is expanding, with new courses and opportunities to explore multiple genres each semester!
REGISTER NOW for Spring 2012 CREATIVE WRITING CLASSES:
ENGL 32: Creative Writing II -- an introduction to the writing of poetry, short fiction and creative nonfiction forms. Class members will read, discuss and write poems and stories in a writing workshop environment. The class meets on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1:00-2:30PM. Course credit is transferable. It is not necessary to have taken ENGL 31 to enroll.
ENGL 51: Fiction Writing -- an intensive fiction writing workshop, focused on the short story. Class members will read, discuss, write and revise stories. The class meets on Tuesdays from 6:00-9:00PM. Course credit is transferable.
Plans for the future include transfer-level courses in Creative Nonfiction, Poetry and Long-Form Fiction.
For more details about the Creative Writing curriculum at MPC, please see below.
from 3-4PM each Thursday during the Spring 2012 semester.
The MPC LITERARY MAGAZINE
The second issue, Anamnesis, is now available online!
The print edition will be available on campus at the start of the Spring 2012 semester.
The editors will be accepting submissions of original creative work for the third issue until April 1, 2012
Please send up to 3 poems and/or up to 6 pages of prose as an email attachment (.rtf, .doc or .docx) to:
Indicate Fiction Submission, Poetry Submission or Nonfiction Submission in the Subject line of your email.
You may submit multiple works of prose totaling up to six pages each; send each story as a separate submission.
Please note that only submissions from students of Monterey Peninsula College will be accepted.
The MPC Guest Author Series brings accomplished writers of poetry and prose to campus for public readings and to meet with MPC students interested in creative writing. Supported by the MPC English Department and Humanities Division and by The MPC Foundation, the series is pleased to announce that novelist and short story writer Aimee Bender will be at MPC on March 15. 2012. Please visit The MPC Guest Author Series web page for more information: http://www.mpc.edu/academics/Humanities/Pages/Guest-Author-Series.aspx
Past Creative Writing Events:
SPRING 2011
The MPC Guest Author Series welcomed multi-award winning Fiction and Nonfiction author Peter Chilson.
Peter Chilson's writing has twice appeared in Best American Travel Writing and in Ascent, Audubon, The American Scholar, Gulf Coast, High Country News, The Long Story, the North American Review, and other publications. He is the author of the book-length memoir Riding the Demon: On the Road in West Africa , and the short story collection Disturbance-Loving Species .
On April 27th, he read from his recent work and discussed his experience working both sides of the fiction/nonfiction line. A book signing followed the reading and discussion.
Fall 2010
Award-winning poet and California native Tess Taylor read from her first collection, The Misremembered World, and from her as-yet unpublished second collection, The Forage House, on October 7th. MPC students, faculty and staff were joined by other members of the Monterey Peninsula community to hear poems including "World's End: North of San Francisco," "The Museum of the Confederacy," "Reading Walden in the Air" and a "circus poem" written in the voice of legendary American huckster P.T. Barnum. After the reading, Ms. Taylor discussed her work and answered questions.
Earlier in the day, Tess Taylor discussed the craft of poetry with Henry Marchand's English 31: Creative Writing class, and also met with members of the MPC Creative Writing Club and other interested students, including ESL students who she encouraged to recite poems from memory in their first languages.
BANNED BOOKS WEEK:
The Creative Writing Club's Banned Books Week events continue to be a smashing success!
In recognition of the American Library Association's annual Banned Books Week, the Creative Writing Club conducts a Banned Books Raffle to raise awareness of ongoing threats to the Freedom to Read.
Books that have been banned or challenged in America's schools and libraries are raffled in the Carolyn Page Garden outside the campus library (TLC) during the last week of September each year.
Also, a Banned Books Read-Out is held in the Sam Karas Room of the TLC during Banned Books Week. A capacity crowd can be expected to listen and join in a public reading of excerpts from books that have been frequently challenged or banned.
Among the works read from at past read-outs are The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1984, Brave New World, The Satanic Verses, The Awakening, James and the Giant Peach, The Grapes of Wrath, Fahrenheit 451, A Clockwork Orange, Slaughterhouse-5 and many more.
Join us in Fall 2012 during Banned Books Week when we again celebrate the Freedom to Read!
Spring 2010
The MPC Guest Author Series presented novelist Jennifer Gilmore, who read from and discussed her book, Something Red, on Thursday, May 13 in the Sam Karas Room at the MPC Technology and Learning Center. Learn more about Jennifer and Something Red at www.jennifergilmore.net
The Creative Writing Club's Poetry Reading & Slam on April 14th was a blast; a dozen readers presented their own poetry and/or read favorite poems by others, and seven hardy souls competed in the poetry slam.
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Henry Marchand, English/Creative Writing Instructor
MFA in Fiction Writing, Pennsylvania State University (1993)
BFA in Creative Writing, Bowling Green State University (1987)
Publications: See below for links to some of my work. My short fiction has also appeared in The Seattle Review, Rosebud, Elysian Fields Quarterly, The Willow Review and elsewhere; I have published additional essays, feature articles and book reviews in The [Cleveland] Plain Dealer, The Toledo Blade Sunday Magazine, The Cleveland Free Times, and The Boston Globe, among other newspapers and magazines. My professional writing background includes general assignment newspaper reporting, ad copywriting, technical report writing, and freelance report and brochure writing for organizations including Planned Parenthood and The American Civil Liberties Union.
Work in Progress: Short stories (always something simmering or rolling at full boil); Finding Daniel (a novel); and The Five Essential Tools of Fiction Writing (a creative writing text).
Where I'm from: Secaucus, New Jersey. Where I've lived: Secaucus and West Milford, New Jersey; Bowling Green, Mansfield, Kent and Lakewood, Ohio; State College, Pennsylvania; and Pacific Grove, California. I will always be a guy from Secaucus. My years in Lakewood have put Cleveland in my soul. And I do like living in Pacific Grove a whole heck of a lot.
Contact information (for those who don't want to scroll back to the top of the page): hmarchand@mpc.edu; (831) 645-1321. MPC Office: BH103G
Writing by Henry Marchand
You can read some of my work online at:
http://www.paradigmjournal.com/jackson/Marchand_Gone%20Stay%20Gone.html
http://www.americanpopularculture.com/review_americana/spring_2009/marchand.htm
http://home.comcast.net/~wapshot1/spr09/Marchand_AbyssLooksBack.pdf
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/30/opinion/30iht-edmarch.html
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1208-33.htm
[The first three are fiction, two short stories and a novella; the last two are nonfiction. Stop by the office and I can probably give you a copy of another short story or two.]
Enroll in a Creative Writing Course at MPC!
Courses offered include:
ENGL 31: Creative Writing I is an introduction to the writing of poetry and short fiction forms. Offered in the Fall semester on an alternating day/evening basis (as a day class one year, an evening class the next). Course credit is transferable. Pre-requisite: Eligibility for MPC’s ENGL 1A: Composition.
ENGL 32: Creative Writing II
provides further study and practice in the writing of poetry and fiction and an introduction to creative nonfiction. Offered in the Spring semester on an alternating day/evening basis; it is not necessary to have taken ENGL 31 in order to enroll. Course credit is transferable. Pre-requisite: Eligibility for MPC’s ENGL 1A: Composition.
ENGL 51: Fiction Writing
is an intensive fiction writing workshop, emphasizing the short story. See current MPC Course Schedule for scheduling details. Course credit is transferable. Pre-requisite: MPC’s ENGL 1A: Composition or equivalent.
ENGL 231: Writing Memoir & the Personal Essay
is a non-transfer introduction to two of the most time-tested and rewarding nonfiction forms. Offered as an evening class during the Fall semester.
Plans for the future include transfer-level Creative Nonfiction, Poetry and Long-Form Fiction courses.
MPC also offers
literature classes that provide creative writers with an expanded appreciation of the writer’s art through time and around the world. Please see the college catalog online at www.mpc.edu.
For additional information about
Creative Writing at MPC, please contact
me at
hmarchand@mpc.edu or (831) 645-1321.
PHOTO GALLERY
Me with Joshua Converse, 2010 winner of the Ray Fabrizio Memorial Award in Creative Writing, and MPC Board Member Charles Brown. (My apologies to 2011 Fabrizio Award winner Sandra Videmsky for not having a photo to post here.)
Me with Ray Bradbury at The Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, October 2008. (Read his short stories, if you haven't already; also, Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles are always worth another look.)
Me with Morrie, my friend and life coach
(Lesson One: Breakfast...)
