Between the Lines

English professor Andrew Tonkovich writes for OC Weekly.

The end of the academic year approaches, which finids Mr. Bib looking forward to the arrival of annual literary journals sponsored by local colleges and universities. Alas, The Ear, Irvine Valley College‘s magazine is long gone as, it appears, is Orange Coast Review, out of OCC. Still UC Riverside publishes the terrific Crate, and University of Redlands does The Redlands Review. I am probably forgetting somebody. Sorry.

One of the best institutionally-sponsored regional journals of writing, photography and graphic art is UC Irvine‘s own Faultline, edited this year by Jon Keeperman. Mr. K. tells me the spring issue will be out and for sale at a reading celebration on Thursday, May 31 at UCI’s bookstore, managed by the heroic Matt Astrella.

While I wait for Greg, my intrepid and friendly UPS man to deliver copies of some or all of the above, this morning seems an opportunity to celebrate Faultline and the perseverance of the battered public university English department which continues to support it financially. Thanks! The mag contributes, of course, to the school’s reputation and its bigtime MFA creative writing legacy. See below.

I know, I know, you’ve read ad nauseum that Irvine is one of the nation’s best creative writing outfits, but assessing the tiny Masters of Fine Arts in fiction and poetry kind of supports that bit of self-congratulation from the publicity machine. Indeed, you can’t swing a dead anteater or a list of recent American “notable books” without hitting, happily an alum. Aspiring or experienced, shy or flamboyant, young writers from all over the country and world arrive in the unlikely suburban environs of, as my funny mentor writer Jim Krusoe calls it, “Irving,” to complete two years of intensive work. Workshops are led by a who’s who of visiting writers and the program’s core faculty. Currently, that’s poets James McMichael and Michael Ryan, and prose writers Michelle Latiolais and Ron Carlson. All four are working, teaching authors with impressive careers of their own, a good place to begin my scattershot survey of the so-called “magic workshop,” by way of a short reading guide. I’ve mentioned some of these players before. No wonder! McMichael’s Capacity was a finalist for the National Book Award. Ryan wrote the memoir Secret Life and, recently, This Morning, a new collection of poems.

Carlson is the award-winning short story writer whose novel Five Skies you should read, and Latiolais’s newest collection, Widow got big praise on the heels of her luminous novel A Proper Knowledge. I was lucky to be in the crowd last week when she read what I take is a new short story for her presentation at the Campus Writing Coordinator’s Distinguished Writers’ Series.

These mentors fill big literary shoes, from those worn by fiction program co-founders Oakley Hall (Warlock) and MacDonald Harris (The Balloonist) to E.L. Doctorow, who wrote much of The Book of Daniel at UCI, a singular scene set, as I go on and on about, in Corona del Mar. You might already know some of the program’s legendary alums, from California poet Gary Soto (New and Selected Poems) and Garrett Hongo (The River of Heaven) to novelists Richard Ford (Independence Day) and Maile Meloy, author of instant-classic short stories in Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It.

More recent stars: Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay), Alice Sebold (The Lovely Bones), David Benioff (The 25th Hour), Joshua Ferris (Then We Came to the End) and poets Patty Seyburn (Hilarity) and Ralph Angel (Exceptions and Melancholies).

So, yes, a curious reader could do worse than picking just about anything by a UCI grad. Here’s some further help finding more of the best. Some of the recent decade’s highlights include Vicki Forman‘s This Lovely Life, the memoir of her serverely disabled preemie twins, Danzy Senna‘s nonfiction Where Did You Sleep Last Night?, on romance and race; Aimee Bender‘s delicious The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, and Rhoda Huffey‘s The Hallelujah Side, about a girl growing up fundamentalist. Huffey, by the way, has a new story in spring Santa Monica Review, no kidding!

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UC Irvine history professor Bob Moeller is doing what few of his faculty peers are willing to do: talking openly about depression and acute anxiety, and the therapy that helped him deal with the challenges these conditions present.

He is willing to tell his story, and has spoken candidly about his experience for an employee video on mental health. In addition, he helped form a task force of campus leaders – the first of its kind at UC Irvine – to broaden understanding of mental health issues and identify ways to help students, faculty and staff.

“I would like to work at a place where I can talk about mental health as easily as we talk about lower back pain,” Moeller said. “Mental health is not an issue that is limited to the student counseling center. It also affects faculty and staff, and it affects the interactions among faculty, staff and students.”

Moeller is helping to lift the veil on depression and the people it affects.

Sharing his personal journey is making a difference. Colleagues approach Moeller privately to talk about their own experiences with depression. They find comfort in someone who understands what they’re going through and who won’t judge them for it.

Mental health must become part of the dialogue for everyone in order to increase understanding, reduce the stigma and get people the help they need. But Moeller said faculty in particular is a challenging segment.

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