CSU Summer Arts

Hi everyone! I was recently accepted to the CSU Summer Arts Hybrid Poetics and Narratives course. This class counts toward the Master's program I'm starting this Fall (cool!). It also combines everything I've always loved about writing and art into a single narrative project; basically, I'll be living at the CSU Fresno campus for a couple weeks this summer, feverishly learning how to make my dreams come to life in book-form.

Due to financial hardship, I earned a partial scholarship for the program, but I'm still $1400 short, and if I can't raise the funds within the next month, I'll have to drop the course.

I'm pursuing the MA in creative writing because, ultimately, I want to use my skills to help my community. I want to become a teacher, so that I can help people learn to think critically and express themselves powerfully. I believe representation matters, and that artistic expression can be a useful tool for real-world progress.

I'm an active member of the Sacramento creative community. You might have seen me at any number of local makers' fairs, working the Odd Petals tent. I also co-manage (and occasionally participate in) Free Art Friday Sacramento , a platform for promoting local art. I write for Reductress, IGN, and when I'm lucky, people sometimes publish my short fiction. I've also been known to write and perform music from time to time. 

I'm telling you all this so you'll get an idea of the kind of work I aim to do for you and others in the community. By helping me afford this course, you're helping me become a better contributor to the world around me (this probably includes you!), and, more practically speaking, you're getting me waaaay closer to graduation and a teaching career (if I attend Summer Arts again next summer, I could complete the MA program by Fall 2018!)

If you have any questions about the rewards, please let me know here! For example, the very rough mock-ups of the t-shirts shown here are terrible, because I just made them. Before too long, I'll be able to show you real-life examples, and tell you a little more about the fit, fabric, etc. (everything will be printed by Odd Petals). Some of this stuff will take a little longer to get to you (especially the original, limited quantity stuff), so I'm asking that you give me until the end of the summer to complete some of the trickier projects (particularly since, if all goes well, I'll be very busy with the CSU Summer Arts program at the end of June!)

Also, be sure to specify which rewards options you've selected in a private message or public comment, since I'm bad at technology and can't tell otherwise :)

Finally, thanks for reading this far!