“Friday Night Lights owed part of that popularity to its local flavor, which included a careful examination of Odessa’s racism. ([Buzz] Bissinger had to cancel his reading at the town’s B. Dalton after locals called and threatened ‘bodily harm.’) More than anything, though, the book told a story that seemed powerfully symbolic. Odessa mattered, as Bissinger put it in his preface, ‘not because it was a Texas town, but an American one.’ Today, that story - troubled town, precarious season, political resonance - has congealed into a narrative that sports books must follow. The latest is Keith O’Brien’s Outside Shot: Big Dreams, Hard Times, and One County’s Quest for Basketball Greatness. It’s a solid book, but also one that falters under the legacy of Friday Night Lights.”
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“Friday Night Lights owed part of that popularity to its local flavor, which included a careful examination of Odessa’s racism. ([Buzz] Bissinger had to cancel his reading at the town’s B. Dalton after locals called and threatened ‘bodily harm.’) More than anything, though, the book told a story that seemed powerfully symbolic. Odessa mattered, as Bissinger put it in his preface, ‘not because it was a Texas town, but an American one.’

Today, that story - troubled town, precarious season, political resonance - has congealed into a narrative that sports books must follow. The latest is Keith O’Brien’s Outside Shot: Big Dreams, Hard Times, and One County’s Quest for Basketball Greatness. It’s a solid book, but also one that falters under the legacy of Friday Night Lights.”

“I am unable to offer an absolute solution to this institutionalized, national problem. But I have, and will continue to, make a suggestion to the graduates of MFA programs who often enter these adjunct positions as perceived full-time employment. Before you join a dismal system where you might teach an overloaded schedule on multiple campuses and still earn less than $30,000 a year, pause for a moment. You have other options. Continue to fight your good fight, and bring this academic sharecropping, as some have called it, to public attention. But consider another career. Teach high school. It works for me.” - Got an MFA? Teach High School by Nick Ripatrazone
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“I am unable to offer an absolute solution to this institutionalized, national problem. But I have, and will continue to, make a suggestion to the graduates of MFA programs who often enter these adjunct positions as perceived full-time employment. Before you join a dismal system where you might teach an overloaded schedule on multiple campuses and still earn less than $30,000 a year, pause for a moment. You have other options. Continue to fight your good fight, and bring this academic sharecropping, as some have called it, to public attention. But consider another career. Teach high school. It works for me.”

- Got an MFA? Teach High School by Nick Ripatrazone

“Teaching high school reminds you that instruction requires empathy. Awareness of audience is essential. So is a sense of humor: the bullshit detectors of teenagers, confronted with a pretentious ‘emerging’ writer, will drown the room.” - Got an MFA? Teach High School by Nick Ripatrazone [Image via Julie Zahn]
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“Teaching high school reminds you that instruction requires empathy. Awareness of audience is essential. So is a sense of humor: the bullshit detectors of teenagers, confronted with a pretentious ‘emerging’ writer, will drown the room.”

- Got an MFA? Teach High School by Nick Ripatrazone

[Image via Julie Zahn]