Spades

Miscellany, Musings, and Provocations

Michael Copperman

Michael Copperman
Location
Eugene, Oregon, USA
Birthday
June 11
Bio
Michael Copperman has a B.A. in English with creative writing from Stanford University, and teaches writing to non-traditional and at-risk students of color at the University of Oregon, where he received his MFA in Fiction. His nonfiction has appeared in Guernica, The Oxford American, Best of Creative Nonfiction (Norton Anthology, vol. III), Teachers and Writers, Brevity, Anderbo, The Oregonian, The Register-Guard, and The Eugene Weekly, and is forthcoming from Post Road, Stanford Magazine, and Copper Nickel. His fiction has been published in The Arkansas Review, 34th Parallel, and Thirdreader, and is forthcoming from Copper Nickel, Unsaid, and Southword. His story "Harm," was recently shortlisted for the The Sean Ó Faolain Prize in short fiction from the Munster Literature Centre. From 2002-04 he taught fourth grade in the rural black public schools of the Mississippi Delta, and he is working on a novel about that experience.

Editor’s Pick
SEPTEMBER 23, 2008 11:41AM

I Can't Answer

 

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“There are some blows so violent—

I can’t answer!”

-Cesar Vallejo

 

I turned twenty-two on a Saturday, graduated Stanford Sunday afternoon, and that evening caught a red-eye to Houston and… Read full post »

Editor’s Pick
SEPTEMBER 5, 2008 4:06PM

Mean Beauty Queen

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    I listened on NPR yesterday as American and international feminists debated the choice of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s Vice-Presidential nominee, and something was wrong. It wasn’t just the cognitive dissonance of hearing Feminists praise Ms. Palin for her hi… Read full post »

Editor’s Pick
OCTOBER 18, 2008 6:19PM

What I Hear When I Hear Obama

Delta kids new

 

    The classroom, cold with morning. Approaching eight. The rattle of the heater by the shelves, an insufficient heat. Cold orange light at the rear windows, throwing diamonds off the razor wire fence ringing the school, plying chainlink shadows to the concrete yar… Read full post »

Editor’s Pick
AUGUST 5, 2008 8:16PM

On Being a Sexist, or, Paris Hilton ain't my kind of woman

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   I have been called many things in twenty-eight years: Mexican, Korean, gook, chink, wetback, son of a mud-shark whore, Jap, mutt, china-man, stupid dumb ugly mean little man who don’t know nothing bout nothing (Shasprine Gaines had quite a tongue), fag, homo, chick… Read full post »

Editor’s Pick
AUGUST 3, 2008 11:47AM

The Politics of Race: Britney, Paris, and the Black Man

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I have a confession to make: I am not a blogger. I am an essayist and fiction writer who happens to be close friends with the infamous blogger Terrible Mother. I went through the University of Oregon’s MFA program with her,… Read full post »