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Vol.17 No. 2 Reading in Common for Spring 2010 Buenos Aires Residency Books in Common Cross Genre for Spring: Elevator Plays Shakespeare Behind Bars: A Documentary Buenos Aires: Upcoming Deadlines Opps for Alums in Buenos Aires Life of a Writer Classified: Short Story Contest Faculty Advisory Committee for Fall 2009 Previous Newsletters See other issues of On Extended Wings
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The Spring 2010 Script and Book in Common Area Is Dramatic Writing
(1) Rebecca’s Gilman’s stage adaptation of McCullers’s The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter At the opening MFA convocation, Friday, May 21, playwright Rebecca Gilman discusses her stage adapation of Carson McCullers’s novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. She is pictured here at a New York City rehearsal of the play. All students and faculty, regardless of concentration, read the script in advance of the residency (download available on Blackboard) and also the novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. If buying a copy, we suggest students purchase the Modern Library’s edition of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (ISBN-10: 0679424741 or ISBN-13: 978-0679424741). Rising second semester students meet in mini-workshops scheduled throughout the residency to discuss their short essays on the stage adaptation of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. (2) David Kipen’s The Schreiber Theory The Program Screenwriting Book in Common selection for the Spring 2010 residency is David Kipen’s The Schreiber Theory. David visits the MFA residency on Monday, May 24, to discuss his book and the art of screenwriting. He will focus much of his talk on the screenplays of William Zaillion; before residency students are to view the following films made from Zaillion’s screenplays: Schindler’s List (1993); Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993); Gangs of New York (2002). David also suggests that students view The Falcon and the Snowman (1985). DVDs of the films may be rented locally or checked out of local libraries. (top) Summer 2010: Buenos Aires
Residency Books in Common Students should bring their texts to the book-in-common sessions at the residency in Argentina. There may be additions made to the BIC prereading list. Please check the Thursday Memo each week on Blackboard to stay informed. (top) MFA Commissions Four Elevator Plays for Spring 2010 Residency Shakespeare Behind Bars to be Screened at Residency MFA Program Welcomes
Spring 2010 Guest Lecturers Buenos Aires: Upcoming Deadline Special Options for Alums
in Buenos Aires 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) Homecoming May 28-30 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) Because You Asked Life of a Writer Becky Browder announces that her story “Arnie’s Gift” was published in the December 20, 2009, issue of The Anniston Star in Anniston, Alabama. Also, Becky was a finalist in the 2009 Midnight Sun Fiction Contest, which is sponsored by Permafrost, a literary journal out of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. (top) Kate Buckley announces that her poem “Neshoba County, Mississippi, 1964” has been nominated by Shenandoah for The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses XXXV, due out this November. This is Kate’s third Pushcart Prize nomination and the second this year—her poem “Honesty” was recently nominated by New Southerner. Both poems are from her second collection of poetry, Follow Me Down (Tebot Bach, 2009). Kate’s currently doing readings in support of Follow Me Down, including a recent reading at Los Angeles venue The Ruskin Art Club.Eric Cravey gave a one-hour presentation on essay writing to the Women of Color Cultural Foundation Inc. in Jacksonville, Florida, in February. He spoke to 10th- through 12th-graders who are taking part in a foundation essay contest in which the top prize is a $1,000 college scholarship. Students select a country and write a 500- to 700-word essay about geo-political aspects of that country. This month, Eric will complete a semester of service as a volunteer with the Clay County Literacy Coalition in Orange Park, Florida, where he teaches Intermediate Writing II. The coalition serves adult students who need literacy training; the students hail from 48 different countries. In fall 2009, Eric taught basic writing for the coalition. (top) Carolyn Flynn recently learned that her short story “Pretend” was short-listed for the Danahy Fiction Prize at the Tampa Review. She worked on that story during workshop at the Barcelona residency with faculty member Robin Lippincott and her mentor group, so thank you very much! In addition, her short story “Blood” won the Albuquerque the Magazine short fiction contest and will be published in the April issue. Read it at abqthemag.com. Another story, “Improvising,” was short-listed at Hayden’s Ferry Review. Carolyn read recently at the Women and Creativity Women Writers event at the National Hispanic Cultural Center with Spalding MFA Associate Program Director Kathleen Driskell, novelist Lisa Lenard-Cook, artist and literary blogger Roma Arellano of redRavine.com and Santa Fe poet laureate Valerie Martinez. The NHCC is in Albuquerque. Carolyn’s story about Elizabeth Gilbert’s (Eat, Pray Love; Committed) recent appearance in Albuquerque is up at redRavine.com. (top) Eva Gordon announces that her prose poem “Backyard Jungle” has been accepted for publication in the Spring 2010 issue of Prism Review, the print literary journal at University of La Verne, in La Verne, California. Go to laverne.edu/academics/arts-sciences/prism-review. Amy Hanridge reviewed Heidi W. Durrow’s new novel, The Girl Who Fell from the Sky, in the March 2010 issue of Bookslut. The review can be found at bookslut.com/fiction/2010_02_015791.php. (top) Jenny Luper announces that two poems, “Fixed” and “Cow Heads and Defibrillators,” have recently been published in the March 2010 issue of TUSK Digital Magazine. Look for more of her work to be featured in future issues as she is now a contributing editor for TUSK. Visit TUSK online at faddiscreative.com/TuskMagazine_10March.html to check it out. Chris Mattingly recently had four baseball poems accepted to Ryder Magazine as part of a special baseball installment. Chris was also invited to feature at Holler Poets in Lexington, Kentucky, this summer. He also recently learned that Southern Indiana Review was publishing one of his poems. In addition, Chris was a featured poet on Lexington’s WRFL program “Accents.” The hourlong radio program can be heard at katerinaklemer.com/audio/accents_103009.mp3. You can also hear Chris talk about ekphrastic poetry and read his poem at the public-republic online literary site “Saint of Raisin’ Hell, John Haywood, 2003” at public-republic.net/literary-term-of-the-week. A handset letterpress edition of his chapbook Ad Hoc will be released at Associated Writing Programs in April. (top) Brian Russell reports that his chapbook, Meeting Dad: A Memoir, is being released in April 2010 by Accents Publishing (accents-publishing.com). He will be signing copies of his book at the AWP Conference in Denver, Colorado, in April. On April 23, he will be a guest on WRFL 88.1 FM Lexington’s radio program, “Accents–A Radio Show for Literature, Art and Culture,” hosted by Katerina Stoykova-Klemer (Fall 2009). The book will launch with a reading and book signing April 4 in Chicago. Julie Brickman announces that her story “The Cop, the Hooker and the Ridealong” appeared in the September-October 2009 issue of North American Review. K. L. Cook had three stories—“On the Strip,” “Noise,” and “Wedding Photograph, June 1963”—published in the inaugural issue of Wrong Tree Review, a new journal edited by Spalding MFA alums Jarrid Deaton (Fall 2007) and Sheldon Lee Compton (Fall 2007). Kenny will be at the Associated Writing Programs conference in Denver on April 7–10 and will be on a panel with fellow WILLA Award winners on April 8. (top) AWP has invited Kathleen Driskell to talk about future trends in low-residency MFA Programs at the AWP Conference Town Hall Meeting in Denver in April. She will also participate in the Low-Residency MFA Director’s Caucus at the AWP Conference. In the Kentucky Great Writers Series at The Carnegie Center in Lexington, Kentucky, Kathleen reads at 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 13, with Jim Tomlinson and Cecelia Woloch. Her poem “Cupid” has been accepted for publication in The Cortland Review. Helena Kriel reports that her film Skin was released in November 2009. It has been getting awards at different festivals, including the audience award at the Afrika Film Festival, Belgium (2009); audience award at AFI Dallas; audience and jury favorite awards, Pan African Film Festival, Los Angeles; audience award, Santa Barbara; First Film Award, Time for Peace; Best Feature Film, Palm Beach International Film Festival 2009; and Circle Audience Award, Film Fest DC, Washington, D.C., 2009. (top) Jody Lisberger was invited to be a Women’s History Month speaker at SUNY Cortland. On March 4, she gave a talk on feminist theory and writing craft called, “Writing Down the Body: Making the Invisible Visible, the Silent Spoken.” Joyce McDonald has been invited to lead three writing workshops at the 62nd Annual Philadelphia Writers’ Conference on June 11–13 in Philadelphia. Her poem “Snake Bite” has been accepted by The Louisville Review and will appear in the spring 2010 issue. Sena Jeter Naslund, program director, extends congratulations to Tori Murden McClure, who has recently been selected as the next president of Spalding University. Tori is a graduate in creative nonfiction of the Spalding MFA program as well as a graduate of Smith College, Harvard University, and the University of Louisville. Her recently published nonfiction account of rowing solo across the Atlantic Ocean is titled A Pearl in the Storm. Sena announces that her forthcoming novel, Adam & Eve, is now available for pre-publication sale on amazon.com. She recently spoke in Montgomery, Alabama, to the Writers Forum convocation of Young Alabama Writers. (top) Molly Peacock traveled to England for the launch of the British edition of The Second Blush at the Troubador Cafe Series, where she participated in a panel about British and American poetry. She was also the featured interview in the most recent Rattle literary magazine. The Canadian edition of her new book, The Paper Garden: Mrs. Delany Begins Her Life’s Work at 72, will be published next October, coinciding with the next volume of The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2010, of which she is general series editor. Neela Vaswani returned from a three-week visiting-writer-in-residence stint at IIIT Hyderabad, India (a Carnegie Mellon affiliate). She taught an intensive mixed-genre workshop at the university, visited with family and friends, and did some literacy work with children via a nonprofit organization. Luke Wallin announces that his story “Monster,” which he read at the Fall 2009 residency, is live online at the journal Moon Milk Review, which specializes in magical realism. Luke and second semester fiction student Eva Gordon have a contract to write the second edition of The Everything Guide to Writing Children’s Books. (top) Cynthia Rausch Allar (Spring 2004) was a finalist in the Split This Rock 2010 Poetry Contest with her poem on Proposition 8, “Bellwether.” Susan Christerson Brown (Fall 2003) has recently launched a new blog, “Mildly Mystical: Glimpsing the Eternal in Ordinary Time,” which can be found at mildlymystical.com. She also led a recent writing retreat, along with other members of the KaBooM Writing Collective including Pam Sexton (Fall 2003). At the retreat, she invited participants to enter their writing through the senses. Her brief reflection on that retreat can be read at kaboomwriters.com/2010/03/writing-from-the-senses. Bobbi Buchanan (Fall 2004) was interviewed in January, along with Spalding alum Angela Jackson-Brown (Fall 2009), for the “Accents” radio show, hosted and produced by Spalding MFA alum Katerina Stoykova-Klemer (Fall 2009). Bobbi’s essay “Signs of Life” will appear in Volume 2 of Motif: Chance, to be published this summer by Motes Books. Her essay “On Waking” appeared in the February issue of Still: Literature of the Mountain South, which can be found online at stilljournal.net Amy M. Clark (Fall 2004) has two poems forthcoming in Southern Poetry Review. Her debut collection of poems, Stray Home (University of North Texas Press), winner of the Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry 2009, is now available. Find out more at amymclark.com. She will read from her book at the Spalding Alumni Celebration of Recently Published Books in May. (top) Joan Donaldson (Spring 2008) will have two essays on the middle school version of the Michigan Educational Assessment Program test. Also, Joan received the Korean translation of her picture book, The Secret of the Red Shoes. It is fun to see the story in another language! Joan’s new novel On Viney’s Mountain will receive an award from the Friends of American Writers, a Midwest literary organization that works to “encourage high standards and to promote literary ideals.” The award recognizes new voices and has been presented to Richard Peck and Rebecca Caudill. Joan will accept the award at the celebration on April 21. Barry George (Fall 2009) announces that his first chapbook, Wrecking Ball and Other Urban Haiku, has been published by Accents Publishing. More information is available at accents-publishing.com. Karen George (Spring 2009) has a flash fiction piece, “Where His Eyes Swim,” published in Vestal Review’s Tenth Anniversary print issue 35. (top) Nathan Gower (Fall 2008) reports that his short story “Heather” was published in Paradigm journal’s Weiss Issue (Winter 2010). Read it online at paradigmjournal.com. The story is being considered for publication in Paradigm’s annual print anthology later this year. Brian Hampton (Spring 2006) is teaming up with BigBean Productions (bigbeanproductions.com) for the film adaptation of his play, Checking In. More information will be available at brianhampton.net. Colleen S. Harris (Fall 2009) reports a busy 2010. From her creative thesis, the poems “Challenger,” “Bud Vase” and “Copper in Fire” will appear in this year’s issue of Penguin Review, and “Gift Shop, Museum of Natural History,” “Carving Your Name” and “Coleman Canoe” have received acceptance for a future issue of Bellowing Ark. Her poem “Star Inside the Apple” will appear in Orange Coast College Review. Out of Colleen’s newest unpublished manuscript, “The Green of Breakable Things,” the poem “Fishing” will appear in Third Wednesday, and poems “The Ant” and “Clearing Weeds from Daddy’s Grave,” will appear in a future issue of Bellowing Ark. In nonfiction, Colleen’s book chapters, “Millennials, Gen-X, Gen-Y and Boomers, Oh My! Managing Multiple Generations in the Library” and “Management Tips for Merging Multiple Service Points” will appear in the book Library Management Tips That Work, edited by Carol Smallwood. The American Library Association will publish the book in 2010. Colleen has another two book chapters, “Low- and No-Cost Development Opportunities for Librarians” and “Managing Staff Stress During Budget Crises: Lessons for Library Managers” forthcoming in the book Surviving and Thriving in the Recession: A How-to-Do-It Manual for Librarians, to be published by Neal-Schuman in 2010. Finally, on the job front, Colleen has accepted a professorship at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where she will work as a librarian and head of the library’s access services department as of May 2010. (top) Lisa Jayne (Fall 2009) announces a ribbon-cutting for White Mountain Regional Theater on March 8 in Show Low, Arizona. The regional theater’s first season will feature an adaptation by Lisa of Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost to be performed in June, and an original full-length play by her, titled Coeur d’Alene, which will be performed in October. The focus of White Mountain Regional Theater is to offer quality theatrical productions for the White Mountain area and to offer opportunities to playwrights, actors and directors to experiment and grow in their craft. See whitemountainregionaltheater.com. René R. Ketterer (Fall 2007) is team-teaching a course called “Interdisciplinary Game Design for Advocacy” with Dr. Marifran Mattson during the Spring 2010 semester at Purdue University. The grant-sponsored course leads students through such topics as advocacy campaign design and communication, storytelling, narrative design for game play and online social gaming. The students will participate in the design of a game for use in the “Motorcycle Safety at Purdue” health campaign. See ItInvolvesYou.com. (top) Loreen Niewenhuis (Spring 2007) and Vickie Weaver (Fall 2005) were on the Indianapolis campus of Butler University to hear Junot Diaz read February 11. They think Junot is way cool. Mary Popham (Fall 2003) published book reviews in the Louisville Courier-Journal: December 2009 – “A is for Appalachia: the Alphabet Book of Appalachian Heritage” by Linda Hager Pack, illustrated by Pat Banks; “The Man Who Lived in a Hollow Tree,” by Anne Shelby, illustrated by Cor Hazelaar; January 2010 – “World Premieres from Horse Cave Theatre,” edited by Warren Hammack and Liz Bussey Fentress; “We All Live Downstream: Writings About Mountaintop Removal,” edited by Jason Howard; book reviews in New Southerner magazine, Winter 2009–Seed Across Snow by Kathleen Driskell; book review in ForeWord magazine: January/February 2010–“The Snowbound House” by Shane Seely; book review for Kentucky’s BookClub@KET; January 2010–“A Separate Country” by Robert Hicks. Rosemary Royston (Fall 2009) will have two poems published in March 2010. “Two Minutes Shy” will be in The Comstock Review, and “White” will be published by Dark Sky Magazine (darkskymagazine.com). (top) Bob Sachs (Spring 2009) was awarded honorable mention in the Glimmer Train November 2009 Short Story Award for New Writers for his story “Blue Room with Woman.” His story “Kessler’s Shoes” will be published in the 2010 Spring Edition of Mobius, the Journal of Social Change (mobiusmagazine.com). His photograph “Nest Building 101” received honorable mention in the 2010 Literary LEO photography contest. (See leoweekly.com/literary-leo-2010—black-white-photography-winners.) Dawn Shamp (Spring 2005) was visiting author at Illinois’ Knox College on February 4. Knox assistant English professor Cyn Kitchen (Spring 2005) invited Shamp to address her creative writing students about researching historical fiction. Knox’s Caxton Club, a student-run organization devoted to the pursuit of literary interests (named for the first English printer, William Caxton), also sponsored Shamp in a public reading from her novel, On Account of Conspicuous Women (St. Martin’s Press, 2008). (top) Savannah Sipple (Fall 2008) announces that her poem “Eve’s Regret” will appear in the Spring 2010 issue of New Southerner, and her poem “Intruder” will appear in the Spring 2010 issue of Appalachian Heritage. Cristina Trapani-Scott (Spring 2009) was awarded second place for column writing in the 2009 Michigan Press Association’s Better Newspaper Contest. Also, her essay “The Power of Pebbles” was accepted for publication in the Cup of Comfort for a Better World anthology due out in March. Christamar Varicella (Fall 2004) has work in or forthcoming in three literary journals. “The Floating Dock,” a short story workshopped at Spalding, has been accepted for publication in Birmingham Arts Journal. “Le Chat,” a flash fiction story created at Spalding during a writing exercise following a lecture on magical realism by Neela Vaswani, appears online in Issue 16 of Clockwise Cat (clockwisecat.blogspot.com). His short story “Wiener Roast” is set to appear in the Spring 2010 issue of The Broken Plate, a literary magazine produced at Ball State University. He also regularly posts humorous essays, literary parodies, fake author interviews and book reviews at dailybrass.blogspot.com. (top) Vickie Weaver (Fall 2005) attended the Midwest Writers Workshop Mini-Conference March 13 in Muncie, Indiana. Laverne Zabielski (Spring 2004) is exhibiting at Kentucky Crafted, The Market, in March at the Kentucky Exposition Center. Lanette Freitag and Laverne will share booth 543. Her newly invented FeltLOOM is making her crazy. It’s all she wants to do. Now she nuno-felts as many different kinds of silk and wool she can think of. Try one more idea after another. She will have wool rugs, jackets, purses and shawls. She will have silk boleros, poetry vests, riding coats, dresses and poetry skirts. And several new nuno-felted pieces in silk and merino, then Shibori-dyed. Aimee Zaring (Spring 2005) wrote a book review on Byron Pitts’ memoir, Step Out on Nothing, in The Courier-Journal. Her short story “Remains” appears in the 15th issue of Bloodlotus (bloodlotus.org). Personals Program Books in Common
for Spring 2010 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 Fiction: Eleanor Morse, Chopin’s Garden (order from amazon.com) Reading Trail for MFA Authors Classified 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. 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. 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 Master of Fine Arts in Writing •Spalding University
Sena Jeter Naslund, Program Director |
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