Rocco Versaci's Blog

GOTV

“Who you looking for?”
I turned from the door I had just knocked on. Parked at the curb in front of the house was a pickup truck, and sitting in the passenger seat was a young African-American guy. I told him the name of the woman that was on my sheet.
“She’s at work.”
“You know if she’s planning to vote?”
“Nah, I don’t think so.”
I left a couple of doorhangers on the knob and walked toward the truck. “How about you,” I asked. “Are you going to vote?”
“Nah.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t seem to change much.”
Thi...

'Tis the Season

Well, it’s that time of year again—the festive lights shine bright, the holiday music pumps out over every available sound system, and a familiar early-December refrain greets my ears on at least a twice-daily basis.
“I really need to pass this class.”
With final exams and the end of the semester bearing down on them, many of my students are now in full-on panic mode. The Reckoning is here, and all the missed classes, botched quizzes, and didn’t-bother-to-do-the-readings are knocking at their d...

In Memoriam

How do we handle loss? We’ve all felt it ourselves, or stood next to it, or watched it unravel the lives of strangers. But what do we do with it? Where do we put it?
In two of my classes this semester, we’re reading Amy Waldman’s 2011 novel, The Submission, a book that examines the depths of loss and the tensions that arise in attempting to acknowledge and contain it. The setup for the book is pretty simple: it’s two years after 9/11, and a committee has been formed to select a winner for a na...

Nachoman Is Not Yo Man

“‘What was the barn like before it was photographed?’ he said. ‘What did it look like, how was it different from other barns, how was it similar to other barns? We can’t answer these questions because we’ve read the signs, seen the people snapping the pictures. We can’t get outside the aura. We’re part of the aura. We’re here, we’re now.’”                          &nbsp...

Looking Ahead

I always feel a kind of heaviness at the end of the fall semester. Every year as it winds down, and as my students work diligently (I hope) on their final papers, projects, and revisions, I can't ignore the fact that it's the end of another year as well. With its shorter days and chillier air, December provokes sobering reflection on the previous months, and--like usual--I have very mixed feelings about this particular year. On the one hand, it brought some incredible joy--the publication of...

Like Free Stuff?

I'm running a giveaway for my new book, "That Hidden Road: A Memoir." If you'd like a chance to win one of five signed copies, please follow the link below. It's easy to do and, hey, free stuff!

https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sh...

Good luck!

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You

Well, it’s almost here. In less than three months, on October 1st, my second book—That Hidden Road: A Memoir—will be released. It’s the story of a lot of things (and I’ve excerpted parts of it on this blog), but the framing narrative is the two months that I spent crossing the U.S. on my bicycle. Incidentally, if you’re interested, you can read the first chapter ON MY WEBSITE and preorder the book HERE.It’s hard to put into words what it’s like to hold an actual copy of this book; for me, dou...

RIP, Darling

"In writing, you must kill your darlings."--William Faulkner

             I've been working on the final revisions to That Hidden Road, which are due to my publisher by February 1st. This deadline, of course, is not the hard part. The hard part is following Faulkner's sage advice to cut those words, sentences, scenes, and chapters of our writing that we may have great affection for but that don't serve the needs of the story. Thus, I present to you one o...

Good News!

Just a quick update that I'm making in part because I have timely news to share and in part because it's been over a month since my last post.

So, the news. I received word just before Thanksgiving that my memoir, That Hidden Road, was accepted for publication by Apprentice House Press, and the fact of all this is still sinking in. AH is a small press that's affiliated with Loyola University in Maryland, and it's a great fit for two main reasons.

First, in the editors' wish list were "trav...

#AmWriting, #AmReading

“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut.”
                                                               --Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft


This is a different kind of post—one that is much m...