Query Letter

David Leavitt, editor

Subtropics

P.O. Box 112075

4008 Turlington Hall

University of Florida

Gainesville, FL 32611-2075

Dear Mr. Leavitt,

My 15,000 word story is as deeply philosophical as it is fast-paced, and as it deals with interesting and psychological subject matter, your audience will likely find it an enjoyable read.

In reading several of the stories in Subtropics, I realized that your readers enjoy complex narratives involved in expounding the machinations of complex characters’ heads. Additionally, I noticed that Subtropics editors have fatigued of first-person fiction and are skeptical of second person; fortunately, "The Inversion" is written in third.

The story tells of a young man, grown weary of his life, who decides to commit himself to the task of his own undoing. In a delusional pursuit of infamy through what he calls, “a higher ideal,” James Wallace Bently tries to make himself as miserable as possible. The story follows his tragic journey, taking readers through the labyrinth of his mind, the influences of his past and the consequences of his actions. A surprise twist at the end brings closure to the story, while leaving readers enlightened but somewhat saddened.

Thank you in advance for considering "The Inversion."

Sincerely,

Chilton Tippin

(915) 637.4360

Chilton.l.Tippin@tcu.edu

Encl: Manuscript and SASE

Nitesh Kalwar

Three years ago Nitesh Kalwar lay in his bed in the Nepalese hamlet of Birgunj and fretted about his future in America.

“I didn’t know many schools here in the U.S.,” Kalwar, a junior business and finance major, said. “I was so worried that I corresponded with over 800 schools, sending e-mails.”

Of those 800 schools, Kalwar somehow narrowed it down to TCU.

“To be honest, I didn’t come to TCU on purpose—it wasn’t my first choice,” he said. “I thought the brochures they sent to international kids were kind of stupid.”

However, the generous financial aid and the allure of a small community won him over, he said.

“I expected more tall buildings,” he said. “Even my town has some four-story buildings.”

Kalwar said he now feels at home.

“I truly like TCU because the faculty and staff and the students are very friendly,” he said.

Since his arrival, he has excelled in his classes and founded or joined over seven clubs.

“Freshman year I wasn’t involved in anything,” he said. “Later on I realized that I wanted to get more involved.”

Kalwar said the there was a lot to learn about Fort Worth when he first got here, and the culture shock was overwhelming.

“I remember they asked, ‘Why do you think we’re called cowboys,” and I said, ‘Maybe because you eat cows a lot.’”

In Nepal cows are venerated as sacred animals, he said.

“The first thing I needed to figure out was what do I eat; it was hard for me to figure out what to eat.”

After the uneasy first-year, Kalwar’s transition became easier and he started to immerse himself in the culture and society of the university.

Kalwar joined Frog House, Students for Asian-Indian Cultural Awareness, student government association, and Financial Management Association. He later became president of SAICA and treasurer for Habitat for Humanity. After that he started the Cricket Club. Kalwar also works part time for the help desk in the library.

“Getting involved has made my experience here at TCU so much more rewarding,” he said. “I’ve met so many more people.”

Kalwar said that due to the instability of the Nepalese government, there are not many opportunities for students in his home country. As a result, most of his friends from back home, like him, moved abroad upon completing high school.

“A lot of students study accounting and nursing because there are markets for these in Australia,” he said. “They study these even if they don’t want because they can have opportunities.”

Since arriving at the university three years ago, Kalwar has not returned Birgunj or seen his family.

“I have missed them very much,” he said. “But I’m finally going to see them this summer, so I am excited.”

Jennifer Kowalewski

Jennifer Kowalewski, assistant professor, brought two things with her to the university: her love for teaching journalism and her desire to research political communication.

Kowalewski teaches the reporting and copy editing courses at the university, and she created and instructs a political communication course for upper-level students.

“I love being in the classroom,” Kowalewski said. “But I also love doing experimental and survey research on how the media influence public opinion.”

Kowalewski completed her doctorate in Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and came to the university in 2009.

Prior to that she instructed a news writing course at the UNC-CH, worked for 10 years at daily newspapers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, and got her masters in Journalism and Mass Communication at Ohio University.

She got her undergraduate degrees in journalism and political science from Ohio University.

As a reporter, Kowalewski covered everything from dog-sled races to political stories.

Her favorite types of stories were political stories and breaking news stories.

“I didn’t like the stories where people died,” she said. “Overall, I liked the stories where you had a happy ending—where nobody dies.”

After several years as a reporter she decided she wanted to teach her craft, Kowalewski said.

“When I went back for my masters, I really wanted to teach journalism,” she said. “However, in my masters program I was involved with some very research-oriented people.”

Now she focuses her research on the media’s influence on public opinion, conducting surveys and experiments on public opinion formation, she said.

Kowalewski looks at shows such as “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” to see how they affect people’s knowledge and cynicism of the news. She also tries to determine whether people who watch these shows feel they have can have an affect on politics themselves.

She plans to teach during the school year and do research during the summer, she said.

In addition, she will be overseeing the first group from the Schieffer School that is going to Washington.

The Schieffer program affiliated with the Washington Center to send five students for almost full-time internships in the nation’s capitol, she said.

The students can earn up to 18 hours of credit, Kowalewski said.

“It’s an exciting time to get that program up and running,” she said. “It will be nice to show the students what D.C. is all about.”

Overseeing that program includes going to D.C. several times throughout the semester to make sure the students are keeping up with their internships, she said.

Jeff Ferrell

Jeff Ferrell, professor of sociology, criminal justice and anthropology at the university, finds solace in trash, beauty in graffiti and love in the streets.

Ferrell has spent his life studying about, learning from, and writing on the scrounging-fringe groups of America, and he has done so from within their ranks.

“I’ve always kind of enjoyed living on the margins, even when I was a kid,” Ferrell said. “Combine that with my Ph.D. in sociology and I was compelled existentially and drawn to people in the margins.”

Ferrell has written 10 books and dozens of articles about his personal plunges into the margins, and that body of work culminated in the field of study he pioneered, “Cultural Criminality.”

“It is, at its most basic level, the study of people in the margins and how they live and how they survive,” he said. “It’s bringing together their culture and their values to be studied.”

His most recent work, “Empire of Scrounge” chronicles his experience as an urban dumpster diver.

After quitting his job as tenured professor at Southern Methodist University, he spent eight months rummaging through dumpsters, collecting metals, and literally living off of other peoples’ refuse.

Along the way he encountered a culture of what he calls “scroungers”—people who live entirely from what they collect from dumpsters.

“From being immersed in that society, I learned a lot about how they operate,” he said. “You learn when grocery stores no longer want stale produce, you learned which metals are more valuable and to collect aluminum cans. I had to figure out how to survive.”

Ferrell’s modus operandi for research is called Ethnography—a type of research in which you immerse yourself in the field.

“What I have realized is that it is a much more honest way to go about conducting research,” he said. “You get a real feel for what is going on, and you aren’t just observing from a non-invested position.”

Before “Empire of Scrounge” Ferrell did similar studies while writing his book “Crimes of Style: Urban Graffiti and the Politics of Criminality.”

In studying that book he immersed himself in the culture of graffiti, traveled with a “crew” that scurried through the streets of Denver at night, spray painting murals and tagging walls.

“It’s illegal,” Ferrell said. “But it’s not gangs or violent—usually.”

Ferrell teaches a class on Ethnography at the university, where students get to learn about and partake in field studies of their own.

“The students do this kind of stuff but, of course, not the dangerous stuff,” Ferrell said. “They do things like go out and observe social situations to learn how to pay close attention.”

One of the tenets of ethnographies is learning to be attentive, he said.

“Most of my colleagues who got Ph.D.’s usually went the way of sitting in classrooms studying books,” he said. “It’s very important that people do that, don’t get me wrong. But I always felt drawn to the margins.”