Not very often do professors get to publicly share some of their body of work to their students. The annual Faculty and staff open mic allowed the staff of Arapahoe Community College this opportunity. The event was held on Feb. 12, 2020, in the library of the Littleton Campus, it was hosted by Andrea Mason and the Writers Studio.

In total nine speakers shared work ranging from fiction and poetry to creative nonfiction. The faculty positions that read, were not just from the English department, they came from all over the school. The first to read was the chair of the English department Monica Fuglei who read both flash fiction and poetry, one poem titled ‘Poem of Gift and Joy’ a very emotional piece about former ACC staff member and Denver Poet Laureate Chris Ransick who died this past fall. The second to step up to the podium was Jeffrey Nesheim the Director of IT who read poetry one of which titled ‘Maker of Things’, Nesheim is a successful poet who’s first book ‘Overseeing the Downfall’ will be coming out on Word Poetry Press late summer to early fall 2020.

The next faculty members included the likes of Jackson Culpepper, Negean Mohi, Alejandro Lucero who has been published recently in the 2019 Progenitor with the creative nonfiction piece ‘Jackets from Grandpa’, then Jason Brandt Schaefer the founder of the new book editing cooperative Empathetic Editors, Jason is also hard at work on his first novel ‘Hand Fasting’. The last three people to grace the stage where Juliet Beckman, Andrea Mason, and finally Jamey Trotter.

The faculty also did not waste the teaching opportunity they had while reading in front of their students. One moment was when Negean Mohi made note of the importance of sharing both unfinished arts with students as well as their finished and published works when she read her three finished poems including “Postpone the Autopsy”, as well as fragments of work she had left unfinished. Later on in the event, in response to some of the previous pieces read, Jamey Trotter said to his fiction writing class who made up a sizable portion of the crowd, “you got to conduct your field research, no matter what you’re writing.”

Submissions for ACC’s award-winning literary magazine “Progenitor” close this Sunday, Feb. 23 at 11:59 pm. Progenitor is accepting poetry, fiction, nonfiction, ten-minute plays, illustrated stories, and photography.  Jamey Trotter and the Writers Studio will also be hosting the Colorado Poet Laureate Bobby LeFebre on Wednesday, March 4. There will be 100 seats at the event as well as surprise guest speakers, and catering.