Vol. 15 No.2
March 2009
Community Workshop for non-MFAers
Spring Cross-Genre Exploration
Summer Workshop Submission Deadline
Barcelona Guidebook Suggestion
Life of a Writer
Faculty Advisory Committee for Fall 2008
Previous Newsletters
See other issues of On Extended Wings
The MFA Program’s Book in Common selection for the Spring 2009 residency is Late Wife (LSU Press 2005) by Claudia Emerson. A plenary discussion takes place Friday, May 22, the first night of spring residency. All students and faculty, regardless of concentration, read the book in advance of the residency, and all prepare comments to add to the discussion. On Tuesday, May 26, Claudia visits Spalding’s campus to talk about her work as a poet, with a focus on her book Late Wife, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2006. During her visit, MFA students and faculty have a closed question-and answer session with Emerson.
Claudia’s latest collection, Figure Studies: Poems, was published in 2008 (LSU Press). She is also the author of the poetry collections Pharaoh, Pharaoh and Pinion: An Elegy; all volumes are published in Dave Smith’s Southern Messenger Poets series. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, Southern Review, Shenandoah, TriQuarterly, New England Review, and other journals. Claudia is the recipient of a Witter Bynner Fellowship from the Library of Congress and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Virginia Commission for the Arts. She is professor of English and Arrington Distinguished Chair in Poetry at Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Claudia is the current Poet Laureate of Virginia. top
MFA Offers Community Workshop in Creative Writing
The MFA Program is offering a “Community Workshop” to creative writers May 23-30, during the spring residency. Community Workshop students will participate in an 8-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 refer them to http://www.spalding.edu/communityworkshop for more information and registration details. top
Proposals for the 2010 AWP Conference and Bookfair
AWP has begun accepting panel proposals for the 2010 Conference in Denver.
The conference will be held from April 7-10, 2010 at the Hyatt Regency Denver, Colorado Convention Center. AWP seeks a wide range of unique, diverse, informative, and intelligent programming that helps it better serve its large and growing constituency. The proposal process is competitive, so it’s important that all individuals submitting a proposal are familiar with AWP’s guidelines and expectations in order to ensure conference events are successfully executed. The deadline for proposals is May 1, 2009. To submit a proposal, please visit: http://www.awpwriter.org/conference/2010proposal.php top
Cross-Genre Assignment
for Spring Residency
As the cross-genre exercise for the Spring 2009 residency, all students, regardless of area of concentration, write a poem based on an art object or painting. Preparation for the writing assignment includes a plenary lecture by Program Director Sena Jeter Naslund. In addition, all students are taken by chartered bus to visit Louisville’s Speed Art Museum to find a subject for their poem. All poems are read by the poetry faculty, and some are selected for presentation at a follow-up plenary session near the end of the residency. top
Guest Lecturers for
Spring 2009 Residency
In addition to Claudia Emerson, we welcome the following guest presenters who will speak at the residency.
Kaylene Johnson is the author of Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska’s Political Establishment Upside Down, which was number three on the New York Times Bestseller List. She is a graduate of Spalding’s MFA in Writing Program and has gone on to publish four books of nonfiction. Her award-winning articles and essays have appeared in Alaska Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, Alaska Wilderness and other publications. An essay from her most recent book A Tender Distance was first published in The Louisville Review. Two other chapters have been published in Crosscurrents and Wild Moments, anthologies of nature writing.
Lisa Williams Kline has published three middle-grade novels: Eleanor Hill, which won the North Carolina Juvenile Literature Award; The Princesses of Atlantis; and Write Before Your Eyes, from Delacorte Press. She has also published a nonfiction book for young people titled Floods. Her stories have appeared in Cricket, Cicada, Spider, and Odyssey. She earned her MFA from Queens University and has published about a dozen adult short stories in literary journals and anthologies. Lisa lives in Mooresville, North Carolina, with her husband, a veterinarian. Their college-aged daughters visit frequently. In addition to her writing, she has been a tongue-tied disc jockey, a radio copywriter, a zoned-out waitress, and a disorganized but trustworthy veterinary hospital office manager. For a recent job she learned to drive a forklift. Now she teaches English composition and creative writing workshops and reads manuscripts for various publishers. Lisa enjoys reading, running, watching movies, and playing golf. top
Stu Pollard is a writer, director, and producer. A native of Louisville, Stu has been making films for more than a decade. His recent producing credits include True Adolescents, a Seattle-based coming-of-age comedy; Dirty Country, a documentary about country singer Larry Pierce; and Ira & Abby, a neurotic romantic comedy set in Manhattan. Stu has also directed two feature films, Nice Guys Sleep Alone and Keep Your Distance. Nice Guys, a romantic comedy, which Stu adapted from the best-selling Bruce Feirstein book, was picked up by HBO, while Keep Your Distance was released on DVD by Monarch Home Video and aired on the Showtime family of networks. Among Stu’s projects in development are Harmony, a dramedy written by Brad Riddell, and The Buffalo Soldier, a drama based on the Chris Bohjalian bestseller. Stu also freelances as a consultant and producer (see pollardfilm.com), specializing in private equity financing, investor relations, and distributor delivery. His business plans have raised more than $7 million in development and production funds. Stu has presented at dozens of festivals, universities, and film organizations, including the Sundance Institute, USC, Yale, Indiana, Middlebury, Iowa State, the Los Angeles Film Festival, the Oxford Film Festival, the Santa Fe Film Festival, Film Independent, and IFP chapters in Chicago and Phoenix. Stu attended film school at the University of Southern California, where he produced over a dozen short films, collaborating with filmmakers such as Jeffrey Blitz (Rocket Science), Nathan Hope (Elsewhere), Breck Eisner (Sahara), and Ted Iredell (MTV’s Making the Band). Prior to attending USC, Stu majored in business at Georgetown University. He is a member of the DGA and is on the board of the Kentucky Derby Museum. He resides in Santa Monica, California. top
Fall 2009 Course Offering: ENG660: Teaching Practicum
in Creative Writing
Students interested in registering for ENG660: Teaching Practicum in Creative Writing should contact Kathleen Driskell by Spring 2009 midsemester, August 28. The course enrollment is limited to 6 students (a minimum of 4 students is required). Names of those interested in enrolling are placed on a list and register in order of contact date, though in some cases student seniority may also be considered for enrollment. ENG660 is a 16-hour semester course.
During Residency, students meet in a cross-genre teaching workshop and lead discussions on submitted Worksheets. Students attend lectures outside their major areas of concentration in order to gain a wider view of the other genres they may be called upon to teach in introductory-level courses. Students not only benefit from lecture content, they also comment on the teaching methods used during those lectures. The number of residency reports required remains the same as for students enrolled in the other courses.
During the semester, students develop syllabi, lesson plans, teaching diaries, and annotated bibliographies on pedagogical and classroom texts and submit those to the mentor in four course packets. Each student develops a workshop assignment and delivers that curriculum online to other students in ENG660. Each student must also arrange her or his own teaching practicum: In the past, students have taught in university settings, continuing education settings, non-credit courses, and online. Students have also convened beginning writers from their communities to meet as a class in local libraries, work environments, and community centers. Other teaching options may fit the practicum requirement.
For a final project, students may choose to return to the following residency to teach a 45-minute peer class to MFA students or write and submit a ten-page teaching reflection paper, referring to readings listed in the Annotated Bibliography. Students submitting the final paper are not required to come to Residency unless they are enrolling in the next semester. top
Evaluation includes detailed responses to the packets, residency teaching and workshop evaluations, semester evaluations, and direct teaching observation reports (which are valuable to the portfolios of those seeking teaching positions).
Past ENG660 student comments about the course include:
“[ENG660] helped me to think critically about my syllabus, my teaching strategies, and to assess my instructional methods and curriculum in detail.”
“[My workshop leader] wanted me to be ready for the sort of questions that a potential employer would ask, and made sure that I would be able to give a well-crafted presentation of my skills and attributes as an educator. I have crafted two wonderful syllabi and developed eight weeks’ worth of lesson plans, which will represent my education handsomely in a job interview.”
“During the residency other students asked how I liked the practicum (most everyone was interested in hearing about the course) and I told them I was like a kid in a candy store. While that statement seemed a little flippant, it was true. Instead of staying in my area of concentration I went to any lecture I wanted. But more than that, I saw how the other concentrations conducted their classes. Each seemed to have a different way and when it was time for me to actually teach a class, I drew from these differences, taking what I thought worked best to incorporate in my own classroom. . . . I felt confident and sure when I taught my first two courses in large part because I knew [my mentor] was there to help with any problems.” top
“Composing syllabi, creating assessment rubrics and grading systems, working out lesson plans, classroom and time management . . . are as much a part of the process as the students’ understanding of the subject matter.”
“[ENG660] made me think about what it was I was trying to teach and how to meet those goals.”
“I think this is an extremely important course to anyone who is thinking about teaching creative writing on a high school or college level.”
For more information, contact Kathleen Driskell with questions at kdriskell@spalding.edu. top
Opportunity for Fifth Semester of Study Before Graduation
The MFA in Writing Program offers students the opportunity to register in ENG650 for a fifth semester of mentored instruction before they finish their degrees. This feature benefits students who wish to study further in their genre or do additional work in a minor or another genre, provided they apply and are accepted to study in that area of concentration.
By taking the additional fifth semester before the MFA degree is conferred, students may qualify to receive financial aid to help defray tuition costs. For more information on this opportunity, please contact Kathleen Driskell, Associate Program Director, at kdriskell@spalding.edu. top
BYOB: Going Greener
at Residency
In order to cut down on waste and to be more environmentally friendly, the MFA Program plans to reduce its use of bottled water with snacks and dinners. When possible, water will be offered in pitchers or urns. Bottled water may be purchased from vending machines, and, of course, water fountains are available in each building. Louisville’s tap water quality ranks in the top three among the 50 largest US cities, according to data collected by the NGO Environmental Working Group from 2002-2006.
Students and faculty may wish to bring a personal, durable water bottle for reuse throughout the residency. top
Financial Consideration when Checking In at the Brown
Upon check-in, the Brown Hotel requests a credit or debit card from hotel guests against the cost of incidental expenses that might be charged to the room. At the beginning of the guest’s stay, the hotel debits the card $50 to $100. If, at any time during the stay, a guest charges more than that amount to his or her room, the Brown will debit additional funds in $50 increments. Once the guest checks out, the hotel reverses the charge for any unused funds.
Hotel guests who wish to avoid having a charge or debit placed on their accounts may opt not to leave a form of payment. In that case, the guest must pay with cash or credit card for incidentals such as restaurant or bar charges. Such guests will not have access to in-room incidentals such as movie rentals. top
Summer 2009 Workshop Submission Due Date: May 20
Workshop submissions for Summer 2009 residency are due May 20. The deadline had previously been set for earlier in May. For information on selecting, formatting, and submitting material, including required page counts, see the MFA Student Handbook.
Recommended Guidebook
for Barcelona
MFAers attending the Summer 2009 residency in Barcelona may wish to purchase a guidebook before the residency to help them better plan their free time. The MFA Office recommends George Semler’s guidebook Visible Cities: Barcelona (Somerset, 2004). Among the highlights of this book are its four self-guided walking tours, all within walking distance of the MFA Program’s hotels. Semler is considered an expert on the city, and his heavily illustrated guidebook covers history, architecture, galleries, museums, music, and food and drink as well as the aforementioned walks. top
MFA Alumni Association
The website for the MFA Alumni Association is http://www.spaldingmfaalum.com. If you have questions or are interested in working with this group, send Terry Price an email at terry@terryprice.net. Check out the Spalding MFA Alumni Facebook page. top
Homecoming May 29-31
The MFA Alumni Association is planning Homecoming for May 29-31. 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. We’ve been told the hotel is already filling up for those dates.
Residency sessions open to alumni include a lecture by Kaylene Johnson titled “Ten Weeks to a Bestseller and other Injustices of the Publishing World,” a presentation by Sena Jeter Naslund about the republication of Ahab’s Wife as “Modern Classic” by Harper Perennial, and two panel discussions. The panel sessions will include time for Q&A.
The first panel is a potpourri of topics of interest to writers. The panelists and topics are
•Anne Marie Fowler will discuss the ins and outs of putting together and editing an anthology
•Katy Yocom will discuss why a writer might want to go on a writers retreat and how to find a place to go.
The second panel is on Care and Tending of Books. This session is broken out by area of concentration. The panelists, who are MFA faculty and alumni, are
Fiction: Kenny Cook, Linda Busby Parker, Julia Watts, Katrina KittlePoetry: Greg Page, Molly Peacock, Kathleen Thompson, Frank X Walker
Creative Nonfiction: Roy Hoffman, Dianne Aprile, Tori Murden McClure
Writing for Children and Young Adults: Ellie Bryant, Luke Wallin, Edie Hemingway
Playwriting: Eric Schmiedl, Charlie Schulman, Kim Stinson-Hawn
Screenwriting: Sam Zalutsky, Wayne Crawford
The Alumni Association will again sponsor a Celebration of Recently Published Books by Alumni at 5:15 p.m. Friday, May 29, in the Lectorium. In addition, there will be readings by PGRAs and from anthologies edited by MFA alumni. top
Five-Year Reunion for Spring/
Fall 2003, Spring 2004 Class
In addition to Homecoming, a get-together for the graduating classes of Spring 2003, Fall 2003, and Spring 2004 is planned for 7:30-10:30 p.m. Friday, May 29, in the J. Graham Brown Suite at the Brown Hotel. Faculty and staff will attend also.
The cost is $30 per person or $50 for two. RSVP to Karen Mann at kmann@spalding.edu by April 10. top
Life of a Writer
Students, faculty, and alumni: Please email writing news to mfanewsletter@spalding.edu
Larry Brenner’s play The Coffin was published by the Litchfield Literary Review in March 2009.
http://www.thelitchfieldliteraryreview.com/id306.html
Kate Buckley and poet Ricki Mandeville read from their respective books and presented an evening of poetry and commentary titled “Two Women” at the Gypsy Den Grand Central, Artist’s Village, in Santa Ana, California, on February 3. Kate will also be featured on April 4 at Beyond Baroque’s Spirit of Southern California Poetry Series in Los Angeles. Kate’s currently in the final round of revisions for her second book, Follow Me Down, to be released later this year (Tebot Bach). She’s just finished blurbing the poet Marcia Cohee’s forthcoming book, Story (Tebot Bach, 2009) and is currently providing editorial support on Joan E. Bauer’s latest poetry manuscript Sonya in Manhattan. Kate is also the new co-facilitator for the Laguna Poets Workshop, one of the West Coast’s longest-running poetry workshops.
Amanda Forsting presented her ECE “Continuous Passage: Building Literary Bridges for Ease and Splendor” at The Louisville Conference of Literature and Culture since 1900 at the University of Louisville on February 19.
Robert Foshee was awarded second place in fiction by LEO Magazine in their annual literary issue. His short story “Riga” was published January 28 at http://leoweekly.com/special-issues/second-place-riga.
Barry George’s haibun “Macho Man” was published in Modern Haiku (Autumn 2008). Twelve of his tanka have been accepted for the anthology Streetlights: Poetry of Urban Life in Modern English Tanka, to be published by Modern English Tanka Books later in 2009. His tanka “in frangipani breezes” was a winner in the 2008 Tanka Splendor Contest, an international tanka competition sponsored by AHA Books.
Amy Hanridge is a co-winner of The Summerset Review’s Winter 2009 Fifty-for-Fifty Contest Award. The Summerset Review awards a monetary prize and a print copy to readers who submit the best entry of at least fifty words of feedback on any piece in the current issue and publishes the winning readers’ comments in the subsequent issue. Amy received $50 and a copy of The Summerset Review’s volume 2 for her response to Andrei Gurulianu’s story “Body of Work.” Amy’s response appears on the Summerset Review’s website at: http://www.summersetreview.org/09spring/fifty.htm
Nicole Kearney’s play Foot Soldiers for Freedom: The Birmingham Children’s March was on stage at Karamu House’s Arena Theater February 7-22. This is the fourth play in her 10-play “movement” play cycle of how youth impacted the civil rights movement from 1955-1968. Breaking Barriers: The Little Rock Nine will be produced May 16 at Crispus Attucks Middle School in Indianapolis, by the Indianapolis chapter of the NAACP as part of their 100th anniversary celebration. This play is also a movement play. To find out more about the movement plays and Nicole’s continued work, visit http://www.nicolekearney.com. Nicole is also teaching English courses to eager undergraduates at National College, Indianapolis campus.
Amina McIntyre’s short plays In Those Jeans and Change Clothes were a part of a workshop production for Colby College Fall 2008 Directing Class in December 2008. Her play Most Eligible Bachelor will be produced at Wabash College, April 16-19.
Arwen Mitchell is presenting her original paper “A Showboat Season: Adapting the Show Boat Experience for a Contemporary Audience” at the 24th Annual Theatre Seminar of the Theatre Museum of Repertoire Americana, April 17-19.
Rick Neumayer’s short story “Thirty-Six Rockers” will be published in the March issue of New Southerner. The story also won honorable mention in the quarterly e-zine’s annual literary contest.
Rosemary Royston recently had her poem “Says Who” featured in the Young Harris College Rollins Planetarium show. The show is titled The Problem with Pluto and both the show and the poem address “status-stripped” Pluto; once a planet but now demoted to an “object” in the Kuiper Belt. On a whim, Rosemary sent the poem to the planetarium director, who has included it in his opening PowerPoint session.
Brian Russell has recently published two more pieces at Public Republic, a multimedia online journal for literature and art: a critique of Frank Conroy’s Body and Soul and a poem titled “Probably.” Both may be found at http://www.public-republic.net/authors/brian-russell. He was delighted (if somewhat overwhelmed) to attend his first AWP Conference earlier this year in Chicago, and he recently launched a blog at http://anotherchicagowriter.blogspot.com/
Cheri Thomas hosted an author reading and writer’s workshop on March 14 at the Oswayo Valley Memorial Library in Shinglehouse, Pennsylvania, as part of volunteer community programming. Nancy McCabe read from two works in progress, a nonfiction piece and a middle-grade novel. In addition, Nancy and Cheri conducted a writer’s workshop discussing two fiction works by amateur writers living in Shinglehouse. Thomas is also attending the Greater Lehigh Valley Writer’s Conference in Allentown, Pennsylvania on March 27 and 28. The keynote speaker is Juilene McKnight (Song of Ireland, Bright Sword of Ireland). The keynote address is “Writing Out Loud: Storytelling and the Writer.”
Cristina Trapani-Scott wrote a feature story on Michigan poet Josie Kearns’s recent release of two new poetry collections, Theory of Everything and Alphabet of the Ocean. Cristina also attended a lecture given by poet Reginald Gibbons at the University of Michigan on March 12. In addition, she spoke to eighth-grade journalism students at Clinton Middle School about what it’s like to be a reporter for a community newspaper. Her blog post about the visit can be read at http://www.tecumsehherald.com/node/1660.
Tommy Trull’s play Five Til Now has been selected as the 2009 North Carolina New Play Project, and will be produced by 3rd Stage Theatre May 14-17. He is also a guest artist at Guilford Technical Community College, and is developing a new play Intimate Regress with the acting students there, culminating in a staged reading in April. His one-act play “Days” will be part of Fly-By-Night Theatre’s “Passing Strange: Six New Plays,” running May 28-31.
Dianne Aprile led a writing workshop on March 10 at Baptist East Hospital, where for four years she has been a part of an on-going Susan G. Komen grant to teach journaling techniques to survivors of breast cancer.
Kathleen Driskell’s new book of poems Seed Across Snow was launched by Red Hen Press at the Chicago AWP Conference in February. Her interview with Jeanie Thompson for Alabama Arts Radio aired on February 10. The Courier-Journal reviewed Seed Across Snow on February 28. On March 10, Sena Jeter Naslund and the MFA Program hosted an afternoon tea and a book launch party for Tori Murden McClure and Kathleen. Both read from their new books at Spalding University. Kathleen read with fellow Red Hen poet Mitchell Douglas at the InKY Reading Series on March 13 in Louisville. On March 17, she read in Owensboro, Kentucky, with Katerina Stoykova-Klemer, Savannah Sipple (Fall 2009), and Ellyn Lichvar-Johnson (Fall 2007) at the Third Tuesday Coffeehouse Series at RiverPark Center. On March 21, she read at Carmichael’s Books in Louisville with Sue Terry Driskell. She will read at Poor Richard’s Bookstore in Frankfort, Kentucky, on April 3; and she will lead a teacher’s workshop and read from her new book at the Alabama Book Festival, April 16-19. On April 27 at noon, she will read with Erica Licourt (Spring 2008), Katie Carpenter, Gayle Hanratty (Fall 2006), Tom Pierce (Fall 2005), and (Fall 2007) at The Filson Historical Society in downtown Louisville. In February, Seed Across Snow was listed as Contemporary Poetry Bestseller by the Poetry Foundation.
Richard Goodman’s essay, “The Ceiling Leak,” will appear in the next issue of Ascent. His article about coming late to a writing career will appear in the June issue of The Writer. He lectured on William Burroughs’s influence on Jack Kerouac at the Kerouac House in Orlando, Florida on March 21. This was arranged through the good graces of Phil Deaver and Darlyn Finch. He also gave a reading at the UrbanThink bookstore in Orlando.
Roy Hoffman received the 2009 Clarence Cason Award in Nonfiction Writing presented by the University of Alabama’s College of Communications at a banquet in his honor in Tuscaloosa on March 5. Previous recipients of the career achievement award, given to writers with “a strong connection to Alabama and whose writings . . . have made a critical contribution to the journalism and literature of the South,” include Rick Bragg, Diane McWhorter, Howell Raines, Winston Groom, Albert Murray, and Gay Talese.
Karen Mann is a grant reader on the literature panel for the Indiana Arts Commission’s Individual Artist Program, which funds projects to aid in artist career development.
Joyce McDonald spoke at the University of Pittsburgh Bradford on the evening of March 2 as part of the 2008-2009 Pitt-Bradford Presents program, which brings in artists from all disciplines. Nancy McCabe, who extended the invitation, organizes the readings and writer visits for the series. Joyce visited with Nancy’s creative writing students for a question-and-answer session earlier in the day.
Sena Jeter Naslund is selling her modest cottage home where she wrote Ahab’s Wife, and most of the books that came before—Ice Skating at the North Pole, The Animal Way to Love, The Disobedience of Water, and Sherlock in Love. The house has good karma and is totally renovated inside: bay windows, wood-burning fireplace, new kitchen. Open house is Sunday, March 29, 2-4, located at 2028 Emerson Ave., Louisville. If you miss the open house, agent Deborah Stewart (also a writer) can be contacted at 502-417-5027.
Katy Yocom (Fall 2003) participated on a panel at the AWP conference in Chicago on February 13. Titled “Writing Your Passions: Forbidden Topics,” the panel included four Spalding fiction alumna from the Fall 2003 graduating class: Maryann Lesert, Charlotte Rains Dixon, Linda Busby Parker, and Katy.
Priscilla Atkins (Spring 2008) has poems appearing in several journals: “If You Knocked at My Door, Marina Tsvetaeva,” Salmagundi (Fall/Winter 2008); “Between Breaths,” AJN: American Journal of Nursing (February 2009); “Silk Suspenders,” Saranac Review (2009). Her essay “Vampire Babies and Chocolate Martinis: Habits of Wit in Cathleen Calbert’s Poetry” appears in Studies in American Humor 18 (2008): 75-95.
Jennifer Anthony’s (Spring 2005) article “Motorcycle Diarizing” about her experiences learning to ride a motorcycle is posted at Been-Seen, a travel webzine: http://www.been-seen.com/article.cfm?id=10983 (the site also published her article on bungy jumping (http://www.been-seen.com/article.cfm?id=10760). She gets to geek out by writing regular articles about consumer electronics (http://www.examiner.com/x-1830-SF-Consumer-Electronics-Examiner) for http://www.examiner.com. She also has fun writing about how various fabulous librarians around the nation are making a difference: http://www.maintainitproject.org/spotlight.
Deborah Begel (Spring 2006) is now teaching English full time at Mesa Vista High School and getting her Alternative Teaching License in New Mexico. She is writing a documentary radio script for the public radio show Making Contact on criminal background checks in Massachusetts that shadow people who have appeared in the judicial system. And she continues to promote and distribute her literary radio series Calling America: Give Us Your Stories, Poems and Essays, which can be heard at http://www.RadioCallingAmerica.com.
During the month of February, Glenny Brock (Spring 2007) did more talking about writing than writing. On February 10, she and two Birmingham Weekly colleagues gave a talk titled “Where There’s a Quill, There’s a Way: Writing on a Weekly Deadline” as part of the Open Forum series sponsored by Birmingham-Southern College’s Writing Today conference (http://www.writingtoday.org). On February 28, she was a panelist in a daylong workshop called “Media Now: Making It in the Real World” at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Glenny has a feature article in the spring issue of First Draft, the magazine of the Alabama Writer’s Forum.
Linda Cruise (Spring 2008) had her critical essay “Némirovsky’s Suite Française: The Birth of a Novel” published recently in the online journal Public Republic (http://www.public-republic.net). She is teaching a new course, “Creative Nonfiction Basics,” at her local library, May 4-June 15, which is offered through of her partnered business, Writing Consultants Network (http://writingconsultantsnetwork.com). Also, as the new Vice-President of the League of Vermont Writers (http://www.leaguevtwriters.org) she will be heading up an MFA Panel at the League’s April Conference along with her first-semester mentor and fellow panelist, Ellie Bryant (http://www.louellabryant.com).
Dave DeGolyer (Fall 2006) was recently asked to lead a poetry workshop for troubled youth by the Chemung County Youth Advocacy Council in an attempt to examine the benefits of poetry as a means of self-exploration, self-expression, and emotional outlet, not to mention as a medium for creating art. Dave and his alter-ego, Lafayette Wattles, spent a wonderful month in Wyoming as a Ucross Foundation Fellow writing 75 new poems (at varying degrees of rawness) for Lafayette’s YA novel-in-verse A Boy Called Mo: The Fictionalized Tale of a Very Real Life. Lafayette has participated in a number of readings of late, including those at Rural Research Labs, Elmira College, The Tea Chest, and The ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes, and he has been asked to contribute to “Poetry Posts,” a Poetry in the Parks grant project which will bring poetry to six local parks year-round. He was also asked by The ARTS Council of the Southern Finger Lakes to contribute a poem for their first chapbook Bloom. Two of Lafayette’s poems, published in 2008, were chosen for Foliate Oak’s print issue due out in April. His poem “Wii Death” recently appeared in Best Poem and his poems “No Man’s Land” and “About the Heart, Where It Hurts, and How Often” will appear in the April issue of Thick With Conviction. In March, Lafayette was interviewed by the editors of Thick With Conviction in their “10 Questions With . . .” section. His poem “Sometimes a Deer is Just a Deer,” which appeared in Boxcar Poetry Review, was chosen by poet Dorianne Laux to be included in the 2008 Best of the Net Anthology, and his poem “I Couldn’t Tell Which Were the Thoughts and Which Were the Trees” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. The latter poem was also awarded second place in Boxcar Poetry Review’s Oboh Prize for Poem of the Year. Winners were determined through a blind reading by judge/poet Juan Felipe Herrera, who said of Lafayette’s poem “each flowing line is threaded with energy, story and penumbra . . . It is dark-soft and diamond-rock flare . . . a tour de force.” And Lafayette only had to take out a small home-equity loan to pay for such kind words (he just hopes his parents don’t find out it was their home).
Daniel DiStasio (Fall 2006) has a short piece “Rhyming County Police Blotter” appearing in Opium this spring. Voices of Key West, an Anthology has been released with two of Dan’s previously published stories. Dan is also chairman of the Key West Writers’ Guild 2009 Short Story contest.
Kathryn Eastburn (Spring 2006) talked about writing creative nonfiction to the Friends of the Helen Hall Library in League City, Texas, on March 3 at their annual meeting. At the end of February, Eastburn attended the Pacific Northwest Sacred Harp Singing Convention in Seattle where she signed and sold her book A Sacred Feast: Reflections on Sacred Harp Singing and Dinner on the Ground (University of Nebraska Press, 2008). Kathryn is currently teaching “Truth and Consequences: Reading and Writing Creative Nonfiction” to older adults at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute of the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston and will teach a beginning creative nonfiction writing workshop at Colorado College in Colorado Springs this July and August.
Foust’s (Fall 2008) short story “Wrong Girl” was accepted for publication in the summer 2009 issue of the Minnetonka Review. Her review of Mary Ruefle’s story collection The Most of It appeared in the December 2008 edition of Hollins University’s Hollins Critic Magazine. She also served as a judge for the Newspapers in Education 2009 Student Essay Contest for the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Thea Gavin (Spring 2005) was one of the featured readers at the RATTLE poetry journal’s Tribute to Cowboy and Western Poetry in Santa Monica on January 17. Poetry.LA recorded the event and has posted video excerpts on its website, www.poetry.la.
George Getschow (Spring 2005), writer in residence for the nationally acclaimed Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Writers Conference of the Southwest, is inviting Spalding’s students and alumnus to the 5th annual conference, July 24-26 at the Hilton DFW Lakes Executive Conference Center in Grapevine, Texas, five minutes from the DFW Airport. This year’s conference features a diverse group of storytellers from genres unexplored in previous years. For more information, see the Classifeds section near the end of the newsletter.
“Sycamores,” a short story by Chris Helvey (Fall 2006), appeared in the inaugural issue of 94 Creations. His poem “Outside the Study” was published in the Winter/Spring issue of Pegasus, the journal of the Kentucky State Poetry Society.
Joey Goebel (Fall 2006) did a signing at the Paris Book Fair on March 14. His novels have been translated into French, and he was invited to Paris for a week to promote the French versions of The Anomalies and Torture the Artist.
Edie Hemingway (Spring 2004) participated in a panel discussion on the topic of “Group Marketing: How Joining Forces Can Improve Book Sales” at the Virginia Festival of the Book in Charlottesville, Virginia on Saturday, March 21. See http://www.vabook.org/site09. She and four other debut YA and middle grade authors, who are members of the Class of 2k9 (http://www.classof2k9.com) share how twenty-two authors pooled resources and expertise to increase visibility and sales of their books with mutual market strategies and how, along the way, they’ve gained even more through the camaraderie and support of fellow members. Edie is the author of Road to Tater Hill, forthcoming from Delacorte Press, September 8.
Jimi Izrael (Spring 2008) prepares for the release of his first book, The Denzel Principle, a book he describes as “my life, in women!” on St Martin’s Press in Fall 2009. Two of his screenplays, S-Town and The New Binky Show are agented and being shopped to various directors and producers. Jimi currently blogs culture for the Washington Post’s The Root.com and blogs film for BlackPower.com. He will teach a course on blogging and a course titled The Hip-Hop Narrative in Film for Cuyahoga Community College and Cleveland State University, respectively. All Jimi’s agented works are currently represented by Claudia Menza of the Menza-Barron Agency.
Patricia Lindsey Jaggers (Fall 2008) won the $1,000 New Millennium Writings Poetry Prize. Patricia won for “On the Night They Took Your Life,” the account of a mother’s visit beneath the stars with the spirit of her son.
Bonnie Johnson (Fall 2004), Vickie Weaver (Fall 2005), and Terry Price (Spring 2006) were among many Spalding alums who attended an afternoon tea and readings by Kathleen Driskell and Tori Murden McClure (Spring 2005) March 10 in Louisville. Afterward, a dozen-ish alums got together for dinner.
Erin Keane (Spring 2004) has a poem in the current issue of Lumberyard and in MOTIF: Writing By Ear, an anthology of writing about music, and poems forthcoming in The Minnetonka Review. She recently gave a reading in Bowling Green for Tom C. Hunley’s Western Kentucky University creative writing students, and she was a featured reader at the Kentucky AAUW Authors Brunch fundraiser in March. In April, she will present a paper on theology and The Hold Steady at the Calvin College Festival of Faith and Music. Over the past several months, she judged the student creative nonfiction writing contest at Indiana University Southeast, the Women Who Write poetry contest, the Literary LEO poetry contest, and served on a panel of reviewers for the Merton Institute Poetry of the Sacred contest. This semester, she has been teaching a course on Writing for New Media at Bellarmine University in Louisville, and she continues to write a blog for Velocity and theatre reviews for LEO.
On February 5, Drew Lackovic (Spring 2008) will be reading from his fiction at the annual Behrend Reads! event. Behrend Reads! is an opportunity for non-creative writing faculty to present their creative content to the Behrend Community.
Nana Lampton (Spring 2004) will attend as a guest author of the Southern Kentucky Book Fest April 18 at the Sloan Convention Center in Bowling Green. Lampton is author of The Moon with the Sun in Her Eye, a book of poems that “explores the tension between the feminine moon and the masculine sun,” according to Fleur-de-Lis Press editor Sena Jeter Naslund. For more information about the event, go to http://www.sokybookfest.org or call Tracy Harkins at 270-745-5016.
Susan Masters (Spring 2007), Bonnie Johnson (Fall 2004), Vickie Weaver (Fall 2005), and Rick Neumayer attended a reading by Sena Naslund at the Filson Society, Louisville, in February. Sena read from Four Spirits.
Patricia McFadden (Spring 2007) was awarded a scholarship to go to the Highlights Foundation Writers Workshop at Chautauqua July 11-18.
Deborah (Zarka) Miller Fox (Fall 2005) teaches creative writing, composition and literature at Anderson University. She recently received a promotion to assistant professor and has been offered a tenure-track position with the English department. In 2008, she received a grant that allows her department to host a writing conference at Anderson University on April 2. Sena Jeter Naslund will be the featured speaker for that conference. Miller Fox also received a grant to fund another writer visit in the fall. Novelist Silas House will visit the AU campus in September 2009. Since her graduation from Spalding’s MFA program, Deborah Zarka Miller has published three pieces of writing: an essay, “Taking Up Residence,” which appeared in Home Again: Essays and Memoirs of Indiana, “The Way to Come and Go,” a miniature narrative which appeared in David Liverett’s illustrated anthology Just Beyond the Passage, and another miniature narrative scheduled to appear in Liverett’s forthcoming anthology Questions for God.
Nicole Moro (Fall 2008) was a double panelist at the Louisville Conference on Literature Since 1900 in February at the University of Louisville. She was pleased to present her ECE, “Language of Ambiguity and Contradiction in Wendy McClure’s I’m Not the New Me,” as well as a section from her memoir and creative thesis Thick Skin. Additionally, she was a first-round judge in the 2009 Thomas Merton Poetry of the Sacred competition. The final judge was Wendell Berry.
Loreen Niewenhuis (Spring 2007) had a great time at AWP in Chicago. She will be back in Chicago in March to begin her walk around Lake Michigan. Follow her 1,000 Mile Walk on the Beach at LakeTrek.Blogspot.com.
Deanna Northrup (Fall 2006) has a story in the February 28 issue of the online journal Copperfield Review. “The Way to Woodstock” is an excerpt from her novel Trail of Crumbs.
Rosanne Osborne (Spring 2007) will have four of her tool sonnets published in the April 2009 issue of The Dead Mule. She will have two poems “Complicity” and “The Passion” in the summer 2009 edition of Ruminate Magazine.
On February 24, Linda Busby Parker (Fall 2003) spoke at the Spartanburg, South Carolina Public Library in a community forum on race relations in the South. Her novel Seven Laurels was used as the reading in common to begin the discussion. Also on the panel were students and faculty from Wofford College. On February 25, she spoke at Spartanburg High School to history and English classes about the Civil Rights movement and about writing historical fiction. That afternoon, she spoke to ninth graders at Carver Junior High School about the art of writing and she led them in several writing exercises. On February 26, she spoke at the University of South Carolina Upstate (for students in the Honors Program) about the origin of and the writing of Seven Laurels. On March 12, she spoke to students in honors English classes at St. Paul’s Episcopal High School about approaches to narrating a story.
Mary Popham (Fall 2003) has recently reviewed : Jennie C. Benedict’s The Blue Ribbon Cook Book; Linda Allison-Lewis’s Kentucky’s Best: Fifty Years of Great Recipes and Kentucky Cooks: Favorite Recipes From Kentucky Living; a collection of stories and essays by Fleur-de-Lis Press author, Nancy Jensen Window; Louis Bayard’s The Black Tower; MFA alumna Dawn Shamp’s (Spring 2005) On Account of Conspicuous Women; Joanne Harris’s The Girl With No Shadow; Sue Terry Driskell’s Drawn Into Someone’s Passion; and Sheri Wright’s Nuns for Shooting Guns in the Courier-Journal; she reviewed poetry, R. Meir Morton’s All Sorts and Conditions of Men for the back cover of the book. Her short story, “Christmas Peddler,” appeared in Christmas Is a Season! 2008 (Excalibur Press, 2008), a collection of short stories and personal essays about Christmas and the holiday season, edited and published by Linda Busby Parker (Fall 2003). Mary served as a preliminary judge for the Merton Institute’s Poetry Competition and was featured in the October 2008 issue of Today’s Woman, in a column, “What is She Reading?”
Terry Price (Spring 2006) participated in a panel discussion on March 5 about creative writing programs. The event was sponsored by the Nashville Chapter of the Women’s National Book Association and held at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville. In addition, on March 8, Terry was interviewed about The Writer’s Loft creative writing program at MTSU and creative writing in general on the radio program On the Record, available as a podcast on iTunes or online at http://frank.mtsu.edu/~proffice/podcast2009.html
Diana M. Raab (Fall 2003) moderated a panel at AWP called “Writing in Multiple Genres.” Her panelists included Molly Peacock, Phillip Lopate, Rebecca McClanahan, and David Huddle. Diana was on a panel at UCLA Writers’ Day called “Getting Your Work Out There.” More than 300 people attended. The next day she did a journaling workshop and book signing for her poetry book at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena, California. Diana’s memoir, Regina’s Closet: Finding My Grandmother’s Secret Journal (2007), is the recipient of the 2008 Mom’s Choice Award for Best Adult Nonfiction, and her new poetry book, Dear Anaïs: My Life in Poems For You, is recipient of two awards; the 2009 Allbook Reviews Editors Choice Award and Reader Views Poetry Award. She’s editor of Writers and Their Notebooks (forthcoming by U of South Carolina Press, 2010). The collection includes 25 essays from writers who journal, including, Sue Grafton, Robin Hemley, Kim Stafford, Dorianne Laux, James Brown, Michael Steinberg, Rebecca McClanahan, and John DuFresne. The foreword was written by Phillip Lopate.
Pamela Steele (Spring 2004) was the featured reader for Eastern Oregon University’s Ars Poetica series in February. She has also accepted an invitation to read at the Blue Mountain Community College Arts and Culture Festival in April.
Maija Stromberg’s (Spring 2008) story, “A Vehicular Situation” was nominated by The Bellevue Literary Review (Spring 2008) for a Pushcart Prize.
At the recent American Library Association’s Mid-Winter Conference, Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen’s (Spring 2003) young adult novel The Compound was named a 2009 Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers and the audio version was named a 2009 Amazing Audiobook. Stephanie’s audiobook of The Compound (Brilliance Audio, narrated by Christopher Lane) is one of six finalists for the Teen Book category of the 2009 Audiobook Publishers Association “Audie” Award.
Kathleen Thompson (Fall 2003) participated in Career Day at Mt. Brook Elementary School on February 27 with a PowerPoint presentation, “So You Want To Be A Writer?” She has presented her “Road Scholar” (Alabama Humanities Foundation) poetry workshop on Feb. 5 for the Mobile Writers’ Guild and on March 4 in Anniston for the Christian Writers of Calhoun County. On March 27, she will present this workshop at Northside High School, her alma mater, in Tuscaloosa County. On March 19, she presented a poetry workshop at the Barrier Island Center at Melbourne Beach, Florida, followed by a reading/signing there on March 21. She read from her poems and essays on sea turtles and other coastal topics and signing her two new poetry books, The Nights, The Days and The Shortest Distance. At home, she is organizing readers for the three- and four-year-olds at Highlands United Methodist Child Development Center, where she herself, known alternately as Miss Gran or Grandmother Goose, read to both groups on March 2 and 9.
Julia Watts (Fall 2005) attended the AWP Conference in Chicago and presented a paper in the panel session “Gay Regionalism through the Eyes of Appalachia.” Her co-panelists were Dorothy Allison, Jeff Mann, Aaron Smith, and Jackson Tucker.
Vickie Weaver (Fall 2005) attended the 2009 San Francisco Writers Conference, February 13-15. She ran into Michael Neff, whom she met last September in NYC at his Algonkian Writers Pitch and Shop Conference.
Jonathan Weinert (Fall 2005) has poems forthcoming in American Letters & Commentary and Pleiades. His book, In the Mode of Disappearance (Nightboat Books, 2008), was named a finalist for the 2009 Norma Farber First Book Award from the Poetry Society of America. (top)
Book in Common
for Spring 2009
All students and faculty read the Book in Common, Claudia Emerson’s
Late Wife, in preparation for a book discussion led by Kathleen Driskell on the first night of residency. (Bring the book to this session.)
Spring 2009 Faculty
Books/Scripts in Common
Students attending the Spring 2009 residency read the Faculty Book/Script
in Common in the area of concentration they are to study in the Spring
2009 semester in preparation for a discussion with authors at the residency.
(Bring the book to the first Friday night residency session.) All MFA
students add the book/script to their cumulative bibliographies.
Students should check Blackboard periodically as other pre-reading assignments may be added.
Summer 2009 Pre-Reading List
Students attending the Barcelona residency read the following book in their area of study.
Students entering ENG620 in the Summer 2009 semester also write an essay on the book in their area of concentration. For more information, see SEMESTERS/COURSES/SUMMER 2008/ on Blackboard. (top)
Faculty Advisory Committee (FAC) for Fall 2008
FAC members are announced by the MFA Office at the beginning of each semester. The Program Director consults with the FAC about recommendations for admissions and about programmatic and administrative development and changes. Both faculty and students are invited to make suggestions to the FAC for exploration by the Program Director and larger faculty. However, students and faculty should directly and immediately consult the Associate Program Director about any issues concerning specific individuals’ performance in the program. (top)
Classifieds
The Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Writers Conference of the Southwest, is inviting Spalding’s students and alumnus to its 5th annual conference, July 24-26 at the Hilton DFW Lakes Executive Conference Center in Grapevine, Texas, five minutes from the DFW Airport. This year’s conference features a diverse group of storytellers from genres unexplored in previous years, including travel writing, broadcast, nature writing, and documentary film. Keynotes include one of America’s literary lions, Paul Theroux, author of acclaimed travel literature, short-story collections, novels, criticism and children’s books; Ira Glass, National Public Radio’s host and producer of This American Life and editor of a breathtaking anthology called The New Kings of Nonfiction; Alma Guillermoprieto, Latin American correspondent for The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books. The nation’s foremost humor writer, Roy Blount Jr., will also be speaking at the conference, along with Stephanie Elizondo Griest, the “accidental memoirist” of Mexican-American society; Vogue’s renowned narrative essay writer, Julia Reed; the nation’s leading authority on Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, Michael Kauffman; Gordon Grice, “the Stephen King of nature writers”; Wall Street Journal foreign correspondent and hunger expert, Roger Thurow; internationally acclaimed documentary filmmakers Allen Mondell and Cynthia Salzman Mondell; and a number of other storytellers. Bob Shacochis, a National Book Award Winner (Swimming in the Volcano) who spoke at last year’s conference, says the Mayborn is “the most compelling, remarkable writers’ conference I’ve attended in more than 20 years of writers’ conferences around the nation. Thanks to the Mayborn tribe of storytellers, I think of Dallas as a preferred destination,, a center of literary gravity, perhaps the very heart of the universe these days for nonfiction writers in America.” The conference includes a book manuscript and essay writing contest. The manuscript winner will receive a $3,000 cash prize and an option to enter into a provisional publishing contract with UNT Press. The article and essay writing contest offers $12,000 in cash prizes. The 10 best articles or essays, including the six cash award winners, will be published in a literary journal jointly published by Hearst Newspapers and the Mayborn Graduate School of Journalism. Several Spalding students and graduates have won cash prizes and publication in Ten Spurs. Conference fees are $295 for the general public. Educator fees are $270. Student fees are $225. The fees include fine dining. Conference seating is limited. To register, visit http://www.TheMayborn.unt.edu. For more information, call George Getschow at 972-746-1633
.
Reminders and Notes
Apply Now for U.S. Passport for Summer 2009 Travel: Students, alumni, and faculty who are planning travel to the Barcelona Summer 2009 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 www.fafsa.ed.gov. (top)
Spring 2009 students: Fill out the FAFSA for the 08-09 school year, using 2007 tax information.
Summer 2009 students: Fill out the FAFSA for the 09-10 school year, using 2008 tax information.
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 http://www.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. 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. It is helpful for alums to include their 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 website addresses, when appropriate.
Examples of kinds of activities that might be included in the Life of a Writer column are
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 to Cristina Trapani-Scott at mfanewsletter@spalding.edu