Vol. 10 No. 3
October 2006

More New Faculty

Residency Guest Lecturers

Arrival at the Residency

Items to Bring

Info for Thesis Discussions & SGDs

Monday Mixer Dinner

Faculty Books Available

Discussion Board Link

High Horse, Faculty Anthology

Life of a Writer

     Students

     Faculty and Staff

    Alumni

Change of Address and 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

October 2005

December 2005

February 2006

April 2006

May 2006

July 2006

MFA Program Welcomes New Faculty Members
Rachel M. Harper, MFA (fiction). Rachel’s first novel, Brass Ankle Blues, was published in 2006 by Simon & Schuster’s Touchstone Division. A graduate of Brown University, she went on to earn her MFA from the University of Southern California. Her poems and short fiction have been published in Chicago Review, African American Review, Prairie Schooner, and the anthology Mending the World: Stories of Family by Contemporary Black Writers. Her one-act play, “Bluffing on a Queen’s Playground,” was part of the New Black Playwrights Festival at Actor’s Express in Atlanta, and she recently collaborated on the performance piece “The Book of Daniel,” by interdisciplinary theatre artist Daniel Alexander Jones, which premiered in Austin, Texas, in 2005. Harper has received fellowships from Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony and won the 2002 Fellowship in Fiction from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. She lives in California, where she is currently working on her second novel, This Side of Providence. www.rachelmharper.com.

Louise Hawes, MFA (fiction, writing for children). Louise is the author of more than a dozen novels, including The Vanishing Point (2005), a YALSA Best Book of the Year nominee, a Bank Street College pick, a New York Public Library Best Book for the Teen Age, and a Book Sense Independent Booksellers Association choice; Waiting for Christopher (2002), a New York Public Library Best Book for the Teen Age, and Rosey in the Present Tense (2000), a Children’s Book Council Best Book of the Year and YALSA Popular Paperback. Winner of the New Jersey Author’s Award and two fellowships from the New Jersey Council on the Arts, Louise helped found the MFA Program in Writing for Children and Young Adults at Vermont College. In addition to teaching and lecturing at sessions for the American Library Association, she has served as Writer in Residence at the University of New Mexico and taught at the University of South Florida, Staten Island College, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Duke University. Anteaters Don’t Dream, a collection of her stories for adult readers, is forthcoming from the University Press of Mississippi in 2007. www.louisehawes.com.

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Jody Lisberger, PhD, MFA (fiction). Jody’s story collection, In the Mercy of Water, is forthcoming from Fleur-de-Lis Press. Her stories have appeared in Fugue, Michigan Quarterly Review, Thema, Confrontation, and The Louisville Review. She won third place in the 2003 American Literary Review Fiction Contest and was a finalist in the 2004 Quarterly West Fiction Contest. Her story “Bush Beating” was also selected for the fiction anthology The Way We Knew It (2006), celebrating the first twenty-five years of Vermont College’s MFA in Writing Program. Jody currently lives in Rhode Island but grew up in Ithaca, New York, and spent many years living in Boston. She has a PhD in English and an MFA in Writing from Vermont College. She has taught fiction, creative nonfiction, literature, and feminist theory to university students and adults for more than twenty-five years at the University of Rhode Island, Brown, Harvard, Tufts, Holy Cross, and Boston University. She currently holds a lectureship at URI in Women’s Studies, where she teaches courses that include postcolonial literature, issues of race, class, and sexuality, and women writers. Jody has also worked as a journalist, editor, grant writer, and potter. She has just finished writing and submitting a long craft essay called “Writing Down the Body.” She’s currently working on a novel about a cake decorator named Verna Roy.

Lorraine López, MFA (fiction). Lorraine is the author of Soy la Avon Lady and Other Stories and Call Me Henri. She has a PhD in English from the Creative Writing Program at the University of Georgia. Soy la Avon Lady was selected by Sandra Cisneros to win the inaugural Miguel Marmól Prize for Fiction and garnered the Independent Publishers Book Award for Multicultural Fiction and the Latino Book Award for Short Stories, awarded by the Latino Literary Hall of Fame. Call Me Henri, a young adult novel, was published by Curbstone Press in 2006, and she has just finished co-editing a collection of critical articles on the work of Judith Ortiz Cofer. Lorraine was born and raised in Los Angeles. She currently resides in Nashville, where she is assistant professor of English at Vanderbilt University. (top)

Nancy McCabe, PhD, MFA (creative nonfiction). Nancy has published two books of creative nonfiction: a collection of essays, After the Flashlight Man: A Memoir of Awakening (Purdue 2003), and Meeting Sophie: A Memoir of Adoption (Missouri 2003). Her work has won a Pushcart Prize for memoir, received several Pushcart nominations, and been listed twice in the Notable section of Best American Essays. Her work has appeared in magazines including Newsweek, Writer’s Digest, Fourth Genre, Massachusetts Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and Crab Orchard Review and won two awards from Prairie Schooner. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Arkansas and a PhD in English from the University of Nebraska; worked as a writer in the schools in three states; has published fiction, poetry, journalism, critical articles, and a teacher’s handbook; and taught creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry workshops for twenty-one years at five colleges and universities.

MFA Program Welcomes Guest Faculty and Lecturers
In addition to Adrien-Alice Hansel, Sheila Jenca, Phillip Lopate, W. S. Merwin, Sarah Messer, and Stephen Wrinn, who were introduced in the previous edition of “On Extended Wings” (Vol. 10, No. 2, September 2006), the MFA Program is pleased to welcome these lecturers for the Fall 2006 residency. (top)

Anthony Heald has been an actor for more than forty years. He has appeared on TV, in film, and on and off Broadway and has recorded more than eighty books on tape. He played Vice Principal Scott Guber on the TV series Boston Public for four seasons and Judge Harvey Cooper on Boston Legal. His film work began in Mike Nichols’s Silkwood and has included roles in such films as Outrageous Fortune, Orphans, Postcards from the Edge, Silence of the Lambs, Red Dragon, Searching for Bobby Fischer, The Pelican Brief, The Client, Kiss of Death, Bushwacked, A Time to Kill, Deep Rising, 8MM, Proof of Life, Accepted, and X Men 3. Tony has just completed work on Jumper with Samuel L. Jackson. Television guest appearances include roles on The Closer, Crossing Jordan, Numbers, The Practice, X-Files, Frazier, The Cosby Show, Murder She Wrote, Law and Order, NCIS, According to Jim, and the final episode of Cheers.

With six Broadway appearances, he has received two Tony nominations for best supporting actor: in the musical Anything Goes! at Lincoln Center, and in Love! Valour! Compassion! His last Broadway role was in Inherit the Wind, opposite George C. Scott and Charles Durning. He has performed in more than twenty Off Broadway productions and received a Theater World Award, two Obie Awards, and two nominations for Drama Desk Awards. (top)

Heather Henson is a native of Danville, Kentucky. For many years she was an editor at HarperCollins Publishers in New York, where she edited books for young readers, including the National Book Award-winner Parrot in the Oven, by Victor Martinez. She is the author of the “Caroline Years,” a series of historical middle-grade novels written under pseudonym and based on the original “Little House” books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Henson’s young adult novel, Making the Run (HarperCollins), was chosen as a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age. Her first picture book, Angel Coming (Atheneum/ Simon & Schuster), has received starred reviews in Publisher’s Weekly and ALA Booklist. The book highlights the work of the Frontier Nursing Service, founded in the 1920s in eastern Kentucky by Mary Breckinridge.
Heather is a recipient of awards from the Kentucky Arts Council and the Kentucky Foundation for Women. She recently returned to her home state and now lives on a farm near Danville with her husband, young son, and toddler twins.

Sarah Messer’s work has been published in The Paris Review, The Kenyon Review, and other journals, most recently in the anthology Legitimate Dangers: Poets of the New Century. She has received fellowships and grants from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, the American Antiquarian Society, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Bandit Letters (poetry) was published in 2001 by New Issues. Red House, a hybrid history/memoir (Viking), was picked as a Barnes & Noble “Discover Great New Writers” selection for fall 2004. Sarah is an associate professor of creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. (top)

Arriving at Residency; New Format for Reception
Students and faculty should arrive in Louisville no later than midafternoon on Friday, November 10. Everyone should go directly to the hotel or residence hall to check in (or at least drop off luggage).

Friday afternoon’s opening activities differ from previous semesters. At 5 p.m., all students and faculty convene in the Mansion for a festive, specially catered welcome reception, followed by dinner in the cafeteria at 5:45. However, welcome packets for students and faculty are available beginning at 2 p.m. in the Mansion drawing room, where cassette tapes of lectures from previous residencies are available for sale. New students attend an orientation in the Egan Leadership Center Lectorium at 4 p.m.

Items to Bring to Residency: ‘Introducing Yourself’; Bibliography
All students bring to residency two documents to assist them in planning the semester with their new mentor. Before residency, all students download the “Introducing Yourself to Your New Mentor” form from www.spalding.edu/mfaforms in preparation for completing it and bringing it to residency. In addition, returning students (except for graduating students) bring two copies of their cumulative bibliography. For a further discussion of what to bring to the residency, see MFA Student Handbook, page 65. (top)

New Format for Thesis Discussion, Small Group Discussion
A number of students have expressed the desire for more time to discuss graduating students’ theses, as well as to conduct small group discussions. Beginning with this fall’s residency, thesis and small group discussions are scheduled for 40 minutes, beginning at 8:20 a.m. All leaders and participants must arrive promptly and prepared for discussion.

Mixer Dinner
On Monday night of residency, students attend a mixer dinner at the Brown Hotel, where they are seated at tables by semester. This dinner provides students the opportunity to get to know classmates they may not have encountered in workshops or lectures. Students are encouraged to make the most of this opportunity to connect with other students who may be studying in a different area of concentration but who share (or will share) the common experiences of writing the ECE, completing the creative thesis, and ultimately processing together at graduation. (top)

Special Offer from the Spalding Bookstore
For the convenience of students and faculty who live out of town, Spalding University’s Bookstore, located in the Egan Leadership Center, offers special services. The bookstore holds purchases upon request and provides shipping so students don’t have to worry about transporting books home. Shipping on purchases over $100 is free.

Life of a Writer

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

Students

Priscilla Atkins has poems in the most recent issues of Salamander, Poetry East, Salt Hill and Center.

Mark Russell Brown was invited to be a featured reader on October 13 for the InKY Reading Series at The Rudyard Kipling in Louisville. He has a poem forthcoming in The Louisville Review. (top)

Linda Cruise’s article “Ongoing Effects of Abuse Misunderstood” was recently published in the July issue of the Vermont Catholic Tribune. Also, her article “Raising Your ‘Commitment Bar’” appeared in the League of Vermont Writers’ newsletter (League Lines, September issue), which gave an overview of some of the many MFA in Writing programs being offered today, highlighting in particular Spalding’s. Linda also had the opportunity this past summer to share several of her picture-book stories with children at a local (Vermont) elementary school’s summer learning program.

De’Anna Daniels’s poetry book, On Hold, Hold On, is forthcoming from Xlibris.

Dave DeGolyer’s poem, “Well, Here It Is! Enjoy!” was published in the online June/July edition of the literary journal Blood Lotus (www.bloodlotus.org). Dave also recently learned that his submission earned him acceptance into the Rutgers University Council on Children’s Literature’s One-on-One Plus Conference, held in October. In addition to the opportunity to visit with Spalding faculty Susan Campbell Bartoletti and Joyce McDonald, Dave got to interact with a number of writers (including Laurie Halse Anderson and K. L. Going), agents, and editors in the Writing for Children field. (top)

Blood Lotus, an online literary journal edited by Teneice Delgado, Stacia M. Fleegal, and newly appointed fiction editor John Steele (Spring 2006), is now accepting submissions from Spalding graduates for an upcoming double issue, half Spalding alumni and half general contributors! Please see www.bloodlotus.org for general guidelines and email teneiced@yahoo.com or smfleegal@hotmail.com for additional information. Blood Lotus is considering submissions for the double issue until November 15.

Teneice Delgado’s chapbook, Flame Above Flame, is on pre-sale now for $12, and if ordered before November 8, the shipping is free. The website is http://www.finishinglinepress.com/2006newreleasesandforthcomingtitles.htm. Teneice was featured on PoetrySuperHighway.com as poet of the week for September 17-23 (read her poem “Spinning Straw” in the archives). She also has two poems, “The Goldilocks Complex” and “Goldilocks Tries to Keep Time” in the online journal The Furnace Review, www.thefurnacereview.com, fall 2006.

Poems by Stacia M. Fleegal are currently featured online in The Furnace Review and are to appear online in Blood Orange Review and in a forthcoming print anthology titled A Quiet Corner Somewhere: Poems and Essays on Introversion. Another poem is currently a finalist for The Comstock Review’s annual Muriel Craft Bailey Memorial Award and is to be featured in their 20th anniversary issue this fall. She has also been invited to give a poetry reading at Binghamton University’s Writing by Degrees conference, October 19-21, and was recently hired as a classifieds assistant for Pedestal Magazine. (top)

Tara Goldstein’s MFA thesis, Lost Daughter, is to be given a public reading at the Sarasota Jewish Theatre in Florida on November 5 and 6.

Jeanne Haggard had an anecdote about her experiences with her local community theatre selected for inclusion in author Brad Schreiber’s book Stop the Show!: A History of Insane Incidents and Absurd Accidents in the Theater, which was recently released by Thunder’s Mouth Press.

David Harrity recently read his poem “The Hole” at a 9/11 service in Lexington, Kentucky, after which he was interviewed by Kentucky Public Radio. He has poems forthcoming in The St. Linus Review. (top)

Susan Joslin attended Spalding CNF faculty member Richard Goodman’s week-long course, “Using the Techniques of Fiction to Make Your Creative Nonfiction Even More Creative,” during the annual Cape Cod Writers Conference in Craigville, Massachusetts, August 21-25.

Claudia Labin has been selected to become a judge for plays performed by the Encore Theatre Association, a consortium of ten community theatres in the Indianapolis region. In May she attended the 25th anniversary of the William Inge Theatre Festival and conference.

Harriet Leach has poems in the current issues of The Jefferson Review, Antithesis Common, and Blood Lotus and has poems forthcoming in Here and There and Perigree.

Nadyne Lee’s essay “Reaction Time” appeared in the fall issue of Kids’ Health Matters, published by C. W. Communications, Inc.

Patricia McFadden has sold her picture book Oh, No Woolly Bear to Starbright Press. It is to be published in fall 2007 or spring 2008.

Nicole Moro is presenting two manuscripts (a selection of poems and a creative nonfiction piece titled “Pull”) at the annual Writing by Degrees Graduate Student Conference (October 19-21) in Binghamton, New York.

Jae Newman’s poem “Woman with Wet Hair and the Sun Rising” appears in the Number 7 issue of The Pink Chameleon Online.

Dan Nowak has taken an instructor position at the University of Toledo starting this fall. He teaches academic writing and is learning all sorts of fun new grammar tricks. In October he is going to Writing by Degrees, the graduate student conference at SUNY Binghamton, where he is presenting a section of his ECE and giving a poetry reading.

Bob Olive recently spent three challenging weeks in Ho Chi Min City (Saigon), Vietnam, teaching conversational English to high school and college teachers on behalf of The Crane House. The Crane House sends approximately thirty-six teachers to China and Vietnam every year.

Janelle Rodgers had a book review published in September in The Trunk, the literary journal for Middle Tennessee State University’s Writer’s Loft Program. (top)

Graham Thomas Shelby had a poem accepted for the upcoming anthology Bloodlines, published by the Jesse Stuart Foundation. “Not Everyone Wants to be a Writer (Notes to a Seventh Grade Writing Class)” is his first published poem. He sold his fifth radio story to the NPR program Weekend America. Graham also performed as a story teller for the public radio program Kentucky Homefront and in several branches of the Louisville Free Public Library.

Mari Stanley’s poems “Recovery” and “Octobers” are forthcoming in the “Sticks and Stones” issue of The Hiss Quarterly (http://thehissquarterly.net). It is to be available November 1. Her poem “Skipping Town” is forthcoming in the fall 2006 issue of Xavier Review.

Vincent Vittorio is currently collaborating with other writers and producers on the script for his documentary, Light in the Darkroom. The piece delves into the history of photography, focusing on the transition from 35mm to the digital age. For more information on the film, visit http://www.lifeismymovie.com/darkroom.

Gary Walker’s short story “Holy Roller High” appeared in the April 2006 issue of Lullwater Review, published by Emory University, and his story “The Last Resort” ran in the September 2006 issue of Aiofe’s Kiss, which also resides online at http://samsdotpublishing.com/aoife/main.htm. He also moderated fiction and nonfiction panels at the third annual Eugene Walter Writers Festival, which took place October 6-8 in Mobile, Alabama. (top)

Colleen Wells’s personal essay “The Caterpillar Cue” appeared on www.newsoutherner.com in the June/July 2006 issue. The editor is Spalding MFA alumna Bobbi Buchanan (Fall 2004).

Faculty & Staff

Dianne Aprile’s memoir, The Thickness of Water, is excerpted in the fall issue of The Louisville Review. Dianne presented on “The Life of a Writer” at the Kentucky Women’s Book Festival on September 22 and was featured speaker at the University of Louisville Ekstrom Library at the opening of an exhibition of Theodore Eitel photographs on September 14. She led a writing workshop for breast cancer survivors at the Cancer Resource Center on September 21. Dianne organized an All-Kentucky Evening of Readings and Music at The Jazz Factory on October 12 to benefit efforts to stop mountaintop removal mining, an event for which Silas House served as emcee and performed as part of The Doolittles. On November 11, the first Saturday of the fall residency, she is to participate with NPR radio host Bob Edwards in a writers’ panel discussion, moderated by Sierra Club national executive director Carl Pope, on the topic of mountaintop removal mining. MFA students are invited to attend the 11:15 a.m. event, which is free and open to the public, at The Cathedral of the Assumption on Fifth St., a short walk from the Brown Hotel.

Rane Arroyo has published new poems in The Beloit Review (one was re-published in Verse Daily), Comstock Review, Cream City Review, Four Corners, Roger, Spelman’s FOCUS, Valparaiso Review, and Xavier Review. Poems & Play published his experimental play, “A Lesson In Writing Love Letters.” He also served on AWP’s Atlanta Conference’s selection committee.

Julie Brickman’s lead review of Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale was published September 17 in the Sunday Books section of the San Diego Union-Tribune. (top)

Ellie Bryant’s nonfiction manuscript, Rosebuddies: Adventure and Tragedy on an Australian Commune, won first prize in the Southwest Writers nonfiction competition. The manuscript, about the 1974 execution in Laos of Howard Dean’s brother Charlie Dean, is currently seeking a publisher.

K. L. (Kenny) Cook’s novel, The Girl from Charnelle, was a summer 2006 Editor’s Choice selection by the Historical Novel Society. An essay about the inspiration for The Girl from Charnelle appears on the website “Backstory” (http://mjroseblog.typepad.com/backstory/2006/07/kl_cooks_backst.html). He was a featured author at the Prescott Book Festival (September 16) and The Texas Book Festival in Austin (October 28-29). His fiction exercise “A Family Theme, A Family Secret” was published this September in the anthology Now Write!: Fiction Exercises from Today’s Best Writers and Teachers (Tarcher/Penguin, 2006). He also wrote the exhibition essay “Landscapes and Lichens” for photographer Deborah Ford’s “Common Ground/Symbiotic Equivalence” exhibition at the Ucross Foundation Art Gallery (September 22-December 15).

This summer, Philip F. Deaver learned he would have two stories included in an anthology of short fiction, Best American Catholic Short Stories, eds. David McVeigh and Patricia Schnapp, due out from Ward and Sheed in January 2007. Others appearing in the volume are T. C. Boyle, Tobias Wolff, Ron Hansen, Andre Dubus, Mary Gordon, and Flannery O’Connor herself, among others. His essay “The Bat” is forthcoming in Lee Gutkind’s special baseball issue of Creative Nonfiction magazine, February 2007. Philip has work forthcoming in the Chattahoochee Review in February 2007. In addition, he has edited a volume of creative nonfiction, titled Scoring from Second: Writers on Baseball, due out from the University of Nebraska Press March 1, 2007. After the May residency, Philip and his nemesis Gary Forrester did a joint reading in their hometown of Tuscola, Illinois, then at UrbanThink Bookstore in Orlando, then at Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida. This past June, Philip conducted his fourth “Great Short Story Crank,” this one on the Rivendell Retreat grounds in Hotchkiss, Colorado. On September 30, Philip served on a panel with Spalding alumna Diana Raab (Fall 2003) and the poets Christopher Buckley and Kelly Cherry. The panel was part of the Santa Barbara Book and Author Festival, and the panel’s topic was writers who write across several genres. (top)

Kathleen Driskell is featured in the September/October issue of Every1Reads. The article is not yet online, but more information can be found at www.every1reads.com.

Kirby Gann’s novel Our Napoleon in Rags was named by Frontiers Magazine (Los Angeles) as one of the Top 5 Novels published in 2005 and was also a nominee for the Kentucky Award in Literature. Recently Gann was listed as a “top underrated writer” on the literary weblog “Syntax of Things,” but he doesn’t know if this is something to brag about. October 13-15, Kirby appeared in Memphis at the Southern Festival of Books, reading from Our Napoleon in Rags for a symposium called American Dreams and Nightmares: Two Novels of Madness in the City.

Richard Goodman’s essay “The Music of Prose” is to be published in the December issue of the The Writer’s Chronicle. It was originally a lecture at Spalding University. His essay “Why I Live in New York” has just been published in the fall 2006 issue of Pilgrimage. His essay “When I’m Sixty-Four” has been accepted for publication in The Rambler. His essay on the handcrafted books of Tara Books, the Indian publishing house located in the southeastern state of Tamil Nadu, is to appear in the November/December issue of Fine Books & Collections. Richard give a reading at Casa Romantica in San Clemente, California, on October 25 (http://casaromanticapoetry.com).

Louise Hawes is featured in the 2006 North Carolina Literary Review, available at bookstores and online at http://www.ecu.edu/nclr/. An interview with Louise and articles on three other children’s authors are the focus of this year’s issue, devoted to literature for younger readers. Louise’s essay “Thou Shalt Not Tell . . . Or Shalt Thou? A Reconsideration of the First Commandment for Writers” was selected as a finalist for the 2006 Bechtel Prize. Sponsored by the Writers and Teachers Collaborative, the prize honors essays on the pedagogy of writing, and finalists’ pieces are to be published next year in Teachers and Writers magazine. On the publishing front, two short stories are to be featured in separate anthologies: “Side Show,” in Such a Pretty Face (Abrams’ Amulet imprint, 2007) and “That’s the Way the Fortune Cookie Crumbles,” in Be Careful What You Wish (Scholastic Book Clubs, 2007); Louise’s latest young-adult novel, The Vanishing Point, is forthcoming in 2007 as a Graphia paperback from Houghton Mifflin. (top)

Roy Hoffman’s review of Lee Smith’s novel On Agate Hill appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Sunday, October 8.

Silas House’s fourth novel, tentatively titled Eli the Good, has been sold to Algonquin Books to be released spring 2008. Silas recently agreed to write the screenplay for a documentary detailing the childhood years of Abraham Lincoln. The film is to be part of a nationwide bicentennial birthday celebration for Lincoln in 2009. A lecture delivered by Silas at the Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, was recently published in the anthology Shouts and Whispers. Silas’s first novel, Clay’s Quilt, was the 2006 Freshman book at Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville, Georgia. He has been chosen by author Lee Smith to edit and write the introduction to the unpublished memoir left behind by the late writer James Still (River of Earth). Silas appears with Jean Ritchie, the Reel World String Band, and many others on the mountaintop removal protest CD, Songs for the Mountaintop, released September 23.

Sena Jeter Naslund’s new book (published October 3) Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette received all starred pre-publication reviews from Publisher’s Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal, and Booklist; it was an Editor’s Choice for Historical Novels Review and received a grade of “A” from Entertainment Weekly, where Tina Jordan wrote: “I was completely inside Marie Antoinette’s overly poufed head as she matured from a sheltered teenager (the people ‘would like to eat me up as though I were sugared fruit’) into a savvy young woman. . . . Naslund’s writing is opulent and fabulous, as encrusted with detail as one of Marie’s shimmering dresses, and the story itself is a complete page-turner—which is no small feat given that its ending is known all along.” Abundance is a “Book Sense Pick” by the Independent Booksellers’s Association for October. Sena is touring nationwide and invites everyone to her presentations (listed at www.AuthorTracker.com).

Molly Peacock was Tennessee Williams Playwright in Residence at Sewanee, University of the South, in September, where she lectured about and performed her one-woman show in poems, “The Shimmering Verge.” She also conducted the Fall Equinox Poetry Circle of the Air on Here on Earth with Jean Feraca on Wisconsin Public Radio. Her poems have been reprinted in New American Poets, David R. Godine Press. She is to teach day-long workshops at the London Poetry School and the Manchester Poetry School in England in October. In November she works with teachers in the New York City area on how to teach poetry in the middle schools. Her poems are forthcoming in the Southwest Review.(top)

Charlie Schulman’s musical, “The Fartiste” (based on his original screenplay), was produced this past summer at the NYC-International Fringe Festival, where it received the award for “Outstanding Musical.” Plans are underway to mount a commercial production Off Broadway during the 07-08 season. Read some reviews at www.lively-arts.com/theatre/ 0607/0607new_york.htm and www.nypost.com/entertainment/ fringe_festivals_a_gas_entertainment_frank_scheck.htm.

Jeanie Thompson published“Nall’s monumental art project offers message of hope for humanity,” a feature with photographs on “Violata Pax,” the work of Alabama artist Nall, in the Mobile Press-Register, July 27. Her collaborative poetry/photography/mixed media piece with Alabama photographer Pinky Bass is a part of “Courageous Journey: Honoring Helen Keller.” The exhibit opened in Tuscumbia, Keller’s birthplace, and travels to three other Alabama museums. It includes lines of Jeanie’s poetry, words from Helen Keller, photography, papier-mâché hands shaping letters from the deaf-blind alphabet, and Braille. Jeanie’s essay “Where the Spirit Moved Me” appears in a new anthology called All Out of Faith: Southern Women Poets and Spirituality, edited by Wendy Bruce and Jennifer Horne (University of Alabama Press, August 2006). Sena Jeter Naslund, Barbara Kingsolver, Francis Mayes, and Lee Smith are among the other writers in the collection. Jeanie gave a presentation on The Remembered Gate: Memoirs by Alabama Writers (which she edited with Jay Lamar) at the Dothan Wiregrass Museum of Art on August 8 as part of an NEH-funded program called “How the South was Spun.”

Alumni

Cynthia Rausch Allar (Spring 2004) has launched a submission service for poets. She takes care of the drudgery of submitting to journals and presses. She writes cover letters, format poems and manuscripts, and tracks responses—and does so for Spalding MFA students at a 20 percent discount. The service includes copyediting and formatting for those who need it. Contact CRA Submissions at cynthiaallar@att.net. (top)

Jennifer Anthony (Spring 2006) has published travel pieces about her volunteer work in Hanoi, Vietnam, this summer in a few webzines. “Paddies and Pinkie Promises” appears in Tango Diva (http://www.tangodiva.com/index.php?page=features&j=1&cat=4&story_id=550); inTravel Magazine has her “Volunteering in Hanoi’s National Pediatric Hospital” (http://www.intravelmag.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=76&Itemid=100), and “Fishing for Hope: Volunteering on the Banks of Hanoi’s Red River” appears in the beta version of Matador (http://beta.matadortravel.com/node/621). On a more ridiculous note, her first limerick since sixth grade received honorable mention in a Hipster Haiku contest (“seventeen syllables of good-natured slyness about urban youth culture”) and her efforts earned a subtle nod in the forthcoming book, named, originally enough, Hipster Haiku.

Holly M. Brockman’s (Fall 2003) short story, “Place d’Italie, Paris, Circa 2003” was published in the summer issue of GHOTI-in-the-Park. Her commentaries continue to air on WFPL, Louisville’s NPR affiliate.

New Southerner editor Bobbi Buchanan (Fall 2004) and the magazine’s contributors are giving readings in Kentucky and North Carolina to celebrate the release of New Southerner: An Anthology 2005-06. The anthology is a compilation of the best work that appeared in the quarterly online magazine (www.newsoutherner.com) during its first year. In September, Bobbi, Aimee Zaring (Spring 2005), Katy Yocom (Fall 2003), and Erin Keane (Spring 2004) read from the anthology at the Rudyard Kipling as part of the InKY reading series. Reading schedule: October 17, 7 p.m., Malaprops Bookstore in Asheville, North Carolina, with Janisse Ray, Kathryn Byer, Thomas Rain Crowe, John Lane, and Sara Jenkins; October 22, 7 p.m., Carmichael’s Bookstore on Frankfort Ave., in Louisville, with editor Bobbi Buchanan and contributors Leslie Smith Townsend (Spring 2004) and Mary Popham (Fall 2003); November 18, 9 a.m.-3 p.m., Great Smoky Mountain Book Fair in Sylva, North Carolina, with editor Bobbi Buchanan and some of the region’s best authors, including Ron Rash and Kathryn Byer. The magazine was represented at the Festival of Authors in Pikeville, Kentucky. The New Southerner anthology is available for purchase at the festival, 12-3 p.m. October 21 at the Pikeville Public Library. (top)

David Carren’s (Fall 2005) original screenplay My Monster was recently selected for the Independent Film Production Market’s Emerging Narrative Series. David’s script was one of only forty picked out of a thousand entrants to be presented to independent film companies for financing. The IFP market was held in New York September 17-21, and David attended with Scott Rice, the director attached to the project, and its producer, Wade Rowland.

Rae Cobbs (Fall 2004) has poems forthcoming in The Louisville Review and The Jefferson Review, the publication of Jefferson Community and Technical College, where she teaches.

Kathryn Eastburn (Spring 2006) spent two weeks in September at the Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, finishing her book, A Sacred Feast. The colony offers residencies of two weeks to three months to writers in all genres and offers several specialized fellowships. (Visit www.writerscolony.org for more information.) Kathryn is a visiting professor in the Department of English at The Colorado College, Colorado Springs, teaching Introduction to Journalism for the month of October.

Thea Gavin’s (Spring 2005) poem “Submarine” was accepted by The Raintown Review, and two poems, “Growing Giant Pumpkins” and “Gardener’s Gold,” were accepted by Greenprints, a magazine for gardeners.

Mike Hampton (Fall 2005) is an adjunct English faculty member at The University of Cincinnati’s Clermont College, and his short story “Rabbit Blood” has been accepted for inclusion in the first edition of Bloodlines, to be published by The Jesse Stuart Foundation. The anthology is meant to highlight up-and-coming Kentucky writers.

Edie Hemingway (Spring 2004) has had her story “The Seal of Marsh Cove” published in Summer Shorts, a short story anthology for children, released in August by Blooming Tree Press. Her co-authored Civil War novel has been licensed by Scholastic for their Fall 2006 Book Fairs and Book Clubs list under the new title Drums of War and is now being distributed nationwide. She has numerous school visits scheduled in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. In celebration of the first anniversary of her Misty Hill Lodge Writing Workshops, Edie and writers Teresa Crumpton (Fall 2003) and Julie Mooney have planned an all-day writers’ retreat for twelve participants on October 7, titled “Kindling Ideas to Ignite the Power of Your Words.” Visit Edie’s author website at www.ediehemingway.com, designed by her daughter-in-law, Mica Hemingway, a new fiction student at Spalding. (top)

Stephanie Horton (Spring 2006) is being honored by the U.S.-based Ward Foundation of Liberia with their annual Chrystal Award as a Liberian Woman of Influence for her work in the Arts. Stephanie founded and is editor of the electronic journal Sea Breeze Journal of Contemporary Liberian Writings, which was assessed and is included in the Humbol Humanities Hub of Oxford University, United Kingdom.

Maryann Lesert’s (Fall 2003) one-act play, Samhain (pronounced sah-wen), is to be produced by the Whole Art Theatre in Kalamazoo, Michigan, as part of Whole Art’s Late Night Series (www.wholeart.org). This dark comedy featuring a coven of aging wiccans who come upon a candy-stealing binge eater in the woods, runs for the Halloween season: October 27-November 4.

Sue (Carls) McNally (Fall 2004) has returned to the vimarc group, the ad agency she worked with last year. She feels her degree in fiction writing serves her well in her work as an advertising account manager. She also got married in August to Josh McNally. (top)

Deborah Zarka Miller’s (Fall 2006) essay “Taking Up Residence” appeared in Home Again: Essays and Memoirs from Indiana, an anthology published in August by the Indiana Historical Society.

Frances Nicholson’s (Spring 2004) poem “Lessons from an Old Master” is to be published in this winter’s poetry issue of the journal Pearl. She is also to read an edited version of her ECE, “Getting to the Spirit of It: The Development of Goddess Myths as Metaphor in the Poetry of Carol Ann Duffy,” as part of the Mythology in Contemporary Culture Panel of the ACA/PCA annual conference in Boston, in April.

Linda Busby Parker (Fall 2003) spoke on August 12 to two thousand high school students at Spartanburg High School in Spartanburg, South Carolina. She was introduced by the mayor and given the key to the city. She feels that speaking to so many high school students was both humbling and daunting. It was the most inspiring event she has had as a result of publishing Seven Laurels. She recently learned that Seven Laurels has been adopted by the University of South Alabama as required reading for all freshmen in the First Year Experience classes in the College of Arts & Sciences in fall 2008. In academic 2006-2007, four classes (a total of one hundred students) are to read Seven Laurels in courses taught by professors in Geology, Mathematics, Foreign Languages, and English. In these preparatory classes, events are planned for the inauguration of the First Year Experience in fall 2008. On September 23, she did a workshop on “Characterization in Fiction” for the Mobile Writers Guild, which was sponsored by the Mobile Public Library. Darnell Arnoult, author of both poetry and fiction, taught the workshop with her. There were participants from Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. On September 29, she led a discussion of Seven Laurels in the Odyssey series, which is part of the international Elder Hostel program. (top)

Mary Popham (Fall 2003) reviewed three books for The Courier-Journal: Susan Starr Richards’s A Life Horse, July 2006; Amelia Blossom Pegram’s Beneath the Baobab, August; and Susan Sturgill’s I’m Just a Cat Mattress, October. She also reviewed William Lively’s A Severance of Passion for New Southerner, September; and Sena Jeter Naslund’s Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette, for LEO, October. She read Castaways All for Jazz and the Spoken Word at The Jazz Factory in September.

Terry Price’s (Spring 2006) short story “Eminent Domain” has been accepted for publication in the Winter (January) 2007 issue of the Timber Creek Review.

Diana M. Raab (Fall 2003) moderated a panel called “The Clique of Eclectics: Writers of Multiple Genres,” for the Santa Barbara Book and Author Festival. Her panelists included Philip F. Deaver, Christopher Buckley, and Kelly Cherry. A summary of the panel discussion appears on her column, “Your Muse,” on http://www.inkbyte.com. This semester she’s teaching memoir at The University of California, Santa Barbara Extension. Her essay “The Alchemy of Journaling” was recently accepted for publication by Writer’s Notes, due out in January 2007.

Elizabeth G. Slade (Spring 2006) landed her first paid writing gig with LEGO writing the feature article for their Parents’ Website. Her work is at: http://parents.lego.com/ Features/Sibling%20Play.aspx. She also had a couple of essays published in The Hampshire Daily Gazette. Nevertheless, she still misses her posse at Spalding immensely.

During a fairly quiet but busy summer which included signing books at the Book Expo in Washington D.C, a Kentucky Author’s Mountain Top Removal Tour of Eastern Kentucky, teaching writing workshops and reading at the Kentucky Governor’s School for the Arts, Clarksville Writers Workshop in Tennessee, the Lillian Smith Center in Clayton Georgia, as well as a weeklong “Literary Conjure” workshop at SplitRock at the University of Minnesota and readings at two national Lewis & Clark signature events in St. Louis, Frank X Walker (Spring 2003) completed the sequel to his award-winning collection of persona poems, Buffalo Dance. Having settled in at his new teaching position at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, he is kicking off his fall reading tour with October stops at the Mercer County High School, the Logan County Public Library, the Louisville Public Library, Old Dominion University, University of Cincinnati, and Chicago State University. In November he reads or delivers a keynote address at the University of Kentucky’s Lyman T. Johnson Banquet, Berea College, Louisville’s Filson Historical Society, Marshall University, and in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with Toi Derricotte, Cornelius Eady, Patricia Smith, and Terence Hayes. He has had new work accepted in The Louisville Review and Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South. His essay on creativity is to be included in an upcoming collection featuring other essays heard on NPR’s This I Believe. He is currently working on his new journal, PLUCK! The Journal of Affrilachian Arts & Culture, which is to be introduced at next year’s AWP in Atlanta. (top)

Julia Watts’s (Fall 2005) novel, The Kind of Girl I Am, has been accepted for publication by Spinsters Ink Press. Julia worked on this novel during her time at Spalding and would like to thank the mentors, workshop leaders, and workshop participants who helped make it a better book. Spinsters Ink is also the publisher of her novel Women’s Studies, which is to be released this month. Julia also recently learned that her children’s novel, Kindred Spirits, has been accepted for publication by Beanpole Books. Julia is to attend the fall residency as a PGRA and is looking forward to catching up with everyone and meeting new folks as well.

Jonathan Weinert’s (Fall 2005) revised thesis manuscript In the Mode of Disappearance was a semi-finalist for the 2006 Brittingham and Pollak Prizes and a finalist for the 2006 Four Way Books Intro Prize. Jonathan has been accepted for the Colrain Poetry Manuscript Conference in western Massachusetts in November and has been awarded a two-week residency at the Caldera Artist Retreat Program in Oregon this winter. He has poems forthcoming in Third Coast and the online journal Memorious (www.memorious.org).

Aimee Zaring (Spring 2005) read an essay, now featured in the New Southerner: An Anthology 2005-06, at InKY’s Reading Series in September. Her short story “An Otherwise Flawless Canvas” has been selected for inclusion in the Jesse Stuart Foundation’s upcoming anthology, Bloodlines. (top)

Faculty Advisory Committee (FAC) for Fall 2006

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.