Discovery

“It’s one of the largest book fairs of its kind in the world,” says Peter Chilson, Associate Professor of English. He’s talking about the AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) Conference, held every year in February. This year, the AWP – with some 8,500 attendees – took up residence at the Hilton on Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Chilson was to read from his recent book, Disturbance Loving Species published by Houghton Mifflin [WSM review]. I went along to check out the Book Fair, particularly the 100s of literary journals displayed.

With 799 exhibitors, the Book Fair took up the entire lower floor of the hotel, and many of these spaces were rented by literary journals. Some of the big names in literary journals such as American Poetry Review, the Georgia Review, and New Letters can be found on the shelves of Barnes and Noble and Borders across the U.S.  but the largest proportion of literary magazines are more obscure such as the Straddler, Smokelong Quarterly, Forklift Ohio, Slack Buddha, and Duckabush Review. Slotted in between the independently run journals were those housed in institutions—Ninth Letter from the University of Illinois, Subtropics from The University of Florida, and Ecotone from the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. What I found exciting was the thought behind some of these, the personality. For example, a woman named Jennifer S. Flescher explains the idea behind her journal Tuesday; An Art Project like this:

I wanted to make a thing we could hold.

I am a photographer, a bookmaker, a poet.

It was a reaction to all of the (necessary and often fabulous) on-line work that is out there.

It had to do with unrest.

There is a postcard in every issue, I hope you’ll mail it. I wanted it to come with a stamp on it, but that would have been another thousand dollars…

Chilson had told me that going to the Book Fair is a one-of-a-kind experience because it’s one place “you get to talk with editors who are so willing to talk with writers. The other thing is a lot of these editors are themselves writers.” (more…)

Ever since white settlers overwhelmed the native population, about the only way you could call Washington’s population diverse is by distinguishing between Germans and Scandinavians. Even though the state enjoys a rich mix of Asian, Native, and white Americans, the non-white numbers have long been relatively low. By 1890, whites represented 97 percent of Washington’s recorded populace, and that number remained static for decades.

Now that mix has started to change. The white (not Hispanic) portion of Washington’s population has dropped below 80 percent for the first time since the mid-19th century.

Annabel Kirschner, a professor in the Department of Community and Rural Sociology and an extension specialist, has posted a draft version of “Increasing Diversity in Washington State 2000-2008,” the latest in a continuing series of demographic analyses of Washington state, now named Washington Counts in the 21st Century (http://www.crs.wsu.edu/outreach/index.html). (more…)

While working on my WSM story about memory research, I came across online versions of tests that are similar to those that Maureen Schmitter-Edgecombe used in her study of different aspects of memory. Maureen couldn’t give her tests to me directly, because she pays for their use and they are copyright-protected. But I wanted to see what they were like, so I Googled some of the tests mentioned in her most recent journal article and spent a happy hour trying them. Here are a couple of my favorites.

The trail-making test (PDF) resembles a connect-the-dots game. It looks like this:

Part A has numbers only, 1 through 25, which you connect in numerical order. The time it takes you to do that provides a baseline for the more challenging Part B, which has numbers 1 through 12 and letters A through L. Your task there is to connect the numbers in order and the letters in order, while alternating between numbers and letters; the line you draw will go 1-A-2-B-3-C and so on. This tests your ability to switch tasks while still doing each one correctly. It was an interesting sensation, feeling the switching going on in my brain as I did this.

To really feel the gears mashing, try the interactive tests at this site from the University of Washington (shout-out to the Huskies!). Each test presents your brain with contradictory information you sort out as quickly as you can. In the color/word interference test, you first read a list of color names. Each name appears in the color it describes; the word “red” is red, the word “blue” is blue, and so on. The site tells you how long that took. Then it gives you another screen, on which the names appear in other colors; the word “red” may be blue or green or yellow, for instance. In this case, your job is to say what color each word appears in, not what color it names. It’s surprisingly hard. Once again, you’re timed. There’s no penalty for stumbles, other than the time it takes you to correct yourself.

Another test starts with pictures of animals with the name of the animal superimposed on it. A penguin has the word “penguin” written across it, for instance. The next part of the test scrambles the pictures and names, so the penguin may have the word “tiger” written on it. Your job is to name the animal pictured, regardless what label it bears.

The site has more tests in the same interactive format. Don’t go there unless you have a few minutes to tarry!