For part of my experience as an MFA student at Ashland University, I have become a first reader at River Teeth. The staff provides us samples of submitted material, we read and vote yes, no or maybe and provide a reason or not.

The easy "no's" have been the grammar challenged entries, with openings that aren't effective or with sentences that are hard to understand.

The others, I say no to, usually lack "story" -- the sense that there is a start, an end, and progression for the narrator from one point to the next. 

It's a rather non-gratifying experience--I never know if I am failing to provide value or not. But it is a learning experience since I am seeing a larger collection of writing than I am used to.  And aha, my subscription to River Teeth arrived not long ago, and I had the chance to read through today, not just the better examples of essays, but those narrowed down to the few that actually made print. Was their luck involved for the authors? Did they have a special flair with words? Did a gnarly voice grab my attention? Were they on someone's bump to the top list? Just what was involved in these final pieces that made them leap ahead?

The first thing I noticed in pretty much all of the stories I read, was complexity of thought, feeling, situation within the story. These were not flash fiction, a tale hinting of something changed but fully fleshed. Most of the stories ran several pages and the authors needed all of the pages to tell the tale.  There was no, just this one moment with this sweet kiss, type of tales. The narrator worked to make sense of connected events. These were all tales with mature writing.

One never doubted the narrator. This was the narrator's tale from  beginning to end.

Some used artistic styling--subtitles, or time stamping, to pull the story together, but these were not necessarily required although they added to content rather than subtracted.

Many used snatches of memory from their entire experience, grabbing those that made the most connections.

Most used situations that I had never encountered in my life:
-- the student at a remote campus working on their degree-- "In Other Words" by C. Levison McGuire
-- the writer visiting a person dying who didn't have family or other connections, "Susan Cox is No Longer Here" by Justin Heckert
-- the daughter whose mother took photos of her then left in a divorce, "Evidence" by Jennifer Lunden
-- the active woman suddenly incapacitated, Jan Shoemaker

This is perhaps why creative nonfiction offers value to others--it allows them a peek into the humanity of other lives.

Some things I reject in my own writing are those that want to capture me entirely as a human person; instead I rely on the situational experience in all its complexity. Simplifying down to one strand in a web of day to day life is not easy to do. It means creative nonfiction is all about selecting events that are important and knowing how they connect through choice to a shift in view--the essence of storytelling.

In addition to reading the required books for my MFA coursework at Ashland University, I am reading a number of books that help establish a modern view of the community services systems that affect family life, especially those dealing with drug use and mental illness. I'm selecting memoirs and explanatory texts that explain the system as we know it, or learn it as the case may be.

The community services we dealt with as a result of my brother's mental illness and some of the resources I'm looking at include:

• the schools -- Behavioral Interventions in Schools by 
• the courts
• the police -- Community Policing by Miller, Hess, Orthmann
• the mental health counselors
• the medical community
• the drug rehabilitation centers -- Alcoholism by Ann Manzaro
• the Child Protection Services
• food banks
• Catholic church
• the social security administration
• the child ad litem representative system
• the prisons
• welfare system
• lawyers
• foster parent system --  To the End of June by Chris Beam

While handling my brother's issues, we were basically clueless how all of this worked and pretty much did what we were told to do while trying to make decisions about how to best proceed. Now that most issues have been dealt with, although many linger on, I'd like to get an idea about what works better now compared to what we dealt with at the time.

In my class on Exploring the Universe we are examining the theory of the Big Bang using Bang! The Complete History of the Universe by Brian May, Patrick Moore, and Chris Lintott. The National Geographic Society Series on the Birth of the Universe has some fantastic visuals to help understand what is going on.

The evidence that supports the Big Bang Theory includes sensor and telescope observations, measurements using the observations, atomic experimental data, mathematical and systems models.

Gravity and Special Relativity

Einstein's Special Relativity Theory and the related effect on Newton's explanation of gravity led in 1922 to a theoretical study of the cosmological implications by Alexandr Friedmann [2, 704]. Friedmann's study modeled the density of the universe as a uniform distribution of galaxies on a large scale based on a 'pressureless fluid' or dust. [2, 717]. 

Numerous experiments have collected values for gravity and for the speed of light required for the model. Once a model was proposed, collected data was tested its accuracy.

Isomorphic and Homogenous

Several projects documented that the universe was isomorphic and homogenous including the data collected by the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) of background radiation[1, 456-459], WMAP[11], and BOOMERANG[14] at 2.73K.

Age of the Universe

When astronomers take pictures of the universe at different times, they are able to calculate the likely distance/age of the objects including:
* 300,000 years after the Big Bang the Universe became transparent [1, 420-422].
* WMAP provided the timing of epoch when the first stars began to shine; about 400 million years after the Big Bang [11].
* NASA's Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes spotted a universe about 650 million years after the Big Bang known as Abell2744 Y1[13]
* Observations by WMAP of distant quasars explain that the first stars 30-300 times larger than our sun exploded as supernovae when the Universe was almost a billion years old[11].

Other dates use artifacts found on Earth and via a number of sampling missions within the solar system including:
* Earth’s age is dated by a meteorite as 4.53-4.58 billion years old[16]
* Moon’s age is dated by Moon rocks tungsten decay to hafnium at 4.527 billion years old[15]
* Chondrites are made up of varying types of elements that establish likely regions i.e. interplanetary, interstellar[] with the implication of likely distance. 
These dates are used to help validate the model is consistent according to age.

Atomic Studies

The studies of proton decay and element ignition using  particle accelerators provided the model for nucleosynthesis which explains how the different elements are produced by the stars[8, 45]. An estimate of hydrogen atoms versus helium atoms calculated from diffraction studies show a 10 hydrogen:1 helium as predicted by the Big Bang theory. [1, 367-369].

Tests of the Big Bang Model using photographs of the universe, calculations for distance/time, predicted effects like gravity lenses, continue with new telescopes like the NASA James Webb Space Telescope.

[1] Brian May, Patrick Moore, Chris Lintott, "Bang! The Complete History of the Universe", Carlton Books, 2009, [Note: all references refer to Kindle Locations instead of pages]
[2] Roger Penrose, "The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe", Vintage Books, 2004
[8] Armand Delsemme , "Our Cosmic Origins: From the Big Bang to the Emergence of Life and Intelligence", Cambridge University Press, 1998
[11] http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/news/
[13] http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/news/1612-feature14-03-Looking-Back-to-the-Cradle-of-Our-Universe
[14] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BOOMERanG_experiment
[15] http://www.universetoday.com/19599/age-of-the-moon/
[16]http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/geotime/age.html

A fun historical juxtaposition is the recent edition of the Tao Te Ching sold as divination cards in the United States [4] brought about perhaps by the archaeological finds of 2000+ year old divinations on burned turtle shells[3]. Humans still worry about their choices and place in society; writers about their poetry or stories.

Less humorous is the worldview offered up in the Tao Te Ching, i.e. that the world is made up of rulers, sages, and the everyday human being should be kept empty-minded and well fed. Although a classic, the Tao Te Ching is one of those documents that fell out of favor during the Cultural Revolution with the Communists. However, the Chinese still hold on to that same idea i.e. most Chinese lack the right to free speech or to vote [5].

The Tao Te Ching or Book of Changes, is most noted as an anthology of wisdom that developed since before their earliest empire[2;3].

The use of divination in society reveals a society uncertain about its future and shows how much leaders relied on advice from history texts, experience and from sages. Why the uncertainty? The region in which the Zhou Empire arose is still subject to flooding, earthquakes and troubled crops and continual warfare from the borders China shares with many countries.   

By the time of the Lao Tzu version of the Tao Te Ching, a codified set of wisdom presented the wise way a ruler should rule instead of the need for individual oracles for every decision[1]. In reading the Tao Te Ching and considering it standalone, one can tell many things about the culture.

Before the first Chinese Empire, the Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu was well established. Sages knew that knowledge is not a construct of society—the desire to escape endless talk [1,22], artifice of language[1, 20], and to observe nature is present throughout many of the chapters. Life centered around a city, homes had doors with locks against thieves [1,27] and persons worried about their reputation[1,17;1,22]. The ruler of the empire [1,15] had many chariots and warriors (10,000) and traveled with baggage in wagons[1,26] to see events like the Great Sacrifice or the Spring Festival [1,20]. Sages could be free of all society, but still subject to a ruler’s will. They believed that to do little to make society run in an ordered, seamless fashion, a ruler must plan for potential events. War, and the breakdown of society was the worst event and a ruler should oppose conquest [1,30].

The translation notes explain how the original language adds cultural knowledge, i.e. the idea of a child giving a sign of future jobs [1, 20]

As poetry, the Tao Te Ching works because of repetition of words to connect thought [1,1; 1,4]  and phrases to establish rhythm [1, 22]. Many chapters rely on extended metaphor to present the timelessness of nature, the place of humans [1,8;1,23] or to evoke imagery [1,8].   Some of the chapters are presented in prose poem form[1,23]. Others evoke the physical and emotional reactions of the sage i.e. “concentrate breath soft like a child”[1,10] or knowledge of stance[1,24].

When author and poet Tony Hoagland discusses the lack of metaphor among well-known literary figures[6], it seems especially remarkable to find beautiful extended metaphors in the Tao Te Ching. 

For some, the theme of the Tao Te Ching is the timelessness and eternity of the world outside of humans and their society, for others, that humans will always be much smaller than anything they create or that human emotion is always of little importance. Many chapters of the Tao Te Ching present opposing forces including yin and yang and temperature [1,2]. An essential function of plot, pacing and good story revolves around conflict, many arising out of those same oppositions. The most successful plots often concern conflict arising between human vs. self, human vs. society, human vs. government, and human vs. environment. 

Overall, because of the 64 combinations of natural forces (i.e. water, heaven, earth) used in divinations, an author could use them to plan their story or poem, quote from them or use the Tao Te Ching to gain insight into likely outcomes. Or an author could follow a character through a path to warfare or love. Or the Tao Te Ching could offer a better understanding of the changing and unchanging nature of Chinese culture or nature. This is why the Tao Te Ching is a usable classic piece of literature, today.

[1] Lao Tzu, ed. Tom Griffith, Tao Te Ching, Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1997*

[2] Lao Tzu, ed. Arthur Waley, The Way and Its Power, Grove Press, 1958

[3] Michael Nylan, “The Five Confucian Classics”, Yale University Press, 2001

[4] Oliver Perrottet, “The Visual I Ching”, Charles Tuttle Co., Inc, 1997

[5] Constitution of the Chinese Government, 2012

[6] Tony Hoagland, “Real Sophistikashun”, Graywolf Press, 2006

Title :                The Last Days of Old Beijing

Author :            Michael Meyer

Publisher:          Walker & Company, Inc.
                        www.walkerbooks.com                                                                                 ISBN:              978-0-8027-1652-1

Many visitors are offered the opportunity to visit a Hutong (lanes) on their trip to China when they visit the city of Beijing. This book written by a 1995 Peace Corp volunteer that chose to remain and teach students English while he lived in a Hutong in Beijing, captures the spirit of the times during the transition to modern housing. In addition, Michael Meyer provides historical background about the creation of the Hutong’s and the difficult process by which they were torn down.

One point the author makes is shown by the photo taken in a Beijing, China hutong is that many people lost their sense of community when they were forced to move into the modern apartments.

This memoir helps explain how many of the inhabitants in Beijing came to the city from surrounding areas in order to make their living. Some were farmers who became restaurant owners. Some were truck drivers. While one by one, Michael Meyer recalls his friendship with many of the residents during his stay in China, the reader begins to have a better understanding of Chinese life before the rise to Communism and in current times.

For people in America that have faced urban renewal or will face, the tale of how neighborhoods were selected for razing, how they were paid, and how they felt about moving can be one that forms a connection between experiences. Change is difficult for many people, who many times lose the sense of who they were when everything around them changes. The tale is one of both a good life in the hutong, one of difficulties encountered in living in the area, and one of the good and bad aspects of modern apartment life. It is also a tale of greed.

This photograph shows one of the small businesses in a hutong in Bejing, China, where the groceries were sold indoors and out and purchased locally by families.

The tales of student life also help show how students learned English and how their English lessons compared to their Chinese lessons and to American textbooks. This memoir also deals with subject like how Communist Party members saw the future, how teachers gained their license, how medics dealt with birth control, and how people arrange for food, take showers, dealt with the police and many other situations that arrive out of day-to-day life.

Much of what one sees in a visit to a hutong on vacation is supplemented well by this book. In addition, many researched facts and data about costs of home ownership, investments in apartments and apartment communities and in private homes supports the personal experience Michael Meyer shares. Overall, many differences in how American live versus Chinese people live are highlighted in terms of how the government works, but at the same time, many similarities are also found. The Last Days of Old Beijing makes a very informative, enjoyable read.

Another point made by the author is how limited the space, including many families living together and how shared resources were offered in the hutong are shown in the photograph taken from our host's kitchen in Beijing, China.

My eldest sister and next younger sister both went into the Army because they wanted to learn about nursing and other medical practices. My eldest sister wanted to be a nurse, but ended up studying to be a helicopter repairman. The up side of the deal was she met her husband who is retired from the Army now and also had two years of college paid by the services.  Her son went into the Air Force and learned EMT training afterwards and wants to continue on as a Nurse with special training in anaesthesiology.

My next younger sister went into the Army because she wanted to be a brain surgeon and she received training as an EMT with special background in psychiatric care. She did most of her service in the reserves. 

My dad was in the Army, stationed in Alaska during the Korean War, but never actually served in the war. 

Several of my uncles served in the army in Vietnam, one driving a truck.

My husband's cousin's husband is also in the Army Special Forces and his wife while they both served. 

While I've never been in there service, I've heard their stories about training and watched their behavior change after going into Basic Training etc. I've been on Base at several places. 

I started my study of Army practices with a number of field guides:
a) Strategic Intelligence
b) Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape
c) Human Intelligence Collector Operations
d) Winter Survival Course Handbook
e) US Army Counterintelligence
f) A Tradecraft Primer
g) Urban Operations
h) Army Field Manual

So what kinds of things do I expect to learn from mere books:
a) names of standard weapons and how they operate and their limits
b) how we defend ourselves via the armed forces
c) what we like to learn about other Armed Forces
d) how a soldier thinks in critical situations

Some other resources I've used in the past include websites to the command structure of the Armed Forces especially post Homeland Security and the titles of officers. Sites that cover the uniforms worn by soldiers of various Armed Forces.  What to do in case of biological warfare attack. 

Most of what I put together can be reviewed by real soldiers for accuracy but getting the basics down early helps create the sense of believability in a story. What I usually hope to write based on this kind of knowledge is the essence rather than the fact of army life. Most books that really go to the heart of soldier life are written by soldiers or news men that served time in the Armed Forces--most of my stories are about other topics and I only need to give enough accuracy that the supporting officers appear to be real.

I went back to my old history book "A History of the Modern World" by R.R. Palmer and Joel Colton as well as "China's Struggle to Modernize" by Michael Gasster because of the threats arising out of North Korea. The questions everyone seems to ask include:

1) Why isn't China doing anything about N. Korea? Here, the answer seem to arise out of the post World War II division of Korea into northern Russian controlled Korea and southern American controlled Korea. During the Korean War, N. Korea seemed to decide on their own to attack S. Korea, invading while Russia was abstaining from the UN Security Council meeting with the result the US was able to declare N. Korea had taken aggressive action against their neighbor and invade in force. China joined into that battle, forcing American and South Korean forces back to slightly North of the original border between the two. So the reason China often stays mum, seems to be that they don't want to intercede between power plays by either Russia or the United States as represented by their supported side of Korea. Korea had historically split between the Northern part and Southern part for the beginning stages of their country, so merging the two countries doesn't seem to offer any good benefit, both have access to harbors and relationships with the major powers.

2) Why is China a trading partner with N. Korea? N. Korea doesn't have any other trading partner, for one. For another, it minimizes Russian influence over Chinese territory. For another, it minimizes American influence over Chinese territory i.e. the border between China and N. Korea. Also, immigrants from N. Korea tend to head into China and China has their own population problems without additional people.

3) Why is Kim Jong Un so paranoid? Probably because he feels pressure from Japan, China, S. Korea, Russia and the United States. During the Japanese invasion of China, Korea was the entry point, suffering many lives lost and enslaved. 

4) Could Kim Jong Un  take a friendlier stance? Probably. Without the direct friendship of one of the three big powers, trade is limited. It begs the question, though, why not play the big powers off seeking concessions and partnership from them all? Such a stance would be no riskier than where he is at.

5) Why the big fuss over nuclear power in North Korea?
Would North Korean nukes prevent them from being overrun? No.
Would North Korean nukes aid power supplies within the country? Yes.
Are their American, Russian and Chinese nukes near North Korea? Probably.
Would anyone gain from the use of nukes in this area? Nope. The extensive damage from nuclear radiation would flood the entire region and affect everyone.
I think the real issue is the cooperativeness of North Korea with their neighbors and the United Nations. Perhaps they should seek friends or just shut up.

6) Are North Korea and Japan just pawns in the bigger struggle between Russia, China and North Korea?
Probably. What's there to gain? Oil in the South China Sea, probable oil in the Yellow Sea.

Looking at "China's Struggle to Modernize" gave me a better idea of Chairman Mao and many of the development changes that occurred in the past.

It's been a while since I wrote any reviews and since I just moved to the Orlando area three years ago, I thought I'd take the challenge.  You, too can Take the Challenge. You can follow my progress here: