Vol. 7 No. 2
February 2005
Life of a Writer
Previous Newsletters
Book in Common Is Getting Out, a Play by Marsha Norman
For the May 2005 residency, the MFA Program's Book in Common is the play Getting Out by Marsha Norman. A plenary discussion takes place Friday, May 20. All students and faculty, regardless of concentration, read the play in advance of the residency and all prepare comments to add to the discussion.
Toward the end of the residency, Norman, a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, comes to Spalding's campus to talk about her work as a writer, with a focus on her break-out play. Getting Out was first staged at Actors Theatre of Louisville and was voted the best new play produced by a regional theater by the American Theatre Critics Association and appeared in a shortened version in The Best Plays of 1977-1978. The play also received the John Gassner Medallion, the Newsday Oppenheimer award, and the American Theatre Critics Association Citation. Getting Out is featured in Norman's anthology Four Plays published by Theatre Communications Group in 1995 (ISBN: 0930452844) and is available online from Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, and alibris.com, as well as other bookstores.
Norman was awarded the 1983 Pulitzer Prize, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, Hull-Warriner, and Drama Desk Awards for her later play 'night Mother, which received its world premiere at the American Repertory Theatre in 1982. In 1992, Norman won the Tony Award and Drama Desk awards for The Secret Garden. Other plays include Third and Oak, The Laundromat, The Poolhall, The Holdup, Traveler in the Dark, Sarah and Abraham, Loving Daniel Boone, and Trudy Blue. Her other published work includes a novel, The Fortune Teller. Television and film credits include Face of a Stranger, starring Gena Rowlands and Tyne Daley. Norman wrote the screenplay for 'night Mother, which is the MFA feature film for the May residency.
Norman has been awarded grants from National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. She also serves on the council of the Dramatists Guild. She received her bachelor's degree from Agnes Scott College and her master's degree from the University of Louisville. A native of Louisville, Norman now lives in New York, and since 1994, she has served on the faculty of The Juilliard School.
First-semester students may expect a letter in the next few days from the MFA Office with information about the book-in-common essay, which is due in a few weeks. These essays are mailed to the MFA Office. During the May residency, these students meet with Marcia Dalton, the MFA Program's Expository Writing Coach, who will conduct small workshops about critical writing techniques.
All students should adjust this semester's reading lists in order
to add Getting Out to their cumulative bibliographies. (top)
Life of a Writer
Students, faculty, and alumni: Please email writing news to mfanewsletter@spalding.edu
Roy Hoffman's novel Chicken Dreaming Corn was reviewed in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on November 7, The Jerusalem Post November 22, The Boston Globe November 28, The Anniston Star December 5 and in the Winter 2005 issue of Culture and Leisure and Jewish Book World. His October 13 reading at Square Books in Oxford, Miss., was taped for the Spoken Word broadcast on Public Radio South during the first week of January. Among his forthcoming events are readings at the Columbus (Ga.) Public Library, the "On the Brink: Emerging Southern Writers Conference," Jacksonville (Ala.) State University and the South Carolina Books Festival, Columbia, S.C. Between Thanksgiving and New Year he wrote several "Neediest Families" stories for his newspaper, The Mobile Register, part of a holiday fund-raising drive, in tandem with the Salvation Army, for local families facing hardships.
Silas House's short story "Mule + Morning Glory" has been accepted for the spring issue of The Southeast Review, and his essay "How Fried Chicken Saved My Family" has been accepted for the spring issue of The Oxford American. His essay about his friendship with the late writer Larry Brown appears in the December issue of No Depression. Silas's novel The Coal Tattoo was nominated for Appalachian Writers Association Book of the Year and for Best Novel in the Kentucky Literary Awards. An excerpt from the novel has been made into a broadside from Larkspur Press. (top)
Joyce McDonald spoke at the annual conference of the Educational Media Association of New Jersey. The title of her topic was "Reaching Those Tough Teens: Why I Write for Young Adults." She also participated in two panel discussions with fellow authors at the conference held December 3 and 4. Joyce earned her PhD at Drew University, not the University of Iowa, as was previously stated in an issue of On Extended Wings. We are sorry for the error and apologize for any confusion.
Greg Pape's book of poems, American Flamingo, has been accepted for publication in the Crab Orchard Award Series in Poetry in March by Southern Illinois University Press. His book Border Crossings has been accepted for publication in the Classic Contemporaries Series by Carnegie Mellon University Press in 2005. He is to serve on a panel titled "The Legacy of Richard Hugo" at the AWP conference in Vancouver as well as on a panel of writers from the Inland Northwest Writing Programs.
Molly Peacock's one-woman show in poems has been chosen by
Femme Fatale Publications for its festival of one-woman shows, kicking
off at the National Museum of Women in the Arts on October 12 and traveling
to New York City in March 2006 for International Women's Week.
Crystal Wilkinson's Water Street is to be released
in paperback in April (Toby Press). She recently read at the River Styx
Poetry Series in St. Louis.
Sam Zalutsky's latest short film, "SuperStore,"
which he wrote and directed, is screening on Cinequest Online and is
part of the Viewers' Voice Awards, February 1-25, for San Jose's
Cinequest Film Festival. In "SuperStore," Clea Lewis (Ellen
and Writer's Block) stars as Joan, a mother whose ordinary
shopping trip to her local Costco quickly becomes anything but ordinary
when her daughter, Stacey, disappears. The 13-minute-long film is available
for viewing online at www.cinequestonline.org where students, alums, and
faculty can vote for it. Winning films of the Viewer's Voice Awards
are screened during San Jose's Cinequest Film Festival, March 8-13..
(top)
Betsy Woods Atkinson (May 2004) published a feature story in the September issue of Sophisticated Woman magazine, and her short story "Volume of Monk" appeared in the December 2004 issue of The New Orleans Review. Betsy also delivered a lecture at Middle Tennessee State University titled "Every Current Curls a World: The Ripple and Flow of the Writing Life" and is to conduct a writing workshop sponsored by the Louisiana chapter of the SCBWI.
Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen (May 2003) spent three days in Seattle giving school programs for the Seattle Public Library in November. Her picture book Babu's Song is going to be used in McGraw-Hill's 2007 Language Arts Program.
Beatrice Bowles's (October 2003) novel A Ring of Riddles was chosen as one of the three best middle-grade manuscripts of 2004 in a contest titled "Focus on Writers," sponsored by Friends of the Sacramento Public Library. Her next novel is well underway.
Bobbi Buchanan (October 2004) was awarded second place in the 2004 Green River Writers Contest in the creative nonfiction "Cleo Prize" category for her piece "Stomping Grounds." Along with Erin Keane and Pam Steele, Bobbi participated in the Jazz & the Spoken Word reading on January 5 at the Jazz Factory in Louisville. (top)
Roy Burkhead (May 2004) has just signed an agreement to write travel stories and destination pieces for The Tennessean, Middle Tennessee's daily newspaper. Jason Gross, editor of the famed webzine Perfect Sound Forever, selected Roy's ECE "The Short Stories and Lyrics of Two Contemporary Writers: Steve Earle & Rosanne Cash," as one of the best pieces of music writing for 2004, placing it in the top category of "Super-Scribing Awards: Best Writing of the Year." The ECE is now appearing as a two-part article in the e-Zine Chapters and Verse. According to Gross, "though it plays up the romantic notion of Earle and Cash as commercial outsiders, this does a brilliant job of delving into their worldviews, via songs." Roy also reports that The Writer's Loft's first group of students graduated in January. Inspired by Spalding's brief-residency program, The Writer's Loft, an intensive, 18-month program, is the focal point of a certificate in creative writing offered through Middle Tennessee State University's Division of Continuing Studies and Public Service. It is a unique program, consisting of an exciting mixture of workshops, one-on-one mentoring, public readings, and panel discussions. The program is the brainchild of many Spalding MFA graduates, including Betsy Woods Atkinson, Charlotte Rains Dixon, Cate McGowan, Linda Busby Parker, and Roy Burkhead. Betsy, Charlotte, Cate, and Linda serve as mentors while Roy stuffs packets. And everyone is excited to announce that the Fall 2005 book in common is to be Sena Jeter Naslund's novel Four Spirits.
Susan Christerson Brown (October 2003) has been granted an Al Smith Professional Assistance Award from the Kentucky Arts Council.
Anne Marie Fowler (May 2004) was recently hired as an adjunct online professor at Keiser College and as a contributing writer of Freestyle Magazine. Her first article, "From Our Souls We Sing: Celebrating Black History Month," is to be published in the January/February issue. She has also recently returned from studying spirituality, culture, and healing in Varnasi, India.
Kaylene Johnson's (October 2003) article "Making Tracks Across the Last Frontier" is to appear in the February issue of Alaska Airlines Magazine. The March issue of Alaska magazine is to feature her article "Spicing Up the Ski Train at Curry." (top)
Paul Hiers's (May 2004) short story "Gerard" has been accepted for publication in Eclipse, and "Breaking and Entering" has been accepted for publication in Maize. Paul is reading with Silas House and Crystal Wilkinson on February 11 as part of the InKY reading series in Louisville.
Erin Keane (May 2004) has poems forthcoming in Arable, The Heartland Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, and Big Muddy: A Journal of the Mississippi River Valley. She recently taught a series of high-school writing master classes for the Kentucky Governor's School for the Arts, and Poems & Plays nominated her poem "The Jumbotron Nightmare" for a Pushcart Prize.
Maryann Lesert's (October 2003) one-act play titled "Bump" is to be published in an upcoming anthology titled The Art of the One-Act: An Anthology by New Issues Press in Winter 2005.
Mary C. O'Malley's (October 2004) poem "When I Walk on Whiskey Island in Winter, I Think of James Wright" was performed in the "Smoke, Mist and Mirrors" art exhibit which highlighted Cleveland visual artists' themes based on the Cuyahoga River Valley as part of The Poets and Writer's League of Greater Cleveland and the Cleveland Artist's Foundation. Her poem "The Baker's Daughter" is on the Western Irish Writer's blog site called The Poetry Mill. Four of her Irish theme poems are now in The Western Reserve Historical Society of Cleveland's Irish Archives and are to be used in community presentations. Two more of Mary's poems, "Lessons from Korea" and "The Gift of Stolen Fire," were selected as poem of the week for November 28's The Poets Against the War poetry site.
Mary Popham's (October 2003) article on the Spalding MFA in Writing Program, the Kentucky Writers' Coalition and a Louisville writer's group, The Cherokee Roundtable, is appearing in the Spring 2005 issue of Arts Across Kentucky magazine. "The Peddler's Visit," a chapter from her novel Landing Run written as a stand-alone story, is to be published in the next issue of Arable: A Literary Journal, sponsored by the Kentucky Writers' Coalition.
Diana M. Raab (October 2003) read at Dickens-Reed Bookstore in Mt. Dora, Fla., in July. In September she taught a journaling and personal narrative course at The Winter Park Public Library. An excerpt of her memoir/biography, Regina's Closet, appeared in the Spring/Fall 2004 issue of The Louisville Review.(top)
Deborah Reed (October 2003) has received from The Kentucky Arts Council a $7,500 Al Smith Fellowship Grant for her novel Grassroots, a portion of which was her creative thesis on which she worked during her two years in the Spalding MFA program. She read from her novel at Joseph Beth Booksellers in Lexington, Ky., to promote the just-released Knoxville Writers Guild's Migrants and Stowaways: An Anthology of Journeys, in which her work was included. She was awarded a travel grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women's Network/Partnerships funds for travel. Further information is available at www.knoxvillewritersguild.org/migrants.htm
Susan Reed's (May 2004) short story "On the Lummi Moon" was awarded first place in the San Juan County, Wash., writing contest, The Written Word. "On the Lummi Moon" also won the "Best of Prose" award. Susan was invited to give a reading of the story at the "Art and Music Jam," which was carried on a local cable television station.
Joe Schmidt (October 2003) read poems at Cornelia Street Café in New York on January 7. His poem "The Good Bachelor's Poem" appears in the current issue of River Styx (No. 68). His literary work was on display to a small audience at the old cemetery along Jamaica Avenue in Queens on January 4.
Pam Sexton (October 2003) won first place in the 2004 Green River Writers Contest in the "Back When" category for her poem "Dreams of Father." She has signed on to teach Imaginative Writing 207 at the University of Kentucky this semester and has been reelected chairperson of the board of directors for the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning in Lexington. Pam also has a new granddaughter, Willa Dru Marian Michel, with whom she is smitten, and is continuing work on a novel, a short-story cycle, and two poetry manuscripts.
Pam Steele (May 2004) received the second-place award in the 2004 Green River Writers Contest in the "Back When" category for her poem "Geography" and was a semi-finalist in Eastern Washington University's Spokane Prize book-length manuscript competition. (top)
Kathleen Thompson (October 2003) participated in an afternoon of reading/book signing at Alabama Booksmith in Birmingham along with other authors included in Climbing Mt. Cheaha: Emerging Alabama Writers, an anthology of stories edited by Don Noble.
Leslie Townsend (May 2004) received an Indiana Community Arts Studio Saturday Award from the Indiana Arts Council, which provides a five-night stay at the Mary Anderson Center, an artist colony. She is to participate in a community arts event along with other award recipients in a February showcase.
Thelma G. Wyland's (October 2003) short story "The Girl in White" was published in the Fall 2004 issue of Heartland Review.
Laverne Zabielski (May 2004) is teaching at Lindsey Wilson College in the Spring.
Amy Clark's (October 2004) new email address is amy_m_clark@sbcglobal.net
Mary C. O'Malley's new email address is danandrachel2003@yahoo.com
Faculty
Advisory Committee (FAC) Members
for October 2004 Semester
Both students and faculty are invited to make suggestions to the FAC for exploration by the Program Director or Associate Program Director and larger faculty. However, students and faculty should directly and immediately consult the Program Director about any issues concerning specific individuals' performance in the program. (top)
Financial Aid: The MFA Program offers scholarships to students entering their first semester in the program. Returning students who desire financial assistance should apply for graduate assistantships. Applications for scholarships and assistantships should be directed to the MFA Office. Federal student loans, which are handled through Spalding's financial aid office and not through the MFA program, are available to all eligible graduate students.(top)
For help with financial aid questions, call Jodie Huff at (800) 896-8941 ext. 2731 or (502) 585-9911, ext. 2731 or email jhuff@spalding.edu. Students may enter or update their FAFSA information online at www.fafsa.ed.gov (top)
Deferment Form. For students who receive notice their loans have gone into repayment while still enrolled in school. Fill out deferment form (click here) and fax to Jennifer Gohmann at 502-992-2424. Include the address and/or fax number of where the deferment form should go to in Section 7 (on the 2nd page). For multiple loans, fill out one deferment form per loan company. On the fax cover sheet, state that you are an MFA student. If you have questions, Jennifer's email is jgohmann@spalding.edu
MFA Scholarship Fund: Donations to the MFA in Writing Scholarship Fund may be made "in honor of" or "in memory of" a friend or loved one or organization. To make a donation, contact Theresa Raidy in the Advancement Office. Email: traidy@spalding.edu. Phone: (800) 896-8941, ext. 2601, or (502) 585-9911, ext. 2601.
Online information: MFA in Writing forms, deadlines, and other student and faculty information are available online at http://www.spalding.edu/mfaforms Newsletters are at http://www.spalding.edu/mfanewsletter For convenience, bookmark these two pages. Both web addresses are case sensitive. The MFA Office is happy to mail program forms or the newsletter, if requested. Email kyocom@spalding.edu.
Attention, Alums: Please remember to email the Program with
Life of a Writer news. The Program keeps publication, presentation,
reading, employment and other related information on graduates and appreciates
help in keeping records up-to-date and correct. Send the information
to mfanewsletter@spalding.edu
Karen Mann, Administrative Director
Kathleen Driskell, Associate Program Director
Katy Yocom, Program Associate
Liz Nethery, The Louisville Review, editorial assistant, and office assistant
Email Life of a Writer information to Verna Austen at mfanewsletter@spalding.edu