Five SF State sightings in your favorite magazines
The spring/summer issue of SF State Magazine hit alumni mailboxes earlier this month but it’s not the only publication offering news of talented SF State people. Here are my latest SF State sightings:
1. National Geographic
Finally got around to reading my April issue and found a fascinating article that discusses Assistant Professor Vance Vredenburg’s research on the mass extinction of amphibians.
… Vance Vredenburg is a biologist at San Francisco State University, and he’s been studying the mountain yellow-legged frog for 13 years, slumming in a tent on the mountainside for weeks at a time as he monitors 80 different study lakes. Today, mosquito net balled up around his neck, he contemplates ten dead frogs, stiff-legged, white bellies going soft in the sun…
Read the entire article here.
2.Poets&Writers Spied an SF State alum in Jofie Ferrari-Adler’s regular (and wonderful) Agents & Editors feature. The question he tossed out to a group of agents in the May/June issue: Can you sell short stories? Agent Maria Massie’s answer focused on alumna Robin Romm: On occasion. It’s hard. It always helps if there’s a novel coming. But if you’ve got a great short story collection, it will stand out. I represent a writer who was referred to me by an editor at a literary magazine. I read it and it blew me away. I sold it, it was published, it got great reviews, but it did not sell very many copies. But then the writer, Robin Romm, went on to write an amazing memoir that was just reviewed on the cover of the New York Times Book Review. She’s a fantastic writer and you never know where a short story writer is going to go or what stories they have left to tell. So, you know, she wasn’t making a lot of money in the beginning, but she’s going to have an amazing career.
3. Scientific American
Both the discoverer and the namesake for an…um…uniquely shaped mushroom are SF State alums. I’m referring to SF State Professor of Biology Dennis Desjardin and Robert Drewes, the curator of herpetology at the California Academy of Sciences. You can read all about it in this SA article.
What’s that you ask? Just how does it feel to discover a new species? Check out Desjardin’s new essay in SF State Magazine.
4. Chefs John Clark and Gayle Pirie are two reasons why Foreign Cinema is one of the most renowned dining spots in the city, but who knew it was kid friendly? The two SF State alumni helped Foreign Cinema make 7×7 magazine’s annual Best of the City list for Best Kids’ Menu: You want oysters and Champagne; they want ice cream and a coloring book. It’s all at Foreign Cinema. We favor the patio brunch, where parents can nibble on a croque monsieur while the kids get crayons, a little coloring book made of Xeroxed drawings from The Larousse Treasury of Country Cooking and a prix-fixe menu, including fresh fruit, their choice of excellent French toast or grilled cheese, and ice cream. No compromising necessary. 2534 Mission St., 415-648-7600.
5.Wired The sharp eyes in our College of Creative Arts spied the work of alumnus Valdemar Duran in a Wired article focused on “permanent, quasi-sovereign nations floating in international waters.” Duran provided the accompanying (and very cool) illustration. Read the story here.
Where have you seen SF State people lately? Let me know: abee@sfsu.edu
