanna know who won the Martindale in 2000? Tayari Jones! Remember when I read Leaving Atlanta and loved it? She did her MFA at ASU, and she's fiction faculty at Rutgers-Newark now. The Untelling is on my list of must-read-soons.

Here's the flier that started this whole thing:

Wanna know what's funny? Peter Turchi and Charles Baxter (faculty at Minnesota) edited a book on craft together! It's called Bringing the Devil to His Knees: The Craft of Fiction and the Writing Life. Turchi was the director of the Warren Wilson MFA program from 1993-2008, and Baxter still teaches there, I think.

In case you're thinking, Hey, that sounds fishy!, let me assure you that this is just a wonderful cosmic coincidence. Check out the flier: They didn't say who the judge would be, and Turchi never saw my name. Even if he had, I can promise you that at this point I've said about seven words to Charles Baxter, (Hello, it's so good to meet you), and he has no idea what I'm doing with my insignificant little summer, or what kinds of longs shots I'm shooting for. Turchi did his MFA at the University of Arizona, so really it's not so strange that he's here to do the Workshop. But I just love unexpected connections like this.

What about the story? "Wet Season" was part of my MFA application portfolio. I wrote it for a summer fiction workshop taught by the excellent Rachel Yoder. At the time she was an MFA student at the University of Arizona. It was my first creative writing workshop, and she was just such a really engaging, dedicated, supportive teacher. Please, please go check out NewPage's review of Alligator Juniper, Prescott College's literary journal---she edited this issue!

I've revised the story a few times already, and I plan to keep working on it. After taking Laura Van Etten's awesome short fiction workshop this past semester, I realize that what I probably need to do is go back and cut, cut, cut. She has this way of saying things that really made stuff make sense to me in all kinds of new, sparking and/or comforting ways.

If you check out my earlier post, you'll see that I submitted this story to a few other contests/journals, and struck out. I guess it goes to show---just keep trying! You never know.

While I'm at it, I'd like to thank:

(Well, my family, of course, and S. But those are givens! Always.)

Rachel Yoder, Emily Lundin, Alison Hawthorne Deming, Manuel Muñoz, Laura Van Etten, Carlos Gallego, Tenney Nathanson, Judy Blunt, Terry Woronov, Praise Zenenga, Bridget Radcliff, Wendy Burk, Susan White, Ilham Khuri-Makdisi & Ron Grant. Thanks for being such inspirational (& dedicated!) writers, teachers and advisors. Your classes & workshops/story-essay-poem comments/advice, guidance & encouragment/recommendation letters/help ETC! have made such a huge huge difference in my life. Many of you probably have no idea what a big impact you've had on me---I really ought to do something about that.

There are SO many more wonderful teachers I'd like to mention here, but it would take miles...I hope you know who you are.

Not that most of these folks are likely to see this : )

Phew! It's ridiculous how long I've rambled on. Goodnight, world!

In Memoriam: Dr. Trudy Griffin-Pierce

Posted by wahida

Dr. Trudy Griffin-Pierce just glowed with kindness. She was such an earnest and sincere person, so genuinely warm---radiant.

She taught the Anthropology senior capstone I took my last semester at the U of A. The minute she walked into class the first day, I knew that I really liked her. (Maybe she was wearing one of her homemade skirts, maybe the knee-length turquoise one with the white zigzag trim---she seemed so young, in such a true and honest way, in such an essential way.) Just being in that room with her made me feel smiley inside. There was something about her.

She died on January 6th, 2009, not long after the end of the semester. I feel lucky to have met her, to have had the pleasure of hearing her talk about her life and work, to have had her class as my last Anthropology course at the U of A.

She had us keep journals where we wrote about various snippets from our lives (a song, a story in the news, an outing, a class, anything.) We were then to take each experience and analyze it through an anthropological lens---angling at it either from a cultural, linguistic, biological or archaeological perspective. She wrote the kindest things in my journal, and I'll treasure these notes always.

Here is a little clip from what she wrote (one of the notes that tells a little bit about who she was and is):

"And your entries about Barack Obama were so very moving---yes, indeed, as someone who was in high school & university in the the 60's and 70's, I finally feel like this country is moving again, "standing up for something."

Thanks for being a generous teacher and an inspirational person, Dr. Griffin-Pierce. You will be remembered with love, even by those of us who only skimmed across the surface of your life for the very briefest of moments.

From an article at the Arizona Daily Star:

Trudy Griffin-Pierce: Navajo culture, beliefs were her inspiration

By Kimberly Matas, 02.02.2009

Anthropologist Trudy Griffin-Pierce didn't want to observe the rituals and elaborate spiritual ceremonies of the Navajo: She wanted to live the life of the Diné. Though of Catawba Indian heritage and born in South Carolina, Griffin-Pierce was fascinated from childhood by the Navajo, said her aunt, Pat Wells of Florida. Diné, meaning "The People," is the name Navajos use for themselves.

"I remember her saying from the time she was 3 years old she had this interest," Wells said. "She had a children's book about Native Americans and she remembered her interest going back that far."

The Navajos' complex spiritual beliefs are based on Hózhó, which means existing in a state of balance, harmony, wellness, peace and completeness.

Griffin-Pierce, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Arizona, learned about Hózhó and other spiritual and cultural beliefs when she was informally adopted by a Navajo family in Northern Arizona. She learned about healing practices and ceremonial sand painting and that death is not to be feared because it is part of nature's course.

And it was Jan. 6 that 59-year-old Griffin-Pierce entered into the next phase of the ongoing cycle of birth, life and death. She died suddenly at home with her beloved sheepdog, Mr. Skippy, at her side. The cause of death is not known.

[...] While studying for a bachelor's degree in fine art from Florida State University, Griffin-Pierce wrote to the chairman of the Navajo Nation, asking him to find her a traditional Navajo family that she could join.

"I wanted to live with them as a daughter, not as an anthropologist. To learn from them, not about them," she said in a 1992 Arizona Daily Star article.

"I lived with them in their hogan, and I didn't speak any Navajo, and they didn't speak any English," she said. "Every morning, I'd go out and herd sheep all day, and I'd ride the buckboard into the trading post with them, too."

Avery Denny, a professor of healing, culture, oral history, and Navajo philosophy at Diné College, in Tsaile, Ariz., was her adopted Navajo brother. Until Griffin-Pierce learned the language, Denny and his wife translated conversations between the anthropologist and his parents, who were practitioners, or "chanters," and sang at healing ceremonies.

Unlike most anthropologists, who observe a culture from the outside over a period of hours or days or weeks, Griffin-Pierce immersed herself.

[...] Denny and Griffin-Pierce, whose graduate work focused on cultural and medical anthropology, were working on a presentation for a Navajo studies conference in Shiprock next month on diabetes. Along with her teaching duties, Griffin-Pierce also was working with the Arizona Alzheimer's Consortium to provide outreach and education services to the state's tribes.

After finishing her master's degree in museum studies, Griffin-Pierce worked as curator of a small museum at Kitt Peak National Observatory. It was at the observatory that she met her future husband, Keith Pierce, an internationally known researcher of solar physics who was instrumental in selecting Kitt Peak as the site for the observatory. He also played a key role in the development of the McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope.

Griffin-Pierce earned a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology in 1987 and began teaching at the UA a year later.

As a teacher, she inspired her students.

[...] "She wanted to know who we were as people, why we were taking this class, what we wanted to gain from it. She wanted to get to know us as people," Garcia Dixon said.

It was that interest in others that helped Griffin-Pierce make and keep many friends from all over the world.

[...] Sue Raymond, who met Griffin-Pierce in Hawaii in 1959 when their fathers were stationed at military installations there, became a lifelong friend.

"She always saw the good in everybody; she saw the good and she saw the potential," Raymond said.