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Hello and welcome to Leading the Way Women in Higher Education, a podcast dedicated to celebrating, supporting and advancing women in higher education across Michigan. Joining me today is one of the co chairs of the IR committee, Dr. Dawn Hinton. Would you please introduce yourself and your current role in higher education? Dawn.

Beautiful. Cynthia, thank you so much for the invitation. I appreciate the opportunity to talk about the work that we're doing with Michigan ace. So I am MVISA co chair for this committee. My other co chair is Dr. Charmaine Hines, who is an activist, absolutely phenomenal leader in higher ed as well. What I do is I am the associate provost at Saginaw Valley State University where I've been in the provost office for about three years. I've been in higher ed overall 28 years. Started as a professor of sociology and did that work for a while. Did some faculty fellow things, some community engagement work, and then I ended up in our center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, which was an amazing, absolutely amazing experience before I moved to the provost office. So this has been a really interesting journey for me.

Well, it sounds like it. That's fantastic. Wow. Well, can you tell us a little bit about what inspired you to get involved in the Michigan ACE and eventually then also the role of the IR co chair?

Right. So I had no idea what Michigan ACE was. And a person who has now become a very. Oh gosh, a very close mentor, Dr. Reeva Curry, actually invited me to the first conference when I was a faculty member. And to be honest with you, I can't tell you when that was. It was a number of years ago. I want to say we were at Michigan State, but I could be wrong, but it was an absolutely amazing experience having the opportunity to engage with some women in higher ed who have been doing just phenomenal work across the state. So it's really eye opening just to see what's possible in those spaces. I think that sometimes as a faculty member, we don't come to leadership in the same way. So we're in our classrooms, we're teaching these classes, we're engaged with our students, we're doing our research, we're doing service. We don't really see higher ed administration as a thing that is possible. And so when Dr. Curry invited me to in Michigan Ace, she invited me to the conference and it was eye opening about what was possible, and it was eye opening about the ways that these women who were in these spaces were engaging in the higher ed community. It was empowering.

Wow, what an eye opener. That's fantastic. So for those who are unfamiliar. What is an institutional representative? And can you tell us why this role is so important to the Michigan ACE Women's Network?

Right. So the Michigan ACE Women's Network has institutions from across the state who have agreed to participate as institutional members. That means that all the resources that are available through Michigan ACE is available to those institutions. And so what we've done is we've identified women on those campuses who will serve as representatives from the institutions to Michigan ACE and also representatives from Michigan ACE to the institution. These folks have been nominated and identified by their president as people who should serve as their representatives. And so what we're asking these folks to do is to help us to figure out how we can assist. Assist them in leading in those spaces. So Michigan ace, the women's network, is associated with the American Council on Education, the larger nationwide organization. And we're committed to what we refer to as ideals. And really, it's an acronym which indicates that we are here to identify, to develop, to encourage, to advance, to link and support women in higher ed. So the expectations of people who are institutional representatives is that they will provide programming or resources for the folks on their campuses that will do those things. We encourage them to think about how to identify the folks on those campuses who need this kind of support. How do we develop them, what do they need, and what does encouragement look like? And it happens in a number of different ways. So the IRS really are. We call them irs. We call ourselves IRS Institutional Representatives. We are literally the backbone of the Michigan ACE Women's Network in that we are the ones who are doing the work of the organization on each and every individual campus. So it's crucial to have people who are in those spaces who are excited about the work, who enjoy thinking about leadership and thinking about ways to engage the folks on their campuses. So it's crucial for us to have those kinds of folks who are in those positions and who have a passion for the work.

Oh, sure. So they're like the backbone. And as you mentioned, the backbone, the busy bees on their campuses. And so you identify them and then take it from there and take it to another level. Wow. That's.

Yeah. For sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you mentioned a little bit about the core responsibilities, I think, in reference to the support. And you mentioned about ideal and supporting those people who are IRs. So how do they support the mission of Michigan ACE on their campus? Through a variety. You mentioned different ways or.

Right. It is. There are a number. It's not prescriptive. So the work that they do we don't prescribe. You must do this, you must do that. We encourage them to have conversations with the folks who are on their campus about what the needs are in those spaces. And then as a result of those conversations, it's our expectation that they will. As a result of those conversations, it's our expectations that they will engage with that campus community in ways that's meaningful for that campus community. And so it varies. So what we encourage them to do is to assess the needs. What are people saying they need in those spaces? And then begin to think about, how do you facilitate institutional professional development?

Oh, great. So on. Like our campus here, an event would look different than, let's say, your campus or Michigan State or something like that, depending on what the needs are for that campus. That. And meet the needs where they are. Right. Okay.

Exactly.

That's great. That's fantastic. I love that. So then how do IRS help connect women to opportunities such as the annual conference you mentioned? Maybe Young Women's Strong Leaders or perhaps Women of Color Collaborative.

So again, we talk about our IRS as being the backbone, as being the feet on the ground, if you will, in these institutions on behalf of Michigan ace. And so one of the expectations we have of our IRS is that they will educate their campus community about our mission. The major initiatives that we have, and those initiatives, which include the annual conference, talk about what our Young Women Strong Leaders, the Women of Color Collaborative. So it's the expectation that all of those things that we are representing at this statewide level will trickle down through our IR to our institutional members. When we have webinars as Michigan ACE and we have a professional development committee that develops these webinars, we send it out to our institutional representatives. Make sure that you advertise to the people who are on your campus so that they can see that this is available. It's free. These webinars are free. So that they can then use this to kind of build their leadership journey. So we encourage them to use the resources that we're providing on a statewide level to provide those resources to the folks who are in their campus communities, including all of the programming that we do at the state.

That's great. That's great. Well, what about sharing an example of a successful initiative or program that's led by an IR that has made a real impact?

Right. There are a number of things that our institutional representatives have engaged in, and they vary. We've seen programming that reflects leadership workshops. We do a whole lot with equal payday. The idea of us tracking when women of Various backgrounds. When is there equal payday? At what point in the year do they make as much as man does in the previous year? So we do a lot of equal payday observances. We do book clubs, we do luncheons, we do series. We have a number of institutions that are partnering with each other in order to kind of pool resources so that they can provide a better resource for both of those campus communities. At Grand Valley State University, one of our institutions, our institutional members, they did a community read and they purchased 50 copies of a book titled Rising from a Mud Hut to the Boardroom and Back and offered three hybrid gatherings for folks to have conversations around. What is this book about? You know, what are the themes that are associated with that book? And so we see a lot of that happening. We have folks who are doing just across various institutions, leadership panels where we bring in leaders from across the state who sit and talk with the people in our community to kind of elucidate what it means to be a woman leader in higher ed in this time. Right. So various, many, many, many different methods are used in an effort to kind of engage the folks on our campus. And they vary by. From one institution to the next.

Yeah, that sounds very successful in initiating programs and so forth for IRS to get engaged with other institutions as well as bringing others along with them. Well, that's great. So how do IRs collaborate with campus leaders, such as, like, with the other departments, and you mentioned professional development. So how do they promote some of the women in reference to their own campuses, with their leadership?

And that's one of the things that we encourage them to really consider is are there folks on your campus who are doing this kind of work where they're doing leadership development, where they're looking at supporting people who are interested in becoming leaders in higher ed? So we encourage our institutional representatives to look on their campuses to see who else is doing the work and consider partnering with those organizations. Because we don't want to create, we don't want to duplicate effort. Right. We want to make sure that the work that you are doing is going to be meaningful. And also you have a job. Right? The campus has hired you to do something, and they didn't hire you to be a Michigan, a institutional representative. Many of these people who are institutional representatives are doing this work, like, out of the. Out of their love, out of their passion to see that higher ed leadership is receiving informed and prepared leaders. So in doing that, we understand that you have other obligations on your campuses, and so we want them to Be thoughtful about how are they going to implement some of the programs and projects that they want to implement. But can we partner. Can we do this with another group? Can we see who else is. Is there a woman's empowerment team on campus? Is there a faculty development team on campus that's doing professional development that you can actually partner with?

Oh, that's nice.

So those are the things that we ask them to do. And we see that many of them have these other organizations that they actually partner with.

That's great. That's great. So then can you tell us, like, what are some of the challenges that IRS face? Like, how do you, as a co chair, how would you support them with their challenges?

And so one of the challenges, I mean, I just mentioned. Right. You have a job that the university is.

Right, yeah.

And so there are time constraints. There's only so much time that you can give to Michigan ace. And as the board on the state level recognizes that, which is why we attempt to provide a number of resources for people who are in those IR positions so that they can be supported in doing that work. They don't have a whole lot of money in order to do the work. The institutional representative, the statewide institutional representative committee provides a scholarship, a grant. That's what we call it. We provide a grant for organizations who are doing this work, and all they have to do is to talk to us about. Talk to us about the projects that you're trying to do. What does your budget look like? We have some money that we can share to defer some of the costs. Right. But we understand that these are challenges. We understand some of the constraints that are on these folks who have been identified as irs. We're trying to think about how can we continue to support them doing that work?

Got it.

Wow.

Okay, so let's say. Let's look ahead a little bit. Can you tell us what are the goals as far as for the IR network networking in the coming year? And how can someone become an ir and what advice would you give someone in that new role?

So the IRS are identified by their president. This is a wonderful opportunity. And we talk with our IRS about this. The fact that Michigan ACE asked the president to list the names of those who will be the institutional representatives. We talk with them about how can they leverage that. Right. And so what we're looking forward to is working with our institutional representatives on their own personal professional development. What we find is that often IRS are planning and thinking about how can I help the women on my campus to advance, to move forward to realize their dreams. And often they're not really thinking about their own movement because they're constantly giving. And so we're looking for opportunities to kind of pour into them and to provide them with resources that they're providing to their constituents. So the goal in my mind has always been from the statewide level, is thinking about ways that we can take some of the load for them. What kinds of resources can we provide for them so that they can do the work they need to do. We have a speaker's bureau at the state level, and we tell irs, if you are interested in someone coming and doing a presentation, it's free. Let us know what your topic is, what you want to do, and we will send one of our leaders from our executive board to present to present at one of your sessions. Again, I mentioned the mini grants that we offer in order to support them financially. Both Charmaine and I, Dr. Hines and I meet with our IRS regularly, and we have conversations with them about what are your needs, how can we support you? What we're hearing them ask for is support in terms of formal planning. Help us think about how do we plan these events. Right. Help us think about how do we broaden the leadership pipeline. IRS are really, really in touch with what's happening on their campuses and are letting us know, and we're doing what we can in order to provide support for that. So the goals really are shaped by what the request. But based on what we've heard before, we're developing resources this year for our institutional representatives in order to meet the needs that they've mentioned.

So you're already steps ahead in planning for the following year, right?

Okay, absolutely.

Excellent. And you support with any resources, such as what you mentioned with the scholarships and the speaker bureau. And so there are definitely ways that IRS can tap into that so that they don't have to tip into any of their budget funds or anything.

Absolutely.

You help them to be successful. Set them up for success. That's right. Yeah. That's fantastic. So if someone became an I art, what advice would you give them as being in that new role?

That this work is a passion work. This work is work you have to be passionate about because it's challenging. And this challenge has the potential to help us grow as leaders as an institutional representative. The Michigan ACE Executive Board is looking at our institutional representatives as the leaders in those spaces. And so we want to think about ways that we can encourage them to develop as leaders at the same time as they are encouraging others to develop as leaders. So there's a lot of benefit that the people who are IRS receive as a result of this level of interaction. And I think that anybody who is interested in other positions in leadership and higher ed, this is a really, really good place to start.

Exactly. Especially through the networking that Michigan AC has a loan by itself. That's. That is huge. That is huge. Absolutely. And then you keep it going to make sure that it's sustainable throughout the different campuses as well. That's great. Well, thank you so much for sharing your insight and passion for empowering women in higher education. It certainly is clear that institutional representatives are not just liaisons, but they're also leaders, advocates, and also change makers.

Absolutely.

Thanks for tuning in to Leading the Way Women in Higher Education to listen to this episode and others, visit lccconnect.com until next time. Keep leading, keep learning, and keep lifting others along the way.

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Washington Square on air is the audio town square for the Washington Square Review. Lansing Community College's literary journal. Writers, readers, scholars, publishing professionals, citizens of the world, gather here and chat about all things writing. Hey there. This is Melissa Ford Luckin, editor for the Washington Square Review. I'm here today with Jill Bromfin. We're going to be talking about feminist fiction. Jill's a returning guest and last time we were talking she piqued my interest with this topic, so I invited her back. And so hey Jill, tell us a little bit about your area of interest.

Sure. I think last time we were talking about how I had written a thesis paper as an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, so way back when on publishing romance novels and the industry has changed a lot, but I still have a very strong interest in feminist fiction. And as we've talked about before, I think feminist fiction can be romantic. It can also appear in a number of different genres and we can talk about science fiction and fantasy fiction and historical fiction and how feminist romance plays out in those different genres.

Talk a little bit about the paper that you wrote. How did you get started with that topic and what were you looking at back then? At the time?

Yeah, so back then I was looking at statistics and which novels were popular and how things have changed over time. So I was kind of writing historical fiction about romance fiction about publishing and looking really at where the industry was going and how it changed with the times. When I think of romances, and I'm not the only one that thinks of this stereotype, I think of the Regency romance with an 18 year old female character pitted against a 35 year old male protagonist. He's rich and powerful and she has to use her charm, which, you know, charm has kind of a negative connotation. But I would argue that charm in these romance novels is really a feminized version of intelligence and wit and strategic skills to win him over. You know, the downside is sometimes he's a jerk at first, which is not a great impediment to overcome. I mean, we shouldn't be teaching young girls that their goal is to change a Man. And, you know, even aside from the socioeconomic tropes, Talk a little bit about the market.

At the time, you said you saw some changes. So what were you looking at?

Yeah, over time, there are changes. You know, in the 50s and 60s and into the 70s and 80s. You see, I mean, there's still formulaic fiction. There's still the Regency romance, as I mentioned, and there's still a series of romance novels where you. You're given a very set formula. You know, by page 50, they kiss, and by page 100, they've, you know, if it's more erotic, then they've been to bed together or, you know, there's a conflict at page 75. Those kind of super formulaic fiction. But I think there's also, in recent years, especially in the 2000s and 2010s, where women writers have broken out of the formulas and kind of come up with a new formula. I would say there are three things that I would look for in a modern romantic fiction. I would look at, number one, characters with agencies. Agency, not agencies.

That's cool.

If they have, like, an advertising agency.

Yeah, for sure.

Characters with agency. Singular. Something to do, not just something to be. And then item two of three, I kind of. This will sound familiar to a lot of people. It's the Bechdel test, which is a measure of the representation of women in film and other fiction. And the test asks whether work has two female characters. So it could be a mother and a daughter or two friends, and they're having a conversation about something other than a man.

Right, Right.

So something like, if you're watching the Bridgerton TV show, there are two women, and it doesn't have to be politics. It could be address, or it could be starting your own secret gossip business. But they're having a conversation about something other than a man in his life. And then some versions of the test maybe require that the two characters that we're talking about have names. So they're real people, you know, with names and personalities, not just two background characters or two characters that talk about a man. And then the third thing that I'd add to what's going on in current romantic fiction and feminist fiction is looking at the descriptions of the characters. So I read a lot of work as a reader for Literary Journal, I read for the Master's Review, and as soon as I see something that's like, oh, you're discovering a woman, and, oh, it's her lips, it's her breasts, it's her hips, it's her legs, it's her nails, it's her clothing. I'm like, oh, this is so stereotypical. Let's move on. And it's okay to include these, but I also want to see in a description of a character, like a facial expression, a gait, the way she walks, you know, the quirks of language and idioms and how someone speaks, you know, not just the really standard body parts of the woman. So those three things, you know, having agency, having conversations that don't involve men, and then kind of. I call it feminist descriptions. That's the third thing. Kind of the new formula, I'd say, of what we're looking for in feminist fiction for publishing.

What influence do you think TikTok has on fiction for women?

Yeah, well, there's TikTok. Book talk. And social media in general is important. One of the ways that we communicate right now is social media, and one of the ways that we create characters and interest in characters is social media. So it kind of has replaced social media in general. TikTok in particular has kind of replaced. But it's certainly during the early years of the pandemic. But even now, as kind of. Maybe we'll call it a silver lining of the pandemic, there have been other ways to promote a book or to get people interested in a book other than just go to the bookstore, read your book, you know, sell 10 copies.

It is pretty great that readers can get together on social media and talk about books and talk about them freely and openly and over, you know, a period of several days or several weeks or even several months. So it gets to be an ongoing conversation, which I think is pretty great. That. That, to me, seems something really new when I think about romance. Years ago, Even, you know, 10 years ago, before there was the big influence of social media, it was mostly like book reviews. There would be magazines that would have book reviews in them, but that wasn't really a conversation. It was finding out about the book. But reading the reviews is very different than actually having conversations with other people who've also read the books. And it's fun because, like, you're saying, readers don't always. They. They look for different things, and they have criteria and they discuss them and they're. They feel free to say what they do like and what they don't like. And I think. I think that's pretty great. Really?

Yeah. I mean, people are having conversations. You know, when I think about marketing or publishing feminist fiction, people are having conversations about all sorts of things. Like, we talked a minute ago about characters, and I Think characters are really important and people identify with characters and they want to talk about the characters and they want to ship different characters than you've put in a relationship. You know, moving, moving and grooving with the characters to make new relationships and cross genre and cross book relationships. You know, shipping those people. I don't know. I guess you could ship a real person with a fictional person. People are probably writing fan fiction about that as we speak.

Yeah, for sure.

But I think people are having conversations about all sorts of things. So, like, you can find elaborate social media conversations about book covers, about what you should put on the book cover, like real women versus graphics, what kind of colors, what kind of shapes, what kind of font, you know, what quote unquote appeals to women, or more specifically, what signifies on a book cover that this is something that they might want to read. Like, this is about a strong woman.

Any images come to mind, Any specific book covers that you've liked or disliked?

I have a friend who writes the bodice ripper type novels, and that is another formula along with the Regency romance. And there have been lots of jokes made about the shirtless guy in the on the COVID of romance novel. So that is something that maybe has gone too far, you know, like, once you see that, you're almost expecting it to be either too stereotypical or maybe funny. You know, if they've done it for laughs.

Yeah. The funny thing about the torso is the trend in the past couple years of cutting the guy's head off. So he's just like, you know what I mean? It's just from the. It's just from the neck down, and he doesn't have a head or a face anymore.

Well, you could get more flexible, you know, thinking about race and gender and religion and ethnicity. I mean, maybe the torso has a particular color to it, but, you know, there are really good conversations. People are having really interesting conversations about whether the author has to match the protagonist on issues of gender, race, religion, ethnicity. You know, can women write men and vice versa? You know, I think men get a little bit too much of a pat on the back for writing good female characters. Like, good for you. You wrote a good female character, whereas women have been writing male characters for a very long time. You know, it's. They're not like, they don't usually get quite the same pat on the back. Like, oh, you wrote a boy character. You know, that was amazing how you did that. And men, you know, it's like men getting extra credit for quote unquote, babysitting their Own children.

What kind of COVID trends do you think are going to be? The ones that disappear quickly.

I mean, the pink cover, you know, that's almost as funny as the headless torso.

The headless torso guy's been around for a while.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think book covers are still important. They're still important. They're still a visual online as well as in person. I mean, when you're in person in a bookstore, you can better judge like the length of a book, how, you know, how heavy it is, the length of chapters, the weight of the book. Those sort of factors are more difficult to see online. But the COVID is so important because it is a graphic and you do see, even if it's a tiny thumbnail. I guess if you're asking about trends, I would think if you're looking at a lot of online sales and you've got a very elaborately detailed cover, like a whole city scene with a bunch of people in it, and then you're looking at a thumbnail online, that might be difficult. So I guess if I could pinpoint one trend, I would say make sure it works as a thumbnail.

Right. I think that that's unfortunate because some of those older covers that used to be on all books had a lot of detail in them that. And as you're saying, they don't translate to an online view. So, like, when they make the book covers, they have to keep that in mind, which is kind of unfortunate. It does limit, you know.

Yeah. Like one word titles. Right. Think about how you can't put like a billion words on a thumbnail image of a book cover.

Right.

If someone's trying to come up with a new pen name, they're like, make it short so it'll fit on. Yeah. It's interesting to think about the way that the romance industry has been affected by Kindles. E Readers versus paperback, as you're saying, because when you go in the bookstore, you can pick up a big book, you can look at it, you'll know how long it is. You can get an idea of what kind of experience you're going to be getting with an ebook. It's different.

Yeah. And think about, with a Kindle, how that's opened up privacy for people. The old joke about reading Fifty Shades of Grey, which is, by the way, a modern version of a Regency romance in a big way. People reading it on the subway with a fake cover on it covered with wrapping paper so you can't see what people are reading. Having a Kindle or reading something on your laptop or Your phone really makes it a lot more flexible. You can read anything and not worry about other people judging you.

Something people are often surprised to hear is that often authors don't have any control over what goes on the COVID They might have some control, but typically the person that makes the COVID design may not have even read the book. They may have show, they just read a description of it. And so the COVID shows up in the author's inbox and there it is and surprise, there's your cover. And all you really, if you're new, all you can really do is say thank you. I love it.

Right? It's beautiful. I love it.

Yeah. Obviously indie published authors get to design their own cover and so they have complete control. So that's a big difference in the industry.

And now I'm working on one word titles and very stark cover images for the novel that I'm working on now. I also think about timing, not only privacy and reading electronically, but also time and place for where and when do women buy books? I was at a winery and it was a Klein winery in Sonoma in California. And Emma Klein is a really well known writer and there was her book for sale next to the wine and you know, maybe in the Target while you're shopping for beach toys for your kids or in the grocery store, a daycare drop off. You know, all these places where women are in droves. And I think it's kind of like the videos that they're now showing on the back of airplane seats and in elevators where they have a captive audience. I've been thinking creatively about like, where would I sell a book that I wanted women to read? And it might not be just in the regular bookstore or on, you know, the regular bookshop or Amazon online. I might think creatively about where I wanted to put the book so women could actually get a hold of it.

It's interesting to think about because I think you have a really good point that books are often located in what seem like odd places. Like this isn't the book area. But they know that women readers are everywhere and we, we see something we like and a lot of readers are very dedicated. You know, when you think about the romance industry or feminist fiction, what is it that you think that people often misunderstand or need to know, but they don't.

I think, and I hinted at this earlier, the idea that in order to write something feminist that it can't be romantic or that it has to be super realistic. I think, you know, Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale is obviously a great example of feminist fiction. And the Power by Naomi Alderman is kind of the newer version of that. The Power being a super title right under the theories that we're just talking about. The idea that teenage girls could have, like the ability to electrocute men who are harassing them. That would be great. You know, all of these fantasy, like the Women who Could Fly by Megan Giddings, where witches are real. Not just fantasy, but witches are real historical fiction like the Red Tent by Anita Damont and Color Purple by Alice Walker. I mean, so you can have historical fiction, you can have fantasy, you can have sci fi, you can have just about film noir or crime fiction mysteries. You can write, I think any genre, you know, and I challenge your listeners to give it a shot, you know, if they think it, oh, this is too far fetched. I can't write a feminist tale or romantic tale within this other genre. I mean, I'm writing right now. My novel is both romantic and sci fi. Not sci fi like hard sci fi. But the book is mostly set in the future. You know, it's about a young woman who starts off in the present day in her twenties, and lives her life into the knowable future. And there's sci fi in the sense that it's in the future. And clifi, which is a cool abbreviation for climate change fiction, which is also a really popular growing genre. If people are looking to get into sof apocalypse or climate change fiction, I think there's room to grow in that area as far as publishing is concerned. And so I guess the thing that the stereotype or the misconception that people have about feminist fiction is that it can't reach into other genres. And I definitely think it can.

I'm wondering about your thoughts on the publishing gatekeeping. I have a lot of friends that write romance, popular romance fiction, and written some of it myself, and find that sometimes if you've written what you know, you believe to be a feminist perspective, that sometimes it is not as easily accepted by the publishing community. In other words, editors will pass on it because they say that the heroine is unlikable or it's unrealistic or that people wouldn't like it. So there seems to be a little tension between what editors can or will accept for publication and what people are actually writing. Have you seen any of that or have any thoughts about that?

You know, people have been writing feminist and romantic fiction on the sly for quite some time. You know, back to reaching all the way back to like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, right. That doesn't seem feminist or romantic when you first read it, but it certainly is. It's certainly based on her own sad, you know, romantic and tragic life with her love and her, you know, children and that sort of thing. But people say, oh, it's a horror or it's a horror genre or it's a monster genre and boy, was that popular, right? So I think maybe, although I would love to advise people to be really straightforward and stomp around and say, this is a feminist book and that's the way it is, I think there's some advantage to, as the poets say, write it slant right, slant rhyme or a slant theme where it's not maybe the most obvious feminist story of all time, but it's in there, you know,

how do you feel about that, that that's the way that it is? Does that frustrate you? Or you're like, nah, it's fine.

Maybe it's, you know, maybe it's a creative prompt, right? Maybe it's a writing prompt to write something that's feminist that someone who's anti feminist would not object to. I hope that's not our political future. But as you mentioned, it might be somewhat of an issue with present day publishing that they're still stuck on some of the stereotypes that we've had in the past and that in that sense you might have to be a little more creative.

It may also be that some publishing communities are unaware of the changes that readers themselves have gone through and that readers do want these different kinds of stories. So maybe they aren't really fully aware of that yet.

I mean, maybe the publishing industry is more female statistically than a lot of other industries. It's not like you're trying to write something in the energy and gas industry, technical writing. So we do have that going for us. But maybe they're a little older and a little whiter than the readers or even the writers. So that might be an issue that trends happen when they notice when not just the writers and the readers change, but the gatekeepers turn over into a new generation as well.

Is there anything in particular that you can think of that you'd like to see change in the future?

Just really the narrow funnel of publishing? I think things have, have opened up quite a lot. I mean, you think about film media in general has opened up a lot. Think about how many, how much easier it is now to make a short film or to write a story and maybe put it up on your blog as opposed to waiting for a publisher and a particular Format. So there's so many more formats available than there used to be. But there is still sort of a narrow tunnel to getting into traditional publishing. I mean, there's, there's print on demand and that's helpful too. But for traditional publishing, I would just like to see people take a few more chances and to have it be a little bit more of a risky business. There are small publishers who are not doing well right now and could use a little funding. So I guess the one financial move that I think would help is more government funding of the arts. That would be amazing.

I hear that. Let's talk a little bit about your manuscript. So you're working on finishing it up and then what are your plans for getting it out into the world?

Yeah, I mean, my goal was I'm in my fourth semester of four semesters at Pacific University in the MFA in fiction. It's a low residency mfa. It's been pretty cool so far. I went into it being a published author in a number of categories, a lot of academic writing from my history as a professor and policy. Right. You know, non fiction policy writing. And then I had poetry and short stories and essays published, but I really hadn't written a novel in any, you know, completed sort of format. And so Now I've got 100,000 words. That seems like a novel.

It does.

And I've got, I've got to polish it. So work with my thesis advisor over the next couple months and see what I can do to polish it. And then I will, I guess, at least try a traditional publishing methodology of reaching out to an agent and a publisher and see how that goes. I mean, the novel has lots of fun things in it. Even though it is, it does deal with the future and the possibility of technology change and climate change. There's a really adventuresome protagonist who has lots of love affairs and does amazing things with art. So, you know, there are fun things to read in as well. I'm trying to write a beach read slash great American novel. We'll see how that goes.

So you see yourself making an agent list and doing the query letter thing?

Yeah, at least to try. I mean, I have the same attitude towards that as I did to the mfa where I was like, oh, well, I'll apply to one MFA program and see how that works. That's not what I would advise undergraduate students to do. I'd advise them to really research a lot of different programs and apply to a bunch of them. But yeah, I will at least try different publishing methodologies, including some of the more traditional ways to go.

Yeah. All right, that sounds great. So if people would like to stay in touch with you and watch for this book when it comes out, they can find you on your website.

Right?

So you can.

Yeah, it's just jillbromfman.com and J I L L B R O N F M A n dot com. It's not easy. I know. Maybe I need a pen name. And I'm on. I'm really easy to find on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Okay, cool. We'll put those links in the show notes. And if you do pick a pen name, you better pick a short one. Right. So it'll fit on the COVID and. And use one that starts with the letter A because then you'll be at the front of the. The bookshelf.

Oh, wow.

You are so good. Totally doing that.

All right. That's awesome. Well, thanks a lot for coming back and talking with us some more. It was great.

Yeah, it was fun. Thank you.

Thanks for stopping by the audio Town Square of the Washington Square Review until next time, this has been the Washington Square on Air from Lansing Community College. To find out more about our writers, community and literary journal, visit lcc. Edu WSL Writing is messy, but do it anyway.

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Voices, Vibes, Vision

Lansing Community College Performing Arts presents 1984 by George Orwell Adapted for the stage by Nick Hearn. Winston Smith has been imprisoned for committing thought crimes against Big Brother. As part of his RE education, he is forced to relive key moments from his past, reenacting his mistakes alongside other thought criminals so that all may learn from his failure, especially his greatest crime of all, falling in love with Julia. George Orwell's 1984 remains a powerful and chilling vision of life under totalitarianism, set against a world of surveillance, control and fear. Featured in LCC's Dart Auditorium April 10th through the 12th and April 17th and 18th. All performances are free to attend. Visit LCC.edushowinfo for showtime details.

This has been a presentation of LCC Connect, a weekly program that features the voices, Vibes and vision of Lansing Community College. All shows featured on LCC Connect are recorded at the WLNZ studio located on LCC's downtown campus. Each program is podcast based and can be heard anytime@lccconnect.org if you or someone you know would like to be a guest on one of our shows, connect with us by emailing LCC Connect at lcc.

Eduardo.