Last Updated: 30 March 2007
Since my real name appears elsewhere anyway, it would probably be a good idea to reveal it here, as well as other information:
My name is Tony Whitt, and my
birthdate is 6 April 1970 -- yes, this means I'm an Aries. You do the math if the age is that important to you...
Since December 18, 2006, I've been living in the Rogers Park area of Chicago, a city I've been wanting to live in for years. I used to pass through here every time I took the train from New Orleans to visit my family in Michigan, and even after having one of the worst experiences of my life here (being exposed to HIV by someone who didn't tell me they were positive - don't worry, I didn't get it), I continued to love it.
New Orleans, on the other hand, was another story. But more about that in a sec.
I'm originally from Flint, Michigan
even though my parents were both born in Richlands, Virginia. I lived there for seven years, but I still never lost my Midwestern twang.
I graduated from
Davison High School in Davison, Michigan(yes, fellow Whovians, that's the actual name of the place) and proceeded to go study at Western Michigan University
in Kalamazoo. (And no, I won't tell you whether or not I had a gal in Kalamazoo.) I received my BA, with a double major in English and French and a minor in Translation, in 1992.
Then came the first big, life-altering move...I was accepted to Louisiana State University and moved to
Baton Rouge
in August of 1992 - four days before Hurricane Andrew
hit. Needless to say, I almost turned
around and went back home. Oh, if I'd known about hurricanes then what I know about hurricanes now...
I came to Louisiana envisioning
scenes from Anne Rice
novels and old episodes of Frank's Place. What I got was hot weather, even hotter food, and a more conservative capital city than any I'd been in before. Racism, homophobia, corrupt politics...you name it, Baton Rouge
has it. (Not that New Orleans doesn't, mind you, especially after Katrina - the racism is just as open; the homophobia is not as widespread, and
almost non-existant in certain areas of the French Quarter; and the corrupt politics are definitely part of the local colour.)
After five years and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative
Writing later, I met someone who could take me away from it all (at that time)
and moved here to New Orleans. Even though that relationship has now ended (though we talk even now), and I had at least one bad one and one good one after, I remained in the city, moving from here to there within the city limits, but I'd been considering leaving from not long after that first break-up. I had good reason not to leave for a while, though: In fall of 1998, I began a full-time position at The University of New Orleans as an instructor in English. I was eligible to go up for retention in 2003, but I instead took a position as Coordinator for Technical Support for the English Department, meaning I show people who have PhDs in things such as semiotics and Asian literature how to turn their computers on and where their Caps Lock key was (true story!). The good news was that this reduced my course load by 50% - but those of you who think only teaching two courses per semester is easy have obviously never tried to fix a computer after someone's opened an e-mail attachment they shouldn't have. As part of those duties, I fully redesigned the English Department's website, making an individual page for each faculty member - if you'd like to see it, click here, though be forewarned that my successor has had a hand in the changes, too. All that didn't exactly break the inertia of the staying in New Orleans, as you might imagine.
But Katrina did.
At the time that Katrina hit, I was living in Mid-City, not far from City Park. I left that Friday afternoon to go visit someone I was dating in Baton Rouge, and it was such a busy day that I didn't have a chance to watch TV or listen to the radio - all I knew (as was the case with so many New Orleanians) was that there was another damn storm in the Gulf, and it would probably hit that weekend. I put some extra food out for my two cats, Baku and Groucho, made sure all the windows were securly fastened, and headed out. I didn't make it back to the house for almost more than a month after that.
Don't worry: the cats survived, despite being trapped in a flooded house for three weeks. The house got a foot and a half of water, which ruined everything on the lower shelves and all the furniture, but my boys had the good sense to get on top of things and keep out of the water - well, one of them did, anyway. Poor Baku must've waded in it for a bit, as he temporarily lost the fur on his legs and had a fever when they were rescued by the good people at the LASPCA. You can actually see the video of their rescue here, under the title "Hope Realized" - the door being kicked in is mine, and the poor kitty meowing on the desk is Groucho, while the one being lowered into the cage is Baku. And yes, that's my floor with all the ruined books. (By the way: donate to the SPCA. These people don't get nearly enough recognition for all they did for those of us stupid enough to leave our pets behind...)
I stayed in Baton Rouge with my friend, then in an apartment of my own, until January, teaching at LSU, teaching on-line classes for UNO, and basically living in a state of limbo as I tried to find a reasonable apartment in NOLA to come back to so I could teach on the (supposedly) cleaned-up campus when classes started again. I managed to find a place, moved in - and immediately regretted it. Between the attitude of post-Katrina New Orleanians, the rats living in my walls (and occasionally coming out to play with the cats), a Department Chair who'd become the Devil Incarnate, and the landlords and energy company trying to milk me of every spare penny I had while giving me nothing in return, the experience of returning to the Drowned City was far less than I'd hoped for. By October, I knew I wanted to move to Chicago, job or no job; and by December, I was here. Photos coming eventually, but if you can't wait, go here, instead.
Oh, just so you know, I'm also what's known in the vernacular as a 'confirmed bachelor.' Do with that what you will.
I also write poetry, fiction (especially science fiction, if it has to do with Doctor Who), and critical essays, examples of
some of which are on this website. Three years ago, I expanded my writing to include reviews and articles. In the summer of 2000, I began working for EON Magazine, an on-line zine on science fiction and related areas which, sadly, closed operations. I then worked with the same editor, Arnold T. Blumberg, at Cinescape Online, and then with Scott Colura at Now Playing Magazine (which, sadly, has also closed up shop). I was briefly a staff writer for a local newspaper, Southern Voice; and I also contributed a regular column to a local magazine for women called wInk Magazine. Nowadays, I write reviews and a regular column on comics for iF Magazine's web site. All these experiences have improved my confidence in my writing more than anything else has done.
I enjoy good food (though my tastes have turned to the spicy in the last ten years), science fiction, movies, TV series (when I have time to watch them), reading up on things like palmistry and Tarot cards, and other various innocuous occupations. And if you want to know about anything else I like, you'll just have to write to me and ask for yourself. So there.
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