Vol.16 No. 2
October 2009
Guest Faculty Workshop Leaders
Life of a Writer
Faculty Advisory Committee for Fall 2009
Previous Newsletters
See other issues of On Extended Wings
The Fall 2009 Program Book in Common: Sarah, Plain and Tall
The Program Book in Common selection for the Fall 2009 residency is the Newbery Medal-winning middle-grade novel Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan. Sena Jeter Naslund leads a plenary discussion on the novel Friday, November 13, the first night of fall residency. All students and faculty, regardless of concentration, read the book in advance of the residency and all prepare comments to add to the discussion.
On Wednesday, November 18, MacLachlan visits Spalding’s campus to talk about her work as a writer of both fiction and screenplays for children in a plenary session open to the public.
In addition to the novel, MacLachlan co-wrote the telesplay for Sarah, Plain and Tall, which was made into a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie starring Glenn Close and Christopher Walken. MacLachlan received an Emmy nomination for her script. The film Sarah, Plain and Tall is screened on Sunday, November 15. Screenwriting faculty members lead a plenary discussion of the film immediately following the screening.
On Thursday morning, November 19, MFA students and faculty have a closed question-and-answer session with MacLachlan.
In addition to Sarah, Plain and Tall, MacLachlan has written many other best-selling books for children, including Arthur, For the Very First Time, winner of the Golden Kite Award for fiction, and The Facts and Fictions of Minna Pratt, winner of the Parents’ Choice Award and the Horn Book Fanfare citation. Her books Skylark, Caleb’s Story, and More Perfect Than the Moon are sequels to Sarah, Plain and Tall. Her picture books include Who Loves Me?; Three Names; What You Know First; All the Places to Love; Bittle; Painting the Wind; and Once I Ate a Pie, which she co-wrote with her daughter, Emily. She received a National Humanities Medal in 2002 for her body of work. MacLachlan lives with her husband in Williamsburg, Massachusetts.
All MFA students and faculty should bring their copies of Sarah, Plain and Tall to the residency plenary discussion. All students should adjust their semester’s reading lists in order to add Sarah, Plain and Tall to their cumulative bibliographies.
Rising second semester students meet in mini-workshops scheduled throughout the residency to discuss their short essays on Sarah, Plain and Tall. (top)
Welcome to New Faculty Member
in Playwriting, Kira Obolensky
Spalding’s MFA in Writing Program is pleased to announce that Kira Obolensky is joining our playwriting faculty. Kira’s new plays include Modern House, a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, and Lune, Pronounced Loony commissioned and produced by the B Street Theatre, with support from the NEA and Irvine Foundation. Her story “Snow Man,” commissioned by Open Eye Figure Theatre, is to be adapted by the theatre into a puppet play for adults and children. A new play, Cabinet of Wonders: an impossible history, has received funding from the Pew Theatre Initiative for a production at Gas and Electric Arts in Philadelphia in the fall. Her play Raskol, an adaptation of Crime and Punishment, won a national playwriting commission from Ten Thousand Things Theatre and premieres in an area prison in April, and an adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, a co-production of the Guthrie Theatre and The Acting Company, opens at the Guthrie in January 2010.
Kira has worked collaboratively with choreographers and visual artists and is co-founder of The Gymnasium, a consortium of nationally known artists and scientists and innovators involved in the incubation of new work and ideas. She is a recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including a Bush Foundation fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, two Jim Henson Foundation grants, a Jerome Fellowship and a McKnight Advancement Grant. Kira is a graduate of Williams College and the Juilliard School’s Playwriting Fellowship Program and recently received her MFA in Fiction from Warren Wilson.(top)
Welcome to New Guest Faculty
for the Fall 2009 Residency
The MFA Program is pleased to announce that we have three guests joining our residency faculty as workshop leaders in November. Please welcome Helena Kriel (screenwriting), Jonathan Penner (fiction), and Richard Taylor (poetry).
Helena Kriel is the author of the screenplay for the film Kama Sutra directed by Mira Nair and released in 1996. Helena is also the author of the script Skin, which is due to be released in America this fall. Skin has been premiering at film festivals and has won eight awards, including the Audience Award for best narrative feature at the AFI Dallas film festival.
She has written many other original screenplays as well as a number drawn from literary works, including Ahab’s Wife, based on the novel by Sena Jeter Naslund; The Good Soldier, based on the book by Ford Maddox Ford; King of the Crows, based on the Arabian Nights; and Torn, based on Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.
She moved to Los Angeles twenty years ago, after working as a playwright, actress, television writer, and director in South Africa, where she was born and raised. While in South Africa, Helena won an IDEM award for her screenplay Droughtland and a National Science Fiction Award for Bofsy Weather. Helena won the Steven Spielberg Dianne Thomas Award for her first screenplay Virtuouso. (top)
She is also the author of many plays including I Can’t Wait to Tie You to the Sofa, which was hailed as a break-through in South African Theatre. Her play Pigs on Passion premiered in Los Angles at the Los Angeles Theatre Complex.
Presently Helena works as a screenwriter in both mainstream and independent Hollywood. She is also finishing her first novel Snake Oil. She lives in the mountains of Topanga in Los Angeles. (top)
Richard Taylor, a former professor of English at Kentucky State University, is the Kenan Visiting Writer at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, this year. Richard holds a PhD in English from the University of Kentucky and a JD from the Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville as well as Masters in English from U of L.
He has published two novels, Girty and Sue Mundy, A Novel of the Civil War, as part of the University Press of Kentucky’s Kentucky Voices series (2006). His six published collections of poetry include Rail Splitter, Sonnets on the Life of Abraham Lincoln, which will be released at the end of October. He also has written several books relating to Kentucky history. Richard was awarded two creative writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts as well as an Al Smith Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council. He was Kentucky’s poet laureate from 1999 to 2001.
Richard grew up in Louisville, and he and his wife Lizz own Poor Richard’s Books in Frankfort, where he now lives. He is currently working on a series of poems relating to the life of John James Audubon. (top)
Jonathan Penner is the author of two novels, Going Blind (Simon & Schuster 1977) and Natural Order (Poseidon 1990); two story collections, Private Parties (Avon 1985) and This Is My Voice (Eastern Washington University Press 2003); and a novella, The Intelligent Traveler’s Guide to Chiribosco (Galileo 1983). His stories have appeared in Harper’s, Commentary, The Paris Review, and many other magazines. His book reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe.
Jonathan has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Fulbright Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Arizona Arts Commission. He has been awarded the Drue Heinz Literature Prize, the Great Lakes Colleges Association First Novel Award, the Friends of American Writers Distinguished Recognition Award, the Prairie Schooner Prize in Fiction, the LSU/Southern Review Short Fiction Prize, the Galileo Press Short Novel Prize, and the Spokane Prize for Fiction. His story “This Is My Voice” was chosen for the PEN Syndicated Fiction Project.
His MFA and PhD are from the University of Iowa. He has taught at Iowa, Vanderbilt, the New School for Social Research, Southern Illinois University, the University of Hawaii, and the University of Arizona, and has read and lectured abroad under the auspices of the State Department. (top)
Special Session in Translation
The Fall 2009 residency features instruction in the art of literary translation for all MFA students. The two-part plenary begins with a lecture by guest speaker Mary Crow, presenting a talk on the work of the writer-translator. Crow is the author of ten books of poetry, including five collections of poetry and poetry translations: Vertical Poetry: Last Poems by Roberto Juarroz (2010), Engravings Torn from Insomnia: Poems by Olga Orozco (2002), Vertical Poetry: Recent Poems by Roberto Juarroz (1992), From the Country of Nevermore: Poems by Jorge Teillier (1990), and Woman Who Has Sprouted Wings: Poems by Contemporary Latin American Women Poets (1987).
At the end of Crow’s lecture, MFA faculty member Molly Peacock provides instructions for a short translation assignment. All students, regardless of area of concentration, translates an excerpt of Spanish literature into English. A Spanish-English dictionary online to facilitate translation is provided. This assignment is submitted to the MFA office during residency.
Crow is the poet laureate of Colorado and has won a number of prizes, including poetry fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Colorado Council on the Arts; a Creative Writing Award from the Fulbright Commission to read her poems in the former Yugoslavia; a Colorado Book Award for her first Juarroz book; a translation award from Columbia University; Fulbright research awards to Chile, Peru, Argentina, and Venezuela; a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship for a yearlong seminar at New York University; and two NEH awards to summer seminars. Her book of Orozco translations was a finalist for the PEN USA Translation Award; she was, as a result, invited to join the following year’s selection panel for the translation award. (top)
Crow has read her poems in Yugoslavia and in Israel. Her poems have been translated into Spanish, Slovenian, Croatian, and Serbian. She has also read widely in the U.S., including the San Francisco State Poetry Center, University of Minnesota, Ohio State University, Old Dominion University, Long Island University, New York Public Library, and Aspen Writers Conference. Garrison Keillor read a poem of hers on NPR’s “The Writers’ Almanac.”
The second translation session is a follow-up in which a number of student translations are discussed and presented by the MFA poetry faculty.
Times and locations for both sessions and the submission of the assignment are announced in the residency schedule, which is made available to students and faculty on Blackboard three days before the residency. (top)
Special Session
in Literary Reviewing
The Fall 2009 residency features a unique plenary lecture that focuses on reviewing. Keith Runyon speaks about the qualities of contemporary book reviewing for daily newspapers, and Andrew Adler addresses the art of reviewing live performances.
Keith Runyon has been a member of the staff of The Courier-Journal for forty years. After a decade in the news division, where he was a clerk; a features writer; and a city desk reporter covering religion, higher education, school desegregation, and health, he joined the editorial board in 1977. In 1986, he became the first editor of The Forum, and created opinion pages that became models for newspaper opinion pages all over the country.
In 1989, he added the book page to his responsibilities. A graduate of the University of Louisville and its Brandeis School of Law, he served as legal counsel to the Bingham media companies from 1984-86. He is a member of the National Book Critics Circle as well as other professional organizations.
A native of New York City, Andrew Adler was educated at the Fieldston School and the University of Rochester, where he earned a bachelor of arts degree in English literature. After graduating, he freelanced in New York for such publications as Stagebill, Musical America, and The New York Times, and did a stint as principal classical music stringer for the now defunct St. Louis Globe-Democrat.
Since April 1983, he has been a classical music and dance critic for The Courier-Journal, where he also writes news and feature stories about the performing arts. He divides his time between Louisville and New Orleans, home for his wife, Polly; their ten-year-old son, Jack; and eight-year-old daughter, Naomi. (top)
MFA Program Welcomes
Fall 2009 Guest Lecturers
In addition to Mary Crow, Keith Runyon, and Andrew Adler, the MFA Program welcomes Brian Hampton, Lucy Recht Penner, and Molly Rice.
This residency Brian Hampton's (Spring 2006) play Checking In is the script in common for playwriting students. During his visit, he also presents a lecture. Checking In, received its world premiere at the Actors Guild of Lexington and just received its New York premiere at the June Havoc Theatre in New York City this summer as part of the Midtown International Theatre Festival. Brian’s second play, The Jungle Fun Room, won the Audience Favorite Award at the Penobscot Theatre’s New Play Festival and made its world premiere also this summer at the Actors’ Playhouse in FringeNYC.
Brian was playwright-in-residence for Project Playwright at Northern Stage Theatre Company, and his other writings include the book adaptation of Checking In (currently seeking publication). He’s a graduate of Christopher Newport University’s Theatre Program and Spalding University’s MFA in Writing Program and a member of both the Dramatist Guild of America and Actors Equity Association. Check out his web site at brianhampton.net.
Lucille Recht Penner is the author of more than thirty books for children. Many, such as Statue of Liberty and Ice Wreck (about the heroic Shackleton expedition) are historical accounts. With books such as Eating the Plates: A Pilgrim Book of Food and Manners she has made a particular specialty of food in history. Several of her other titles are included in the Landmark American History series. She has written four books— Unicorns, Mermaids, Monsters, and Dragons—for the Random House Stepping Stones Fantasy series. Among her other subjects are snakes and dinosaurs. In addition to her nonfiction, Penner has written fiction for very young readers illustrating mathematical concepts such as subtraction. Her books have won many prizes: two were Boston Globe/Horn Book Honor Books, and one of her books was designated an Ambassador Book by the English Speaking Union, which called it “a work uniquely interpreting the culture of the United States.” (top)
Molly Rice’s plays have been developed and produced in New York and in theaters across the country. Heinemann Press, Clarkson Potter, the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor Press, Salvage Vanguard Press, Perishable Press, Austin Script Works Press, and Device have published her plays, and her articles have appeared in the Austin Chronicle, Kenyon Review and American Theater.
Her residencies include the Yale/ P73 Residency (2008), Missoula Colony (2007), Voice and Vision (2006), and Hangar Theater (2005); and her awards include the Weston Award for Graduate Playwriting (Brown University) and the Women’s International Playwriting Festival (Perishable Theater), as well as nominations for the Kesselring Fellowship, Cherry Lane Mentor Project, and New York Innovative Theater Award (Outstanding Original Short Play).
Molly was a Lucille Lortel fellow at Brown University (2004-2006), where she earned her MFA in Playwriting. She has taught graduate and undergraduate students at Brown, the University of Rhode Island, Kenyon College, and Rowan University; she currently teaches at Marymount Manhattan College and Brown. She is a co-founder and co-producer of “Motherlodge,” a live arts exchange linking Louisville and New York theater/music/film artists, and is currently working on The Sisters Lear, an adaptation of King Lear from Regan and Goneril’s point of view (commissioned by Visible Theater) and Canary, an original musical. (top)
Fall 2009 MFA Students Attend
Opera Hansel and Gretel
At 7 p.m. Wednesday, November 18, MFA students and faculty attend a full dress rehearsal of the opera Hansel and Gretel, staged by the Kentucky Opera at the Brown Theatre (adjacent to the Brown Hotel). The fairy-tale opera in three acts by German composer Engelbert Humperdinck (1854-1921) is based on a German folk tale by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.
After attending the performance, and after attending the special lecture on reviewing at the residency, students practice writing a review of a live performance. All students complete this assignment and submit it to the MFA office regardless of their area of concentration. The assignment is due by 10 a.m. Sunday, November 22.
For more information on the opera Hansel and Gretel and to read a plot synopsis, visit http://www.kyopera.org/hansel-gretel.html. (top)
Buenos Aires and the
Summer 2010 Residency
The MFA program is finalizing plans for its Summer 2010 residency in Buenos Aires, a city that served as a hive for literary writers including Borges, Lorca, and Neruda. Considered the most European of any South American city, Buenos Aires is known for its parillas (steakhouses), its shopping, its many distinctive neighborhoods, and most recently, its milongas (tango dance halls). Porteños (Buenos Aires residents) are proud of their city—a unique mixture of European-flavored sophistication and rustic country culture characterized by the lonely gaucho on the wide-open pampas.
MFA students, faculty, and staff stay in two design hotels in the desirable Recoleta neighborhood (both hotels are in the same block) and attend classes in a converted mansion, now a university building, a few blocks away. Activities include a tango show and walking tours of some of the city’s diverse neighborhoods and its world-famous Recoleta Cemetery, where Evita Peron is entombed.
Outings during the residency include a visit to Villa Ocampo, home of Victoria Ocampo. One of Argentina’s most important intellectuals of 1920s and ’30s, Ocampo founded the literary journal Sur and was the first publisher of Borges and Neruda. Her international influence led to friendships with Igor Stravinsky, Rabindranath Tagore, and Graham Greene.
The residency also will include a visit to an estancia—a ranch estate in the pampas near the historic town of San Antonio de Areco, known for its silversmiths and leather artisans. A museum there celebrates Ricardo Güiraldes, whose seminal 1926 novel Don Segundo Sombra is loosely based on the life of a local gaucho. (top)
Getting to Know the Faculty
at the Fall 2009 Residency
A “Getting to Know the Faculty” session is scheduled before dinner on Sunday, November 15, at the Brown Hotel. During this session, students may approach mentors in their area in order to ask questions about the mentor’s approach to teaching. Students are asked not to monopolize a particular faculty member during this session so that all students will have the opportunity to ask questions. Students should read the Faculty Teaching Philosophies, which are posted on Blackboard, before coming to the residency. (top)
Fall 2009 Residency: Gala Dinner
A special dinner is planned for Sunday, November 15, in the Crystal Ballroom of the Brown Hotel. The meal will feature Argentine cuisine, which is influenced both by the country’s European (particularly Italian) immigrant heritage and by its gaucho (cowboy) culture. Typical Argentine food includes grilled meats, pastas, breads, and excellent desserts. Dancers will perform a tango demonstration, and a slide show features images from Buenos Aires as well as from previous residencies.
The Louisville Review News
The Louisville Review now accepts online submissions through the website (www.louisvillereview.org). The program Submissions Manager was developed by Devin Emke of One Story and made available to members of the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP). Submissions of previously unpublished manuscripts are invited. Prose submissions should be double-spaced and page numbered. Poetry need not be double-spaced; up to five poems may be submitted and should include multiple poems in one document. Drama should appear in standard format, including the author’s name on every page. Reply time is 4-6 months. The TLR editorial staff reads year round.(top)
MFA Alumni Association
The website for the MFA Alumni Association is http://www.spaldingmfaalum.com. If you have questions or are interested in working with this group, send Terry Price an email at terry@terryprice.net. Check out the Spalding MFA Alumni Facebook page. (top)
Because You Asked
Q: What will happen if I get swine flu just before or during residency?
A: The MFA program has a protocol in place for the possibility that students and/or faculty may become ill with the H1N1 virus. Students who become ill and are unable to attend sessions during residency may receive instruction and fulfill their participation requirements via alternative methods the MFA program has devised.
To assist in preventing the spread of the flu virus, Spalding is placing hand sanitizer, antibacterial wipes and instructions on hand washing throughout campus. Students may want to carry their own hand sanitizer and tissues with them.
Talk with your health care provider about whether you should be vaccinated for seasonal flu. If you are at higher risk for flu complications from 2009 H1N1 flu, you should consider getting the H1N1 vaccine when it becomes available. People at higher risk for 2009 H1N1 flu complications include pregnant women and people with chronic medical conditions (such as asthma, heart disease, or diabetes). For more information about priority groups for vaccination, visit cdc.gov/h1n1flu/vaccination/acip.htm. For information about the H1N1 virus, see flu.gov. (top)
Life of a Writer
Larry Brenner had a production of The King and the Condemned go up in Buckingham, Pennsylvania, with the Town and Country Players in September 2009. A new work, Excised, had a public reading with the WorkShop Theatre Company in Manhattan.
Kate Buckley announces that her second collection of poems, Follow Me Down, was released September 25 from Tebot Bach. In support of her book, Kate is doing readings at colleges, bookstores, museums and poetry venues throughout southern California and is planning a book tour in her native Kentucky next year. Please visit katebuckley.com for reading/events schedule. Advance praise for Follow Me Down includes the following from poet Elena Karina Byrne: “Fifteenth-century painter Cennini spoke of the art of ‘unseen things hidden in the shadow of natural ones.’ Like ‘a sea turning in on itself,’ Kate Buckley’s poems speak to this, moving together, folding and unfolding the echoes of a voice in place, a voice out of place, ‘salt licking salt—/coming home.’ Follow Me Down maps out the geography of longing where sometimes ‘you walk the yellow fields,’ sometimes ‘the moon sets itself on fire,’ lighting up the distances between the past and the future. Buckley’s parenthetical considerations, her ache and intellect coincide in a sensuous, revelatory motioning toward that inspired sanctuary of who we are.”
Eric Cravey began teaching a weekly basic writing class for the Clay County Literacy Coalition in Orange Park, Florida. The Literacy Coalition provides literacy skills to students representing forty-eight different languages from around the globe. This is the second writing class Eric has taught as a volunteer for the Literacy Coalition. Learn more online at clayliteracy.org.
Barry George won first prize in the 2009 Gerald Brady Senryu Contest, sponsored by the Haiku Society of America. This international senryu contest, and the companion HSA haiku contest, constitute the most prestigious Japanese short-form poetry competition outside Japan. Senryu are haikulike poems about human nature. Barry has previously received honorable mention in this contest. (top)
Amy Hanridge reviewed Lorrie Moore’s new novel, A Gate at the Stairs, in the September 2009 issue of Bookslut. The review can be found at bookslut.com/fiction/2009_09_015080.php.
Colleen Harris’s poem “The Laugh” appears in the next issue of the Sow’s Ear Review. Colleen also had the debut reading of her new poetry book, God in My Throat: The Lilith Poems, on September 20 at Quail Ridge books, an independent bookstore in Raleigh, North Carolina. The book is available through the publisher at bellowingark.com.
Angela Jackson-Brown read “Something in the Wash,” a story from her creative thesis, at the 2009 Southern Women Writer’s Conference at Berry College in Mount Berry, Georgia, on September 26.
Lisa Jayne had a staged reading of her play The Obituary on September 21 at Northland College’s Performing Arts Center in Snowflake, Arizona.
Holly Jensen saw her play Vinum est Vita! produced by Exquisite Corps Theatre in Boston September 24-27.
Cindy Lane presented “Beyond Where and When: Writing Life into Your Settings” to a writer’s group in Chesapeake, Virginia, on September 14. She and writing friends attended the inaugural conference of the Hampton Roads Writers on September 19, where Sharyn McCrumb spoke on integrating folklore into your fiction. Cindy is also the proud recipient of a very nice rejection notice from Dos Passos Review, a fine Virginia literary journal. They said, in effect, “not this one, but send us something else.” Cindy takes any scrap of encouragement she can find. (top)
Rosemary Royston recently gave a reading of her poetry at Young Harris College in Young Harris, Georgia. Rosemary is an alumna of the institution and was invited to read her work at a kickoff event for the new English major being offered. The work she read came from her creative thesis, and her poems also were discussed by faculty and students in class.
Barbara Sabol was a finalist for The Broome Review’s annual chapbook competition. She is helping to organize a mixed-genre writing group in Akron, Ohio. She also attended the Kentucky Women Writers Conference in September.
Graham Shelby wrote and delivered two sermons at Thomas Jefferson Unitarian Church in Louisville over the summer. The first sermon, “The Gospel According to the Rolling Stones” is about the process of forgiving yourself for not living up to your dreams. It’s based on a radio commentary Graham did that originally aired on the NPR program Marketplace. The second, “The Lessons and Perils of Time Travel,” centers on the anticipation and anxiety surrounding his twenty-year high school reunion. It’s based on work he created and developed with mentors in the CNF program at Spalding. Graham has been invited to do an encore of the Rolling Stones sermon at the Unitarian Universalist church in Lexington, Kentucky, in October. Audio recordings of the sermons are online at the following link:
tjuc.org/sermons/?cat=30. (Each sermon starts about twenty minutes into the recording.) (top)
Julie Stewart reports that her short story “Bleeding” was a finalist in A Room of Her Own Foundation’s Spring 2009 Orlando Prize. An excerpt of the story, along with the other winning submissions, is posted at aroomofherownfoundation.org.
Katerina Stoykova-Klemer announces that her first full-length book of poetry, The Air Around the Butterfly, was released in August by Fakel Express. It is a bilingual collection, with each poem appearing side-by-side in Bulgarian and English. Originally written in English, each work has been translated by the author into her native Bulgarian. The book is distributed in both countries.
Tommy Trull reports that his play The Curio Shop was performed at The Players Theatre in Manhattan on October 8-11. He is also featured as a co-author and performer for the audio verse-play Prestidigitation in the September/October issue of Orson Scott Card’s online journal, The Intergalactic Medicine Show (intergalacticmedicineshow.com).
Charles White announces that his short story “Controlled Burn” was accepted by the North Carolina Literary Review and appears in a special edition featuring Appalachian writers in the summer of 2010. (top)
Susan Campbell Bartoletti is to receive the Pennsylvania Carolyn W. Field Award for her latest novel, The Boy Who Dared (Scholastic 2008). This book has also been short-listed for several other state awards, and she is crossing her fingers that the book wins. This makes it hard to type, but she is hard at work on her next novel, due to her editor next June.
Ellie Bryant’s adult fiction manuscript, Chantal, was one of four finalists for the 2009 Gival Novel Award Competition. Currently she is teaching a course for the University of Vermont in writing instruction for high school teachers.
Kathleen Driskell read recently in The Art of Activism program at the IdeaFestival on September 23. The reading was broadcast live online across the country. She participates in the annual Kentucky Book Fair in Frankfort on November 7 and has been invited to give a reading there at 3:30. From January 6-10, 2010, she has been invited to lead a poetry retreat in the Poconos, an annual event organized by Susan Campbell Bartoletti. The retreat participants are authors of children's literature who have an interest in writing poetry. On February 22, she reads with Katy Lederer in the 21C Reading Series presented by Sarabande Books. She is presently serving as a grant reviewer for the Arts and Activism program of the Kentucky Foundation for Women. (top)
Richard Goodman’s essay, “The Hermit of Croisset: Flaubert’s Fiercely Enduring Perfectionism,” was published in the September issue of The Writer’s Chronicle.
Robin Lippincott read at the Burlington Book Festival in Burlington, Vermont, on September 26 at the Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center. He read on October 8 at the Historical Museum in his hometown of Lake Mary, Florida.
Sena Jeter Naslund has submitted her new novel, Adam & Eve, to Morrow-HarperCollins. She served as honorary chair of Louisville’s first Festival of the Written Word on September 23 and gave the keynote luncheon address. On October 13, she gave a lecture and reading from her novels Ahab’s Wife, Four Spirits, and Abundance at Kentucky Wesleyan College (Owensboro) and reads on October 25 at Assumption College (Worcester, Massachusetts). On October 16-18, Sena attends the Chicago Film Festival.
Jeanie Thompson has toured extensively for her fourth poetry collection, The Seasons Bear Us, since May, with stops in New York at the KGB Bar in June and in Paris to put books on consignment in English-language bookshops. This summer and fall she has read from her work in Florida (Orlando) and Alabama (Selma, Fairhope, and Mobile). She did a north Alabama tour in the last week in September with Kathleen Driskell. Dubbed “The Poet Loves the Library Tour,” this swing took the two poets to Athens State College, the Huntsville-Madison County Public Library, the Florence-Lauderdale Public Library, and the University of North Alabama. Find out about Jeanie’s upcoming appearances in Louisiana, California, Kentucky, and Alabama at jeaniethompson.blogspot.com, where you’ll also find recaps from previous events. In her work with the Alabama Writers’ Forum, Jeanie visited the Huntsville chapter of the Rotary Club on September 1 to present about the Writing Our Stories program for juvenile offenders. (top)
Susan Christerson Brown (Fall 2003) has launched a web site and blog at kaboomwriters.com, along with her writing group, the KaBooM Writing Collective. Pam Sexton (Fall 2003) is also part of the group. Check out the blog to read about the group and the new anthology, When the Bough Breaks. Argiope Press published the book in collaboration with Larkspur Press in September.
David Carren (Fall 2005) presented the University of Texas-Pan American film The Red Queen at the University Film and Video Association Conference in New Orleans in August. David responded to another professor’s short, Dalitha’s Crossing, and sat on two panels, “Incorporating the Business of Screenwriting Into the Classroom” and “Producing the University Film Production,” moderating the latter. Also, his short story “Foundlings” was published in The Monitor. Read it at themonitor.com/articles/snow-30705-cold-runs.html.
Linda Cruise (Spring 2008) recently edited an 80-page art catalogue, The Art of Action, for the Vermont Arts Council. It accompanies a traveling-art exhibition through 24 Vermont communities, plus Washington, D.C. Also, starting mid-October, Linda teaches another of her mini-courses, “Developing a Writer’s Craft & Critical Eye,” via a local adult education program in Vermont. (top)
Dave DeGolyer’s (Fall 2006) alterego, Lafayette Wattles, has six poems appearing in a handful of journals, as well as two poems forthcoming in Poemeleon. He also has a new poem on display in Woodlawn Cemetery, as part of a poetry-in-the-parks grant project. But Lafayette’s biggest coup recently occurred when “Blueberry Patch,” a poem from his work-in-progress young adult novel-in-verse, A Boy Called Mo, was accepted for publication in one of the premier culinary journals, Gastronomica. The story is about a high school football player who is bullied. Lafayette says that appearing in a culinary journal is proof that football and food go together!
Daniel DiStasio (Fall 2006) has been hired by Keiser University as a full-time faculty member.
Kathryn Eastburn (Spring 2006) is teaching “Introduction to Journalism” at The Colorado College during October. While in Colorado, Kathryn also presents a creative nonfiction seminar and serves on a panel on memoir at Authorfest of the Rockies in Manitou Springs. Last month, Kathryn was part of a celebration of the publication of After Ike, a collection of photographs and essays by elementary school students in Galveston, Texas, documenting their experiences returning home to their hurricane-devastated island home a year ago. Kathryn wrote the introduction to the book. (top)
Ann Eskridge (Fall 2007) announces that Friends School in Detroit is to perform a children’s play she wrote for its annual fundraiser. Eskridge began the play as part of a playwriting exercise when she was at Spalding. Eskridge is also one of the founding members of a new playwriting group in the Detroit Metropolitan Area. The Extra-Mile Playwrights Group took its lead from award-winning playwright and Spalding faculty member Sheila Callaghan’s group 13P and decided to develop staged readings and performances of their own works.
Sandra Evans Falconer (Spring 2005) is happy to announce that her book The Six O’clock Siren was published this fall by Otter Bay Press, a Baltimore publisher. Sandra’s book of poems, which she wrote at Spalding, is a first-person account of her experience battling breast cancer in 2003. Sandra has a book signing in Baltimore on November l.
Stacia M. Fleegal (Fall 2006) has recently had poems accepted by Pemmican, Prick of the Spindle, Blue Collar Review and The Louisville Review.
Amanda Forsting (Spring 2009) won first place in the Carnegie Center for Literature and Literacy Short Stories Only! Contest with an excerpt from her historical novel, Becoming Georgia. (top)
Karen George (Spring 2009) is judging a poetry contest for The Greater Cincinnati Writers League. She attended the Kentucky Women Writers Conference in Lexington, where she enjoyed a workshop with Nikky Finney and a seminar with Susan Vreeland. She read at a poetry open mic along with several other Spalding MFA students. Another highlight was a panel discussion on poetry and spirituality led by Elizabeth Alexander, Honoree Fanonne Jeffers, and Nikky Finney.
Jeanne Haggard (Fall 2006) led two playwriting workshops for the Texas University Interscholastic League high school fall workshops at Texas Tech University in September. She also directed the staged reading of The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later at Texas Tech University on October 12 as part of the international event sponsored by Tectonic Theater Project. Tectonic returned to Laramie, Wyoming, and its playwrights have written a powerful epilogue to The Laramie Project, which was read at theatres and universities across the United States and around the world on October 12. All of the sites were linked together via the web and it promised to be a very exciting and moving event.
Edie Hemingway (Spring 2004) is pleased to announce the publication of her middle-grade novel Road to Tater Hill by Delacorte Press, a division of Random House children’s books, on September 8. She has a number of signings set up in Maryland and North Carolina. She spoke at the Carolina Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Conference in Durham, North Carolina, on September 26 and at a reception at the Appalachian State University Library on September 28. Edie recently took on the position of regional adviser for the Maryland-Delaware-West Virginia chapter of SCBWI. (top)
Bonnie Johnson (Fall 2004), Susan Masters (Spring 2007), Aimee Zaring (Spring 2005), and Vickie Weaver (Fall 2005) attended the Kentucky Women Writers Conference on September 10-12, in Lexington, Kentucky.
Kaylene Johnson’s (Fall 2003) memoir, A Tender Distance: Adventures Raising My Sons in Alaska, is now available in bookstores. Four of the chapters have been previously published, two in The Louisville Review. Most of the chapters were written as part of Kaylene’s studies in Spalding’s MFA in Writing Program. She gave a reading and a talk at the University of Alaska bookstore on October 14. For information about other events related to A Tender Distance, please visit Kaylene’s web site at kaylene.us.
Russ Kesler (Spring 2009) published the poem 1964 in New South 2.2 and a review of Peter Campion’s The Lions in First Draft, the online publication of the Alabama Writers Forum, at writersforum.org/books/default.aspx.
Katrina Kittle (Fall 2008) teaches a fiction craft class and leads a workshop at the Word’s Worth Writing Center in Dayton, Ohio. She also has completed her fourth novel, Dancing at the Church of St. Equine, which is scheduled for a Summer 2010 release from HarperCollins. (top)
Nana Lampton (Spring 2004) announces the publication of Snowy Owl Gathers in Her Trove, a limited edition book of poems and illustrations that she created in collaboration with Gray Zietz of Larkspur Press and designer/photographer Julius Friedman. Each book, considered an objet d’art, contains forty-one poems that are hand-set type with forty-three illustrations by Nana. A book signing and cocktail reception was September 27 held at Chapman Friedman Gallery in Louisville.
Anna C. Morrison (Fall 2008) was recently hired as adjunct English professor for Barstow Community College at Fort Irwin in Barstow, California. Also, her picture book Silly Moments, acquired by Guardian Angel Publishing, has a new illustrator and is due to be released before Christmas. She recently signed up to attend the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Editor’s Day event at the Santa Ana Zoo in Santa Ana, California, on October 3 and submitted three manuscripts for critique and consideration by the editors at the event. She now also features children’s book reviews on her blog and invites any and all to come take a look at blog.annacmorrison.com.
Richard Newman (Fall 2004) has poems appearing in new issues of Boulevard, The Louisville Review, Pleiades, and Valparaiso Review. His second full-length collection of poems, Domestic Fugues, was just published by Steel Toe Books, and in October had scheduled readings in Kansas City, Louisville, and St. Louis. (top)
A poem by Frances Nicholson (Spring 2004), “On Motherhood,” appears in the journal Margie. The journal’s editor called the piece “the most stunningly poignant poem I’ve ever read.” Frances also co-teaches a course through Pasadena Presbyterian Church in Pasadena, California, centering on writing as a way to access spirituality. She leads the poetry portion, while her co-teacher discusses journaling.
Dan Nowak (Spring 2007) has a chapbook called Burning the Arson Dictionary: Poems for Thomas McGrath forthcoming from Rocksaw Press in fall 2009.
Nancy O’Connor (Spring 2008) recently presented for the Mountain-Desert Reading Council in Victorville, California, for its kickoff meeting of the school year. Her talk, “Getting Serious About Humor: Using Funny Books in Your Reading/Writing Classroom,” was based on her graduation lecture. Nancy has also volunteered to assist the English department chair of her local Redlands High School with their online gallery of writing, which is part of the National Council of Teachers of English Writing Galleries being launched in October. At the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Conference in Los Angeles in August, Nancy was pleased to spend time with other Spalding W4C-ers, Lydia Griffin-Hudacsko (Fall 2008) and Edie Hemingway. (Spring 2004) Nancy’s article “Confessions of an Old-Timer,” about her experience at this year’s conference, has just been published in the organization’s newsletter, Kite Tales.
Molly Power (Spring 2007) has had her story “Unsuitable” published in the summer edition of The Adirondack Review, a publication of Black Lawrence Press. (top)
Diana Raab’s (Fall 2003) second book of poetry, The Guilt Gene, was set to be released in October 2009. Her poem “Incense and Peppermints” was published in Common Ground Review. Her recipe “Wiener Schnitzel” (along with a bio about her Austrian roots) was published in Literary Feast: The Famous Authors’ Cookbook. On October 4, Diana facilitated a workshop called “Writing Your Life” at the West Hollywood Book Festival. On October 24 she facilitates a workshop called “The Healing Notebook” at The Wellness and Writing Connections Conference in Atlanta for the second year. In September she helped organize an “Out of Darkness” community walk in Santa Barbara, California, that raised funds for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, the organization to which she donates the proceeds of her memoir, Regina’s Closet. She sold twenty copies of her book at the event. Check out Diana’s web site at dianaraab.com and keep up with her blog at dianaraab.wordpress.com.
Sonia Rapaport (Spring 2007) attended Sewanee Writers’ Conference as a Tennessee Williams Scholar in Poetry in July. In August, she attended Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference (also in poetry). Her chapbook, A Density of Ghosts, was published by Finishing Line Press in June and is available on Amazon.com (amazon.com/Density-Ghosts-Sonia-Rapaport/dp/1599244500).
Savannah Sipple (Fall 2008) is a finalist in the New Southerner Literary Contest. Winners are be announced in mid-November.
Pamela Steele (Spring 2004) read at the Blackbird Wine Shop in Portland, Oregon, on October 9. The following day, she was a featured reader at the Wordstock Writing Festival, also in Portland. (top)
Kathleen Thompson (Fall 2003) participated in a book signing at Cyrano’s Bookshop in Highlands, North Carolina, on August 15. Robert Gray reviewed her poetry book The Shortest Distance at the Alabama Writers’ Forum, First Draft Reviews Online, n September 2009. On September 16, Kathleen and her husband visited Helen Norris, 93, in Black Mountain, North Carolina. Helen is a dear friend, the former poet laureate of Alabama, a short story and novel writer, and subject of Kathleen’s critical thesis.
Leslie Smith Townsend (Spring 2004) read an excerpt of her unpublished memoir, Lucky Girl, Guilty Woman, at Highland Baptist Church’s contemporary worship service. Her latest essay, “Ain’t It Great to Be Smug,” can be found under Half-Empty Mason Jar in the fall issue of New Southerner (newsoutherner.com).
Cristina Trapani-Scott (Spring 2009) organized a reading and presentation of local authors for an outdoor fine arts fair called Art-a-Licious on September 18, in Adrian, Michigan. As part of the reading, she collected poems she was commissioned to write for various issues of Homefront magazine and put them in a small booklet that she had printed to hand out at Art-a-Licious. She emceed the event and read several of the poems from the booklet. In addition, Cristina attended a free poetry workshop taught by Maria Mazziotti Gillan, a poet she’s certain she must have mentioned in her graduate lecture on Italian-American women writers. The event was hosted by Chelsea District Library Artist in Residence, poet M.L. Liebler. Cristina also was recently hired as an adjunct composition instructor at Baker College in Auburn Hill, Michigan. (top)
Al Waller (Spring 2005) recently received news that his film BugWorld was nominated as a Best Film by the Kids First Film Festival. This award is given annually to films and screenplays that have been accepted and showcased at their various festivals and special screenings nationally and worldwide. BugWorld is a thirty-minute educational/comedy film he created based on characters from the middle-grade novel that he wrote as his creative thesis at Spalding. The winners are announced at the Santa Fe Film Festival in December. He also launched a web site called VarmintBytes.com. This comic/educational site is for booksellers, librarians, teachers, and other reading facilitators who seek to get middle-graders hooked on knowledge exploration through children’s literature. You may also follow Varmint Bytes on Twitter at twitter.com/VarmintBytes. Al has also been accepted into the Big Sur Children’s Writers’ Workshop held in Monterey, California.
Amy Watkins (Copeland) (Spring 2006) has two poems in the new anthology poem, home: An Anthology of Ars Poetica, available now from Paper Kite Press at wordpainting.com/shop.shtml.
In March, Jim Wilson (Spring 2007) served as a judge for the Chickasaw Nation of Oklahoma’s Youth Creative Writing Contest. In June, Jim and his wife, LeAnne Howe, hosted their second annual Salon Ada for writers with creative and scholarly interests in Indian Territory, Oklahoma. In July, Jim taught creative writing again in the Chickasaw Nation’s Summer Arts Academy in Ada, Oklahoma. Also in July, Jim and other Salon participants read from their work to a large public gathering at East Central University in Ada. This fall, Jim is directing a combined archaeological excavation and creative writing project in Ada for Chickasaw Nation youth. (top)
Faculty Advisory Committee (FAC) for Fall 2009
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.
Program Book in Common for Fall 2009
The Program Book in Common for Fall 2009 is Patricia MacLachlan’s Sarah, Plain and Tall. The cross-genre exploration area is writing for children & young adults. All students and faculty read the book in preparation for a discussion led by Sena Jeter Naslund on the first night of residency. (Bring the book to this session.) (top)
Fall 2009 Faculty/Guest Books/Scripts in Common
Students attending the Fall 2009 residency read the Faculty/Guest Book/Script in Common in the area of concentration they are to study in the Fall 2009 semester in preparation for a discussion with authors at the residency. All MFA students add the book/script to their cumulative bibliographies
Spring 2010 Faculty/Guest Books/Scripts in Common
Students attending the Spring 2010 residency read the Faculty/Guest Book/Script in Common in the area of concentration they are to study in the Spring 2010 semester in preparation for a discussion with authors at the residency. All MFA students add the book/script to their cumulative bibliographies
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 http://www.fafsa.ed.gov.
All Fall 2009 students: Fill out the FAFSA for the 09-10 school year, using 2008 tax information. (top)
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.
Life of a Writer pieces should be written as a paragraph in third person. If you are an alum, please alum include your graduation semester, such as Jake Doe (Fall 2003). Spell out month and state names. Include title(s) of the work, publishers, date of publication, and web site addresses when appropriate.
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
Karen J. Mann, Administrative Director
Kathleen Driskell, Associate Program Director
Katy Yocom, Program Associate
Gayle Hanratty, Administrative Assistant
Carolyn Flynn, Newsletter Editor
Master of Fine Arts in Writing •Spalding University
851 S. Fourth St. • Louisville, KY 40203
(800) 896-8941, ext. 2423 or (502) 585-9911, ext. 2423
mfa@spalding.edu • www.spalding.edu/mfa
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Sena Jeter Naslund, Program Director
Karen Mann, Administrative
Director
Kathleen Driskell,
Associate Program Director
Katy Yocom, Program
Associate
Gayle Hanratty,
Administrative Assistant
Email Life of a Writer information, Because You Asked questions, or classifieds to Carolyn Flynn at mfanewsletter@spalding.edu