WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.110 align:middle line:90% Good evening, everyone. 00:00:02.110 --> 00:00:03.360 align:middle line:90% My name is Manuel Muñoz. 00:00:03.360 --> 00:00:07.180 align:middle line:84% I am directing the Prose Series for this academic year. 00:00:07.180 --> 00:00:10.320 align:middle line:84% I want to welcome you and thank you for coming. 00:00:10.320 --> 00:00:11.820 align:middle line:90% Tyler Meier couldn't be here. 00:00:11.820 --> 00:00:15.180 align:middle line:84% Normally he comes up in front of the audience 00:00:15.180 --> 00:00:19.830 align:middle line:84% to not only welcome us, the Prose Series, into the space, 00:00:19.830 --> 00:00:22.720 align:middle line:84% but to let you know what this space is all about. 00:00:22.720 --> 00:00:24.660 align:middle line:84% And so I'm glad that up there you 00:00:24.660 --> 00:00:26.340 align:middle line:84% saw some of the programming that's going 00:00:26.340 --> 00:00:28.617 align:middle line:90% to be taking place this fall. 00:00:28.617 --> 00:00:31.200 align:middle line:84% A lot of things, actually, that weren't even on that calendar. 00:00:31.200 --> 00:00:33.900 align:middle line:84% I hear that Colson Whitehead will be coming 00:00:33.900 --> 00:00:36.810 align:middle line:90% to campus for humanities week. 00:00:36.810 --> 00:00:39.060 align:middle line:90% Lots of things going on. 00:00:39.060 --> 00:00:45.150 align:middle line:84% I want to inform you about just the work it takes to put 00:00:45.150 --> 00:00:47.430 align:middle line:90% this Prose Series together. 00:00:47.430 --> 00:00:50.760 align:middle line:84% I mean, I have to thank the Poetry Center 00:00:50.760 --> 00:00:53.280 align:middle line:90% for helping the Prose Series. 00:00:53.280 --> 00:00:55.230 align:middle line:90% That includes Diana and Patri. 00:00:55.230 --> 00:00:56.100 align:middle line:90% Tyler, of course. 00:00:56.100 --> 00:00:58.380 align:middle line:90% But everyone in the staff. 00:00:58.380 --> 00:01:01.800 align:middle line:84% But also, the amount of fundraising and tin 00:01:01.800 --> 00:01:04.830 align:middle line:84% cup shaking we have to do over the course of the year 00:01:04.830 --> 00:01:07.560 align:middle line:90% to get co-sponsors. 00:01:07.560 --> 00:01:10.410 align:middle line:84% And so I want to thank the Department 00:01:10.410 --> 00:01:13.380 align:middle line:84% of English, of course, on our program of creative writing. 00:01:13.380 --> 00:01:14.730 align:middle line:90% Gets us started. 00:01:14.730 --> 00:01:19.800 align:middle line:84% But we already have just, very early this year, 00:01:19.800 --> 00:01:23.520 align:middle line:84% commitments from the Institute for LGBT Studies. 00:01:23.520 --> 00:01:27.810 align:middle line:84% From the Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice. 00:01:27.810 --> 00:01:29.700 align:middle line:84% The Department of Mexican American Studies 00:01:29.700 --> 00:01:32.220 align:middle line:84% will be co-sponsoring us this year. 00:01:32.220 --> 00:01:33.357 align:middle line:90% As well as, and this is-- 00:01:33.357 --> 00:01:34.440 align:middle line:90% I'm very excited about it. 00:01:34.440 --> 00:01:36.810 align:middle line:84% The Adalberto and Ana Guerrero Student Center 00:01:36.810 --> 00:01:38.370 align:middle line:90% is going to be contributing. 00:01:38.370 --> 00:01:41.520 align:middle line:84% And I'm really excited that they want to be a part of that. 00:01:41.520 --> 00:01:43.170 align:middle line:84% And we're anticipating contributions 00:01:43.170 --> 00:01:46.345 align:middle line:84% as well from Department of Gender and Women's Studies, 00:01:46.345 --> 00:01:48.720 align:middle line:84% and Poets and Writers, who have been traditionally really 00:01:48.720 --> 00:01:51.600 align:middle line:84% supportive of Prose Series in the past. 00:01:51.600 --> 00:01:54.900 align:middle line:84% And I think that's going to be the case this year as well. 00:01:54.900 --> 00:02:01.650 align:middle line:84% Coming this year in November, James Allen Hall, 00:02:01.650 --> 00:02:04.320 align:middle line:84% a queer poet and now essayist, will 00:02:04.320 --> 00:02:06.930 align:middle line:84% be coming to present work from I Liked You Better 00:02:06.930 --> 00:02:08.940 align:middle line:90% Before I Knew You So Well. 00:02:08.940 --> 00:02:12.000 align:middle line:84% From Ohio State University Press. 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:12.840 align:middle line:90% Cleveland. 00:02:12.840 --> 00:02:13.770 align:middle line:90% No, Cleveland State. 00:02:13.770 --> 00:02:14.312 align:middle line:90% That's right. 00:02:14.312 --> 00:02:16.320 align:middle line:90% It's Nicole who is Ohio State. 00:02:16.320 --> 00:02:19.710 align:middle line:84% Nicole Walker, who is a friend of ours up at Northern Arizona, 00:02:19.710 --> 00:02:23.770 align:middle line:84% will be reading from Sustainability in January. 00:02:23.770 --> 00:02:26.733 align:middle line:90% And then in April is a big-- 00:02:26.733 --> 00:02:28.150 align:middle line:84% we're going to go out with a bang. 00:02:28.150 --> 00:02:32.260 align:middle line:84% We are inviting Cherríe Moraga to come to campus. 00:02:32.260 --> 00:02:36.210 align:middle line:84% And I just want to let you know what that reading is about 00:02:36.210 --> 00:02:38.040 align:middle line:84% and why we're so excited about it. 00:02:38.040 --> 00:02:42.870 align:middle line:84% Cherríe Moraga has traditionally been published by small 00:02:42.870 --> 00:02:47.790 align:middle line:84% presses, feminist presses, but the economic pressures by big 00:02:47.790 --> 00:02:50.970 align:middle line:84% behemoths like Amazon have forced a lot of them to close 00:02:50.970 --> 00:02:51.810 align:middle line:90% their doors. 00:02:51.810 --> 00:02:54.810 align:middle line:84% She's, for the first time in her career, 00:02:54.810 --> 00:02:57.900 align:middle line:84% is going to be put out in the world 00:02:57.900 --> 00:02:59.250 align:middle line:90% by a major New York press. 00:02:59.250 --> 00:03:02.250 align:middle line:84% And it's Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. 00:03:02.250 --> 00:03:03.150 align:middle line:90% This is big. 00:03:03.150 --> 00:03:09.060 align:middle line:84% In April when her memoir, Native Country of the Heart comes out, 00:03:09.060 --> 00:03:09.960 align:middle line:90% it will-- 00:03:09.960 --> 00:03:13.500 align:middle line:84% I think for a lot of us who have known how important she is, 00:03:13.500 --> 00:03:17.610 align:middle line:84% and how foundational to she is to some of our literatures, 00:03:17.610 --> 00:03:19.050 align:middle line:90% they're now going to be-- 00:03:19.050 --> 00:03:21.630 align:middle line:84% they are going to bear the responsibility of putting her 00:03:21.630 --> 00:03:24.150 align:middle line:84% out in the world and making sure everybody else knows too. 00:03:24.150 --> 00:03:25.170 align:middle line:90% We're excited about it. 00:03:25.170 --> 00:03:27.480 align:middle line:90% So she'll be here in April. 00:03:27.480 --> 00:03:30.810 align:middle line:84% But in anticipation of all those guests, 00:03:30.810 --> 00:03:35.610 align:middle line:84% we celebrate tonight's guest, Venita Blackburn. 00:03:35.610 --> 00:03:38.490 align:middle line:84% Whose first book-- it's a short story collection 00:03:38.490 --> 00:03:41.430 align:middle line:84% called Black Jesus and Other Superheroes. 00:03:41.430 --> 00:03:45.120 align:middle line:84% It brings together characters who are caught up 00:03:45.120 --> 00:03:47.190 align:middle line:90% in the mythmaking-- 00:03:47.190 --> 00:03:50.430 align:middle line:84% their own mythmaking as a way to understand the world 00:03:50.430 --> 00:03:52.050 align:middle line:90% around them. 00:03:52.050 --> 00:03:55.500 align:middle line:84% Adolescent girls and young women are often 00:03:55.500 --> 00:03:58.260 align:middle line:84% at the center of these stories, and very much 00:03:58.260 --> 00:04:01.830 align:middle line:84% at the intersections of being either very vocal speakers 00:04:01.830 --> 00:04:05.580 align:middle line:84% against the circumstances that confuse and confound them, 00:04:05.580 --> 00:04:09.810 align:middle line:84% or turbulent with the burden of keeping it all in. 00:04:09.810 --> 00:04:12.420 align:middle line:84% When, by page two of this collection, 00:04:12.420 --> 00:04:16.890 align:middle line:84% we witness a young protagonist re-inscribe 00:04:16.890 --> 00:04:20.310 align:middle line:84% the pages of her nana's Bible to get the Ten Commandments 00:04:20.310 --> 00:04:23.340 align:middle line:84% to adhere to her vision of the world, 00:04:23.340 --> 00:04:26.790 align:middle line:84% we are privileged to see the motives of this collection 00:04:26.790 --> 00:04:27.750 align:middle line:90% start to take shape. 00:04:27.750 --> 00:04:29.070 align:middle line:90% This is page two. 00:04:29.070 --> 00:04:32.982 align:middle line:84% And as a Catholic and Jehovah's Witness, 00:04:32.982 --> 00:04:34.440 align:middle line:84% I was clutching the pearls already. 00:04:34.440 --> 00:04:36.780 align:middle line:90% I was like, oh my gosh. 00:04:36.780 --> 00:04:41.340 align:middle line:84% But what it tells us is, how do we bring the world down to size 00:04:41.340 --> 00:04:43.990 align:middle line:90% in order to understand it? 00:04:43.990 --> 00:04:46.500 align:middle line:84% And one of Venita's great gifts in this collection 00:04:46.500 --> 00:04:50.010 align:middle line:84% is her expert turns at characterization. 00:04:50.010 --> 00:04:52.350 align:middle line:84% She understands that you need to do them swiftly 00:04:52.350 --> 00:04:56.310 align:middle line:84% in a short story, and that they often have to do double work. 00:04:56.310 --> 00:04:59.070 align:middle line:84% She understands that first characterizations often exist 00:04:59.070 --> 00:05:01.250 align:middle line:84% to be counteracted or redefined if we 00:05:01.250 --> 00:05:04.250 align:middle line:84% take the time to look real close at the people we're 00:05:04.250 --> 00:05:05.960 align:middle line:90% asked to hear about. 00:05:05.960 --> 00:05:07.490 align:middle line:84% And from one of her longer stories-- 00:05:07.490 --> 00:05:09.693 align:middle line:90% it's "Run Away Screaming"-- 00:05:09.693 --> 00:05:11.360 align:middle line:84% it says there are two protagonists named 00:05:11.360 --> 00:05:12.790 align:middle line:90% Arlene and Regina. 00:05:12.790 --> 00:05:14.450 align:middle line:90% This is some of the writing. 00:05:14.450 --> 00:05:17.360 align:middle line:84% "They looked like wholesome southern girls, 00:05:17.360 --> 00:05:18.690 align:middle line:90% which they were. 00:05:18.690 --> 00:05:22.370 align:middle line:84% They both knew how to cook, crochet doilies, keep 00:05:22.370 --> 00:05:24.920 align:middle line:84% their legs crossed at the ankle, and speak 00:05:24.920 --> 00:05:28.760 align:middle line:84% with the polite intonations that their accents demanded. 00:05:28.760 --> 00:05:31.220 align:middle line:84% And just like most wholesome southern girls, 00:05:31.220 --> 00:05:34.940 align:middle line:84% they could swear like hurricanes, shoot guns, hunt 00:05:34.940 --> 00:05:37.910 align:middle line:84% fish, and had the nerve to kill a man if he 00:05:37.910 --> 00:05:41.990 align:middle line:90% made it necessary to do so." 00:05:41.990 --> 00:05:45.260 align:middle line:84% This collection abounds with figurative leaps. 00:05:45.260 --> 00:05:47.540 align:middle line:90% Superhero bounds, if I may. 00:05:47.540 --> 00:05:49.790 align:middle line:84% To keep reminding us of her command 00:05:49.790 --> 00:05:51.770 align:middle line:90% of a wide range of tones. 00:05:51.770 --> 00:05:54.620 align:middle line:84% Not just comic, but sardonic and bitter, 00:05:54.620 --> 00:05:58.280 align:middle line:84% rueful, and rageful when need be. 00:05:58.280 --> 00:06:02.150 align:middle line:84% And even futility gives her a chance 00:06:02.150 --> 00:06:04.320 align:middle line:84% to use a simile for mordant effect. 00:06:04.320 --> 00:06:06.950 align:middle line:84% This is one of my favorite lines in this book. 00:06:06.950 --> 00:06:08.990 align:middle line:84% "Talking to Sylvia was like trying 00:06:08.990 --> 00:06:11.360 align:middle line:90% to strike a match in the wind. 00:06:11.360 --> 00:06:13.880 align:middle line:84% Usually worth it, but no guarantee." 00:06:13.880 --> 00:06:17.210 align:middle line:90% 00:06:17.210 --> 00:06:20.390 align:middle line:84% I hope you can hear in that voice and that sentence what 00:06:20.390 --> 00:06:24.140 align:middle line:84% has garnered Venita so many accolades. 00:06:24.140 --> 00:06:26.840 align:middle line:84% She just began a tenure track post 00:06:26.840 --> 00:06:30.050 align:middle line:84% at Fresno State's MFA program this fall. 00:06:30.050 --> 00:06:33.650 align:middle line:84% This year she was a finalist for the PEN/Robert Bingham prize, 00:06:33.650 --> 00:06:37.970 align:middle line:84% which is a $25,000 prize that honors an exceptionally 00:06:37.970 --> 00:06:40.940 align:middle line:84% talented fiction writer whose first book represents 00:06:40.940 --> 00:06:43.520 align:middle line:84% distinguished literary achievement, 00:06:43.520 --> 00:06:47.180 align:middle line:84% and suggests great promise of a second book. 00:06:47.180 --> 00:06:51.110 align:middle line:84% On top of that came a nomination for the New York Public 00:06:51.110 --> 00:06:52.940 align:middle line:90% Libary's Young Lions prize. 00:06:52.940 --> 00:06:55.550 align:middle line:84% And it was also a nominee for this prize a few years ago, 00:06:55.550 --> 00:06:59.720 align:middle line:84% a $10,000 prize, which recognizes and champions 00:06:59.720 --> 00:07:03.620 align:middle line:84% emerging writers, and encourages innovation and excellence 00:07:03.620 --> 00:07:06.260 align:middle line:90% in contemporary fiction. 00:07:06.260 --> 00:07:08.570 align:middle line:84% Now, to be seen and recognized is 00:07:08.570 --> 00:07:10.580 align:middle line:84% one of the motivations of any writer. 00:07:10.580 --> 00:07:11.840 align:middle line:90% It's true. 00:07:11.840 --> 00:07:17.120 align:middle line:84% But to be also heard for the uniqueness of your voice 00:07:17.120 --> 00:07:21.860 align:middle line:84% and what you've got to say is a prize beyond all telling, 00:07:21.860 --> 00:07:23.990 align:middle line:84% and we're really thrilled and honored 00:07:23.990 --> 00:07:28.220 align:middle line:84% to welcome Venita Blackburn to join us tonight.