User:Jazarzana14

James A. “Jim” Zarzana

Originally from Sacramento, California, Zarzana has lived in Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota. He holds a BA in English from Saint Mary’s College of California and an MA in English from Sacramento State University. After teaching high school in Sacramento, he moved to Indiana to begin graduate school at the University of Notre Dame where he earned a PhD in English specializing in the British novel.

After finishing his doctorate, he taught at Valparaiso University in Indiana and then at King’s College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. In 1989 he joined the English Department of Southwest Minnesota State University in Marshall, Minnesota. At present, he is a professor and former chair of the department.

The speculative, science fiction novel, The Marsco Dissident, the initial novel of The Marsco Saga, is his first published work. The second of the four novels, Marsco Triumphant, should to available in December 2013 or soon thereafter. These two novels tell the story of a post-nationhood world where a single mega-corporation, Marsco, controls everything via its absolute control of computer usage. The Marsco Sustainability Project, Book III, tells of the final years of this situation. Look for it after the summer of 2014. The Ascendancy of Marsco, Book IV, is the prequel to the nightmare world of Marsco. It will also be available for download but at a later date.

As a novelist, Zarzana chooses to call himself a writer of speculative science fiction, not a science fiction writer. This statement is not a semantic ploy: character development, political machinations, and theme drive his works, not plot gimmicks, scientific tricks, and hypotheses about future technology. Marsco uses raw power to control and dictate who and what it wants. It is this conflict between humans and the abuse of power by monolithic political entities that Zarzana wants to explore.

Even though most of his work is in the speculative genre, he is also working on a novel about the academy, The Gods of Small Fiefdoms, which is either a comic look at the incongruous drama of university life or a serious look about the unintended absurdity of academic life. Either way, there it is.

Besides writing and teaching, Zarzana enjoy reading fiction ranging from Jane Austen to Pat Barker to Patrick O’Brien. He also reads widely in history: the Marsco world is based loosely on the Roman and British Empires.

An avid college football fan, he especially follows Notre Dame Football. He also enjoys cooking Italian and Indian dishes. He is married to a fellow professor and poet and Notre Dame graduate, Marianne Murphy Zarzana; they have a daughter who recently graduated from Notre Dame and is a fellow educator and writer. He loves dogs.

As much as he enjoys university life, writing is his passion.