My New Book Is Finally Out!

Long time no write, huh, Scraps?

Well, I’ve been a smidge busy.

Besides falling off my bike, recovering from that, taking up running after a 29 year hiatus, learning how to be a Brooklynite, playing with my kids, and teaching, I’ve also been hard at work with my colleagues Juanita But and Mark Noonan in the arduous task of writing/editing/proofing a textbook. Well, after a year-and-a-half, it is finally finished:

As you can see from the title, this book is a composition textbook, or reader, that focusses on New York City. The Place Where We Dwell introduces college students to many interesting essays, poems, stories, and art pieces that are about, you guessed it, New York City. The goal of the book is to help students understand, or read, New York City in new ways and to encourage them to practice critical writing, reading, and thinking methods.

About the cover art. The artists name is José Parlá–a Brooklyn-based artist who uses many forms of painting, calligraphy, and layers to create pieces that look like they are part of the city. The cover art is a reproduction of his painting titled “Your History.” Hats off to the publisher Kendall/Hunt for working with the Parla to promote the art work. Check out the full cover:

In this photo, you can see the words “Your History” better. Oh, I’d like to thank Clara Scanlan for helping me with this photo–that’s her finger at the top.

Let me know if you are interested in the book…perhaps you are teacher in New York City, or perhaps you want to teach a composition course on global cities, or perhaps you teach an introductory course on culture studies or urban studies. Or, maybe you just want to read a lot of great writing on New York City. Hopefully, local book stores and Amazon and other places will soon start selling it.

Amazon has a page for it, but it seems they are temporarily out of stock:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Place-Where-We-Dwell/dp/0757590179

You can also go directly to the publisher’s website:

http://kendallhunt.com/store-product.aspx?id=39209

Here is the ISBN: 978-0-7575-9017-7

And here’s my email: sscanlan@citytech.cuny.edu

Cheers,

Sean