Chronicle of Higher Education

A few days after Isaac Sweeney was kind enough to interview me for one of his Chronicle blogs On Hiring (The Two-Year Track), Ms. Mentor wrote:

"But it took nearly 40 years before anyone wrote a novel told consistently from the perspective of an adjunct: Alex Kudera's Fight for Your Long Day (2010)."

Thank you for noting the originality of the idea and for including an adjunct's perspective in an article that would have to be heavily weighted with the voices of the tenured or those fortunate to earn their living from writing, not teaching.

(I did notice that the two of the 11 finalists I've read are both told from the perspective of tenured professors, but I like both books quite a bit. In fact, I often speak of The Human Stain as my favorite by Philip Roth, a writer I do not always endorse, and Don Delillo's White Noise is one I've taught many times.)

PS--As a side note, Steve Himmer, also of Atticus Books, posted this quotation from the Isaac Sweeney interview:


To me, the most significant American stories have almost always been stories of alienation; the alienation could be emotional, social, psychological, or economic and is typically a combination of these. The university is central to the information economy and employs millions of workers across the country and more throughout the world. The fantastic irony of the marginalized teacher caught in the middle of the educational economy is too much to ignore; it is a rather fantastic elephant in the room that the place of greatest alienation in the university could be right behind the classroom lectern, where a contract worker without health benefits is the only adult most freshmen will have significant communication with.

Thanks, Isaac, Steve, Ms. Mentor, and everyone else who has recently linked and shared these Chronicle notes.

shelve your debut novel now, City Lights!

Hey, if you want to help get some cool debut novels find safe harbor in San Francisco's famous City Lights Bookstore, follow this link http://www.citylights.com/bookstore/ and e-mail about a title or just write to this address:

City Lights Bookstore
Att. Book Buyer
261 Columbus Avenue
San Francisco,  CA  94133

And guess what?

I have a list of novels for you to choose from:

Andy Breslin's Mother's Milk
Steve Himmer's The Bee Loud Glade
Nadia Kalman's The Cosmopolitans
Alex Kudera's Fight for Your Long Day (never heard of it)
Kate Ledger's Remedies

Mark SaFranko's Hating Olivia (could be there already)
Ben Tanzer's You Can Make Him Like You
Charles Dodd White's Lambs of Men
Joe Zeppetello's Daring to Eat a Peach
Tommy Zurhellen's Nazareth, North Dakota

OK. Except for Ben and Charles, these are all debut novels, and they are all from new novelist-publisher partnerships. I'm sure any help is appreciated. Tap me on the keyboard if I missed you, and I'll be sure to add you to the list (new novelists or indy book buyers).

Note: for Mark, several novels have already been published in Europe in English and French translation.

What an amazing blogger! What a weirdo.

Wah (translated as "wow" in both Korean and exhausted English).

URL links for Fight for Your Long Day

In theory, a book isn't alive unless it's snuggled comfortably in the reading bin in the bathroom at Oprah's or any sitting President's, so to speak, but here is an imperfect list of URL links to news or mouthings about Fight for Your Long Day:

http://chronicle.com/article/Considering-Adjunct-Misery/138085/?cid=vem

https://genealogiesofmodernity.org/journal/2022/1/10/fight-for-your-long-loud-laughs

Fight For Your Long Day, by Alex Kudera (review) – W.D. Clarke’s Blog

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joseph-a-domino/working-poor-professor_b_4994393.html

http://articles.philly.com/2011-01-30/business/27091272_1_adjunct-college-teaching-college-students

http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/academe/2011/JF/br/br3.htm

http://southeastreview.org/2011/01/review-fight-for-your-long-day.html

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/09/21/kudera

http://chronicle.com/article/Novel-Academic-Novels/127748/

http://contemporaryhorizon.blogspot.com/2010/12/american-perspectivesperspective.html

https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/17/article/892931

http://www.midwestbookreview.com/sbw/dec_10.htm#Fiction (no separate page possible, not much here)

http://www.neworldreview.com/vol_5No_36/kudera.php

with reprint at American Studies, Kansas:

http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/book-reviews/82789100/fight-your-long-day

and Adjunct Justice tumblr:

http://adjunctjustice.tumblr.com/post/41900677804/book-review-of-alex-kuderas-fight-for-your-long-day

http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/radical_teacher/v093/93.gaboury.html

with reprint at Chicago COCAL:

http://www.chicagococal.org/downloads/Radical-Teacher-review-of-FFYLD.pdf

Project MUSE - <i>Fight for Your Long Day</i> by Alex Kudera (review) (jhu.edu)

interviews:

https://chroniclevitae.com/news/256-q-a-the-novelist-who-chronicles-life-as-an-adjunct

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/creating-in-flow/201201/darkly-funny-debut-novel-exposes-adjunct-abuse

http://features.clemson.edu/creative-services/faculty/2011/english-lecturer-book-explores-the-plight-of-the-adjunct-professor/

http://wewhoareabouttodie.com/2011/09/27/we-who-are-about-to-breed-alex-kudera/

http://atticusbooksonline.com/one-of-a-kind-a-foreword-interview-with-alex-kudera/

http://chronicle.com/blogs/onhiring/chatting-with-alex-kudera-on-adjuncts/28902

http://whenfallsthecoliseum.com/2010/11/01/the-life-of-adjuncts-an-interview-with-novelist-alex-kudera/

http://atticusbooksonline.com/interview-with-the-author-of-fight-for-your-long-day/

http://smartsandculture.com/blog/2010/october/alex-kudera

http://smartsandculture.com/blog/2010/october/alex-kudera-2

http://www.thenewdorkreviewofbooks.com/2011/08/bloggernovelist-relationship-with-alex.html

http://www.thenewdorkreviewofbooks.com/2011/08/bloggernovelist-relationship-with-alex_08.html

nathan holic's graphic-novel interpretation at atticus review:

http://atticusreview.org/a-comic-adaptation-of-fight-for-your-long-day-episode-1/

http://atticusreview.org/fight-for-your-long-day-a-comic-adaptation-episode-2/

http://atticusreview.org/fight-for-your-long-day-a-comic-adaptation-episode-3/

http://atticusreview.org/fight-for-your-long-day-a-comic-series-adaptation/

http://atticusreview.org/still-fighting-for-your-long-ass-day/

video:

http://writing.upenn.edu/wh/multimedia/tv/reruns/watch/108019

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fah_s1XHswo

excerpt:

http://atticusbooksonline.com/blog/2011/05/16/fight-for-your-ippy-gold/

http://atticusbooksonline.com/books/2010-releases/fight-for-your-long-day/excerpt/

blogs:

https://plumbblogdotnet.wordpress.com/2014/07/15/review-of-alex-kuderas-fight-for-your-long-day-by-lavinia-ludlow/

http://epatrick909.blogspot.com/2014/04/book-review-fight-for-your-long-day-by.html

http://migrantintellectual.wordpress.com/2012/12/15/dodging-a-seventy-five-cent-toll/

http://whenfallsthecoliseum.com/2012/01/08/fight-for-your-long-day-by-alex-kudera/

http://www.clemson.edu/caah/faculty-staff/this-month-in-caah.html

http://smallpressreviews.wordpress.com/2011/06/10/fight-for-your-long-day/#comments

http://bentanzer.blogspot.com/2011/02/this-book-will-change-your-life-fight.html

http://www.stevehimmer.com/notes/3464/fight-for-your-long-day

http://lavelleporter.wordpress.com/2011/10/07/teacher/

http://thenextbestbookblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/review-fight-for-your-long-day.html

http://www.authorexposure.com/2011/03/book-review-fight-for-your-long-day-by.html

http://karenslibraryblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/guest-review-alex-kudera-reviewed-by.html

http://lumpenprofessoriat.blogspot.com/2010/09/fight-for-your-long-day.html

http://freedomfromthings.com/post/2458438021/book-review-fight-for-your-long-day-by-alex-kudera

http://thenewfacultymajority.blogspot.com/2011/01/academe-reviews-alex-kuderas-adjunct.html

http://www.thenewdorkreviewofbooks.com/2011/08/fight-for-your-long-day-adjunct-hell.html

http://davidabramsbooks.blogspot.com/2011/08/soup-and-salad-noir-at-bar-waterproof.html (see no. 8)

http://booksarebetterthanboys.tumblr.com/post/1037690240/currently-reading-i-dont-know-why-im-doing

http://adjunctularnoodling.blogspot.com/2014/05/novels-by-and-for-adjuncts.html

customer reviews:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8612461-fight-for-your-long-day

http://www.amazon.com/Fight-Your-Long-Day-Novel/dp/0984510508/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282962542&sr=1-1

http://www.shelfari.com/books/17696955/Fight-for-Your-Long-Day---A-Novel/reviews

I'll keep adding links as they appear.

Fight for Your Long Day!

Thank you for taking a look.

Best,
Alex Kudera