Kevin Glynn, a social studies and Shakespeare teacher at Los Angeles Senior High School, and member of United Teachers Los Angeles, Local 1021, penned a novel Tyrannosaurus Sex, a comic, coming of age novel set in Los Angeles during the heady days of the sexual revolution, from its genesis in the psychedelic sixties to its apogee in the seventies. The novel, published by Cedar Forge Press, is available online from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and the Seattle Book Company.

Susan Westbrook and Elaine Johnson represented the CFT at the 70th anniversary conference of the California Council on Teacher Education on March 19-21. Johnson, a retiree with the Tamalpais Federation of Teachers, Local 1985, and former Assistant to the CFT President, held the presidency of the organization from 1996-98, only the second K-12 teacher to do so. Westbrook, a member-at-large and former president of the EC/K-12 Council, presently serves on the CCTE policy committee as well as its board.

Russell Hill, retiree, Tamalpais Federation of Teachers, Local 1985, and former editor of California Teacher, has penned another book, a coming of age novel Tom Hall & the Captain of All These Men of Death. Published by Pleasure Boat Studio, the novel deals with the pre-treatment tuberculosis epidemic, racist beatings of Southwest natives, and a 1945 Los Angeles criss-crossed by a thousand miles of electric streetcar tracks.

Philip Levine, renowned poet and member of the former AFT local union, United Professors of California at CSU Fresno, where he taught in the English Department for more than 30 years, died February 14. Levine won the Pulitzer Prize for his poetry about working class Detroit and served as Poet Laureate of the United States for 2011-12.