Director’s Workshop in Buenos Aires
While Program Director Sena Jeter Naslund gives plenary lectures at all the residencies, she also conducts a Director’s Workshop at international residencies. In Buenos Aires, her Director’s Workshop is open not only to fiction students in the third semester or above and to alums, but also to students in other areas where Sena is currently active: playwriting and creative nonfiction. This mixing of genres proved to be an especially enriching opportunity, according to students who submitted work in both fiction and playwriting for the first Director’s Workshop, held in Barcelona.

Those interested in joining the Director’s Workshop in Buenos Aires should contact Karen Mann at kmann@spalding.edu. For participants who continue with a mentor, appropriate mentoring is worked out with other MFA faculty through consulting with Karen. (top)

Special Options for Alums in Buenos Aires
Alums may participate in the residency in Buenos Aires, joining faculty and students at group meals and outings, including walking tours, a tango evening, and an overnight trip to the pampas. This option is called the Writer’s Retreat, as it allows alums plenty of time to write or to explore the city on their own.

In addition to the Writer’s Retreat events, alums have three options for participating in the residency curriculum. Our Retreat Plus option offers admittance to lectures, panels and other classroom sessions. The Full Residency option lets alums participate in workshop, as well as all other classroom sessions. Alums may also begin an Enrichment semester with the Buenos Aires residency.

Finally, alums may apply to serve as a Post-Graduate Residency Assistant. The application deadline is January 28.

Alums should have received an email from Katy Yocom on January 11 containing further details, including pricing for all these options and compensation for PGRAs. (top)

Alums who would like to participate in the residency at any level should contact Katy at kyocom@spalding.edu. A $500 deposit is due March 6.

Film Production Seminar Spring 2010 Open to All Students
Students in all areas of concentration may participate in the Film Production Seminar offered during the Spring 2010 residency in Louisville. ENG610 is a prerequisite for this workshop. Students participating in this seminar are not assigned to other workshops during residency, as this seminar is scheduled at the same time as Workshop. After completing the workshop seminar, students are mentored by faculty in their major areas of concentration for the at-home portion of the semester.

For their workshop submissions, FPS members present three two-page scripts to be considered for filming. In the first workshop, students discuss the scripts and, with the workshop leader’s guidance, choose one of the three to produce. Rehearsals, filming, and editing take place during the remaining workshop hours. Outside of the workshop, film production students attend all other required sessions, including plenary and craft lectures and panels, student and faculty readings, etc. (top)

Before the residency, participants send in their three two-page scripts, which must use an indoor setting and employ not more than three actors. While the two pages may be excerpted from current work, they should form a certain unity or completeness: each short script should have a beginning, middle, and an end. Students may wish to reshape some of their original scenes from their own writing into scripts to fit these requirements.

Sam Zalutsky, leader for the Film Production Seminar, has extensive experience as a screenwriter, director, and independent producer of short and feature films. Working with Sam is Ron Schildknecht. Ron has had experience writing and producing his own work—from documentaries to art films—and teaching film-making classes at the University of Louisville and other places. Ron supplies all the necessary equipment, including the camera and computer for editing.

The screenwriting faculty and the program directors regard this activity as an enriching, optional experience for students in any area of concentration and are excited about this curriculum enhancement for our students. Interested students contact Gayle Hanratty at ghanratty@spalding.edu by February 1. Students are assigned on a first-come, first-served basis. (top)

Program Books in Common for Spring 2010
All students and faculty read the following Program Books/Scripts in Common in preparation for the Spring 2010 residency. Bring the texts to the appropriate sessions at the residency.

1. David Kipen’s The Schreiber Theory
2. Rebecca Gilman’s The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (posted on Blackboard)
3. Carson McCullers’s The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (if buying a copy, we suggest students purchase the Modern Library’s edition [ISBN-10: 0679424741 or ISBN-13: 978-0679424741])

Students should also view (in their entirety) the following films written by Steven Zaillion to prepare for residency discussions: Schindler’s List (1993); Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993); Gangs of New York (2002). DVDs of the films may be rented locally or checked out of local libraries. (top)

Faculty Books/Scripts in Common for Spring 2010
In addition to the Program Book in Common, students also read a Faculty Book/Script in Common in their area of concentration. The Faculty Books/Scripts in Common are:

Fiction: Eleanor Morse, Chopin’s Garden (order from amazon.com)
Poetry: Jeanie Thompson, The Seasons Bear Us
Creative Nonfiction: Luke Wallin, Conservation Writing: Essays at the Crossroads of Nature and Culture (order from http://www.lulu.com/content/505405)
Writing for Children & Young Adults: Silas House, Eli the Good
Playwriting: Kira Obolensky, Modern House (to be posted on BB)
Screenwriting: Brad Riddell, The Plebe (posted on BB) (top)

MFA Offers Community Workshop in Creative Writing
The MFA Program is again offering a “Community Workshop” to creative writers during the Spring 2010 residency, May 22-30. Community Workshop students participate in an eight-day, non-credit writing workshop and are invited to attend all MFA residency events, including lectures and panel discussions normally reserved exclusively for MFA students. If you know of anyone who might be interested, please tell those interested to email mfa@spalding.edu for more information and registration details or see www.spalding.edu/communityworkshop. (top)

Subject Line Required in Emails
Spalding’s email system does not deliver emails if the subject line is empty. When emailing anyone at a Spalding email address, students and faculty must be sure to type a subject line for the message.

Graduate Assistantship Deadline February 28
Second-, third-, and fourth-semester students who enroll in the Spring 2010 or Summer 2010 semester and who wish to apply for a graduate assistantship submit their materials to Karen at kmann@spalding.edu by February 28. For information, check Blackboard, SEMESTERS/[your semester]/DOCUMENTS: GENERAL INTEREST. (top)

Spring Post-Graduate Residency Assistant Deadline February 28
Students who have graduated from the MFA Program may apply for a position as a Post-Graduate Residency Assistant at the Spring 2010 residency. PGRAs prepare for and assist in a Workshop by participating in the discussion, assist in the MFA Office, and/or may perform other duties such as recording lectures or hosting residency guests or prospective students. Graduates often feel such a position is beneficial to their vitae.
Post-Graduate Residency assistantships are awarded to graduates of the MFA Program who have proven to be good citizens during their tenure as students in the Program. Usually they have excelled in their graduate coursework, have been superior participants in residency workshops, or otherwise shown themselves capable of performing the duties described above. The applicant list is narrowed to include qualified candidates. For most residencies, the Program appoints up to eight PGRAs, and if possible, a PGRA is appointed to each area of concentration. (If the pool of qualified candidates is larger than the number of PGRA positions available, then a random drawing is used to select the PGRAs.)

Post-Graduate Residency Assistants receive $75 in compensation and are included in residency meals and events. Meals or events not included as part of the group experience are the Post-Graduate Residency Assistant’s responsibility. Post-Graduate Residency Assistants are provided a single room at the Spalding dormitory or $180 toward incurred housing costs (a receipt must be provided for reimbursement). Post-Graduate Residency Assistants may request up to $300 in transportation costs toward coach airfare or reimbursement at 55 cents a mile for the round-trip journey between home and Spalding. (top)

To apply, graduates email to Kathleen Driskell at kdriskell@spalding.edu by February 28 stating the desire to be a Post-Graduate Residency Assistant and the area of concentration. Post-Graduate Residency Assistants are offered the position shortly after midsemester.

Reading Trail for MFA Authors
When one of our faculty, students, or alumni publishes a book, we celebrate that success. In keeping with the community spirit fostered by the Spalding MFA Program, we want to actively support those authors when they travel to promote their books. We are collecting information to create a Reading Trail of possible reading opportunities, which we will make available to all MFAers.

Spalding students and faculty hail from all over the United States and beyond. Many of us live in communities that offer reading series, which are affiliated with a local independent bookstore or university or are run on their own, such as Louisville’s own InKY (founded by Spalding alums).

You can support Spalding authors by providing an introduction to reading series organizers or simply passing along information about reading opportunities in your area. Providing us with this information does not commit you to anything you are unable to do. We simply hope to put together a list of possibilities that will help authors market their books successfully. (top)

If you have helpful ideas that you wish to share, email Karen Mann at kmann@spalding.edu to request the Reading Trail form to complete and return.

Thank you for being an active part of our Spalding MFA community!

Homecoming May 28-30
The MFA Alumni Association is planning Homecoming for May 28-30. Alumni who are planning to attend may want to make reservations at the Brown Hotel now (502-583-1234). Be sure to ask for the Spalding Friends and Family rate, which is $129.

While details are not complete for the Homecoming program, the Celebration of Recently Published Books by Alumni takes place on Friday, May 28, and is followed by a book signing. (top)

There is no registration fee to attend Homecoming, and alumni, Spring 2010 graduates, and faculty are invited to attend a brunch on Saturday, May 29, in the Spalding mansion.

Because You Asked
Q: Can I take a workshop outside my major area of concentration?
A. Yes. Students may request to participate in a workshop in an area other than their area of concentration. For example, a fiction student may request to participate in a screenwriting workshop, even though his or her mentored work for that semester remains in his or her own area of concentration. This option is open only to students who have completed a semester in the Spalding MFA Program, and it may be taken only once. These requests are usually accommodated, but some restrictions apply. (top)

Life of a Writer

Students

Larry Brenner had two screenplays, Soul Harvest and Super-Villain Prom, placed as semi-finalists in the Back in the Box Screenplay Competition. Another screenplay, Blood Chrysalis, was named runner-up in the Great Lakes Film Association Screenwriting Competition. His TV spec script The Pixie Mine Conundrum: A Big Bang Theory episode was a finalist in the Fall 2009 Talent Scout Competition. He was awarded a Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation grant toward producing his play, Saving Throw Versus Love next year. At present, Saving Throw Versus Love is a quarter-finalist in the Writer’s Network Competition, and Soul Harvest is a semi-finalist in the Screenplay Festival. Next month, his one-act play, The Box, will be going up in the Greensboro Fringe Festival.

Carolyn Flynn, who is focusing on fiction and creative nonfiction, had an interview with Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the best-selling Eat, Pray, Love, about her new book, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage, in the Albuquerque Journal’s SAGE magazine, of which she is editor. She will have the honor of introducing Gilbert at her appearance in Albuquerque on Feb. 3. The interview is up online during January at abqjournal.com/sage.
In addition, Carolyn’s travel piece about Granada, Spain, “Heart of the Soul,” was published in the Journal (abqjournal.com/venue/travel/27214043travel12-27-09.htm) and picked up by the McClatchy Newspapers wire service, where it has been appearing on all sorts of online news sites, including DailyMe.com. Her article “The Essence of Cool” also appeared in the Journal and was picked up by McClatchy, appearing online at Business Week.

Anjila Joi Gaudet, who is focusing on creative nonfiction, has received her master of arts in English from the University of Louisville. She has participated in a University of Louisville Memoir and Self-Portrait Performance, where she did a reading of her work. Anjila was also recognized in the Metroversity Writer’s Competition, where she was able to read part of her creative nonfiction work in 2002. Anjila has done an independent study on Trauma and Memoir. She teaches at a Montessori school. (top)

Joe Gisondi presented two sessions at the College Media Advisers national college journalism workshop in Austin, Texas, “Writing Sports Profiles” and “How to Write Visually.” He also served on a panel, “So You Want to Write a Textbook,” where he discussed his upcoming sports journalism textbook, published by Sage Publications in January.

Corrine Jackson has officially become agented through Laura Bradford of Bradford Literary. On her blog, corrinejackson.wordpress.com, she posted an entry about how she got her agent. Before the agent called her, she found out on Twitter she was getting an offer. Her blog has exploded since the entry. Corrine launched the blog in the fall with tips on query letters, editing, and finding an agent. She recently reviewed Jay Asher’s New York Times bestseller, Thirteen Reasons Why, a contemporary young-adult novel. The review included a Q&A on the author’s writing process. Also, AuthorScoop.com did an article on her recently.

Caroline LeBlanc reports that her poems “Rose Marie” and “Greater Love” were published in Le Forum (University of Maine, Franco-American Centre), Vol. 34, No. 3, Fall 2009.

JoAnn LoVerde-Dropp attended the annual Georgia Writers Conference on November 7 at Kennesaw State University. (top)

Richard (Rick) Neumayer invites the Spalding community to attend a professional reading of his lyrics and script for Sherlock in Love, the Musical, based on the novel by Sena Jeter Naslund, at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 14, in the Egan Leadership Center Lectorium, Fourth and Breckinridge, Louisville. Plenty of free parking is available nearby. Commentaries by the audience are welcome. Rick’s musicals, with David Sisk, have been produced several times at River Stage, Jeffersonville, Indiana.

Tommy Trull reports that his musical Perseus in Suburbia will be produced at the Greensboro Fringe Festival in February. His play Outing the Badger will run at Little Fish Theatre in San Pedro, California, January through February, and his play Viewers Like You will run at Theatre Three in Port Jefferson, New York, February-March. (top)

Faculty and Staff

Dianne Aprile is among the writers whose work is included in Now Write Nonfiction, a compendium of writing lessons and exercises published in December by Tarcher/Penguin. Others in the book include Gay Talese, Philip Gerard, Mimi Schwartz, Lee Gutkind, Lia Purpura, Robert Atwan, and Judith Kitchen. Dianne’s exercise, which she has used in workshops at Spalding, is titled Lost & Found. Dianne returned to Louisville for a talk on January 14 at The Clifton Center on “The Writing Life,” as a benefit for Friends of the Library. The Louisville library sustained major damage during last summer’s flood. Dianne serves in January as the creative nonfiction judge of the 2010 student writing contest for Alligator Juniper, the literary journal of Arizona’s Prescott College. (top)

Ellie Bryant’s short story collection, Full Bloom, has been published electronically by Brown Fedora Books and is available for download from BrownFedoraBooks.com. Full Bloom is a collection of sixteen short stories, each “peopled with real women, real men, teenagers, seniors—some are in love, some have lost love, some are dying and know how fleeting love and life can be. You will live out these quiet scenes with these individuals, with these families. You won’t forget any of them,” according to Brown Fedora Books.

Kathleen Driskell led a poetry retreat at St. Marguerite’s Convent in Mendham, New Jersey, January 6-10. The retreat was organized by faculty member Susan Campbell Bartoletti for authors of children’s literature who have an interest in writing poetry. There were sixteen participants, including Gail Carson Levine (Ella Enchanted), MFA faculty member Joyce McDonald, Rebecca Stead (When You Reach Me) and Pam Muñoz Ryan (Esperanza Rising). At 7 p.m. February 22, Kathleen reads with Katy Lederer in the 21C Reading Series presented by Sarabande Books. The reading takes place at 21C Hotel in downtown Louisville. On March 8, she reads at Molly Malone’s in Chicago and will present her work on March 11 at the Women and Creativity Series at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Four Branches has accepted three of her poems for publication. Her work was recently anthologized in What Comes Down to Us: Twenty-Five Contemporary Kentucky Poets (University Press of Kentucky, 2009). (top)

Richard Goodman’s new book, A New York Memoir, will be published in fall 2010. His essay, “The Man Who Gave Me Japan,” appears in the January issue of Michigan Today. His essay, “L’Inondation: Helping Them Dig Out of It in Nîmes,” will be published in The Best Travel Writing 2010 from Travelers’ Tales. “Take the ‘A’ Train,” an essay he read at Spalding University, will appear in the spring issue of River Teeth.

Roy Hoffman’s three books, the novels Almost Family and Chicken Dreaming Corn and the nonfiction collection Back Home: Journeys Through Mobile, are the focus of a book column by critic Stephen Goldfarb, “Portraits of a Changing South,” in the Winter 2010 issue of Alabama Heritage, a quarterly magazine. A new collection of Roy’s nonfiction, Alabama Afternoons: Profiles and Conversations, is scheduled for publication in Spring 2011, by University of Alabama Press. (top)

Robin Lippincott read, along with Sena Jeter Naslund, at the University of Alabama/Huntsville on January 20 and 21. He also reads in Orlando, Florida, at Infusion Tea on January 27 and Urban Think Bookstore on January 30.

Jody Lisberger was one of the guest writers for the Spectrum Series in the Arts at the University of Pittsburgh, Bradford, under Nancy McCabe’s directorship. Jody did a reading there October 27. On October 10, Jody gave a fiction reading at the KGB Bar, in New York City. She also was interviewed on the radio program Accents WRFL 88.1FM, hosted by Katerina Stoykova-Klemer (Fall 2009). Check out the interview at katerinaklemer.com/audio/accents_101609.mp3. At the University of Rhode Island, Jody has been named an assistant professor and director of the women’s studies program. On October 24, she presented a paper at the SUNY Cortland Center for Gender and Intercultural Studies Conference, “Succeeding as Women in Higher Education.” Her paper was “The Politics of Data: What the EEOC Compliance Chart Conceals and So Perpetuates as ‘Normative’ and How Second and Third Wave Feminist Strategies Might Respond and Offer Best Practices for Change.” Jody has been invited back to SUNY Cortland on March 5 for a Women’s History Month fiction reading and talk called “Writing Down the Body.” (top)

Nancy McCabe’s essay in the spring 2008 edition of The Louisville Review, “Running Away from Home,” made the Best American Essays 2009 Notable List, and the essay she read in Barcelona this past summer, “The Art of Losing,” has been accepted to Colorado Review. This fall she hosted readings by fellow Spalding faculty Mary Yukari Waters and Jody Lisberger as part of the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford’s Spectrum Arts series, and, with celebrity biographer Rob Simbeck, gave two community workshops in Bradford and St. Mary’s, Pennsylvania, on writing personal and family history.

Joyce McDonald participated in the Seventh Annual Poetry Retreat organized by Spalding faculty member Susan Campbell Bartoletti. Gail Carson Levine, Pam Muñoz Ryan, and Elizabeth Winthrop were among the sixteen authors of children’s and young adult literature who attended from January 7-10. Kathleen Driskell, this year’s poet-in-residence, led the workshops. In mid-October, Joyce gave an evening reading for the community of Hammonton, New Jersey. Earlier that day she spoke to the students at Hammonton High School. The all-day event focused on Swallowing Stones, New Jersey’s 2006 One Book New Jersey selection. (top)

Sena Jeter Naslund is teaching during spring 2010 at the University of Alabama-Huntsville as eminent scholar. With Robin Lippincott, she has given a program titled “Art and Artists in Contemporary Literature” and “Atrocity in Contemporary Literature.” Her first public presentation of her new novel, Adam & Eve, occurred at the Huntsville Public Library in a program titled “Information and Imagination: The Writing of Adam & Eve, the Novel.” On February 2, she presents a talk titled “When I Write a Woman, She Has Friends” for the American Association of University Women at 6 p.m. at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, Huntsville. Sena and MFA student Rick Neumayer invite the Spalding community and friends to attend a professional reading of Rick’s lyrics and script Sherlock in Love, the Musical, based on Sena’s novel, with music by David Sisk, at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 14, in the Egan Leadership Center Lectorium, Fourth and Breckinridge. Plenty of free parking is available nearby.

Screenwriting instructor Brad Riddell was recently appointed to the Kentucky Film Commission by Gov. Steve Beshear. Brad contributed a chapter to the forthcoming book, Now Write: Screenwriting, which will be published by Tarcher/Penguin in September 2010. Brad was recently interviewed by Scr(i)pt Magazine for an article on taking meetings in Hollywood. Brad also looks forward to serving on the jury for the Derby City Film Festival in Louisville on February 18-21. (top)

Alumni

Deborah Begel (Spring 2006) won third place in the New Yorker’s cartoon caption contest in the November 16 issue. Also, in response to a writing assignment, two ninth-graders in her English classes at Mesa Vista High School won first and third places in the Santa Fe New Mexican’s Winter Tales Contest. Their poems were published in the newspaper’s arts magazine, Pasatiempo, on December 25.

Lisa Groen Braner’s (Spring 2009) essay “The Watch” will be published in the Spring 2010 issue of Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction. She also was recently invited to teach a class on the lyric essay to undergraduate creative nonfiction students at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah. (top)

In September, Glenny Brock (Spring 2007) began her seventh year as editor-in-chief of Birmingham Weekly (bhamweekly.com), the largest independently owned weekly newspaper in Alabama. The October 22, 2009, issue of the Weekly featured Glenny’s interview with Pulitzer Prize winner Annette Gordon-Reed as its cover story. Beginning in December, Glenny travels in India with her steady fella, photographer Bradford Daly (bradbrad.com). The six-week trip should yield, at the least, some magnificent postcards and at least one passable essay, she says.

Bobbi Buchanan (Fall 2004) was interviewed for the Front Pages column in Louisville Magazine’s November issue. She hosted a reading for contributors to the fourth New Southerner print anthology at Carmichael’s Bookstore in October 2009 and worked with poet and writer Michael Jackman on a music and spoken word event to benefit Kentuckians for the Commonwealth (held December 13 at Quills Coffee in Louisville). Bobbi helped the Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty circulate a letter for Kentucky writers to sign urging the governor and state’s attorney general to suspend executions in Kentucky until an independent panel can review the state’s death penalty system. (top)

David Carren (Fall 2005) reports that The Red Queen, a feature film that he wrote and directed for UTPA and Green Queen Productions, won an honorable mention in the 2009 Los Angeles Reel Film Festival.

Amy Watkins Copeland (Spring 2006) read Amit Majmudar’s poem “James Bond Suite” for Linebreak.org on December 15. The magazine publishes one poem per week along with audio of another poet reading the poem. Amy’s poems “The Human Object” and “Ghazal: Wind” lead off the current issue of Kestrel. (top)

Dave DeGolyer’s (Fall 2006) alter-ego, Lafayette Wattles, has had his poem “List of Faults” accepted for publication in Plain Spoke.

Sonja de Vries (Fall 2009) announces that “SS Soldier” and “Soldier in the Canal” will appear in the next issue of The Potomac.

Joan Donaldson’s (Spring 2008) fourth book, On Viney’s Mountain, was released by Holiday House in November and has received good reviews from Kirkus Review and Booklist. To celebrate the novel, Historic Rugby, Tennessee, hosted a book signing for Joan. Also, she had three essays included in the anthology At Home in the Garden published by Ideals.

Stacia M. Fleegal (Fall 2006) has poems forthcoming in The Heartland Review and Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, and recently received a Pushcart nomination. (top)

Karen George (Spring 2009) received an Artist Enrichment Grant from the Kentucky Foundation for Women.

Thea Gavin (Spring 2005) had her poem “Mystery Rider” accepted for the anthology Poets of the American West, due out later this year. She is presenting at AWP with a panel from RATTLE’s Cowboy and Western Poetry issue on “Stagecoaching for the Page,” and she continues to lead nature writing hikes in Orange County’s “back country” as a volunteer naturalist with the Irvine Ranch Conservancy and the Laguna Canyon Foundation. (top)

Maureen Mahoney Gillis (Spring 2004) is co-authoring a chapter in a textbook for teachers and researchers to be published by the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education. The chapter was written with a Roger Williams University professor and is called “Building Bridges Across the Atlantic: The Impact of Technology-Facilitated Classroom Partnerships on Cultural Competency and Language Skills.” It will be included in the book Emerging Technologies in Learning: Impact on Cognition and Culture. The book encompasses the technological influence on learning and cognition from a cultural perspective.

Joey Goebel (Fall 2006) went on a short book tour of Germany in October to promote his novel Commonwealth (known as Heartland in Germany). Goebel read at bookstores, rock clubs, and theaters in Hamburg, Gottingen, Heidelberg, and Munich. The last reading was in Zurich, Switzerland.

Tara Goldstein (Fall 2006) was invited to do a reading of her latest play, Harriet’s House, at the International Women Playwright’s Conference in Mumbai, India, this past November. The play, which is about international adoption in a same-sex family, will be produced by Tara’s production company, Gailey Road Productions, in June as part of Toronto’s Pride Festival. Tara has a new Gailey Road Productions web site (gaileyroad.com) and a new blog site (gaileyroad.blogspot.com), which documents her journey of producing Harriet’s House.

Lydia Griffin (Fall 2008) reports that Jackson Hole Middle School received a grant to have her co-teach a historical fiction unit for sixth graders. Lydia spent two months with the students, presented fifteen workshops, and co-authored a historical fiction curriculum guide for all interested teachers in the Teton County school district. (top)

Jeanne Haggard (Fall 2006) reports that her short play, The Pyre of Suttee, was selected for production in the Raider Red One-Act Play Spectacular (RROAPS) at Texas Tech University. The production is scheduled for March 29-April 4 at the Maedgen Laboratory Theatre on the Texas Tech campus. RROAPS is an annual production of student written work, directed and produced by students in the theatre and dance department. All playwrights will receive an individual response to their work from a guest respondent.

Colleen S. Harris (Fall 2009) has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Bellowing Ark Press for her poem “The Light Becomes Us,” which she workshopped with Jeanie Thompson and fellow students at the Spring 2009 residency. She will have three poems published in the next issue of Lamplight Review: “When You Came Home from the War,” “Gold Frame” and “In Praise of Kevlar.” Colleen also has two persona poems, “Josephine” and “Lady MacBeth,” that will appear in the next issue of 66: The Journal of Sonnet Studies. The Write Club’s Peter Hammarberg conducted an interview, “The Process: Featuring Colleen Harris,” and posted it online at writeclubpodcast.blogspot.com/2009/12/process-featuring-colleen-harris.html. (top)

David Harrity (Fall 2007) finished up his final teaching stint at Asbury Seminary in November with a writing workshop about “Vision and Prophecy.” He recently found out that he will be a panelist at the Festival of Faith and Writing in April. The panel, including poets Todd Davis and Susanna Childress, will discuss psalm writing. He has poems forthcoming from The Los Angeles Review and The Portland Review.

David Hassler (Spring 2004) recently served as general reviewer and technical editor for Writing Fiction for Dummies (December 2009), one of the Wiley series of For Dummies books. A board member of the Writer’s Center of Indiana, David is working with another board member on a proposal to write another book in this series, so keep the fingers crossed! (top)

Chris Helvey (Fall 2006) had his poem “Blue Veins in the Mau Mau Universe” published on Old City Cool (oldcitycool.com, under archives). Chris is teaching a short story workshop for the Thorn Hill Learning Center in Frankfort, Kentucky, where he was recently appointed writer-in-residence. His short story “Fifty-Dollar, Fifty-Dollar” has been selected as a finalist in the New Southerner Literary Contest. He has launched Trajectory, a new literary journal, with a short story contest. Trajectory is also now accepting poems, cnf, b&w photos and art, as well as short stories. For details on the contest, submitting, and subscribing, please see the classified section of this newsletter.

Edie Hemingway (Spring 2004) is pleased to announce that her middle-grade novel, Road to Tater Hill (Delacorte Press), has won a 2009 Parents’ Choice Gold Award. (top)

Patty Houston (Fall 2008) reports that her short story “Shooting Real People” appears in Parting Gifts, Winter 2009-10 issue. In early January, the Ohio Arts Council awarded Patty an Individual Excellence Award.
Also, her story “Underpinnings” has been accepted as a creative submission at the Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture Since 1900. She will read her story and chair the conference session “Authors Reading Poetry and Fiction” on February 18.

Bridgett Jensen (Spring 2008) was a finalist in A Room of Her Own’s Fall Orlando Poetry Awards with her poem, “Eating Crow.” Read an excerpt of the poem at aroho.org/OrlandoWinningSubmissions.php. Her nonfiction essay, “Introduction to Poetry,” about teaching poetry to GED students, was published in Learning Annex’s online literary journal, Suss, and can be read at sussitout.org/annex/. She was recently notified that her essay, “The Last Baseball Season,” was awarded an honorable mention in the latest New Millennium Writings Competition. (top)

Cyn Kitchen (Spring 2005) reports that her first book, a collection of short stories called The Right to Remain Silent, has been accepted for publication by Motes Books. Most of the collection was written while Cyn was a student at Spalding, so her debt of gratitude to some amazing mentors, workshop leaders and peers runs deep. The book is due out in fall 2010.

Katrina Kittle (Fall 2008) reports that her fourth novel finally has an official title and publication date. HarperCollins will release The Blessings of the Animals on July 20. In the meantime, Katrina is teaching a fiction class at the Word’s Worth Writing Center in Dayton, Ohio, and working on her next novel. (top)

Dan Nowak (Spring 2007) presented a paper titled “Rolling Up Our Sleeves: Asking Questions of Working Class Images in Contemporary Poetry” at the Midwest Popular Culture Association conference in Detroit on October 30. His chapbook, Burning the Arson Dictionary: Poems for Thomas McGrath, was recently released by RockSaw Press.

Linda Busby Parker (Fall 2003) announces that Excalibur Press released another Christmas anthology, Christmas Is a Season 2009. Readings were held in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi. In 2010, Excalibur Press will publish a nonfiction book and possibly one work of fiction. Linda nominated two pieces by Spalding grads for Pushcart Prizes. She nominated Mary Popham’s (Fall 2003) short story, “Home for Christmas–Bardstown, Kentucky, 1910,” because it so elegantly captures the sights, sounds, and people of rural Kentucky in the first decade of the twentieth century. Mary also captured the essence of the Christmas season—a desire to be with family and hope for the future. Linda nominated Kathleen Thompson (Fall 2003) for a Pushcart for her short story, “Finding the Lord,” in which Kathleen creates a character, Clyde, who is as quirky as Ignatius Reilly in John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces. Linda taught a creative writing workshop in Jefferson, Texas, on January 13 and 14. She spoke on a panel at the Pulpwood Queens Book Club on January 15 in Jefferson. She continues to teach fiction writing at the University of South Alabama and The Writer’s Loft at Middle Tennessee State University. (top)

Karen Patterson (Spring 2004) released her most recent book, the memoir Allies Forever: The Life and Times of an American Prisoner of War, and is on a promotional tour. During the week of Veterans Day 2009, she had a number of readings at sites located in central Ohio. She also has been requested to lecture and do a reading at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. As a part of the English faculty of Ohio University, she is developing online writing courses and works with the University’s Writing Center. Visit her new web site at karenapatterson.com.

Tom Pierce (Fall 2005) received an honorable mention for his short story “Too Little, Too Late” from Glimmer Train magazine during its fall Family Matters story competition. Tom also accepted a position as adjunct English instructor for Keiser University. (top)

Mary Popham (Fall 2003) has published the following book reviews in the Courier-Journal (Louisville): September 2009: The Year I Saved My (downsized) Soul by Carol Orsborn; October 2009: Lies My Mother Never Told Me by Kaylie Jones; November 2009: Plundering Appalachia, edited by Tom Butler and George Wuerthner. Mary also has had book reviews in ForeWord Magazine–September/October 2009: Where I Must Go by Angela Jackson and Millie’s Fling, by Jill Mansell; November/December 2009: Enduring, by Donald Harington. She has had book reviews published in the Louisville-based New Southerner Magazine (Fall 2009: A Pearl in the Storm, by Tori Murden McClure) and Kentucky’s BookClub@KET (October 2009, Upheaval, by Chris Holbrook). Mary received a Pushcart nomination and published a short story in Excalibur Press’ anthology, Christmas Is a Season! 2009. The story was “Home for Christmas: Bardstown, Kentucky, 1910.” (top)

Diana Raab (Fall 2003) has collected essays from well-published writers on their journaling habits and compiled a book called Writers and Their Notebooks, which she edited. The book was released in January by the University of South Carolina Press. The collection includes essays from Sue Grafton, Robin Hemley, Dorianne Laux, Kim Stafford, Michael Steinberg, Michelle Wildgen, James Brown, and John DuFresne, to name a few. The foreword is by renowned essayist Phillip Lopate. In November 2009 she gave a workshop at the Santa Barbara Writer’s Conference called “Memoir: From Journal to Manuscript.” Also in November, her book, Your High Risk Pregnancy: A Practical and Supportive Guide, co-authored with Dr. Errol Norwitz from Yale School of Medicine, was released in its 25th anniversary edition. Check out Diana’s web site, dianaraab.com, and blog, dianaraab.wordpress.com.

Rosemary Royston (Fall 2009) announces that her chapbook entry for the 2009 Jessie Bryce Niles Chapbook Contest by The Comstock Writer’s Group was selected as one of five honorable mentions. The chapbook entry, “Two Minutes Shy,” was a collection of many of the poems found in Royston’s creative thesis. Royston will have three poems featured in the upcoming anthology, Echoes of Blue Ridge, published by the NC Writer’s Network, Netwest. (top)

Pamela Steele (Spring 2004) reports that her poem “Hands” is set to be published in the anthology Poets of the American West, forthcoming in June.

Katerina Stoykova-Klemer (Fall 2009) has launched Accents Publishing, an independent press for brilliant voices (accents-publishing.com). Accents Publishing is happy to announce the Spalding Series of poetry chapbooks featuring the works of students and alumni from the Spalding MFA in Writing program. On January 31, Katerina is reading with Spalding alumni Angela Jackson-Brown (Fall 2009) and poet Sheri Wright in Carmichael’s Bookstore in Louisville. In December 2009, Katerina did a series of readings and radio and TV interviews in Bulgaria to promote her bilingual book, The Air Around the Butterfly. Her English-language chapbook, The Most, will become available from Finishing Line Press on March 5. (top)

Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen (Spring 2003) sold her young adult novel The Raft in a two-book deal to Feiwel and Friends. Her new picture book, A Small Brown Dog with a Wet Pink Nose (Little Brown Books for Young Readers), came out January 1. Her YA novel The Compound recently sold in Italian, in addition to being available in Chinese, Dutch, German, and Vietnamese.

Kathleen Thompson (Fall 2003) reports that her Road Scholar poetry workshop was renewed by Alabama Humanities Foundation for 2010 and a lecture on fiction writing was added. On December 3, Kathleen spent the morning at LAMP school in Montgomery giving poetry workshops. Her short story “Finding the Lord” was published in Christmas Is A Season! 2009, edited by Linda Busby Parker (Fall 2003), Excalibur Press. Kathleen participated in one of several book signings around the state at Little Professor Books & Café in Birmingham on December 19. Linda has nominated Kathleen’s story and Mary Popham’s (Fall 2003) Home for Christmas–Bardstown, Kentucky, 1910 for the Pushcart Prize. Kathleen’s short story “Woman’s Wait” is forthcoming online in the first issue of 2010, Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal. (top)

Gretchen Tremoulet (Fall 2007) reports that The Chariton Review published her story “The Collector” in the Fall 2009 issue. The literary review is a publication of the Truman State University Press.

Frank X Walker (Spring 2003), who was writer-in-residence at Northern Kentucky University, has joined the faculty of the University of Kentucky English Department. Walker is editor and publisher of PLUCK! The Journal of Affrilachian Arts & Culture, which can be read online at pluckonline.com.

Vickie Weaver (Fall 2005) served as judge for Alligator Juniper’s 2010 Suzanne Tito Prize in Fiction. She attended the Gathering of Writers and Readers at The Writer’s Center of Indiana on November 7 in Indianapolis. She lunched there with Claudia Labin (Spring 2007). (top)

Jonathan Weinert (Fall 2005) has poems forthcoming in Washington Square Review, Copper Nickel, and Salamander, and a broadside of his poem “Mortal Economy” is forthcoming from Blue Satellite Press. At the second annual Massachusetts Poetry Festival this past October, Jonathan taught a workshop on found poems and co-judged a poetry contest for high school poets.

Charles Dodd White (Fall 2009) received an acceptance for his Appalachian novel, Lambs of Men. Casperian Books will publish the novel in fall 2010. His short story “Hawkins’s Boy” will be published in the February edition of PANK, along with a short interview. (top)

Personals

Our heartfelt sympathy to Darlyn Finch (Summer 2009) on the death of her brother, Robert, on October 15.

Our heartfelt sympathy to Alice Gorman (Spring 2005)on the death of her mother, Alice Berry Condon Hoguet, on December 4.

Classified

The new literary journal Trajectory (www.trajectoryjournal.com) is now accepting submissions of short stories (10,000 words or less), poems (3-5), creative nonfiction, and black and white photographs/artwork that illuminate an artist’s truth for his/her readers. The publication is looking for honest, straightforward writing that engages, enlightens, and entertains the reader. The publication is open to all subjects and styles but tends to lean a bit to the Hemingway, Bukowski, Carver school. Trajectory is designed for the adult reader and is interested in new voices, as well as more established ones.
Short Story Contest. The entry fee is $15, and the deadline is June 1. Send a brief cover letter with contact info, SASE, and the entry (no identifying info). May enter more than one time (separate fee for each entry). Winner will receive $250 and publication in Trajectory. All submissions are considered for publication. Trajectory will be published twice each year and subscriptions are $20. Send submissions or subscription orders to Trajectory, P.O. Box 655, Frankfort, KY 40602. Include a SASE for response. All works will be recycled. For more information see www.trajectoryjournal.com, or email Chris Helvey, editor, at adobechris@hotmail.com. (top)

Reminders and Notes

Apply Now for U.S. Passport for Summer 2010 Travel: Students, alumni, and faculty who are planning travel to the Buenos Aires Summer 2010 residency should apply for their passports as soon as possible.

Financial Aid: The MFA Program offers scholarships to students entering their first semester in the program. Returning students who desire financial assistance other than student loans should apply for graduate assistantships. Applications for scholarships and assistantships should be directed to the MFA Office. Information for assistantships is on Blackboard under SEMESTERS/ [your semester]/ DOCUMENTS: GENERAL INTEREST.

Federal student loans are available to all eligible graduate students and are available for the fall, spring, or summer semesters. For help with financial aid questions, call Vickie Montgomery at (800) 896-8941, ext. 2731 or email vmontgomery@spalding.edu. Students may enter or update their FAFSA information online at fafsa.ed.gov.

All Spring 2010 students: Fill out the FAFSA for the 09-10 school year, using 2008 tax information.

All Summer 2010 students (which includes spring-stretch students): fill out the FAFSA for the 10-11 school year, using 2009 tax information. Spring-stretch students receiving financial aid through students loans do not receive residual checks until June 4.

Classifieds in the newsletter: Submissions of writing-related advertisements, such as calls for submission, services for writers, etc., may be made to mfanewsletter@spalding.edu

Online information: Newsletters are archived online at spalding.edu/mfanewsletter. For convenience, bookmark this page. The web address is case sensitive. (top)

Life of a Writer: Please remember to email Life of a Writer news to the program at mfanewsletter@spalding.edu because this is a vital part of our community—to sharing writing successes. The Program wants to share good news with everyone and compiles records of publications, presentations, readings, employment, and other related information on faculty, students, and alums.

Life of a Writer pieces should be written as a paragraph in third person. If you are an alum, please alum include your graduation semester, such as Jake Doe (Fall 2003). Spell out month and state names. Include title(s) of the work, publishers, date of publication, and web site addresses when appropriate.

Examples of kinds of activities that might be included in the Life of a Writer column are publishing in journals or magazines or in book form, winning awards or other prizes, giving a public reading, visiting a classroom to talk about writing, judging a writing competition, attending a writers conference, serving on a panel about writing, or volunteering in a project about writing or literacy. (top)

About The Masthead: The image in our masthead is a photograph of a Louisville fountain, “River Horse,” by Louisville sculptor Barney Bright. The sculpture references both the location of Louisville as a river city on the banks of the Ohio and as the host, for more than 125 years, of the Kentucky Derby. The winged horse Pegasus, of Greek mythology, has long been associated with the literary arts and the wings of poesy.

Sena Jeter Naslund, Program Director
Karen J. Mann, Administrative Director
Kathleen Driskell, Associate Program Director
Katy Yocom, Program Associate
Gayle Hanratty, Administrative Assistant
Carolyn Flynn, Newsletter Editor

Master of Fine Arts in Writing •Spalding University
851 S. Fourth St. • Louisville, KY 40203
(800) 896-8941, ext. 2423 or (502) 585-9911, ext. 2423
mfa@spalding.edu • www.spalding.edu/mfa

On Extended Wings archives: To see previous issues of the newsletter, click here

Sena Jeter Naslund, Program Director
Karen Mann, Administrative Director
Kathleen Driskell, Associate Program Director
Katy Yocom, Program Associate
Gayle Hanratty, Administrative Assistant

Email Life of a Writer information, Because You Asked questions, or classifieds to Carolyn Flynn at mfanewsletter@spalding.edu

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