Nicola on Fulbright in Arizona

It has actually been cold here in Arizona the last few days- beautiful blue skies and sunshine, but a cold wind coming from somewhere snowy, I think! I have been wearing layers and wondering if I have enough warm clothes to get me through! I am told these spots of cold come and go, so soon I will be wearing my cotton pants again! The pool at the Recreation Centre is still a beautiful warm temperature so it hasn’t stopped me swimming. As I mentioned in my last post, it is the time of year when students are handing in their final assignments and I have been lucky enough to hear their presentations, taking copious notes as I go! One doctoral class I have been auditing is taught by my colleague here at Arizona, Professor Kathy Short, and is called ‘ Critical Content Analysis of Text and Image’. Last week the   11 students gave short presentations of their final papers (or assignments) which I have learnt a great deal from. To give you a taste of their work, I’ll present three ...

I am writing this at a local café, near the university, as I hover over the Radio New Zealand website to hear news of the mission to retrieve the deceased from Whakaari White Island. News of this tragedy has really been affecting me, somehow the more so because I am so far away. I cannot imagine the pain of those in hospital and their families. Here at Worlds of Words, today we are preparing for an annual book sale where extra books are sold to staff. I have just been helping wheel out hundreds of books in preparation for tomorrow morning when the sale starts. This week is the last week of lectures for students who are all busy handing in assignments. My colleagues who are teaching are all busy marking portfolios and tests. It’s a busy and intense time. My main work at the moment is writing and preparing for data collection in the New Year. My colleague Kathy and I will be running two picturebook clubs, one with school children and one with pre-service teachers, using bilingual ...

I am now back in Tucson after the Guadalajara Book Fair. The rest of the fair was incredibly stimulating. I found a few more bilingual books to add to my collection, and was privileged to be able to meet some people using books to work with migrants moving through Mexico. One of my colleagues and I managed to take an Uber into central Guadalajara to have a quick look through a market, and to see the Basilica at the end of a day. Friday was a normal day back at my desk in Tucson, focusing now on writing a book chapter and planning for our research data collection which will begin after the university winter break. Yesterday was a special day for the Teenage Reading Ambassador Programme (TRAP) which is organised by Worlds of Words. I have mentioned it before, I think, but briefly, this is a programme for a group of teenagers who are keen readers from a range of Tucson schools. If they are accepted into the programme they are given a YA book. They read it and discuss it, and t...

Tuesday 3 December 2019 The Feria International del Libro de Guadalajara (Guadalajara Book Fair)   is the second largest bookfair in the world and has been running for 33 years.   It is being held in the World Expo Centre in Guadalajara from the 1-9 December and I am lucky enough to be attending this year with my host colleague Kathy and several of her colleagues who are here to meet Mexican publishers and work with their colleagues based in Mexico on a project. Our travel to Guadalajara took most of Sunday, one of the busiest days at US airports due to it being the Sunday of Thanksgiving when many people are travelling home.   Some poor people were stuck in the Phoenix airport due to snow storms in the East. We were not affected by that, but we did have to change planes before we finally set off from Phoenix. When we arrived in Guadalajara we walked down to the venue and got our bearings with one of Kathy’s former doctoral students showing us the way. And ...