» Dr. Mark R. Axelrod

Professor

Wilkinson College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Department of English

Office:

WH 226

Office Hours:

M/W 9 am.-12 p.m., TH 9 a.m.-12 p.m.

Phone:

(714) 997-6586

Email:

axelrod@chapman.edu

Website:

http://www.axelrodenchile.cl/

Education

Indiana University Bloomington, Bachelor of Arts
Indiana University Bloomington, Master of Arts
University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, Ph.D. in Literature

Biography

Mark Axelrod is a graduate of both Indiana University (BA and MA) and the University of Minnesota (PhD). He is the Director of the John Fowles Center for Creative Writing, and has received numerous writing awards including two United Kingdom Leverhulme Fellowships for Creative Writing as well as awards from the Sundance Institute. He has published four novels, Capital Castles (Pacific Writers Press, 2000), Cloud Castles (Pacific Writers Press, 1998), Cardboard Castles (Pacific Writers Press, 1996), Bombay California (Pacific Writers Press, 1994), and has recently completed a novel in three books titled, The Posthumous Memoirs of Blase Kubash. He has also written several collections of short stories, including Dante's Foil & Other Sporting Tales, The Apotheosis of Aaron, and Borges' Travel, Hemingway's Garage, the last recently published by the Fiction Collective 2 and a prequel to Balzac Coffee, Leonardo's Suites. He has published two books on screenwriting, Aspects of the Screenplay (Heinemann) and Character & Conflict: Cornerstones of Screenwriting (Heinemann), and has recently completed a book on adaptation titled, I Read It At The Movies. He recently assumed the position of co-editor of the literary journal The New Novel Review, and is a regular reviewer for The Review of Contemporary Fiction. He has been published in numerous journals in the United States and Europe, including the Iowa Review and the New York Quarterly.

 

Education

• University of Minnesota, Minneapolis
  Comparative Literature, 1988, Ph.D.
• Indiana University, Bloomington
  Comparative Literature, M.A.
• Indiana University, Bloomington
  Zoology, Spanish, B.A.

Recent Book Publications

• The Scene & How to Write it (screenwriting) Focus Publishing (Forthcoming, 2011).
• Borges' Viajes Hemingway's Talleres (short stories), Editorial Thule, Barcelona, Spain (October, 2009).
• "Fiction at War: FC2 1999-2009". Three short stories from Borges' Travel. (March, 2009).
• I Read it at the Movies (screenwriting/adaptation) Heinemann Publishing (November, 2006).
• Recent Anthologies Published/To Be Published
• Golden Handcuffs Review Winter-Spring 2009; Vol. 1, No. 12 Guest Editor
• Golden Handcuffs Review Winter-Spring 2009; Vol. 1, No. 9 Guest Editor
• Golden Handcuffs Review Winter-Spring 2008; Vol. 1, No. 8 Guest Editor

Recent Film Work

• Hoosiers: 25th Silver Anniversary Edition. Collaborating with film director, David Anspaugh and screenwriter, Angelo Pizzo, on publishing a book devoted to the making of the film, Hoosiers.
• Working with Chilean film director, Edgardo Viereck, on two films: Seven Days in Santiago and Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Recent Short Stories/Novel Excerpts

• Golden Handcuffs Review #13 Seattle, WA (Fall 2009; Vol. 1, No. 13, 2009
• Golden Handcuffs Review #7, Seattle, WA (Summer, Fall 2007; Vol. 1, No. 7, 2007)
• Artful Dodge, College of Wooster, Woosters, OH (Winter, 2005)

Recent Creative Non-Fiction

"Bits and Pieces with Coffey"; An Epistolary Meeting with Brian Coffey Irish American Magazine, New York, (October-November, 2009).

"The End of it: The End. A Last Meeting with Samuel Beckett" Irish American Magazine, New York, (June-July, 2009).

Recent Literary and Film Reviews

(Literary)

• Axelrod, M., It Might Do Well With Strawberries, David Matlin, American Book Review, New York, NY (Summer, 2009).
• Axelrod, M., The Philosophers' Madonna, Carlo Emilio Gadda, Review of Contemporary Fiction, Normal, IL (Spring 2009).
• Axelrod, M., Obieru, Review of Contemporary Fiction, Normal, IL (Fall, 2007).

Recent Creative, Scholarly Work and Publications

Book: Characters Talking, Talking Characters: Screenwriting Dialogue from Citizen Kane to Midnight in Paris, Continuum Press, New York (Release, December, 2012)

Anthology: The Next Thing: Art in the 21st Century, Book Chapter: Kindle, Kindle Burning Bright or Fiction and the Poetics of Fiction in the 21st Century; Farleigh Dickinson University Press (Release, December, 2012)

Anthology: Babel Guide Anthology, Short stories, Boulevard Books, Oxford, England (Release, August, 2012)

Água Viva, Clarice Lispector, Review of Contemporary Fiction (Fall, 2012) Book of My Mother, Albert Cohen, Review of Contemporary Fiction (Fall, 2012) Blindly, Claudio Magris, Times Literary Supplement (Fall, 2012) The Correspondence of Fradique Mendes, José Maria de Eça de Queirós, Review of Contemporary Fiction, Normal, IL (Summer, 2012).

HuffingtonPost.com Blogs: Romney Gait: Etiquette or Disease The Illusion of Success; or, Don’t Cry For Me, Happy Valley The Michele Bachmann Muslim Brotherhood Connection Underwear, Fake Arrows in the Head and the Distinguished Mark Twain Prize Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin, Alabama, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan, New Hampshire, South Dakota & Other Banana Republics Rush’s Rush to Judgment; or, the Bane of the College Dropout The Myth of the Dream Team; or, Where Have You Gone Oscar Robertson? The Real Housewives of Orange County; or, Tuesday Nights at Dysfunction Junction No Feign, Bain; or, Job Re-Creation for Dummies Trading Mays for Throneberry; or, the Disquiet of Losing Dick Lugar The Nugentrification of America A Roadmap for America's Future: Highway 21 Not To Be Confused With Highway 61 Revisited ”Spanish is the language of the ghetto”; or, Newt y yo Rick San(i)tor(i)um; or, Why He Takes My Breath Away

Screenplay: Stayin’ Alive, Cuckoo Clock Productions, Hamburg, Germany (Principal photography to begin, April, 2013.)

Anthology of Friends, Volume #11 Edited by Michael Riffel (Volume #11, 2011)

Sorrows of Seymour Schreibman (novel in progress) Proost’s Grocery: A Novel in 14 Aisles (novella in progress) Picasso Blue: Novel (in progress)

Look Who's Talking and Why: The Construction of Scene and Dialogue in Film

Meshugenah Gens Literary Supplement (2011) Kissing Sonia Braga and Other Stories (2011)

“Angelina’s Lips” by Giuseppe Conte , Edited w/ Introduction (Guernica Publishing), Toronto, Canada, (published April, 2011)

Axelrod, M. God’s Mountain, Erri De Luca, American Book Review, New York, NY (Spring, 2011) Axelrod, M. The Madman of Freedom Square, Hassan Blasim, Review of Contemporary Fiction, Normal, IL (Winter, 2011). Review: Gabriel Josipovici, Hearts Wings and Other Stories, Times Literary Supplement (April, 22, 2011)

“Portrait of an Irish Artist: Louis le Brocquy,” Irish America Magazine, New York, (Spring, 2011)

Blog: The Palin Borges Connection; or, What’s History Got to do With It, Huffington Post (June 10, 2011) Blog: Sarah Palin’s Defilement of the Magen David, Speak Without Interruption (June 5, 2011

The Mark Twain Prize for Humor? A Conundrum, HuffingtonPost.com 2011.02.10 Erri De Luca: Master of Lyrical Prose, HuffingtonPost.com 2011.02.3 Ronald Reagan: The Dark Side of the Script Huffington Post 2011.02 Blog: The United States of Oligarchy; or, Metropolis Redux, Speak Without Interruption (March 25, 2011) Blog: The GOP, the Deficit and the End of Blog: Culture As We Know It; or, Where's Mark Twain When You Need Him?;Speak Without Interruption (March 25, 2011) Essay: Erri De Luca: Master of Lyrical Prose, Speak Without Interruption (March 25, 2011) U.S. Constitution, Article I, section 3, clause 3; or, How Much is that Birther in the Window 2011.02 John Boehner’s Playhouse; or, The Theatre of the Absurd 2011.01 Sigmund Freud and the Psychopathology of (Sarah Palin’s) Everyday Life 2011.01

The following are plays and books that are currently under consideration for staging or publishing: Superman in America VanGogh’s Audit Bruno Artl at the Grille Café All plays with Arena Theatre, Washington, DC A Colloquy of Birds Ti Amo, Lucia Olivetti Aleatory Balzac’s Coffee, DaVinci’s Ristorante Fiction/Non-fiction with Soft Skull Press, SF Posthumous Papers Look Who’s Talking & Why: Screenwriting Continuum Press, NYC Mercadet, Balzac: Translation University of Minnesota Press, Mpls. Borges’ Travel, Hemingway’s Garage Fiction with Grupo Editora, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Aleatory; or, A Day in the Life of Jürgen Jürgensen, Imaginary Cartographer: A Novel in Four Cities (2010) The Checks and Balances of Alfie Schiller: A Novel in 660 Checks (2010) Balzac’s Coffee, DaVinci’s Ristorante, Secret Histories, Vol. II

Axelrod, M. The Unwelcome Guest plus Nin and Nan, Eckhard Gerdes, Review of Contemporary Fiction, Normal, IL (Fall, 2010). Axelrod, M. The Privileges, Jonathan Dee, Times Literary Supplement, London, UK (June 4, 2010) Axelrod, M. Treatise on Elegant Living, Honoré de Balzac, Review of Contemporary Fiction, Normal, IL (Summer, 2010).

“Salsa Verde”: Irish Influences in Latin America, Irish America Magazine, New York, (April/May, 2010)

Huffington Post What Jim DeMint Doesn't Want You to Know 2010.07.24 The Fox Version of the Emancipation Proclamation 2010.07.21 Professor Palin Goes to College 2010.07.19 Political Nomenclature; Or, Who Am I, Anyway? 2010.06.23 Mr. Bean & the Gulf Oil Spill 2010.06.01 Rand Paul and the Discourse of Degenerative Myopia 2010.05.21 Sister Sarah Forgets Her Scripture; or, Whatever Happened to Matthew 6:14-15? 2010.04.23 Wait a Second! Part I: Toyota Fined? 2010.04.20 Wait a Second! Pt III: Right Network, Wrong Station? 2010.04.20 Wait a Second! Part II: Citi Bank's Gratitude? 2010.04.20 Fascism, Sedition & All That Jazz 2010.03.25 Death Panels Revisited; or, Why Americans Have to Fear Adam Carolla 2010.03.22 2023 (Or "Days of Future Past") 2010.03.19 Two Jews, Three Opinions; or, Jews, Gentiles and the Israeli-US Conundrum 2010.03.13 Is An Inflated Defense Budget the Cause of Our Debt Problem? 2010.03.05 From the "Who Could Care Less" Files 2010.03.04 The Fisher King Redux 2010.03.03 The Rhetoric of Politics; or, What Do Facts Have to do With It? 2010.02.28 The Slow and Senescent Death of Health Care in America 2010.02.27 The Myth of the Balanced Budget and Other Tales from the Vault Of the Historically Ignored 2010/02.24 Sarah. Plain and Stupid; or, Political Correctness and the Demise Of the English Language 2010/02/03 The Not So Super Super Bowl: Where Have You Gone Hank Stram? 2010.02.01 An Open Letter to Osama bin Laden 2010.02.01 Beam Me Up, Scotty: Scott Brown's Rhetoric of Political Nonsense (Part I) 2010.01.22

A Colloquy of Birds (1 act play)

VIAJES BORGES, TALLERES HEMINGWAY (short stories), Editorial Thule, Barcelona, Spain (October, 2009).

"FICTION AT WAR: FC2 1999-2009". Three short stories from BORGES’ TRAVEL to be included in an anthology published by FC2, Illinois State University (March, ’09).

Axelrod, M. It Might Do Well With Strawberries, David Matlin, American Book Review, New York, NY (Summer, 2009) Axelrod, M. The Philosophers’ Madonna, Carlo Emilio Gadda, Review of Contemporary Fiction, Normal, IL (Spring, 2009).

“Bits and Pieces with Coffey,” Irish America Magazine, New York, (October-November, 2009) “The End of it: The End,” Irish America Magazine, New York, (June-July, 2009)

La Comunidad Inconfesable, Barcelona, Spain (Número 4. Julio 2009) La Comunidad Inconfesable, Barcelona, Spain (Número 1. Abril 2009) Golden Handcuffs Review #13 Seattle, WA (Fall 2009; Vol. 1, No. 13, 2009)

Huffington Post The Cash Bowl, or, Why There Will Never Be a College Football Playoff 2009.12.19 The Politics of Notre Dame Football, Or, Desperately Seeking Princeton 2009.12.19 Tim Tebow, Football and the Politics of God 2009.12.14 Cancer: Jimmy Valvano versus the Stealth Bomber 2009.12.11 The Noblesville Millers; or, Sarah Palin and Hubris in the Heartland 2009.11.21 Going Rogue; or Elephant on a Rampage 2009.11.13 Bachmann-Boehner Overdrive; or the Art of Polifiction 2009.11.12 Faux-Jo(urnalism); or, What's a College Degree Got to do With It? 2009.10.31 Dien Bien Phu, the Battle of Zhawar and the Battle of the Grand Canyon 2009.10.30 Sarah, Plain and Simple; or, Drilling for the Superficial 2009.10.27 The Politics of Notre Dame Football; or, Desperately Seeking Princeton 2009.10.20 The St. Louis Limbaughs; or, Hubris With a Helmet 2009.10.14 The Nobel Peace Prize; or Pissing on the Prose of Alfred B Nobel 2009.10.14 The Cash Bowl; or, Why There Will Never Be a College Football Playoff 2009.10.13 Swagger; or, Is This Really What I Want My Football Team to Have? 2009.10.13 Health Care & the Soylent Green Initiative 2009.10.13 Bi-Partisanship; or, the Fine Art of Spear Throwing 2009.10.13 Palindroning; or, the Fine Art of Quitting 2009.10.12

GOLDEN HANDCUFFS REVIEW Winter–Spring 2011; vol. 1, no. 13 Guest Editor GOLDEN HANDCUFFS REVIEW Winter–Spring 2009; vol. 1, no. 12 Guest Editor GOLDEN HANDCUFFS REVIEW Winter–Spring 2009; vol. 1, no. 9 Guest Editor GOLDEN HANDCUFFS REVIEW Winter–Spring 2008; vol. 1, no. 8 Guest Editor