Big Wheel at the Cracker Factory Interview

Listen to Dan Rodricks of Baltimore's NPR affiliate, WYPR, Interview me about my book Big Wheel at the Cracker Factory.

Here are some questions listeners sent me, and my answers:

"I was wondering if publishing your book has opened any new doors in
terms of teaching and how tough a process it was to get the book
published?"

Since I published the book, I've become a tenure-track professor at Rider. With the book's topic, I'd guess that it scared away some potential employers but attracted others.

As far as publishing the book, I first self-published it in 2003 with a small print run. As other self-publishers can probably tell you, publishing it was the easy part. Helping people find out about it was the hard part. I set up readings anywhere I could, and was lucky enough to read all over North America in independent bookstores, coffee shops, bars, and record stores. Sometimes only a couple people showed up to a reading I drove 5 or 6 hours to, but I kept at it. It was at one of those readings with a tiny audience of two or three that I met GK Darby, who emailed me that same night saying he'd like to publish a new edition of Big Wheel on his Garrett County Press. Mine isn't the traditional path to getting a book published, but with so many terrific developments recently in independent music and film, it's good to see that there's still a path out there for independent lit.

"I have been where the author was. I once held five adjunct positions
simultaneously, before switching to unionized blue-collar by day and
teaching in the evening.

After seventeen years in the same department, with glowing ratings and
salary increases, my contract was not renewed for the eighteenth year--
no explanation, no appeal, loss of what benefits I had.

There are several kinds of adjuncts: If you taught a journalism class
in the evening, that"s GOOD adjunctitude

There are those like your author who long for a tenure track position
and eventually get it that's potentially good

and there are those who want only part-time work-- sure

But there is exploitation inherent in the system--I couldn't teach as
effectively with seven courses as I could with four"

Thanks for the comment. As far as exploitation being inherent in the system, you're definitely correct. The low pay and lack of job security encourages people to spread themselves thin, teaching too many classes at too many schools. At the same time, the reliance on adjuncts in writing programs keeps tenure-track faculty job openings rare, which means plenty of people with PhDs still find themselves working as adjuncts. Your experience of being dropped after eighteen years shows just what low status adjuncts, even those with eighteen years of seniority, hold in English departments.