“The Joyful Online Teacher: Finding Our Fizz In Asynchronous Classes”

It’s no secret that the Covid lockdown had a devastating effect on the educational development of young people. Overnight, teachers who had never taught online had to open the doors to “Zoom school,” not good PR for the online modality.

When Flower Darby spoke with online instructors at Butte College in 2025, during a daylong emphasis on “humanizing” distance education, she previewed some of the themes in her new book. “The Joyful Online Teacher: Finding Our Fizz In Asynchronous Classes” ($19.95 in paperback from the University of Oklahoma Press; also for Amazon Kindle) focuses on courses taught in Learning Management Systems (like Canvas, in the news because of cybersecurity attacks) and not live via Zoom.

“I wrote this book,” she says, “to uplift online instructors who may be feeling overwhelmed, undervalued, and depleted of joy in their work.” A veteran online instructor herself, Darby, Associate Director of the Teaching for Learning Center at the University of Missouri, concentrates not on the “how” of teaching online but the “why.” In spite of all the challenges, an online class can “promote thriving for all,” inspiring students and energizing instructors.

Drawing on the work of positive psychologist Martin Seligman, Darby takes instructors through the PERMA model of well-being: “Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment.” The book centers on developing positive emotion in students (yes, in asynchronous courses) as well as relationships. But it’s also aimed at the importance of instructor self-care in setting boundaries. 

Students want to know there’s a real person behind the computer screen, so instructors can share brief videos about themselves and their interests. They can respond to student email in a timely manner (though not 24x7).

Meaningful learning online takes disciplined effort and that’s a good kind of “friction.” But, Darby adds, “let’s create and teach online classes with an intentional effort to minimize the times when students feel alone, disconnected, frustrated, anxious, or bored. We’ll do a lot to support their success, and we’ll enjoy our work more fully, when we do.”

For instructors, the book is indispensable practical encouragement. For readers, it’s a way to see online courses in an entirely different light.

“Singing For Change”

In a series of novels, starting with "Venice Beach" in 2015, Chico writer Emily Gallo (emilygallo.com) has charted the lives of a group of unlikely friends. Many wind up at Dutch Bogart’s former pot farm in Garberville. The reclusive Dutch, a former Sixties musician, lives on song royalties. 

Among the “motley crew” is Buster Fingerpickin’ McCracken, a famed blues musician now in his eighties. When Dutch gets a call from “Playing for Change,” a charitable foundation “trying to spread music for social change around the world,” the opportunity to make a music video along the boardwalk ignites something deep in him, and he’s able to persuade Buster to join him. That’s when Dutch meets audio assistant, Vivienne, a reporter for the Haiti Liberté, and he is smitten.

The events at first seem prosaic in “Singing For Change” ($14.95 in paperback, independently published; also for Amazon Kindle), but the reader knows from the start a horrific tragedy is waiting in the wings.

Friend Malcolm works in Venice at Café Gratitude. His wife, Savali, an LGBTQ+ activist, is Samoan, a third gender in Samoan society called Fa'afafine. They take in Graciela, just getting started in her teaching career, to care for their daughter, Aja. Through a turn of events, Graciela meets Clippers basketball star Elijah Knight and despite his complicated family dynamics, wants to see more of him. A lot more.

By coincidence, Vivienne, Savali and Elijah are all claiming their bags at LAX when they run into each other moments before the shooting begins. The gunman “stopped and studied the crowd milling around the luggage carousel, choosing for best effect. The one who towered over everyone, the woman in a man's suit. He pulled the guns out of his pockets, slipped in the magazines and started firing.” At least seven dead, the three friends severely wounded. Was the gunman targeting people of color? 

There is much more to the story. Dutch envisions a “We are the World” concert for gun control, and Gallo shows how it happens, complete with all the big name music stars, including Dutch. 

“To save our country,” he sings, “To do what’s right/ This is our time/ This is our fight.”

“Getting It Write: (Mostly) Unpublished Writing 1974–2025”

“For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved to write,” writes Chicoan Stephen Metzger, who taught writing, literature, and journalism at Chico State from 1982-2010 and composition at Butte College from 2010-2018. He’s also been a freelance writer since the early 80’s, successfully publishing some 500 pieces in all kinds of publications. Yet some of his work, “despite my highest hopes,” never saw the light of day.

Until now. Welcome to a miscellany of humor, essays, poetry, commercials, and one-act plays (which entertained Chico audiences in the early 2000s), works “that I didn’t want to disappear.” A breezy read, “Getting It Write: (Mostly) Unpublished Writing 1974–2025” ($20 in paperback from Stansbury Publishing) is an antidote to the terribly serious business of real world events. 

Metzger’s cockeyed sense of humor and twisty points of view may explain why he failed repeatedly to win the famed cartoon caption contest at the New Yorker magazine (despite his entries being “way funnier” than the winners). But never mind that. He’s out to serve the public with “This Week’s Pets,” a list of “abandoned pets” needing “loving homes.” 

Take Arnold: “a spunky young Rottweiler/German shepherd mix, trained to respond to German. He knows ‘Fassen!’ (‘Attack!’) but is still learning ‘Aus!’ (‘Let Go!’). Arnold would do well in a home with an English-German dictionary, a heavy-duty cage, pepper spray, mace, a taser, and a six-foot steel pole with chain.”

Have a go at a riddle poem: “Blinded, I show you/ Nothing.// Undressed, I show you/ Mountains, back yards,/ Sunsets.// From outside: lamps, sofas,/ Kitchen sinks.// When I come clean/ You can’t see me./ You feel my pain.” (The answer is in the following: wodniw.)

He offers serious advice: “Remember that there are smart people who disagree with you and stupid people who agree.”

There’s language advice, too, from Metzger’s “The Writer’s Way” textbook: “Trust me here: when in doubt, use ‘who’ instead of ‘whom,’ since ‘whom’ when it should be ‘who’ sounds way worse than ‘who’ when it should be ‘whom.’” An example: “This is my brother, whom loves to fish. (Wrong: And sounds really stupid.)”

Metzger’s drollery abounds, for whomever needs it.

“Stumpy”

Every spring on the National Mall in Washington, DC, the cherry trees bloom to the delight of millions of visitors. Some of the trees, though, because of rising waters of the Tidal Basin, decayed and died. Yet one Japanese cherry tree, though hollowed out, continued to blossom. When the National Park Service had to remove the tree in 2024 to fix the seawall, which was failing, cuttings were taken to the U.S. National Arboretum for later replanting. The famous blossoming tree even had a name.

Longtime Chicoan Karen McHenry tells the story of “Stumpy” ($19 in hardcover from Kismet Publishing), a lyrical children’s book for ages 6-10, from the tree’s perspective. The colorful illustrations by Tommy Hardman, where pink blossoms predominate, bring Stumpy to life. 

A tourist sensation during the day, as night comes Stumpy is alone with his thoughts. “It is silent now, except for the lapping of the water at the sea wall and the rattling of leftover autumn leaves twirling past. Stumpy gazes out over the Tidal Basin that has been his lifelong home and wonders what becomes of cherry trees when they are cut down. He shudders, knowing that it isn’t the chill breeze blowing around him. He was once a robust, sturdy tree. Now, he is scrawny and crooked and hollow inside.”

Yet Stumpy continues to bloom and a visiting bird calls Stumpy “the Little Cherry Tree That Could.” What’s more, says the bird, “People see you as a symbol of perseverance—because you refuse to give up. That is why they come to take your picture, and put flowers at your roots, and play music for you.” Those words “warm Stumpy’s hollow core, down to his chilly roots.”

Later a mysterious voice tells Stumpy that it’s too late for him to be moved; he must be cut down. What will happen then? The voice responds that clippings from Stumpy will be replanted: “You will live on, not only in people’s hearts, but in new trees. … The Sakura Japanese cherry blossoms are a symbol of a life well lived. And you, Stumpy, are a symbol of that, too.”

May McHenry’s pitch-perfect story tug at your heart and blossom into resilience.

“100 Years Of Ridin’ Wild! Red Bluff Round-Up, 1921-2021”

The Red Bluff Round-Up is “the largest three-day rodeo in the United States.” As Josie Smith writes, “The Round-Up is more than a rodeo. It’s a living, breathing testament to the quintessential true grit spirit of Tehama County, its sense of community, and the determined resilience of the American West.”

As memories linger after the Round-Up each April, they are added to its extraordinary history, which Smith, a board member of the Tehama County Genealogical & Historical Society, has compiled with the help of many hands. “100 Years Of Ridin’ Wild! Red Bluff Round-Up, 1921-2021” ($79.95 in large-size softcover from Chico’s Stansbury Publishing) is available at the Red Bluff Round-Up Mercantile Store, 649 Main Street, Suite 1. The store is open Tuesday through Friday from 11:00 am – 5:00 pm and Saturday from 10:00 am – 5:00 pm.

Each chapter covers a decade of the Round-Up, full of personal stories. There are hundreds of black and white and color photographs and a century of champions. “I took one year out of the picture business to go into rodeo,” team roper and actor Ben Johnson noted. “My dad was a world’s champion, so I wanted to be. I won the world’s championship in team roping (1953), but at the end of the year, I didn’t have $3. All I had was a wore-out pickup truck and a mad wife.”

Radio announcer Bob Tallman put it this way: “Pick a road, any county road. You’re going about 40 miles an hour in your pickup. At that point, jump out, and try to tackle a mailbox. That’s steer wrestling.”

It began October 6, 1921. That day, Tehama County Day, “the first day of the Red Bluff Round-Up, private businesses closed at noon so people could enjoy … the opening of a four-day rodeo program put on by the newly created Red Bluff Round-Up Association. The Red Bluff Daily News enthusiastically declared: ‘Red Bluff Rodeo Starts With A Whoop!’”

The book is a stunning achievement. 

Give the last word to bullfighter Felix Cooper, who noted in April 1974 that “If the whole world was full of rodeo people, it would be a good world.”

“The Heyday Of Willie, Duke, And Mickey: New York City Baseball’s Golden Age Amid Integration”

Robert C. Cottrell is Professor Emeritus at Chico State in History and American Studies, but he’s also a consummate baseball historian. In “The Heyday Of Willie, Duke, And Mickey: New York City Baseball’s Golden Age Amid Integration” ($38 in hardcover from Bloomsbury Academic; also for Amazon Kindle), Cottrell focuses on an unmatched era in Major League Baseball.

“At different points during the mid-1950s,” he writes, “Willie Mays, Duke Snider, and Mickey Mantle were each viewed as not only the greatest center fielder but the finest player in the major leagues, in addition to being a candidate to eclipse Babe Ruth’s single-season home run record.” The statistics are all here, but so are the stories.

“For the four years—1954-1957—featured in this book,” he adds, “Mays, Snider, and Mantle vied for supremacy among New York City center fielders as their teams strove for and reached the pinnacle of American sports at the time. Each was proclaimed, for one year at least during that critical period, the very best player in the game as he led his respective team to a World Series championship.”

The Yankees, Giants, and Dodgers  “exuded star power befitting their sporting prowess and New York City’s preeminence.” 

Yet Cottrell’s story “is also that of the game’s far too belated integration, its reticence in pushing back against the American nation’s racial divisions. The decision by some in Organized Baseball to sign Robinson, Doby, Campanella, Don Newcombe, Paige, Minnie Minoso, Irvin, Mays, Aaron, and Ernie Banks to contracts paralleled the budding civil rights struggle to rid the United States of hateful, hurtful, poisonous Jim Crow edicts and discriminatory practices.”

In fact, “only recently have Negro League games, according to MLB, been acknowledged as on par with those of the major leagues.” In postwar baseball, the Negro Leagues began to “wither,” as Cottrell writes, “tempered by the introduction of Black players into the National and American leagues….”

Cottrell also documents the painful moves of the Dodgers to Los Angeles and the Giants to San Francisco. 

All in all, it’s inside baseball, a paean of praise to a beloved game, warts and all.

“The Family Liar: A Novel”

Teri Kanefield (terikanefield.com), with a law degree from UC Berkeley and a degree in fiction writing from UC Davis, now lives in San Luis Obispo. She writes me that her “husband lived in Los Molinos. We spent lots of time in Chico because my stepdaughter was in a production of Annie at the Chico Theater Company.” All the while, for more than forty years actually, she wanted to tell a story based on her life in a horrendously dysfunctional family.

Though she changed names, “telescoped events, combined minor characters, and left out a lot,” she drew on “letters, diaries I began keeping at the age of twelve, and memory…. To borrow Emily Dickinson’s phrase, this novel is my letter to the world.” 

“The Family Liar: A Novel” ($18.99 in paperback, independently published; also for Amazon Kindle) is a kind of mystery story told by Natalie; in later life she is determined to discover the reasons her father, Jack, was mostly withdrawn and passive while his wife, Natalie’s mother Lenora, operated as a master manipulator, turning family member against family member. 

The couple married in 1959 “at United Hebrew, St. Louis’s reform temple. After the wedding, they rented a one-bedroom apartment four miles from Jack’s television repair shop.” Natalie was born a year later.

When she was eight, a game of pennies taken from her father’s piggy bank went awry, and her mother, “impatient with my explanations, said ‘I can see you are a liar, but I’m not going to spank you. Your punishment is that from now on you will be known as the family liar. We will always know who the liar is. Once a liar, always a liar.’”

The family, including siblings Carly and Teddy, moved to California when Natalie was ten. Natalie could hardly wait until she turned 18 to leave. On her own, virtually ignored by her family, which was breaking apart, Natalie contended with the nagging question: Is it all my fault? Am I bad?

The story, raw in its emotions and psychologically astute, offers a kind of answer to Natalie’s mystery and, as a result, a powerful transformation of Natalie herself and, perhaps, even the reader.