I love talking about the literary writing world here, but I rarely talk about academic writing. I’d like to, this time, because I just finished c0-editing a freshly published book with articles by some of your neighbors. They were intentionally written to be accessible to a broad readership.
The University of Minnesota Extension Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships are seeking proposals for projects related to sustainable agriculture and food systems, clean energy, natural resources and resilient communities.
I’m on the board for these proposals, and many of your neighbors throughout the region are, too. You don’t need to be a nonprofit — local businesses with community impact and individual citizens can apply, too!
Last semester, I taught a class in the writing major at the University of Minnesota Duluth called Minnesota Writers. It was a survey of a few “greatest hits” (Laura Ingalls Wilder and Wanda Gag; Upton Sinclair and F. Scott Fitzgerald; Tim O’Brien), but mostly, it was a tour through some of the writers alive and well and shaping Minnesota culture (Margi Preus, Chris Monroe, Julie Gard, Emily August, Michael Fedo, Lucie Amundsen, Kelly Florence, Meg Hafdahl, and contributors to the Pride Zine).
The Vintage Duluth Blog at the Duluth Public Library is back.
Art by Nelle Rhicard at reframeideas.com.
A group of University of Minnesota Duluth faculty, students, and community artists came together to explore strategies to communicate the stories of frontline workers in housing and food insecurity.
I snagged a ton of cassettes at Gabriel’s Used Bookstore. I wanted them because they were uniform in their design. They were, in other words, a “collection,” and I love being able to look over a collection.
If you have lived in Duluth a long time, you know (and maybe miss) the voice of Naomi Yeager. Naomi was an editor of the now-defunct Duluth Hillsider and also led the Budgeteer. It was under Naomi’s editorship that I got a lot of my non-PDD writing lessons — she was a great editor.
Naomi now maintains a SubStack. Link below if you want to hear her unique voice again.
Art by Nelle Rhicard at reframeideas.com.
Food insecurity, housing insecurity, poverty and social justice are intertwined, a knot of problems facing our community. Thirteen percent of Duluthians face food insecurity, and more than 54% of renter-households are rent burdened. Often these difficult social problems are addressed by nonprofit organizations that run food pantries or housing shelters. They build affordable housing and support people living on the street. While these workers are heroes, they are also human, and their stories are also intertwined with larger issues like poverty and social justice. These frontline workers are also often former college students who enter the job market with the consequential task of supporting those who others have left behind.
I spent two days this fall with the University of Minnesota Extension’s Northeast Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships, which brings community leadership to the table with the research and educational resources of the University of Minnesota. I’m the last half of that sentence, I guess.
Recently, in my “Minnesota Writers” class at the University of Minnesota Duluth, we spent a week discussing songwriting, and as an exercise in fun, students voted on their favorite songwriter. Then, to get a different perspective, I went to the Music Resource Center and had the same conversation. I thought I would share the results.
Art by Nelle Rhicard at reframeideas.com.
A group of University of Minnesota Duluth faculty, students, and community artists came together to explore strategies to communicate the stories of frontline workers in housing and food insecurity. For example, UMD students met Mary Baumgartner who worked at the Chum Food Shelf in Duluth.
Four philosophers and a philosophy student composed a panel discussing “Philosophy and Dungeons & Dragons” at Loch Cafe & Games on Nov. 13.
The juiciest talk was about the attempts to grapple with “race” in fantasy gaming. In the 1980s, in the Basic Edition of D&D, races and classes were conflated into a single descriptor. One could be an elf or a wizard or a dwarf or a fighter. “Professions” were sorted out from “races,” allowing an elf wizard to exist, but also leading to conversations about racial essentialism.
Recently, I wrote on this site about Caesarean section, trying to nail down my thoughts and my questions around C-section, especially the ways that it seems statistically over-prevalent in the United States. I am trying to wrap my brain, too, around questions of consent — what does it mean to consent to C-section in a context where a doctor recommends it.
Below are photos from the Duluth All Souls Night poetry reading. The event was held at Studio 4 (formerly the Underground) at the Depot on Nov. 1.
I own thousands of books and comic books. I own fewer books than comics — I have grown disenchanted with the novel, as a form of storytelling, because it sucks me away from the world that I want to be part of, to find meaning in. So my shelves are filled with nonfiction books that I can reference, instead of read cover to cover. They are filled with poetry books and prose poems, writings by mystics and cranks. And they are filled with comics.
Comics read quickly but reward reflection — I can zoom through 20 pages while waiting for a teenager who takes forever to kiss their girlfriend goodbye, or I can slowly reflect on a page or two that tugs at my heart and makes me think.
The Laura Gilpin poem, “Two Headed Calf,” has become the source for a lot of internet comics.
For example, the two-page comic below by Little Tunny (their name on Twitter and on Patreon).
