VGCC Faculty Member’s essay published in book

Work by a Vance-Granville Community College English instructor is included in a newly published book.

Instructor Chris Brockman’s essay, entitled “Out of Tune, But Not Out of Mind,” in Looking Out, Seeing In: Brief Personal Essays on Real Life, is part of a new anthology of short personal essays edited and published by Sandra Eisdorfer. Eisdorfer worked for over thirty years in academic publishing, many of them as an editor at the University of North Carolina Press. She chose what she considers the twenty best essays for Looking Out, Seeing In from those written by participants in workshops she conducted at the Duke University chapter of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) over a five-year period. OLLI has chapters in university communities across the country and gives seniors an opportunity to take a variety of classes. Many of these are taught by retired professionals or university faculty. Brockman, who teaches students how to write such expository essays in English 111, joined one of Eisdorfer’s personal essay workshops to polish his essay writing and teaching techniques. According to Brockman (pictured above, holding the book), “Looking Out, Seeing In contains both enjoyable reading and a good deal of collected wisdom.”

A resident of Wilton, Brockman has taught for VGCC since 2005.

Contributors to the book include current and retired professors, published authors, social workers, a university library director, a school teacher, a counselor, a minister, a nurse and many others. “I am astonished at the fullness of this little collection, and I am grateful to the writers for their imaginations, their personal warmth, and their patience,” Eisdorfer said. “All these essays are instructive, some are hilarious, and many are moving (sometimes to tears). All are a pleasure to read and proof that ‘short’ can be a miracle of clarity, compression and, yes, depth.”