Here are some of my favorite / most viewed posts:

Tyson Kinsell: Starting a Tradition

Philadelphia Stories Intersnhip

Joe Carlough’s Reading at the Progressive Coffee House

A Surbanite’s Review of The Pine Barrens

I started this blog as a hybrid of literature reviews and news pertaining to the state of N.J. Because I am the current editor-in-chief of Avant, Rowan University’s undergraduate literary magazine, I had plenty of information to share that seemed relevant to my topic, including submission dates and guidelines for the magazine and readings we conducted.

A few days after publishing a post about Avant’s open MIC reading scheduled for Rowan Day, I received an unexpected response from the first ever editor-in-chief of the magazine, Tyson Kinsell.

I was shocked, really, seeing as I’ve had no contact with former staff members since joining the club my freshman year. I took up the position of editor-in-chief in the fall semester of 2008, my junior year, but the club still has no mailing list or way to contact former staff members.

After emailing him to thank him for his comment and interest in my blog, I decided this would be a perfect opportunity to gain a greater insight into the 50-year-old magazine I’m in charge of today.

I asked Kinsell if it would be all right to conduct a few phone interviews in order to write up a profile of him. He said yes.

This is his story.

Kinsell was born on June 7, 1932, in Philadelphia, P.A. He grew up in Vineland, N.J. and graduated from Vineland High School in 1950. He first attended Rowan University – then known as Glassboro State College – during the 1951-1952 school year.

He chose Glassboro State College because he had friends who were currently enrolled and because it was a small school, around 350 students as he recalls.

Kinsell, however, didn’t return the following year, and instead, he and his family moved to California.

During his time out West, he worked for a couple of months with an aircraft company called Douglas Aircraft. “At the time, the Korean War was on, hot and heavy,” says Kinsell. “It looked like the prospect was that I might be drafted. So I joined the air force.”

Kinsell applied and was accepted to the Aviation Cadet Program offered by the air force. Because of a backup of qualified applicants looking to become pilots, Kinsell joined the navigation section of the program and was later named a distinguished graduate of his class, entitling him to a regular commission and other benefits.

His first assignments were given in 1956 and brought him back to N.J., where he would work as a navigator aboard C-18 airplanes. “It was a fascinating experience,” says Kinsell. “I was flying all over the world from the McGuire air force base here in New Jersey.”

A year later, an unexpected motorcycle accident would change Kinsell’s life forever.

“It was due to a defect, I believe, in the machine,” says Kinsell. “I wasn’t going fast or anything… I lost control of it because the wheel had become loose. In losing control of it, I hit a tree – I guess I must have gone over the handlebars and hit my shoulder.  Anyway, it paralyzed my left arm, which has remained paralyzed since that day in March of 1957.”

This disability, however, didn’t curb his ambition or work ethic.

Kinsell calls himself a fan of all the arts, including visual, musical, and written work. All were natural interests of his during his youth. He says he particularly enjoys Shakespeare and e.e cummings and that, through word of mouth, his family claims a familial relationship to Samuel Langhorn Clemens, more commonly known as Mark Twain. Little did he know, his peaking interests would accumulate into longstanding tradition that’s older than myself.

“I and several friends, including some people who subsequently went on to staff there at Glassboro… Antoinette Libro, Richard Ambacher,  Byron Young, and several others… came together and were BS’ing one day and decided it’d probably be a good idea to create a literary magazine for Glassboro. We wanted to give some of the people interested in art and writing an outlet for their creative talents. So, we took the appropriate steps to get the faculty approval and a faculty advisor, and we started a magazine.”

Kinsell was the editor-in-chief of Avant Magazine for its first two years of existence, from 1959 through 1961. He dedicated all of his time to Avant, choosing not to work for the college’s other publications, Venue Magazine and The Whit.

“The greatest difficulty was to keep things somewhat organized. We had quite a few people who were interested in different things – spreading poetry, short stories, and other formats through the magazine. And we didn’t have a great deal of experienced people in art or the skills needed for putting the magazine together.”

Kinsell recalls the time he spent working on the magazine fondly, although he didn’t pursue editorial work after he graduated with the class of 1961. He later married his girlfriend at the time, who was a graduate of the class of 1962. They’ve been married for over forty years now.

Kinsell did a lot after receiving his degrees: traveling around the world; teaching social studies; owning several business, including a credit bureau, a construction company, and a campground in P.A. Currently, Kinsell is retired and lives in Forked River, N.J. Unfortunately, he’s had little contact with the college and the magazine over the years.

“I’ve seen very few [Avant’s] since then, and I’m kind of disappointed in that. There was some outreach ten years ago or so – there was a celebration of the thirty or forty years of Avant’s existence. The people in charge at the time tried to contact as many people as they could locate that had previously served on the staff of Avant. I was invited to attend this celebration. At that time I saw couple of the issues published since mine, but I’m not on a current mailing list or anything like that. I don’t have much of an idea what’s been going on.”

So what does this say about staff members of the various publications here at Rowan University?

I don’t think any of them are bad people necessarily, but I think that most of us get caught up in the daily grind and take history for granted. We need to realize that we didn’t start these organizations and that they’ve been passed down over the year because of the passion of those that came before us. We need to take the time to appreciate our origins, rather than let each graduating class increase the distance between originators, former members, and current members.

There are more people like Tyson Kinsell out there – and I’m sure they want to hear from us.

According to Princeton’s website, the event has officially sold out. Although un-claimed tickets will be made available to those in the wait line, seating is not guaranteed.

An article published on nj.com is only furthering the hype for the event. In the article, Pulitzer Prize winning poet Paul Muldoon stresses the importance of good presentation of poetic works, stating, “The contract that the poet has with the audience is not the same contract that she has with the reader of the page.” Muldoon is responsible for scheduling all of the performers in the two day event and has amassed a vast array of talent, including poets John Ashberry, Lucille Clifton, Gerald Stern, Seamus Heaney, and Durs Grunbei.

In other news, I received the proof for the next issue of Avant (Volume 51, issue 1), and it looks awesome. The final product should be made available to the Rowan Campus around May 5 or 6, so be on the look out!

Rutowski is a published author hailing from central Pennsylvania. According to his website, his two books, Tetched and Roughhouse, were both finalists for the Asian American Literary Award, an award that “honors Asian American writers for excellence in fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, memoir, stage plays and screenplays.” Currently, he lives in Manhattan and teaches fiction writing at the Writer’s Voice of the West Side YMCA in N.Y.

Come take a tour of famous literary sites in N.J., including the Walt Whitman House in Camden and the birthplaces of other famous authors and poets. You’ll also be exploring N.J. landscapes used as the basis for setting in popular creative works, such as the town of Patterson from The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao or the Pine Barrens as explored by John McPhee.

I have Dunn’s selected work from 1974 until 1994, but I feel like his new release would be provide for a good insight into his advancement in poetry. So for one of my posts next week, I will comparing the two books.

Also, if you’re around Rowan University today, don’t forget that Avant’s Open Mic Reading from one of my earlier posts is at 1:30 p.m.

I was in the school library here at Rowan University when this flier caught my eye. I came back with my digital camera, took a picture, and decided to do a little further research. I discovered that the 322 Review is the graduate literary magazine on campus and that it is published primarily online. Later tonight, they are holding a “slam” (a poetry contest) at the Progressive Coffee House, the same venue where I took pictures for my slide show on Joe Carlough’s reading. Now, getting back to the email service I mentioned above, I was thoroughly surprised to find an email in my inbox yesterday publicizing the event. It seemed like a relatively small gathering of people, but there it was. So, because of that, I’m here to try to recommend this service to you if you’re interested in poetry news strictly in the state of N.J. The group is run through yahoo and is maintained by Peter Murphy.

If all goes according to plan, I’ll be attending the event and reporting on it later tonight or tomorrow.

“Mimi Schwartz most recent book is Good Neighbors, Bad Times – Echoes of My Father’s German Village, a finalist for the 2008 Forward Book Award in Memoir. Other books include Thoughts from a Queen-Sized Bed, a marriage memoir, and Writing True, the Art and Craft of Creative Nonfiction, used in over 250 writing programs nationwide and abroad. Her short work has appeared in The New York Times, The Missouri Review, Creative Nonfiction, Jewish Week, the Writer’s Chronicle, Christian Science Monitor and Tikkun, among others—and a recent essay, “Telling the Truth that Matters” (Arts and Letters) won a Pushcart Prize for 2008. Six of other essays have been Notables in Best American Essays. Schwartz is Professor Emerita of Richard Stockton College of New Jersey and lives in Princeton, N.J. For more information go to her website.”

Now, as promised, seven questions concerning N.J. literature:

Do you feel that N.J. has a prominent literary community?

Oh yes. Lots of terrific writers live in New Jersey: Joyce Carol Oates, Toni Morrison,
Jeffrey Eugenides, and Stephen Dunn, to name just a few of the best known. And
there are also many public and private writing events– from The Dodge
Festival to Poets in the Classroom to the Cape May Writers Getaway–that all
provide forums and inspiration for writers of all ages and abilities.

Is there an author or piece of work from or about N.J. that sticks out in
your mind? Could you recommend a “quintessential N.J. literature” list?

I’m a big fan of the poetry of Stephen Dunn and Alicia Ostriker, both
prize-winning poets whose body of work has strong NJ roots, and, of course,
John McPhee is on top of the world of literary journalism.

The 2008 Pulitzer Prize for fiction went to Junot Diaz for his book The
Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. He is a former resident of Oldbridge,
N.J., and his novel takes place primarily in the Garden State. Have you
heard of, read, or intend to read this book?

I haven’t read it yet, but it is on my list.

The Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, a four-day event held biannually,
has been canceled for 2010 ultimately due to the state of the economy. Have
you attended the festival in the past, and what impact do you think this has
on N.J.’s literary community?

Yes, I think it is a wonderful event–one that
inspires young writers, teachers, the general public, and veteran writers
alike. Let’s hope the economy recovers fast enough to have the Festival
again next year.

How long have you lived in N.J., and do you feel like the state has affected
your writing? Have you written anything specifically set in or pertaining to
N.J.?

I’ve lived in NJ since 1966, and as a writer of memoir and personal essay,
the state is always in my work. I commuted for 25 years from Princeton to
Stockton College in Pomona and so I drove through miles and miles of Pine Barren,
day by day, through the years. The changing face of the landscape—the
loss of farmland, the rise of tract homes and strip malls and over 55
communities on Route 526 and Route 539–have often appeared in my
writing. So has the towpath of the Delaware Raritan Canal, where I often
walk and bike. It’s a big player in my memoir, Thoughts from a Queen-Sized
Bed, which is my take of life in a long marriage. The towpath was and is where I
walk with my husband and also go to be alone.

What made you want to be a professor of writing, and how has teaching at the
Richard Stockton College of N.J. impacted your writing and sense of  literature?

I first became interested in teaching writing when I was in my twenties, an English teacher at the Stuart School in Princeton. I realized that writing for students was not any fun and that it could be—and satisfying as well. So together with another writer/teacher, Kathy Kenfield, we founded a community program called Helikon. It offered workshops for kids as young as eight, for teens, and for adults. We also produced a children’s newspaper called Helikon Corner, an anthology of women’s writing, and launched an annual anthology of children’s poetry called Under Age. It is still going strong today even though Helikon stopped as a program when I started teaching college writing fulltime. But lots of the ideas from that program–the value of writing to discover, the importance of voice, the strengths of workshopping–all came with me into every classroom.

I loved teaching at Stockton. It is a school that is interdisciplinary at its core, just like writing.  We held workshops for faculty every summer called “Teacher as Writer, Writer as Teacher” and chemists, economists, accounting professors, and literary types all wrote together and developed a writing program together from the bottom up. Stockton’s strength is the way it encourages faculty to interact to make new and good things happen.

Are there any up and coming writers from N.J. that we should be on the lookout for?

BJ Ward and Richard Weems are two of my favorites.