7 Days and Counting … Alum Thad Ziolkowski
The summer has flown by, like it always does. As I arrived at the office this morning, I saw students wearing bright yellow “Volunteer Movers” t-shirts, and I noticed a bit more traffic in the Academic Center elevators. (One benefit of summer: press “7” and you get an uninterrupted ride to the English Department.) Personally, the big news in my life is the gradual disappearance of the old 22nd Street parking garage and the long-awaited opening of the Whole Foods on the former Square 54 site. Can you say salad bar? And did I mention it is approximately 37,000 square feet?
Although blog activity has been quiet in August, there’s lots of news to report. I’ll be counting down the days until the first day of the fall semester with tidbits that have been accumulating on my desk since July.
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| GW alum Thad Ziolkowski’s notable 2002 memoir |
First up: News about Thad Ziolkowski, one of our English major alums. A faculty brat–his father, John Ziokowski, used to teach Classics at GW–Thad wrote and published poems, got a PhD in English at Yale, and now runs the creative writing program at Pratt Institute, where he is Professor of Humanities and Media Studies. Thad’s excellent memoir, On a Wave, about his childhood (which included learning to surf in Florida and going to high school in Wichita) was noted in The New Yorker and was a finalist for the PEN/Martha Albrand Award in 2003.
A 2008-09 Guggenheim Fellow, Thad has a new novel, Witchita, forthcoming in 2012 from Tonga Books, a new imprint of Europa Editions. The book will be published in Italian, UK, and US editions.
