Hello folks.  From now through March 2 MCN is hosting the call for proposals for its Annual Meeting to be held in Chicago Nov. 7-12 (http://www.mcn.edu/).  I am writing to you today wearing my program chair hat for that event.

Erin Coburn, the program chair emerita, tells me not to get my hopes up about seeing lots of submissions until the last minute.  Having spent most of my career on the other side of the process, I should know that, I too am a last minute submitter but I’m hoping I can get you all to change your minds and go ahead and submit before the eleventh hour.

 As you know, if you are one of my two readers (thanks Dad), I have this thirteen year old son.   Nick goes to a small middle school (30 kids) and has a terrific humanities teacher who has them read a broad range of books and requires a writing assignment be turned in at least once a week.  Nick consistently waits until the last moment, and sometimes post-last minute, to begin work on these docs and the conversation he and I have typically goes something like this:

—Break for skit—(you provide the voices)

 Nick:  I don’t know what to write, this book was sooooo boring.

Me (or his father): Well what is the assignment?

Nick: Write a letter to Piggy, as a friend, advising him how he might improve his life on the island.

Me/Curt: Okay, what’s Piggy like?

Nick:  You know.

Me/Curt: No I don’t know.  I haven’t read this book since before Martin Luther got hammer and nails and kicked off the Protestant Reformation.   Listen,  your teacher’s been teaching for 30 years, right?

Nick: Right.

Me/Curt: How many papers do you think he’s read about “The Lord of the Flies?”

Nick:  About a zillion.

Me/Curt: So if you write a boring paper that you aren’t interested in, how interested in it do you think Chris is going to be?

Nick: Not very.

Me/Curt: (encouragingly enthusiastic) Right!  So what should you do?

Nick:  (totally bored now, as you are…but wait for it…here comes the message)…I should not wait until the last minute to write the paper.  I should be interested in what I’m talking about and if I’m not interested in it, I should find some way to make it interesting.

–End of skit–(well done with the voices by the way)

So….all of you paper and workshop submitters out there.  Please don’t wait for the last minute.  You are smart and passionate about what you do.   Communicate that in your abstract and, if you want, use that last text field to tell us why your topic is compelling–or to tell us anything else about it.  Don’t worry if you don’t have an entire session, we are looking for single papers as well as sessions on the topics in the call for proposals.  

I’m buying a round of drinks in Chicago for the next ten people who submit proposals (that doesn’t include the three of you who submitted last week, I’m buying you drinks too).

Get busy–it only takes a few minutes of your time.

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