Vol. 8 No. 3
October 2005

New Faculty

More Residency Guests

Cross-Genre Study

Preparation for Residency

Student Reading Opps

Getting the Most

Interrelatedness of the Arts

Optional Arts Events: The Crucible

High Horse, Faculty Anthology

Life of a Writer

     Students

     Faculty and Staff

    Alumni

Change of Address

Personals

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

October 2004

January 2005

Febrary 2005

March 2005

April 2005

July 2005

September 2005

MFA Program Welcomes New Faculty Members

Philip F. Deaver, EdD, (fiction) is the 13th winner of the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction. He is the author of a short story collection, Silent Retreats. He has held fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts and Bread Loaf. His fiction has appeared in Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards and has been recognized in Best American Short Stories and The Pushcart Prize. His poems have appeared in magazines such as The Reaper, Poetry Miscellany, and the Florida Review and are collected in a volume titled How Men Pray (Anhinga, 2005). He also writes creative nonfiction and is currently working on a memoir about his marriage. Phil holds a doctorate in Education from the University of Virginia and is associate professor of English and permanent Writer in Residence at Rollins College, Winter Park, Fla.

Charlie Schulman, MFA, (playwriting/ screenwriting) is the Artistic Director of The Drama Center in New York City. He teaches screenwriting at New York University. His Off-Broadway credits include Angel of Death, The Birthday Present and The Ground Zero Club. He is a three-time winner of the Avery Hopwood award in Drama from The University of Michigan and a recipient of The Charles MacArthur award for comedy from The National Playwrights Conference. His chapter on playwriting is to be published in “The Portable MFA” (Writers Digest). His play Character Assassins is to be produced Off-Broadway in the 2005-2006 season at Dodger Stages, and he is currently writing a screen adaptation of this play. His screenplay The Fartiste has been adapted into a musical and receives its world premiere in December at The Drama Center. Charlie holds an MFA in Dramatic Writing from New York University. (top)

MFA Program Welcomes Guest Faculty and Lecturers

In addition to Lorna Littleway, Kathy Shorr, and Frank X Walker, who were introduced in the previous edition of “On Extended Wings” (Vol. 8, No. 2, September 2005), the MFA Program is pleased to welcome these guest faculty and lecturers for the October 2005 residency. (top)

Michael Blowen holds both a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Emerson College in Boston. After graduating from the MS program, he stayed at Emerson as an instructor in film and literature from 1969-1975 and worked part-time teaching at several Massachusetts community colleges until 1977, when The Boston Globe hired him as a film critic. He is now a recovering movie critic who takes in retired thoroughbreds.

Based in Louisville, Archie Borders’s experience in independent film production spans most facets of financing, producing, and distributing. Archie wrote, directed, and produced the recently completed feature film Paper Cut. He wrote, directed, and produced Reception to Follow, which was purchased by Showtime and aired exclusively on the Sundance Channel. He co-produced the critically acclaimed independent film Assisted Living (Winner, Best Feature Film, 2003 Slamdance Film Festival and 2003 GenArts Film Festival) and produced the feature film The Grey (Winner, Best Film, 2003 Santa Barbara Film Festival). Archie was the recipient of the 2001 Kentucky Education Independent Producer’s Grant.

Sheila Callaghan, MFA, (playwriting) has had plays produced and developed with Soho Rep, Playwright’s Horizons, South Coast Repertory, Clubbed Thumb, The LARK, Actor’s Theatre of Louisville, New Georges, Annex Theatre, Moving Arts, and LABrynth, among others. Sheila is the recipient of a 2000 Princess Grace Award for emerging artists, a 2001 LA Weekly Theater Award for Best One-act, a 2001-2002 Jerome Fellowship from the Playwright’s Center in Minneapolis, a 2002 Chesley Prize for Lesbian Playwriting, a 2003 MacDowell Residency, and a 2004 NYFA grant. She is currently working on commissions from Play-wright’s Horizons, South Coast Repertory, and EST/Sloan. Her full-length plays include Scab, The Hunger Waltz, Crawl Fade to White, Crumble (Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake), We Are Not These Hands, Dead City, Lascivious Something, Kate Crackernuts, and her opera Elemental with music by Sophocles Papavasilopoulos. Three monologues from her plays are featured in Heinemann’s series, Monologues for Women, by Women. She holds an MFA from UCLA’s School of Theatre, Film, and Television and teaches playwriting at The University of Rochester. She is a member of the Obie-winning playwright’s organization 13P. (top)

A former K-12 Reading and Language Arts teacher, Karen Dunnagan completed her PhD in Literacy and Literature Education at Ohio State University. She currently serves as assistant professor in Spalding University’s College of Education in the areas of English Language Arts, and Children’s & Young Adult Literature. Her focus is on educating new teachers to design and guide creative, child-centered, literature-based learning opportunities that ensure membership for all children in the community of readers.

Amy Holman is the author of An Insider’s Guide to Creative Writing Programs, forthcoming from Perigee in 2006, and Wait For Me, I’m Gone, which won the 2004 Dream Horse Press National Poetry Chapbook Competition. She teaches writers how to get published through classes at conferences, colleges and literary centers and through private consultation. She is a poet, fiction writer, and nonfiction writer with publications in many print and online literary journals and the anthologies Best American Poetry 1999, Mercy of Tides: Poems for a Beach House, The History of Panty Hose in America, and Making the Perfect Pitch. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her gregarious golden retriever. (top)

Kevin Wilmott is assistant professor in the Film Studies Department of the University of Kansas. His film C.S.A–The Confederate States of America has played at film festivals worldwide, including the 2004 Sundance Film festival. Sold to IFC Films, the film has its theatrical release later this year as a Spike Lee presentation. Kevin most recently authored Colored Men, about the Houston riot of 1917, and Gotta Give It Up, a modern day adaptation of Lysistrata. He is currently writing the screenplay Wilt of Kansas. His play T-Money and Wolf, coauthored with Ric Averill, was selected as part of the New Vision/New Voices series produced by the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, and was published by Dramatic Publishing. His independent feature film Ninth Street, which he wrote, produced, co-directed, and in which he played a lead role, was released in 1999 on video and DVD. Other screenwriting credits include Shields Green and the Gospel of John Brown (with Mitch Brian), Civilized Tribes, Little Brown Brothers, and the adaptations Marching to Valhalla and The Watsons Go to Birmingham. TV credits: House of Getty (with Brian) and The 70’s (with Brian), the latter of which aired on NBC in 2000. He received his MFA in Dramatic Writing from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Cross-genre Lecture and Assignment

This residency’s genre of focus is creative nonfiction. Near the beginning of residency, Program Director Sena Jeter Naslund delivers a lecture focusing on creative nonfiction that addresses events that are both public and private in nature, such as a natural disaster or an act of terrorism, as well as joyful occasions such as fairs, festivals, and public performances—any event that plays out on the public stage yet affects individuals in a private manner.

As a follow-up to this lecture, all students participate in a plenary, faculty-led, small-group writing exercise on the last Saturday of the residency. Students may choose to write about any kind of public event—tragic, frightening, exciting, joyful. (top)

MFA Student Preparations for May Residency
Besides reading the assigned texts for residency (workshop booklets, books-in-common, etc.), students should further prepare by giving serious thought to their October 2005 Semester Study Plans. While students remain flexible and open to mentor suggestions for reading lists for the Semester Study Plan, the Program strongly suggests that students put together a list of possible titles to consider for the reading list for next semester. Also, students should visit the Spalding mfaforms web page to familiarize themselves with the form “Introducing Yourself to Your Mentor.” Students should begin drafting information for this form before they come to the residency. Both the form and the Suggested Reading List are available at http://www.spalding.edu/mfaforms

Student Reading Sessions and Open Mic

ENG630 and ENG640 students should sign up early for 5-minute readings by seniority at the Welcome Reception and then later at the back of the ELC Lectorium. (Graduating students should not sign up.) Those planning to read should select material that is not on the worksheet for the October residency and practice reading at home before coming to residency to make sure the material is appropriately timed.

If all the regular student reading slots are taken, students may also sign up for the Open Mic session that begins at 11:45 a.m. and goes till 1:15 p.m. on Sunday, October 30. The sign-up sheet is to be available at 11:30 a.m. that day at the back of the ELC Lectorium. Boxed lunches for students and faculty are to be available in the deli area outside the Lectorium, and everyone is encouraged to eat lunch in the Lectorium during the Open Mic session. (top)

Getting the Most Out of the Residency

Students should take full advantage of faculty and student lectures; panels; and faculty, student, and graduation readings while at the residency.

MFA students write five lecture reports and one reading report during each residency. The Program’s policy is that four of these lecture reports must discuss lectures in the student’s area of concentration. The fifth lecture report may, at the student’s discretion, discuss a plenary session.

In response to student requests for more time to write reports, the October residency schedule provides two periods for students to write lecture and reading reports and to complete writing exercises and revisions. The first of these time periods occurs Thursday evening; the second period is on the final Saturday. Extended lunch periods also offer time for evaluation writing.

New Interrelatedness of the Arts Plenary Session
The residency is particularly rich in scheduled and optional opportunities for participants to enjoy the cultural life of Louisville. The MFA philosophy includes the ideas that all sorts of writing share common techniques and goals and that the art of writing is closely related to other arts—visual art, music, theater, and dance. The plenary session at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, November 5, offers an opportunity to discuss the interrelatedness of the arts. Please see the document, which has been emailed to students and faculty, Combined Lecture Descriptions October 2005, under the lecture “The Interrelatedness of the Arts: A Discussion” for suggested topics to consider for the discussion.
In preparation for this discussion, Program Director Sena Naslund strongly recommends that all students participate in scheduled presentations by the Paul Taylor Dance Company, music at the Jazz Factory, and the Gallery Hop. Students are also encouraged to attend Arthur Miller’s The Crucible at Actors Theatre (see next article). (top)

Optional Opportunity for MFA-ers
Thursday, November 3, is an unplanned evening, and students and faculty may choose their activity after 6 p.m. Actors Theatre of Louisville is offering a 25 percent discount for students and faculty of the Spalding MFA in Writing for its 8 p.m. presentation of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. Tickets are $26.25 and may be obtained by calling 502-585-1210. This offer is subject to availability. Actors Theatre may be reached by email through groupsales@actorstheatre.org. To see more about the play, visit http://www.actorstheatre.org

Brief Reminders for the Residency

Welcome Packets may be picked up at the Welcome Reception from 2:30-5:30 p.m. on Friday, October 28, in the mansion. Welcome packets that are not picked up before 5:30 p.m. on Friday are available in the MFA Office after 8:15 a.m. on Saturday. (top)

New students have an orientation in the ELC Lectorium at 4 p.m. Our opening dinner is in the University Cafeteria beginning at 5:45 p.m. All students and faculty have reserved seats. The opening dinner is an opportunity for students to meet faculty members and ask question regarding the mentor’s style or the program.

The Book-in-Common Discussion (please bring Sanders’s Writing from the Center) follows at 7 p.m. in the ELC Lectorium. Sena Jeter Naslund begins this session with greetings and introductions of staff and faculty.

See the MFA Student Handbook (pages 61-66) for information regarding campus and what to bring. A map of campus is available on the website at http://www.spalding.edu. Click on Welcome, then Campus Map. Scroll over the logo for driving directions. (top)

Life of a Writer

Students, faculty, and alumni: Please email writing news to mfanewsletter@spalding.edu

Students

Mark Russell Brown is to read at the New York City LGBT Center on November 29 to help promote the fourth issue of Bloom (http://www.bloommagazine.org), which is available in late October. The issue is to include his poem “Atlas Elegy.” (top)

David Carren’s screenplay, Black, has been optioned by BuzzMedia Network, based in the Netherlands. The script is a psychological thriller which is expected to go into full pre-production early next year. He also conducted screenwriting seminars at the International Film and Photography Workshops in Rockport, Maine, and the Southwest Alternative Writing Project in Houston. He is currently teaching screenwriting at Cyfair College and Houston Community College. Mr. Hell, co-written and co-produced by David, received a showing on October 8 at the Silver Screams Festival in Houston. He was also cast in this production.

Robert Darnell’s radio commentary aired September 17 on public radio station WFPL in Louisville.

Kathryn Eastburn has a book contract with University of Nebraska Press to write a book titled A Sacred Feast: The All-American Tradition of All-Day Singing and Dinner on the Grounds. This is to be a cultural history/cookbook celebrating the merging of food and music at Sacred Harp singings across America and is to be part of Nebraska’s At Table imprint on American food traditions.

New student Amy Fox accepted a one-year volunteer editorship for Dispatch, the professional magazine of the Council for Resource Development. This publication reports trends, issues, activities, advice, and practices in seeking grants and fundraising to enable members to better serve their colleges. She is a grant writer employed by Texas State Technical College and a member of the Council for Resource Development. (top)

Jeanne Haggard has arranged for a rehearsed reading of several scenes from Tara Goldstein’s play Lost Daughter to be performed as part of Ottawa University’s Arts and Cultural Series on November 15. Last year, Ottawa University hosted a talk by a Holocaust Survivor Zev Kedem. Jeanne arranged the performance of scenes from Lost Daughter, which has just won the 2005 Canadian Jewish Playwriting Contest.

Chris Helvey’s short story “Late Night Conversation” was published in the special short fiction issue of Nougat (Sept/Oct 2005).

Harriet Leach’s poem “Farce Poetica” recently appeared in the Connecticut River Review. She is teaching English at Jefferson Community and Technical College and works in the writing center. (top)

Jae Newman’s two poems “Praying” and “Bonsai” were accepted for publication by the Kennesaw Review, an online literary journal. The poems are to appear in the fall 2005 issue. The journal’s website is http://www.kennesawreview.org

New student Molly Power’s poem “Flying Down to Great Exuma” was published in The Caribbean Writer, an annual international literary anthology with a Caribbean focus.

Terry Price has written the piece “Jazz Saxophonist Rahsaan Barber: Speaking the Language of Music” published in the October/November issue of the online magazine New Southerner, available online at http://www.newsoutherner.com

Colleen Wells’s essay “In My Bathrobe” is to appear (under a pen name) in an online literary magazine this fall. (top)

Faculty & Staff

Dianne Aprile published an interview with Kentucky writer Bobbie Ann Mason in the The Courier-Journal on Sunday, September 11. Dianne was a featured writer/reader at “Spirituality and Creativity,” a workshop presented by Interfaith Paths to Peace on October 15 at Christ Church United Methodist Church in Louisville. Also featured were Quaker composer/ singer Carrie Newcomer and California poet and author Patrice Vecchione. Dianne organized a night of readings to benefit Louisville’s Center for Women & Families as part of the Jazz & Spoken Word series at The Jazz Factory on October 12. Readings included original work by local readers as well as excerpts from novels by Tobias Wolff, Anna Quindlen, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker. MFA alums Janlyn Weintraub (October 2003) and Bobbi Buchanan (October 2004) took part.

Julie Brickman’s review “Unfolding Secrets” of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See, appeared on July 3 in the “Sunday Books” section of the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Ellie Bryant hosted a fundraising writing mini-marathon in Burlington, Vermont, on September 17 and raised a thousand dollars for the Louisiana Organization for Education of Homeless Children and Youth. The money is to be used to buy supplies and uniforms for children displaced by hurricane Katrina.

K. L. Cook was awarded a six-week residency fellowship to Yaddo in June-July 2005. His three stories “The Couple Upstairs,” “First Birth,” and “Chalkdust on a Dress,” are forthcoming in the fall 2005 issue of Arts & Letters: Journal of Contemporary Culture. An article about his book tour for Last Call is to be published in the November/December issue of Poets & Writers. Two proposals he submitted as chair and panelist, “Developing an Excellent Undergraduate Creative Writing Program” and “What’s in a Name?: Short Story Cycles, Linked Stories, & Novels-in-Stories,” have been accepted for the 2006 AWP Conference in Austin, Texas. (top)

Debra Kang Dean led a writing workshop as part of the Thoreau Society’s annual gathering in Concord, Massachusetts in July. She read Stanley Kunitz’s “My Mother’s Pears” at Tower Hill Botanic Garden on July 29 in Boylston, Massachusetts, where a Bartlett pear tree was planted in commemoration of Kunitz’s 100th birthday. She also served as guest poetry editor for The Louisville Review (Vol. 58).

Kathleen Driskell and Dianne Aprile led a commentary-writing workshop on September 29 at the performance studio of Louisville’s NPR radio station, WFPL 89.3 FM. Students from the community met to discuss, edit, and record their commentaries. WFPL’s Program Director, Heidi Caravan, also helped lead the session.

Robert Finch’s essay “Flat Time” is to be published in the winter issue of The American Scholar. His essay “Desire Lines” appeared in the “Outdoors” section of The Los Angeles Times on July 5. On September 20, Finch began a weekly series of radio commentaries on WCAI (94.3 FM), a National Public Radio affiliate of WGBH, Boston. The commentaries air each Tuesday at 8:35 a.m. and 12:30 a.m. EST. (top)

Richard Goodman’s book, French Dirt: The Story of a Garden in the South of France, has just been released in an audio version from Pemaquid Audiobooks (http://www.pemaquidaudio.com). His essay on Cazzie Russell, the great University of Michigan basketball player, is to be published in Writing Ann Arbor: A Literary Portrait, from the University of Michigan Press, October 15. Richard is to lead workshops in creative nonfiction at the Whidbey Island Writer’s Conference, March 3-6, on Whidbey Island, Washington (http://www.writeonwhidbey.org/Conference/).

Roy Hoffman’s short story “Ice Cream Man,” originally published in the 1997 anthology Working Days: Short Stories about Teenagers at Work, has been reprinted in the new textbook, In Short: How to Teach the Young Adult Short Story, edited by Suzanne Barchers (Heinemann). His novel Chicken Dreaming Corn is reviewed in the fall issue of Reform Judaism under “significant Jewish books.” In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Roy has filed numerous articles to the Mobile Register from along the Gulf Coast, including “Garden Survives,” about the historic New Orleans Garden District, September 19; “Forgotten Bogalusa,” about a rural Louisiana town, September 22; and “Trying Times on the Bayou,” about Bayou la Batre, Alabama, October 2.

Silas House was selected as “Kentucky’s Favorite Writer” in a state-wide poll conducted by Kentucky Monthly magazine.

Joyce McDonald’s Swallowing Stones is the 2006 Young Adult Selection for One Book New Jersey. OBNJ is presented by the New Jersey Library Association’s Public Relations Committee and Children’s Services and Young Adult Sections, in collaboration with the New Jersey State Library and the Secretary of State.

Cathleen Medwick’s “How to Talk to Yourself, Nicely” and “The Shy Girl’s Guide to Sex” by “anonymous” are to be included in the forthcoming anthology, Live Your Best Life: A Treasury of Wisdom, Wit, Advice, Interviews and Inspiration from O, The Oprah Magazine. (top)

The Spalding MFA Staff (Sena Jeter Naslund, Karen Mann, Kathleen Driskell, and Katy Yocom) are featured readers at 3rd Tuesday Coffeehouse, a monthly outreach of the Brescia University creative writing program, at 8 p.m. on October 18, at Woodward’s Cafe in Owensboro, Kentucky.

Molly Peacock’s one-woman show The Shimmering Verge, produced by Femme Fatale Productions, has had a scheduling change. The one-night-only performance is to take place at 7 p.m. Saturday, October 29, at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington. The Off-Broadway run opens Friday, February 24, at The Blue Heron Theatre in New York.

Eric Schmiedl’s Denise Druczweski’s Inferno was produced in July and August by the Backstage Theatre Company in Chicago. His Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is to be produced in October and November by the Cleveland Play House. Treasure Island is forthcoming in January and February and is to be produced by the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. Eric’s Wind in the Willows is also to be produced in February and March by the Cleveland Play House. (top)

Jeanie Thompson’s essay “Where the Spirit Moved Me” is forthcoming in the fall 2006 anthology All Out of Faith: Southern Women Writers on Spirituality, edited by Wendy Bruce and Jennifer Horne and produced by the University of Alabama Press. Among the other writers included in the volume are Sena Jeter Naslund, Lee Smith, and Barbara Kingsolver. Jeanie published a review of James Wright’s newly released Selected Poems, edited by Robert Bly and Anne Wright, in the Anniston Star (September 18), and she has published feature articles about the Alabama artist Nall’s work in Art Gulf Coast (summer 2005) and about the opening of “Alabama Art at 55 Water Street,” a show featuring 16 Alabama artists’ work, in Montgomery Living (June 2005). After traveling to Torre del Lago Puccini, Italy, in July for the opening of “La Fanciulla del West” at the 51st annual Puccini festival, Jeanie filed two feature articles with the Mobile Register’s “Arts and Leisure” section. She has recently returned as editor-in-chief of First Draft, the journal of the Alabama Writers’ Forum.

Sam Zalutsky’s short film SuperStore was presented at MECAL, the Barcelona International Film Festival, which ran September 10-18. It screened in the Obliqua Section, which is described as having “the most innovative and risky short films.”(top)

Alumni

Jennifer Anthony (May 2005) jumped out of a plane this summer and lived to publish a story about that experience and others for a webzine (http://www.tangodiva.com). Some of her angst-ridden teenage material has also been accepted for an upcoming stage production of Mortified (http://www.getmortified.com) in San Francisco.

Andrew Beahrs’s (October 2004) first novel, Strange Saint, is now available in bookstores or online at http://www.booksense.com and other sites. The first chapter of the book is available online at Andrew’s website (http://www.andrewbeahrs.com). (top)

R.L. Burkhead’s (May 2004) book review of Valeria Hemingway’s Running with the Bulls: My Years with the Hemingways appeared on the Pop Matters website (http://www.popmatters.com/books/reviews/r/running-with-the-bulls.shtml). He edited and published two issues of The Trunk (Fall 2004/Summer 2005), the official journal for The Writer’s Loft, Middle Tennessee State University’s low-residency certificate in creative writing. Earlier in the year, he went to Paris for a weeklong Left-Bank Communion with Ernest Hemingway, resulting in a column titled “Ruminations along rue de la Bucherie” (http://www.mtsu.edu/~proffice/Record/Rec_v13/rec1317/rec1317.html#FTR), which appeared in the MTSU newspaper The Record. In August, he published the column “The Apparition of Shelby Foote” in Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal (http://asouthernjournal.com/Column/guest3.htm). Over the summer, he participated in a literary panel discussion at the Nashville Public Library as part of “In the Writer’s Room” (http://inthewritersroom.blogspot.com/) a collection of writing classes and seminars taught by author River Jordan. In October, he did volunteer work for the Tennessee Writers Alliance by staffing their booth at the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville. In addition, he was offered an English composition adjunct teaching position with Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green for spring 2006.

Rae Cobbs (October 2004) is teaching at Jefferson Community and Technical College and works in the writing center. She also teaches at Luther Luckett Correctional Facility.

Alice Gorman’s (May 2005) article “The Italian Job,” which appeared in the September issue of Vogue, is to be translated into Greek sometime this year for Vogue Greece. Also, she has been asked to speak to two classes of advanced language arts at the Cape Elizabeth Middle School in Portland, Maine, on the subject of writing. (top)

Marci Rae Johnson’s (May 2005) poem “The Rules” appeared in the first issue of Garbanzo!, a new online humor magazine. She is director of the Poetry Factory, a new poetry reading and workshop series in Southwestern Michigan (http://www.poetryfactory.net), and she is to serve as poetry editor for WordFarm, a small Midwestern publishing company (http://www.wordfarm.net).

Erin Keane (May 2004) launched a new online literary journal with fellow alumni Richard Newman (October 2004) called Garbanzo! (http://www.garbanzo.us). The first issue features Marci Johnson (May 2005) and faculty member Richard Cecil. Garbanzo! publishes funny poems, essays, and literary ephemera. Erin also read at the Sixth and Main Coffeehouse in Shelbyville, Kentucky, on October 9; Destinations Booksellers in New Albany, Indiana, on October 15; and the Morrison Art Gallery Series at Elizabethtown Community and Technical College in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, on October 20. Her poem “The Giant Squid Mourns the Loss of His Privacy” appeared recently in Full-Unit Hookup. She helped judge The Heartland Review short-short fiction contest. Her poem “Prayer for the Block” is featured in the current (October) issue of decomP. http://tellchristian.com/decomp/new_prayerfortheblock.htm

Mary O’Malley (October 2004) placed second in the Whiskey Island literary magazine’s national poetry contest and won $200. Her poem “Cook’s Soliloquy 1905” was recently accepted for an anthology published by the Poets and Writer’s League of Greater Cleveland, and the book is to be produced later this fall. Mary’s two poems “The Gift of Stolen Fire” and “Lessons from Korea” were selected for the “The Poets Against the War” website’s poem of the week.

Linda Busby Parker (October 2003) gave the inaugural lecture for the Mobile Writers Guild at the Mobile Public Library on Septemer 13, and on September 20 she did a reading and question/answer session for the Mobile Public Library Book Club. Her novel-in-progress, The Fifth Season, is a finalist in the Pirates Alley Faulkner novel-in-process division. (top)

Mary Popham’s (October 2003) article “The Writing Life” appeared in the February edition of Arts Across Kentucky magazine. Her article, “Kentucky Poet Laureate: Sena Jeter Naslund,” was featured in the March issue of “The Blue Moon,” the Kentucky Arts Council newsletter. The chapter “Peddler’s Visit” from her novel in progress, was published in September’s edition of Arable: A Literary Journal. (top)

Diana M. Raab’s (October 2003) poem “I Bathe” is forthcoming this fall in The Blue Salamander.

Heather Shaw (November 2004) is the food columnist for New Southerner magazine. For the October/ November issue of the magazine, she interviewed poet Richard Newman (November 2004) about his new book, Borrowed Towns. Check it out at http://www.newsoutherner.com She recently spent a week at Dorset Colony for Artists and Writers in Dorset, Vermont.

Amanda Sledz (May 2005) has launched an online magazine, ZORI3, (http://www.zori3.org). Submission guidelines are available on the site.

Kathleen Thompson (October 2003) read from her short story “Living Like the Lilies” that appeared in Climbing Mt. Cheaha: Emerging Alabama Writers along with three other anthology authors on September 15 at the Selma-Dallas County Public Library. She is to participate in a similar reading/signing on November 16 for the National Society of Arts and Letters Birmingham, Alabama. Chapter which meets at the Birmingham Country Club. (top)

Leslie Smith Townsend’s (May 2004) essay “Recovering” is forthcoming in the November 2005 issue of The Louisville Review.

Thelma G. Wyland (October 2003) won first prize in the 2005 Women Who Write competition with her story “The Buttoned-Down Leopard.” She is to read an excerpt at 7 p.m. Friday, December 9, at Borders’ Shelbyville Road bookstore in Louisville.

Change of Address

Amy Clark’s (October 2004) new address is 4430 Cleveland Avenue #17, San Diego, CA 92116. Her phone number is 619-220-0195 and she can be reached by email at amy_m_clark@sbcglobal.net (top)

Personals

Congratulations to Rebecca Norris and her husband on the birth of Anabelle Cristine on Wednesday, September 21.

Congratulations to Tom Pierce and his wife on the arrival of a new baby girl, Evelyn Grace (“Evie”) on Sept. 29.(top)


Reminders and Notes