Kali Fajardo-Anstine named endowed chair in creative writing at Texas State
SAN MARCOS – Award-winning author Kali Fajardo-Anstine has been named the Texas State University Endowed Chair in Creative Writing for 2022-2023.
Fajardo-Anstine is the author of the widely acclaimed story collection Sabrina & Corina (One World, 2019), which won an American Book Award, the 2020 Reading the West Award, and the 2020 Fred R. Brown Literary Award.
It was a finalist for the National Book Award, the PEN/Bingham Prize, Story Prize, Saroyan International Prize, and the Clark Fiction Prize. Sabrina & Corina was also named as one of the best books of the year by the American Library Association and the New York Public Library.
Fajardo-Anstine is also the 2021 recipient of the biennial Addison M. Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her first novel, Woman of Light, will be published in June 2022, also by One World.
Fajardo-Anstine holds an M.F.A. in fiction from the University of Wyoming-Laramie and a B.A. in English with a minor in Chicana/o studies from Metropolitan State University of Denver.
She has taught at the University of Wyoming, San Diego State University, Fort Lewis College (Durango, Colorado), and in many workshop settings with prestigious organizations such as Tin House, Catapult, Kweli International Literary Festival, and Gemini Ink.
Her writing has been published in The New York Times, Harper’s Bazaar, ELLE, O the Oprah Magazine, American Scholar, GAY Magazine, Boston Review, and elsewhere.
Each year, the University Endowed Chair in Creative Writing teaches one graduate MFA workshop. The chair holder also visits classes and gives two readings.
National Book Award Winner Tim O’Brien held the chair every other year from 1999 through 2012. Previous chair holders include the poet Ai, Barry Hannah, Denis Johnson, Robert Stone, Cristina Garcia, Ben Fountain, Karen Russell, and Téa Obreht.
Poignant short stories involving a sex worker (read: noble prostitute) and her daughter as “indigenous natives” (read: we didn’t migrate like others, you’re trespassing) who leave their “ancestral home” in southern Colorado only to find a foreign and hostile land in California where they become VICTIMS (shocking !) through an unjust cycle of violence directed by white supremicists against themselves, as “noble women” who in the end “come together” and prevail through rituals of Santeria (read: south american witchcraft).
Thank you Denise Trauth for teaching us that
Our enemy is not in some far off sh*thole country,
Our enemy is in “higher education” and universities
Who are teaching our children to hate this nation and its values,
And to cancel those who disagree with their “brave new world” of chaos, whoredom and destruction.
Masters in Fine Arts… Weird. This made me wonder how many of the world’s great composers every would have achieved such a lofty honor. Recognizing that programs like this would have been limited in the past, I thought about the most successful contemporaries.
Metallica immediately came to mind. Their record sales have totaled in the hundreds of millions. They’ve generated billions in total revenue. Yet, according to their Wikipedia articles, of the three founding members only Kirk Hammett is listed as having attended a college or university. Hammett went to the University of San Francisco for film. … But they’ve been touring the world for almost as long as I’ve been alive. Maybe they haven’t had a chance.
So, Two Steps from Hell is a music production company from L.A. (check them out). It was founded by Thomas Bergersen and Nick Phoenix. They’ve pushed out multiple classical compositions and been commissioned to work on several blockbuster movies. Bergensen’s American Dream is a full on, nonstop symphony. Ya, they are missing the college credentials as well.
Thus, I’ve left with one thought. “Do or do not. There is no try.” — Master Yoda.