James Zarzana is an English professor in Southwest Minnesota State University. His dedication to the English art has prompted him to convince everyone he meets the importance of the written word, and he has even written his own novel, The Marsco Dissident.
Zarzana has been a part of the SMSU community for 25 years, but he started his teaching career 41 years go near Sacramento, California teaching at two different catholic high schools.
He quickly learned that he wanted to do PhD work and to teach at a college, so when he got accepted by Notre Dame, he packed up and left his home in California and moved to South Bend, Indiana in 1978.
After finishing Notre Dame, he jumped between a few different colleges, including Valparaiso University and King’s College in Pennsylvania.
During this time, Zarzana started to question what he was doing. “The term is ‘scholar gipsy,’ and I was afraid that’s what I was becoming, going from one school to the next for a year or two.”
It wasn’t until Zarzana applied here that he felt like he could finally settle down and stay put.
“Coming here with a tenure-track made us put down real roots,” Zarzana said. He didn’t even think that SMSU would even hire him, afraid his East Coast attire might affect their judgment.
Now with so many years behind him, Zarzana has decided to retire from SMSU. But to make things clear:
“I’m retiring from teaching, but not really retiring. My writing has grown to take over so much of what I’m doing…”
Zarzana had decided to put most of his effort and time refining and creating stories and novels. His book, The Marsco Dissident: Part One of the Marsco Saga, was just released last year, with the second part coming out in 2015.
This doesn’t mean we have seen the last of Jim Zarzana; He promises that he’ll be around, especially since his wife, Marianne, will still be teaching at the school as well. “I’ll visit classrooms, I’m sure, and maybe come back in a year or so to teach a class or two.”
Zarzana knows he will miss teaching, but he also knows that he is moving in the right direction. Writing is his passion and he is ready to make writing his fulltime career.
As stated, Zarzana isn’t really retiring, he’s just switching focus.
“I would like everyone to know how much I love SMSU,” he said. “I love our students who range from timid and unsure to ready and willing to take on the world. I’ll miss their energy. I have many close friends here, but I’ll come up for lunch now and again.”
