580 Split Reading on April 25th

I have a reading at Mills College coming up for the magazine 580 Split. That's always fun and nice to get out there and hear other people's work. There's also a life after the MFA forum on Sunday, the 26th at USF, so I'm looking forward to being busy in the literary life. My class at Hercules High School is hard at work on the lit mag: The Dynamite Factory, and I'm so proud of them. They get right to it and know exactly what to do. The English III classes are presenting projects for their multicultural lit unit and the other two English classes are reading Catcher in the Rye. I can't tell whether they like it, but I'm getting tired of it. I think I'll try to find something fresh and new for them to read next year. They liked Their Eyes Were Watching God, I think. We have to do some writing soon. So that's life after the MFA in a high school English class. I'm hoping more of you out there will sign up for my Wednesday night fiction class at the Writing Salon (soon). It may be a sign of the economy slump. I'd like to teach a class and only have two sign-ups right now. It'd be nice if the class stayed small, but six is the necessary amount for the class to go.

As for my own writing--well--more time to write is always a plus. Working on a collection of suburban stories. Rough day, though. Daughter had a fender bender, husband's truck got broken into and his wallet stolen--they charged a bunch up at Toys R Us and Staples within an hour or two--and some students at my high school hijacked the school website and wrote some pretty awful things about administrators and teachers. I felt sad and disheartened at their meanness, especially toward teachers and administrators who work so hard to make school a safe place and the teachers who work extra hard to help them be successful on AP exams. Maybe teachers and students don't always see eye to eye, but writing profane and abusive statements, terrorizing the school's website (which students created and maintain)? I don't get it. These are definitely kids with too much time on their hands. And they're sure to get caught, which will also be sad for their lives--and their parents' lives.