John Nichols

Welcome to John Nichols' home page on dm.net!

Who is this John Nichols person anyway? I'm a social studies teacher at South High School in Cleveland. 
 

When I'm not being a teacher I also write poetry, work my family's genealogy, stargaze, manage the Writers and Genealogy forums of Dueling Modems, and generally have a good time.
 

My plans for this page are using it to promote poetry in general, genre poetry in particular, along with other forms of writing. I'll point the way toward history and science fiction sites on the Web. As I learn more html, this page will become more sophisticated, although I do intend to keep graphics to a minimum. The interests that I just mentioned will be starting links to other pages, along with some links to my own work.
 

As I mentioned up page, I'm a poet. Most of my poetry is sf poetry, but I've also written a few "mainstream" poems. The links below will take you to eleven of my published poems:

• Black holes was nominated for the Rhysling Award..
• Winter was the first poem that I ever sold.
• Spider is a sonnet inspired by a woman I met once from Atlanta, whom I knew I would never see again.
• Walking is a poem that took me nearly a year to write. It is an autobiographical poem.
• Auburn Avenue is a street in Cleveland's Tremont neighborhood.
• Ralph and Alice Go to the Moon is a found poem based on an actual event.
• For Isaac is a sonnet written in tribute to Isaac Asimov. It originated from an online round robin initiated by Joe Haldeman .
• The Family Line was first published in Year 2000.  It reflects my genealogy interests.
• Personality Points On the Plane of Existence was published in the July 2000 issue of Asimovs.  It originated from a colleague's chance remark in the teacher's lounge of Glenville High School, where I used to teach.
• Flying by Nebula on a Star Dusty Plane  was published in January 2006, in the Autumn 2005 issue of The Magazine of Speculative Poetry.  It plays off the theme of the Robert Frost poem.

Here are some poetry links that I think are pretty cool:

• The Literary Hyper Calendar. This site features a monthly virtual calendar that is linked to daily information about important events and people in literary history. May of the dates show links to way cool pages giving more information about the poets, writers, and events marked in the calendar.
• Entrance to the Shakespeare Web. This page links you to archives of the Bard's poems and plays, plus links to the pages on the historical background that he wrote in.
• Poetic Conversations Homepage. This page links to other pages devoted to 20th century poets like Anne Sexton and Allen Ginsberg. Very informative!
• Recursive Angel. This is the home page of the Recursive Angel, an extremely good poetry market. They pay you for your work and are recognized by Poets & Writers for their excellent poetry!
• Dark Planet. This is another good poetry site. They've published work by the likes of Jo Walton and Keith Allen Daniels.

Every writer, especially those of us who spend time online, needs resources, in the form of contacts, advice, and peers to talk to. The following links are some of the more useful resources I've found on the Web:

• The Literary Arts Allied Collective. In their words, "The LAAC's simple purpose is to further the appreciation of, and access to, the literary arts. If you are involved in writing or publishing, this is your home on the Internet. We specialize to insure that every visitor to lit-arts.com is interested in the art, craft, and business of writing." They have links to Barbara Paul and Billie Sue Mosiman's home pages, Sisters in Crime, and various other online writer resources.
• Plot. An excerpt from Damon Knight's Creating Short Fiction. Damon talks about the five endings to plotted stories, Resolution, Revelation, Decision, Explanation, and Solution; gives examples, and discusses common problems with plots and how to solve them. This page is highly recommended for anyone looking to polish their craft.

According to the Hunger Site someone dies of hunger every 3.6 seconds, and3/4s of those deaths are children under five. By clicking their donate free food link, you can donate up to three cups of food a day. Your donations are paid for by their sponsors, and you can make one donation a day. So click the link for the Hunger Site and help keep someone alive.

Writers that I recommend:

• Geoffrey Landis. Geoff is a Hugo and Nebula winner, a fine poet, one of those Mars Pathfinder guys, and a pretty cool guy. Check out his A Month of Sundays.
• Karawynn Long. Karawynn is a past WOTF winner, a fine poet, and an excellent Web page designer. Be sure to read the excerpt from How The Ant Made A Bargain.

History is not just a collection of names and dates! It's lives, passions, ideas, in short the very breadth of human experience! And the following links help show you how this is true:

• The History Channel. What happened on today's date, neat factoids, sound clips, and more!
• A&E's Biography.com. Click on the Read button and read the first chapter of several fascinating biographies. Click on the Find button, and get the lives of over 15,000 people of interest.
• The National Archives Online. Here you'll find archives of original government documents, like Nixon's resignation letter, posters from WWII along with information about the artists who wrote them and explanations of the poster's intent. There are links to sound and video clips, and information on current government projects. A treasure trove for the social studies teacher and student!
• A&E In The Classroom. Here you'll find commercial free program listings and links to other education resources.

Us teachers can use all the help we can get. Two good online places for it are:

• AskEric. Search their databases for lesson plans and journal articles containing the latest research in education.
• Teachnet.com. Here you'll find advice, lesson plans, job information, and a whole other slew of links useful to teachers.

That's all for now! In the meantime, you can:

• Send me email with your comments.
• Drop in on my virtual living room (if your browser supports remote NNTP access)
• Or see what else is up at Dueling Modems. (There's a 30-day free trial membership waiting for you!)

You are one of web surfers to stumble onto this page.