Vol. 7 No. 1
January 2005
Life of a Writer
Previous Newsletters
Writers' Retreat Deadline Extended; New Information
Due to a change in the booking policies of the New Harmony Inn, the MFA
Program is pleased to extend the reservation deadline for the Harmonic
Convergence Writers' Retreat, May 29-June 3, 2005. Those wishing to make
a reservation should send a $200 deposit to the MFA Office by the new
deadline of February 15. The balance is due March 29.
Students, alumni, and faculty are invited to participate in the retreat
for the full five days or for a three-day stay, departing June 1. The
heart of the retreat is individual writing time; participants are encouraged
to devote about a half-day to writing. Free-time activities may include
walking, yoga, antiquing, dining, and sightseeing in the historic, arts-oriented
town of New Harmony.
Several people have inquired about bringing guests to the retreat. Guests
of Spalding MFA students, faculty, and alumni are welcome and must send
in their reservations and deposits by the February 15 deadline.
The package price includes three or five nights at the New Harmony Inn,
transportation between Louisville and New Harmony, brunch at the scenic
Overlook Restaurant on the drive to New Harmony, and a Tuesday-night dinner
at the excellent Red Geranium Restaurant. Single-occupancy cost is $650
for five nights or $480 for three nights. Double-occupancy cost per person
is $475 for five nights or $365 for three nights. Meals other than the
brunch and Tuesday dinner are participants' responsibility. (top)
Metroversity Competition Postmark Deadline February 17
On January 18, the MFA Office emailed all students informing them of
the Metroversity Competitions in Creative Writing and Expository Writing.
Attached to that email were the guidelines and the necessary entry form
for the contests. Any student who did not receive that email and would
like to enter the competition should email Kathleen Driskell at
kdriskell@spalding.edu for the necessary information.
The Program encourages all presently enrolled students to enter the Metroversity
Competition in one or both categories. Submissions should be sent directly
to Jean Tucker, the Metroversity Competition Coordinator, by the postmark
deadline of February 17, 2005.(top)
Opportunities to Volunteer with National Public Radio
National Public Radio remains a wonderful partner and advocate for the
literary arts. The Program encourages MFA students, alums, and faculty
who live in the same region of the country to get together and volunteer
to staff the phones during the upcoming spring pledge drive at their local
NPR station. Most NPR affiliates begin scheduling volunteers in mid-January,
so now is the time to call.
Most stations ask that a volunteer group have four people per shift who
make a two-hour minimum commitment. When volunteers answer the phones,
Spalding's MFA Program receives on-air recognition and a listing
on the station's website for three months or so.
In Louisville, the next membership drive begins on February 25. If any
local MFA students, alums, or faculty would like to volunteer, please
contact Public Radio Partnership's volunteer coordinator, Chris Stephenson,
at 502- 896-5776. In Louisville, meals and parking are provided and the
onsite training takes only 10 minutes. (top)
During their fifth residency, graduating students meet with the their
mentor and two students for a 30-minute discussion of the Creative Thesis.
The Thesis Discussion is a pleasant conversation about what the student
has accomplished by producing a completed thesis of original writing.
By midsemester, the Administrative Director appoints a student reader
for the Thesis Discussion and emails the reader's name to the graduating
student. By the time of the fourth packet mailing date, the thesis author
directly asks another student to be the second participant in the thesis
discussion. The Thesis Discussion is more helpful if the author chooses
someone who is not familiar with the work. The second reader may be drawn
from third- or fourth-semester students.
After the second reader agrees to participate, the thesis author emails
that student's name to Karen Mann at kmann@spalding.edu
Please include "Second Thesis Reader" in the subject line. Each
graduating student serves as a reader of the thesis of at least one other
graduating student. The MFA Office suggests no student participate in
more than two Thesis Discussions. The Thesis Discussion time and location
is announced about two weeks before the residency
At the beginning of the Thesis Discussion, the author speaks briefly about
the literary influences on the writing in the thesis and about the processes
of writing and revising the work. The author also speaks about a feature
of the thesis that is a particular source of pride or sense of accomplishment.
The author should prepare a few questions to ask the readers. Student
readers prepare for the Thesis Discussion by carefully reading the thesis
and taking a few notes for comments/questions to make during the discussion.
The mentor facilitates and participates in the discussion. This is not
a workshop session. The author does not make substantive changes in the
thesis after the Thesis Discussion. (top)
Life of a Writer
Students, faculty, and alumni: Please email writing news to mfanewsletter@spalding.edu
Idore Anschell's poem "Pop-up" is forthcoming in the Seattle newspaper Real Change.
Deborah Begel is one of three writers chosen to write a 30-minute radio drama for possible live performance at the National Federation of Community Broadcasters' (NFCB) 30th Anniversary Conference in Baltimore, Md., in April. The script competition and production are sponsored by NFCB and the National Audio Theatre Festivals. (top)
Albert DeGenova's voice was recently added to "The Book of Voices" on the audio poetry web site http://www.e-poets.net He was also a featured reader along with Spalding poets Marci Johnson and Parneshia Jones at the InKY Reading Series in Louisville. Albert continues to host the long-running Molly Malone's open mic in Chicago, so if you're ever in Chi-town on a second Monday of the month . . .
Dan DiStasio led a Creative Writing class at Florida Keys Community College, reading excerpts from his short story series and poems by Molly Peacock and Kathleen Driskell. He is also participating in readings and seminars at the Key West Literary Seminar on Humor, with Billy Collins, Molly Ivins, Calvin Trillin, Garry Trudeau, Nora Ephron and ZZ Packer.
Kathryn Eastburn's essay "Death of a Traveling Salesman" has been accepted for presentation at the annual meeting of the Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Social Imagery (SISSI). The meeting, entitled "The Image of the Road in Literature, Media, and Society," held in Colorado Springs in March, will be Kathryn's first academic conference. Her story, "Georgia On My Mind," about internally displaced persons in the republic of Georgia, is currently the feature story on the website of the Dart Center of the University of Washington, http://www.dartcenter.org
Sandra Falconer's poem "Guide Book" is forthcoming in the magazine Coping with Cancer.
Tara Goldstein's monologue from her play "Hong Kong, Canada" is forthcoming in a collection of monologues for women entitled She Speaks, edited by Canadian playwright Judith Thompson for Canadian Playwrights Press. Tara also attended the book launch on November 13.
Lucrecia Guerrero is facilitating an intensive Fiction Workshop at the Antioch Writers' Workshop, July 9-16, in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
Mike Hampton's personal essay, "Gas Station Karaoke," has been accepted for publication in Me Three. (top)
Marci Johnson's poem "Pillar of Salt" was accepted for publication in an upcoming issue of Christianity and Literature. Her poem "Space" appeared in Issue No. 6 of Full Unit Hookup. "A Theory of the Uni-verse" was published by Strange Horizons in November and "Hide and Seek" appeared in The Poetry Kit Magazine (UK) in October.
Terry Price is among the first seven graduates of The Writer's Loft: Middle Tennessee State University's Low-Residency Certificate in Creative Writing. This eighteen-month program was created and fostered by Roy Burkhead (May 2004) and features several Spalding graduates as mentors. Terry is speaking as the class representative at the ceremonies held at the Sheraton in Nashville. Charlotte Rains Dixon (October 2003) is speaking on behalf of the faculty and is reading portions of the students' work during the ceremony.
Terri Whitehouse's discussion with musician and filmmaker Lisa Marr about her documentary Learning How to Fall appears in issue No. 6 of Bejeezus at http://www.bejeezuszine.com
Dianne Aprile was invited to serve on the committee judging the Thomas Merton Poetry of the Sacred Contest 2005, for which author and Spalding guest lecturer Naomi Shihab Nye is making the final selections next month. Dianne appeared twice on Kentucky Educational Television in December: once as part of a feature on the "Jazz & The Spoken Word" program she founded at The Jazz Factory, and later as a guest panelist, reading her essay on plum pudding from the book A Kentucky Christmas on Bill Goodman's KET Book Club show. KET filmed her at home making the pudding and then presenting it, ablaze, in the KET studio. Dianne taught a class on the writer and social critic Thomas Merton at St. Matthew's Episcopal Church in Louisville in January, and in February, she is presenting a special night of "Jazz & The Spoken Word," honoring the work of writer Audre Lorde, in whose name the University of Louisville has recently established an endowed chair in Race, Gender, and Sexuality.
Rane Arroyo has been elected to the Board of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs.
Julie Brickman published a review of Susan Vreeland's new collection of stories about art, Life Studies, in the December 24 Sunday Books supplement of the San Diego Union-Tribune. (top)
Ellie Bryant had readings in January in Vermont and New Hampshire and spoke about her picture book Two Tracks in the Snow at a fundraising event for Waterville Valley's Adaptive Ski program. She also spent four days in the Poconos at a writing retreat led by Nancy Willard and organized by Susan Campbell Bartoletti. Such notable children's writers as Gail Carson Levine, Laurie Halse Anderson, and Joyce McDonald were also in attendance.
K. L. Cook finished a nine-week, 16-state, 10,000-mile book tour in the fall of 2004 for Last Call, a collection of linked stories. The tour included more than 70 readings, book signings, and workshops at various colleges, universities, literary centers, book festivals, bookstores, high schools, and media shows. Among the highlights were visits to a class of sixth-graders in Mobile, Ala., ("Do you and your kids fight? Because me and my mom fight all the time."), a prison in Childress, Tex., and, of course, the Spalding Fall residency. Shortly after Kenny's return to Arizona in December, William Morrow (Harper Collins) accepted his novel, The Girl from Charnelle, which will be published in 2006.
Debra Kang Dean read in September at the D'Alzon Arts Poetry Series at Assumption College in Worcester, Mass., and in November in the River Styx Reading Series in St. Louis, Mo. In March, she is participating in the New Hampshire Young Writers' Conference, a one-day conference for high-school students at Plymouth State University in Plymouth, N.H. Debra has also been invited to conduct a workshop at the New England Young Writers' Conference at Mid-dlebury College in Vermont. The conference, held in May, is open to high-school students in New England and New York. On the publication front, "Widder-shins" is forthcoming in Blues for Bill: A Tribute to William Matthews (U. of Akron, January 2005), and two poems are forthcoming in River Styx. (top)
Kathleen Driskell's poems "Ring" and "My Neighbor's Flock of Peacocks Wander Over for Another Visit," have been accepted for publication by the literary journal PoemMemoirStory.
Richard Goodman's essay "Painted Words: Books in Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art" will appear in Fine Books & Collections Magazine this spring.
Sena Jeter Naslund's script based on Four Spirits is to be given a staged reading by the Alabama Shakespeare Festival in Montgomery on Saturday, February 5, at 3 p.m. For ticket information call 800-841-4273 or see the website at http://www.asf.net
Linda Busby Parker's novel Seven Laurels won the 2004
Langum Prize for Historical Fiction. Linda reads and speaks in the Birmingham
Public Library on Saturday, March 5. In January and February, she reads
at the Books Alive Festival in Panama City, Fla., the South Carolina Book
Festival in Columbia, the Huntsville (Ala.) Public Library, and the Daphne
(Ala.) Public Library and visits some book clubs in the local area. Linda
continues with her freelance writing. Her interview with Algonquin editor
Kathy Pories will appear in the next issue of First Draft. Linda
continues work on her second novel, Crossing the Distance. (top)
Alums: Please email writing news to mfanewsletter@spalding.edu
Jennifer Spillane and her husband, Michael, welcomed Emily Kathleen into the world on January 7. Emily weighed 7 pounds and 14 ounces. Mother and baby are doing fine. The Spillanes' address is 6025 Old Stratford Ct., Alexandria, VA 22315. (top)
Our heartfelt sympathy to Greg Pape on the death of his father, Laurence A. Pape, on December 30, 2004.
Our heartfelt sympathy to the family and friends of Peter Telenson on his death on November 5, 2004.
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)
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.
The AWP Conference takes place from March 30-April 2 in Vancouver. The MFA Program pays registration for faculty and students. The deadline for requesting this assistantce is Wednesday, January 26. Email Karen Mann
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