On Extended Wings - the Newsletter of the Spalding MFA in Writing Program




Vol. 6 No. 3 October 2004 New Faculty The Glass Menagerie, Residency Arts Event Spring Writers' Retreat ECEs for Review Faculty Books in Common for May 2005 Recording Possibilties Life of a Writer Students Faculty and Staff Alumni Reminders and Notes Spalding Home MFA Home Previous Newsletters July 2003 August 2003 October 2003 November 2003 February 2004 May 2004 August 2004 September 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005		Close Window MFA Program Welcomes New Faculty The MFA Program is pleased to announce that the following new faculty members join us at the 2004 October residency: Rane Arroyo, PhD, University of Pittsburgh (poetry), is the author of four poetry collections: Columbus’s Orphan (JVC Press); The Singing Shark (Bilingual Press), winner of the Carl Sandburg Prize; Pale Ramón (Zoland Books); and Home Movies of Narcissus (University of Arizona Press). His newest collection, The Portable Famine, is the 2004 John Ciardi Poetry Prize winner and will appear in fall 2005 (BkMk Press/University of Missouri-Kansas City). This newest poetry publication coincides with publication of his first book of short stories/fictions, How to Name a Hurricane (University of Arizona Press). Rane is also a playwright and has had work performed throughout the United States and abroad. He has won many grants and published extensively over the last ten years in major literary magazines, small alternative zines, and most recently, on-line venues. Rane is a full professor at the University of Toledo where he is the Director of Creative Writing. K. L. Cook, MFA, Warren Wilson College (fiction), is the author of a collection of linked stories, Last Call, which won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize for Fiction (Univ. of Nebraska Press, 2004). His fiction, essays, and poetry have appeared in numerous literary journals and magazines, including Threepenny Review, Harvard Review, Shenandoah, American Short Fiction, and Witness. His honors include the grand prize from the Santa Fe Writers Project Literary Arts Series, an Arizona Commission on the Arts fellowship, two Pushcart Prize nominations, and residency fellowships to The MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and Blue Mountain Center. His recently completed novel, The Girl from Charnelle, was a finalist for the James Jones First Novel Award. Kenny earned his MFA from Warren Wilson College and teaches creative writing and literature at Prescott College in Arizona, where he is the Associate Dean. (top) Joyce McDonald, PhD, University of Iowa (writing for children), has published a broad range of children’s and young adult fiction, among them Swallowing Stones, an American Library Association Top Ten Best Book for Young Adults, and Shades of Simon Gray, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and an Edgar Allan Poe Award nominee. She has also written middle-grade novels and a picture book, Homebody. Her fifth young adult novel, Drowning Lessons, is scheduled for publication in spring 2006. Joyce has taught creative writing and literature at Drew University and East Stroudsburg University. For five years, she owned and managed Shoe Tree Press, a small press specializing in children’s books and she has also worked for Charles Scribner’s Sons. Joyce lives in Blairstown, New Jersey. Cathleen Medwick, MA, MPhil, Colombia University (creative nonfiction), is a longtime magazine editor and writer. Currently a contributing editor to O, The Oprah Magazine, she was previously Literary Editor at Mirabella, Features Editor at House & Garden, and Senior Editor at Vogue and Vanity Fair. Her feature stories, essays, reviews, and poetry have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, New York Magazine, Mirabella, Elle, Vogue, Vanity Fair, House & Garden, O, The Oprah Magazine, and other publications. Her biography Teresa of Avila: The Progress of a Soul (Knopf, 1999; Doubleday, 2001) was a New York Times Notable Book and has been published in Britain, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, and Mexico, and was nominated for the 2002 Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion. Linda Busby Parker, MA, PhD, University of Michigan, MFA, Spalding University (fiction), is the author of Seven Laurels (Southeast Missouri University Press), which won the James Jones First Novel Fellowship Prize in 2002. Her fiction has appeared in Big Muddy: A Journal of Mississippi River Valley, Provincetown Arts, and Literary Mobile, an anthology published by Negative Capability Press. She is a regular book reviewer for the Mobile Press Register and previously wrote a monthly column for Mobile Bay Monthly, where she also published feature articles. Linda graduated from the Spalding MFA Program in 2003, and has since served as a faculty member of The Writers Loft at Middle Tennessee State University. She was selected as a contributor in fiction to the Bread Loaf Writers Conference in 2001 and 2002; and she was the 2004 Tennessee Williams Scholar in Fiction at Sewannee Writers Conference. (top) Tickets for Actors Theatre Production of The Glass Menagerie Upon arrival at residency, students and faculty receive a Welcome Packet, which contains (among other items) a ticket to the Sunday matinee of The Glass Menagerie. Students and faculty are responsible for bringing their tickets with them to the theater. Attendance at the matinee is required; however, in the case of an unavoidable absence, the student or faculty member should turn the ticket in to the MFA Office in advance of the play, if possible. MFA Program Offers Writers’ Retreat The MFA Program offers a new forum where the emphasis is on the act of writing itself. Students, alumni, and faculty are invited to participate in the inaugural Harmonic Convergence writers’ retreat immediately following the May 2005 residency. Located at the retreat center at New Harmony, Indiana, less than three hours west of Louisville, the retreat takes place in an historic ambience among natural surroundings. All are invited to attend for three days, May 29-June 1, or five days, May 29-June 3. Alumni may attend homecoming May 27-29 as well. (top) The retreat offers no instruction, no must-attend events, just companionship among other serious writers. The heart of the retreat is individual writing time; participants are encouraged to devote about a half-day to the creative act. Writing time may be balanced with exercise (the retreat center offers walking trails, yoga, and an indoor heated pool) and relaxation (perhaps getting a massage or browsing antique shops in town). Retreatants may choose to dine in small groups at the Red Geranium restaurant or wherever they choose, followed by evening gatherings at which participants may read aloud, if they feel inspired to do so. The package price includes three or five nights at the New Harmony Inn, motorcoach transportation both ways between Louisville and New Harmony, brunch at the scenic Overlook Restaurant on the drive to New Harmony, and a Tuesday night dinner at the Red Geranium restaurant. The cost for three nights (arriving Sunday, May 29; departing New Harmony on Wednesday, June 1), is $480; for five nights (arriving Sunday, May 29; departing Friday, June 3), the cost is $650. Meals are participants’ responsibility, other than the brunch and the Tuesday dinner. Space is limited, but at least 20 participants are required to fill the retreat. Please send a reservation along with a $200 deposit to the MFA Office by January 14. The balance is due March 29. ECEs for Review Students who would like to review Extended Critical Essays from previous semesters may do so in the MFA Office during the October residency; however, all ECEs must remain in the MFA Office. The Program recommends that students read the ECEs for content only and not as MLA style models. (top) Faculty Books in Common for May 2005 The following books have been selected for Faculty Books in Common for May 2005: Fiction: Where the Long Grass Bends by Neela Vaswani Poetry: Precipitates by Debra Kang Dean Writing for Children: Swallowing Stones by Joyce McDonald Creative Nonfiction: Death of a Hornet by Robert Finch Playwriting/Screenwriting: TBA All students read the books in their areas of concentration and prepare for a discussion with the faculty authors during the May 2005 residency. These books may be purchased in the Spalding University Bookstore during the residency in October. Recording Possibilities for MFA Students During Residency MFA student Deborah Begel would like to record short student readings during the October 2005 residency for a long-range project she is developing for radio broadcast. To arrange a taping with her during lunch or dinner when at the residency, please contact her by email at begel@aol.com (top) Life of a Writer Students Amy Clark’s poem “Night Rescue” is forthcoming in Tar River Poetry. Claudia Labin’s play, House of Regrets, will be presented next May by Heartland Stage Company in Munice, Indiana. Mary C. O’Malley presented her ECE, “Discovering the Hidden Threads of Intertextualtiy and Voice in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Aurora Leigh and Derek Walcott’s Another Life,” on September 24 at the University of Georgia’s Graduate Association Multicultural Conference, “Intersectionality: Life at the Borders.” Her poems “Marker” and “Bridgid Moran’s Pink Rocking Chair” are forthcoming in St. Joseph Messenger. Richard Newman has two poems forthcoming in Tar River Poetry, a chapbook of monster sonnets due out this year (Snark Publications), and a full-length book of poems, Borrowed Towns, is forthcoming in 2005 (Word Press).(top) Jim Robertson has been promoted from Copy Editor to Managing Editor of Culture & Leisure. He writes a column entitled “Social Graces”for the quarterly magazine. Coretta Wolford’s article on David Caudill and the butterfly mobiles he sculpted for the Louisville Zoo appeared in the September edition of Trunkline. Faculty & Staff In a recent issue of Entrez!, the national newsletter of the Women Chefs & Restaurateurs, Dianne Aprile (editor) wrote about a creative collaboration of food and literature: a book club sponsored by Carmichael’s bookstore and Artemesia restaurant. Louisville foodies/readers meet monthly at the restaurant to discuss a book with a food theme (Salt: A History, for example) over a meal inspired by that month’s book. (top) On September 19, Roy Hoffman’s essay about his father’s 95th birthday party in New York, “A Harbor Voyage, Encompassing the Years,” appeared in the City section of the Sunday New York Times. His novel, Chicken Dreaming Corn, published on September 13 by University of Georgia Press, is an October BookSense pick. Roy recently appeared at the following events: October 2, Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh, NC, and Regulator Bookshop in Durham, NC; October 11, Alabama Booksmith in Birmingham; October 12, Lemuria Books in Jackson, Miss.; October 13, Square Books in Oxford, Miss. He has several upcoming events sceduled: October 21, Capitol Books in Montgomery; October 26, New Orleans Jewish Community Center; and October 29, Southern Jewish Historical Society. He is to appear in Kentucky on November 1 at the Louisville Jewish Community Center and on November 18 at JoBeth Books in Lexington. On August 18, Karen J. Mann read her poetry in a line-up that included more than a dozen Spalding MFA alums at The Jazz Factory’s “Jazz & the Spoken Word.” Linda Busby Parker read from Seven Laurels and lectured at Southeast Missouri State University. She also gave a reading at the Southern Festival of the Book in Memphis, Tennessee. Her upcoming readings are at Spring Hill College in Mobile and at the Gulf Coast Writer's Association in Gulfport, Mississippi. Molly Peacock’s fall schedule includes a reading and lecture on creative nonfiction at The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis (October 14-16) and appearances at American Poets’ Corner Investiture at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City (October 24) and the Georgia College Poetry Festival in Millegeville, Georgia (November 18-21). Her essay, "Where to Take Kids in New York,"; appeared this summer in New York magazine’s family issue. (top) Alumni Susan Christerson Brown (October 2003) is teaching creative writing at the Carnegie Center in Lexington, Kentucky. Her essay, “Consuming Interests,” is to be published in the January 2005 issue of Branchwood Journal. On October 1, Mary Popham (October 2003) read poetry and fiction at the season opening of “First Fridays” at Poor Richard’s Bookstore & The Coffee Tree Cafe in Frankfort, Kentucky. Mary recently read with other MFA alums at The Jazz Factory in Louisville. This summer, she performed as an extra in a Louisville-based movie, “Sweet William.” Frank X Walker (May 2003) recently won the Lilian Smith Award. (top) In Sympathy Our heartfelt sympathy to Stephanie Horton on the recent loss of her father. Our heartfelt sympathy to Victoria Moon on the recent loss of her grandfather. Reminders and Notes Faculty Advisory Committee (FAC) Members for October 2004 Semester Mary Clyde, Fiction Debra Kang Dean, Poetry Richard Goodman, Creative Nonfiction Luke Wallin, Writing for Children Sam Zalutsky, Playwriting/Screenwriting Both students and faculty are invited to make suggestions to the FAC for exploration by the Program Director or Associate Program Director and larger faculty. However, students and faculty should directly and immediately consult the Program Director about any issues concerning specific individuals’ performance in the program. (top) A Reminder About Financial Aid The MFA Program offers scholarships to students entering their first semester in the program. Returning students who desire financial assistance should apply for graduate assistantships. Applications for scholarships and assistantships should be directed to the MFA Office. Federal student loans, which are handled through Spalding's financial aid office and not through the MFA program, are available to all eligible graduate students.(top) Financial Aid: For help with financial aid questions, call Kristan Adams at (800) 896-8941 ext. 2359 or (502) 585-9911, ext. 2359 or email kadams@spalding.edu. Students may enter or update their FAFSA information online at www.fafsa.ed.gov (top) MFA Scholarship Fund: Donations to the MFA in Writing Scholarship Fund may be made "in honor of" or "in memory of" a friend or loved one or organization. To make a donation, contact Theresa Raidy in the Advancement Office. Email: traidy@spalding.edu. Phone: (800) 896-8941, ext. 2601, or (502) 585-9911, ext. 2601. Online information: MFA in Writing forms, deadlines, and other student and faculty information are available online at http://www.spalding.edu/mfaforms Newsletters are at http://www.spalding.edu/mfanewsletter For convenience, bookmark these two pages. Both web addresses are case sensitive. The MFA Office is happy to mail program forms or the newsletter, if requested. Email kyocom@spalding.edu. Sena Jeter Naslund, Program Director Karen Mann, Administrative Director Kathleen Driskell, Associate Program Director Katy Yocom, Program Associate Liz Nethery, The Louisville Review, editorial assistant, and office assistant Email Life of a Writer information to Verna Austen at lifeofawriter@hotmail.com .(top)