THE (ARIZONA) WRITING LIFE (Part II of the Tucson Chronicles): Tucson is home to fine writers and scads of literary events. One of the writers is Aurelie Sheehan, who spent some years in Sheridan, Wyo. Aurelie is the author of the short-story collection “Jack Kerouac is Pregnant” and the novel, “The Anxiety of Everyday Objects.” Her new novel will be in summer 2006 or January 2007. Over lunch, I insisted summer '06 publication date would be ideal, that way she could bring it to the Wyoming BookFest in Casper. She agreed but acknowledged, somewhat faceitiously, that it's sometimes difficult to get major publishers to do your bidding. Still, she loves to travel to WYO, especially during the summer, and misses her friends and the rugged landscape. Aurelie, once the director of the Folger Shakepeare Library reading series in D.C., has a new assignment at UA: chair of the creative writing program. She called it one of the top ten programs in the country and I had no reason to disagree. The creative writing program’s web site touts its top-ten status in the 2002 edition of U.S.News & World Report’s edition of “Best Graduate Schools.” I couldn’t find the numerical ranking, so had to scroll back to the 1998 edition and there is UA at number nine, behind numero uno Iowa and number 20, cross-state rival Arizona State. My CSU M.F.A. program was rated 51 which, unfortunately, makes me a 51st-rate writer (I apologize for wasting your time!). UA alumni have written some great books. I’ve read work by Alberto Rios (featured at last year’s Casper College Literary Conference), Maud Casey, the late Agha Shahid Ali (one-time WAC fellowship judge), Tony Hoagland, Stephen Schwartz (fiction writer and head of the CSU program) and David Foster Wallace. Aurelie inquired about the University of Wyoming’s new writing program and I told her the basics. I knew that it was unrated (unfairly, in my view) by the experts at U.S. News, mainly because the first class doesn’t enter until next month. I also told her of the push by faculty and interested writers around the state to start a University of Wyoming press. WYO desperately needs more presses. A university press would be a boon to writers and scholars all around the West.
