diversity in the college classroom

EG: Both novels are set in Philadelphia, a diverse city, and your novels never shy away from how ethnic and racial tensions can manifest themselves in the classroom.  Should college instructors be better prepared for teaching in diverse classrooms?

AK: It’s a funny question because, yes, absolutely, and ideally, all college instructors should get paid diversity training, and yet, we aren’t even at the point where every college student in America knows who their teacher will be two weeks before classes start. Also, I should say that although Philadelphia is diverse, I taught at one school where it would not be uncommon to have an almost all white or only white and Asian (often South Asian) class. In the South I had many different sections of up to 34 students that would often include only one black student or two black students and one “HAPA” student or something like that. So some of the college classrooms I’ve been have been incredibly homogeneous—vast majority white to entirely white.

Read more from Part 1 and Part 2 of an extended interview on Auggie's Revenge and the Classroom Edition of Fight for Your Long Day.

excerpt from interview with Chris Kelso

CK: The classroom edition of Fight for your Long Day just came out. How do you feel about it being taught in schools?

AK: I think Fight for Your Long Day is a great selection for the classroom because it raises some great questions—why did we create a society where college teachers struggle? where they may not be able to see a doctor? where students and families pay increasingly unbelievable prices for education necessary for a decent life or any survival at all?—and then to contrast against the “war on terror” that government’s role is to protect all of us, how did America in 2004 come to be? Of course, it’s possible that for many, by America 2014 or 16, conditions are even worse although many some pockets of America may be prospering. A current internet meme claims that only 20% of Americans are part of financially secure households although an academic study suggested the figure was closer to 30%. And then the contrast with the rest of the world—the possibility that contemporary America is about as good as it gets when compared to the common lives of citizens of many other countries. Cyrus Duffleman is trudging through unusual times and almost against the official rhetoric of his times.

Interview for Auggie's Revenge and the Classroom Edition of Fight for Your Long Day

Interview for Auggie's Revenge and the Classroom Edition of Fight for Your Long Day: https://t.co/mGd3xjmSf2 #academic #novel #adjunct #awp

— Alex Kudera (@kudera) May 26, 2016

Part II of interview for Auggie's Revenge and the Classroom Edition of Fight for Your Long Day: https://t.co/sC1ImXySJt #adjunct #fiction

— Alex Kudera (@kudera) June 1, 2016

Classroom Edition at Faculty Forward Conference

@SEIU @FacultyForward @kudera pic.twitter.com/jY0q0Pbq2A

— Alyson Paige Warren (@APaigeWarren) May 16, 2016

Wright Library reading Thursday, May 5

Please join me at Wright Library in Oakwood, Ohio on Thursday, May 5 at 7 p.m., where I'll be reading from my new comic crime novel, Auggie's Revenge and the Classroom Edition of Fight for Your Long Day.

#AWP16

For #AWP16, from Thursday, 3 p.m. through Saturday, I'll try my best to be at the Beating Windward Table, #1664 in the far back corner of the book fair. I'll have signed copies of both Auggie's Revenge and the Classroom Edition of Fight for Your Long Day at discounted prices, and please do inquire about obtaining an ARC if you're interested in reviewing either book.

Cyrus among the socialists

is enjoying the irony of being called "Kundera" by the socialists (typo in review, not at top) https://t.co/vTmTdHTDhL

— Alex Kudera (@kudera) March 23, 2016

In fact, the review is also incorrect in that the word "union" does appear in the novel. It's in a section where Cyrus Duffleman remembers learning from a picketing restaurant worker that a unionized hotel bartender had been earning significantly more per hour to pour drinks than he'd been earning to teach college classes. The recollection doesn't quench Duffy's thirst.

2016 spring appearances

I'll have new copies of Auggie's Revenge and the all new Classroom Edition of Fight for Your Long Day at all of these events. Look for updates as new appearances are booked.

March 31 to April 2:  AWP in Los Angeles, Beating Windward Table 1664 at the Book Fair

(I'll sign copies at the table from Thursday, 3 p.m., through Saturday, 5 p.m.)

Friday April 8:          4Cs in Houston, Texas

(I'll be roaming around and will have books on hand.)

Thursday May 5, 7 p.m.:           Reading and signing at Wright Library in Oakwood, Ohio                                            

working cover for classroom edition

We  have a working cover for the Classroom Edition of Fight for Your Long Day!

coming soon from Hard Ball Press

Auggie's Revenge and Classroom Edition of Fight for Your Long Day

Both Auggie's Revenge (Beating Windward Press) and the Classroom Edition of Fight for Your Long Day (Hard Ball Press) are taking shape and due to arrive in paperback by April 2016.

graphic rendering by Nathan Holic

Fight for Your Long Day: Classroom Edition

Hi Folks,

We're in the early stages of preparing a Classroom Edition of Fight for Your Long Day. It will be published by Hard Ball Press and will include the full text of the novel and additional essays on higher-education and contract-worker issues. It will also include author and other adjunct interviews as well as an extended listing of texts for additional reading. Feel free to share or please comment here, e-mail, tweet, or message me (I do check my "Other" folder at Facebook) if you have writing you'd like to offer or suggest for inclusion. Limited funds are available to pay for reprints or new material. Included articles will address rising student debt, adjunct narratives, labor organizing (pros and cons), impact of pay-per-course contracts on teaching, the denigration of literature or the humanities in general, and more. I'm also interested in adding an essay that considers, as the novel does, the relationship between American contract work and the more global, transnational struggle of workers, with particular interest in educational and literary workers such as teachers, translators, reviewers, etc.

I'll edit this post as necessary.

Best of luck this fall.