Gerald Chertavian

College today is an expensive option without a lot of economies of scale, right, when you go and live at a college. So you have a system that's increasing its cost base by probably five percent a year.

At Year Up, our students - low income 18-24 year olds - come to us having already faced substantial obstacles in life. They are not in search of a handout; what they want most of all is the ability to take ownership of their own futures.

When I start getting embroiled in heated debates and feeling stressed, I just turn everything off and disconnect from the world. I simply tell my colleagues and friends that I am not well and need to cancel all meetings for a day or more. I take it easy - go for a long hike, take a vacation somewhere, or just stay at home and read.

The historical novelist has to consider what has actually happened, while the SF writer is dealing in possibilities, but they are both in the business of imagining a world unlike our own and yet connected to it.