Vol. 11 No. 1
January 2007

Book in Common Author

Reading Assignments for Spring

AWP Conference

Metroversity Contest

New MFA Staff

Newsletter Opportunity

New Newsletter Feature

Because You Asked

High Horse, Faculty Anthology

Life of a Writer

     Students

     Faculty and Staff

    Alumni

Reminders and Notes

Classifieds

Spalding Home

MFA Home

Previous Newsletters

May 2006

July 2006

October 2006

Book in Common for Spring 2007 Is The Bad Beginning
For the Spring 2007 residency, the MFA Program’s Book in Common is The Bad Beginning, the first chapter book in the young reader’s series by Daniel Handler—otherwise known as Lemony Snicket. A plenary discussion takes place Friday, May 25, the first night of spring 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 Tuesday of the residency, Handler visits Spalding’s campus to talk about his work as a writer, with a focus on his book The Bad Beginning. During the visit, MFA students and faculty have closed question-and-answer sessions with Handler.

Handler serves as the “legal, literary, and social representative of Lemony Snicket,” whose books for children, known collectively as A Series of Unfortunate Events, have sold more than 52 million copies. He is the author of the adult novels The Basic Eight, Watch Your Mouth and Adverbs.

He has worked in music, most recently in collaboration with composer Nathaniel Stookey on a piece commissioned by the San Francisco Symphony, titled “The Composer Is Dead.” Handler is an adjunct accordionist for the pop group The Magnetic Fields.

His screenwriting credits include Rick (2003); Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004) (based on the books The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room, and The Wide Window); and Kill the Poor (2006)
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Mr. Handler graduated from Wesleyan University in 1992 where he was awarded the Olin Fellowship (1992-93). He also won the Academy of American Poets Prize (1992) and accepted the Quill Award for The Penultimate Peril (2006) for Lemony Snicket. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, the illustrator Lisa Brown, and a child.

The Bad Beginning is published by HarperCollins (ISBN-10: 0064407667) and can be found at many bookstores or ordered online from www.BN.com, amazon.com, as well as many other online bookstores.

Students entering ENG620 in the spring are required to write a 2-4 page short critical essay on The Bad Beginning and should send it to the MFA Office by February 28; these essays are forwarded to the MFA Program’s Expository Writing Coach, Marcia Dalton, who conducts small expository workshops during the spring residency for ENG620 students
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All students should adjust their semester’s reading lists in order to add The Bad Beginning to their cumulative bibliographies. (top)

Pre-reading Assignments for Spring Residency Announced
All students and faculty read the Book in Common The Bad Beginning by Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket.

In preparation for a plenary lecture to be given by Sena Jeter Naslund at the spring residency, all students are to read two of the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. One of the books is to be The Long Winter and the other is a book of the student’s choice.

Students also read the Faculty/Guest Books in Common in their Spring 2007 area of concentration in preparation for a discussion with authors at the Spring 2007 residency.

Fiction: Sena Jeter Naslund’s Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette
Poetry: Greg Pape’s American Flamingo
Creative Nonfiction: Nancy McCabe’s Meeting Sophie: A Memoir of Adoption
Writing for Children: Louise Hawes’s The Vanishing Point
Playwriting and Screenwriting: TBA (top)

AWP Conference in Atlanta Is February 28-March 3
For those attending the AWP (Assocation of Writers and Writing Programs) Conference in Atlanta, remember to stop by table 56, The Louisville Review and MFA table at the Book Fair, to say hello.

Kentuckiana Metroversity 2007 Writing Competition
All currently registered MFA students are eligible to submit original fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction to the 2007 Kentuckiana Metroversity Writing Competition. Students may also submit their Extended Critical Essays in the research category. Spalding MFA students usually do quite well in this competition each year, and the directors strongly encourage all students to submit to this contest. There is no cost to enter.

Prizes of $100 (first place) and $50 (second place) are awarded in each category in two separate divisions—undergraduate and graduate. The judges are published writers outside Metroversity.
Submission guidelines: Students may enter up to 2 works in each category, except for poetry (up to 5 poems). Entries must be unpublished but may be entered simultaneously in other competitions. Manuscripts must be typed, double spaced (poetry may be single spaced). Submit two copies of each entry (a poem is an entry). Attach the two copies to a completed official entry form (please check your email boxes for a recent email from Katy containing the entry form and guidelines). The entrant’s name must not appear anywhere on the manuscript; however, the title of the work must be on each page. Manuscripts will not be returned.

Winners are notified by email and honored at an awards ceremony and public reading in April in Louisville. Winners need not be present at the ceremony to claim a prize. (For a list of winners, students can email the competition coordinator after April 4.) Entries that do not follow guidelines will be disqualified.

The Kentuckiana Metroversity 2007 Writing Competition postmark deadline is February 14.

All MFA Students MUST mail their entries directly to the competition coordinator and not to the MFA Office. Mail entries to Competition Coordinator, Jean Tucker, Jefferson Community & Technical College, 109 E. Broadway, Louisville, KY 40202. Students may email Jean.Tucker@kctcs.edu with questions.

Contact Kathleen Driskell for further competition information. (top)

MFA and Fleur-de-Lis Staff
The MFA Program welcomes Gayle Hanratty (Fiction, Fall 2006) to its staff as part-time administrative assistant. Gayle works about 20 hours a week, Wednesday through Friday, handling many of the same duties she fulfilled as a graduate assistant, including coordinating admissions materials and compiling workshop booklets. Gayle’s email address is ghanratty@spalding.edu.

Liz Nethery (CNF, Fall 2006) continues in her position as Assistant Managing Editor for Fleur-de-Lis Press. She is currently overseeing production of The Moon with the Sun in Her Eye, a book of poems by Nana Lampton (Poetry, Spring 2004), due out in April. Liz may be reached by email at louisvillereview@spalding.edu.

New Opportunity to Place Classified Ads in Newsletter
The editors of On Extended Wings now welcome classified ads from current MFA students, faculty, and alumni. This column will appear at the end of each newsletter. Ads may include calls for submissions or advertisements for services that benefit writers. There is no charge to place an ad. The editors may choose to edit ads in the interest of space. Please send your ad copy to mfanewsletter@spalding.edu. (top)

Introducing a New Newsletter Feature: Because You Asked
In order to strengthen communication among Spalding students, faculty, and staff, we are introducing a new column in On Extended Wings.

In the past, we’ve noticed that students often raise concerns or questions we’d like to answer for everyone. To do this we’ve created the column “Because You Asked.”

The MFA staff invites members of the MFA community to send their questions or concerns to mfanewsletter@spalding.edu. We will address as many questions as we can in subsequent issues of the newsletter. We hope, as always, these exchanges broaden understanding of our mission and policies.

Because You Asked
Question: I worry that the MFA program is growing too large. How much larger will we get?
     Answer: Several semesters ago, the Spalding MFA Program met its target enrollment of 100 ongoing mentored students and approximately 25 graduating students. The directors believe these numbers are a good target given our desire for a diverse student body and the boundaries of our campus and accommodations.
     That said, students are correct in noticing we’ve had approximately 140 students attend the last couple of residencies during the last few semesters. This is due mainly to the way we accept students.
     Like all graduate programs, we accept more qualified applicants than we think may actually come, because often students are accepted to more than one graduate program and opt to go to other schools. However, an interesting trend has come up recently: nearly 95% of accepted students (rather than 50% for other programs) have chosen our program: When this happens, obviously, we exceed our target enrollment. We hope to become more accurate when accepting incoming students, but as all can imagine, this is a tricky business. The great news is that more and more incoming students consider Spalding their number-one choice!

Question: Are fall residencies “packed more tightly” than spring?
     Answer: No. Give or take a few hours, fall and spring residencies contain the same amount of scheduled hours, though in the spring we tend to stay on campus more and this may explain why fall may feel more “hectic.” Like most communities, Louisville’s artistic season is much busier in fall than spring, so we try to take advantage of off-campus opportunities to see plays, dance performances, or opera. In the spring, we try to program arts events on campus. In the past, you may remember that we have been visited by improvisational groups and visual artists. (top)

Each residency, our curriculum in each area of concentration includes at least six lectures (or the equivalent, which could include a discussion following a staged reading, an art event, or film viewing). Some cross-genre lectures may serve two or more areas. Plenary lectures are presented in addition to area lectures. The directors are very focused on curriculum when preparing each residency schedule; we want to make sure our curriculum is appropriately rich, rigorous, and meaningful for our students.

Life of a Writer

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

Students

Priscilla Atkins has four poems in the fall 2006 issue of Southern Humanities Review and poems in the fall 2006 issues of Epoch, Connecticut Review, and Southern Indiana Review.

Darlyn Finch, current writer-in-residence at the Jack Kerouac Project house in Orlando, Fla., is to give a farewell reading and book roll-out celebration on February 17 for her short story and poetry collection, Red Wax Rose, which is being published by Shady Lane Press in affiliation with her stay at the historic home where Kerouac wrote Dharma Bums and published On the Road. Darlyn was the moderator for a panel discussion for the Society of American Travel Writers Institute in Orlando on January 19. Special guest speakers at the event included National Geographic Traveler editor-in-chief Keith Bellows and Veronica Gould Stoddart, Leisure Travel Editor of USA Today.

David Harrity has poems forthcoming from the St. Linus Review and The Minnetonka Review. He recently found out that his chapbook, Morning and What Has Come Since, comes out from Finishing Line Press this year. More information can be found at http://davidharrity.blogspot.com . (top)

Troy Jewell’s eight-month-old son, Connor, recently scored a writing gig. In the piece, published in the October 22 Sunday edition of The Orlando Sentinel, Connor marveled over how huge his dad’s head is, and how he’s getting acquainted with his new, out-of-the-womb surroundings.

Jill Kelly Koren had two poems featured in her sister Alethaire Kelly’s recent art show at the Abundant Life Gallery in Virginia. The poems, “Rosemary” and “Two Rooms,” were hung next to the paintings that inspired them. She also has two poems forthcoming in Bleeding on the Page: Women Writing About Menstruation, an anthology edited by Spalding graduates Parneshia Jones (Spring 2006), Michele Ruby (Spring 2005), Elizabeth Slade (Spring 2006), and Julia Watts (Fall 2005). The anthology is to be published by Spinsters Ink Press.

Drew Lackovic was recently announced as the fiction winner for Alligator Juniper’s National Writing contest (http://www.prescott.edu/highlights/alligator_juniper/guidelines.html) with his story “(Un/Re/I) Do.” The story comes out in the summer 2007 issue of Alligator Juniper. In addition, Drew’s story “Contents Within” was nominated for the 2007 AWP Intro Award (www.awpwriter.org/contests/intro.htm). Winners are to be announced in the spring.

Loreen Niewenhuis’s short story “Trixie” was published in the recently released (due to a backlog) March 2006 issue of Words of Wisdom.

Rick Neumayer’s third produced musical, a comedy-fantasy titled Mark Twain on the River, is to be performed this summer at RiverStage in Jeffersonville, Ind. The show, co-written with Bill Corcoran, is scheduled for Saturday and Sunday nights at 8:30 on July 14, 15, 21, and 22 at Jeff’s riverfront amphitheatre. (top)

Julia Schuster’s short story “My Boring Life” is a finalist in the Cup of Comfort writing competition and has been accepted for publication by Adams Media to appear in their upcoming collection, A Cup of Comfort for Writers. This series of books is similar to the Chicken Soup series. Julia’s story “Fruitcake Cookies and Bringing Mother Back to Life” was published by Adams Media in their Cup of Comfort for Sisters edition in 2004.

Clayton Scott is to emcee the Arkansas Poetry Out Loud state contest this March for the second year. He has also been nominated to be the Poet Laureate of Fayetteville, Arkansas, where he makes his home.

Kim Stinson-Hawn is organizing and directing the plays in the first Ten Minute Quilt Play Festival for the Berea Arts Council’s annual Quilt Extravaganza Festival in August 2007. Submissions of the ten-minute plays with a theme of quilts or quilting are due postmarked by March 30. Detailed information about submitting a play can be found at www.bereaartscouncil.org/events/2007/play/play.htm.

Faculty & Staff

Dianne Aprile gave a reading and lecture at Murray State University on January 6 and 7 as a guest of the school’s low-residency MFA in Writing program. She read two excerpts from her memoir, one of which is titled “The Thickness of Water” and was published in the most recent issue of The Louisville Review, and from an essay in progress, “Don’t Hold Back.” Her lecture was on advocacy writing, a repeat of the lecture given at the fall 2006 Spalding residency. (top)

Ellie Bryant was in the Poconos in January at an inspiring four-day writing retreat arranged by Sue Campbell Bartoletti for women authors of children’s literature. Among the 14 participants were Laurie Halse Anderson, Gail Carson Levine, and Elizabeth Winthrop. Molly Peacock led them in looking at published poems and writing their own poems from prompts she suggested. Over abundant meals, there were good talks about writing and publishing, and two evenings were dedicated to readings of their recent work.

K. L. Cook’s novel, The Girl from Charnelle, was listed as a 2006 Best Southwest Book of the Year, a 2006 Mississippi Press/Gulf Coast Live Book of the Year, and a School Library Journal 2006 Best Adult Book for High School Students. It was also an Editor’s Choice selection of the Historical Novel Society. The novel comes out in paperback by Harper Perennial in March. His essay, “A Nova, an Eyelash, a Snoring Man: Notes on Adolescent Summers,” comes out in March in the anthology When I Was a Loser (Free Press/Simon & Schuster), edited by John McNally. Kenny is to be on two panels at the 2007 AWP Conference in Atlanta: “The Prairie Schooner Book Prize Readings” and “The Literary Trilogy, Sequence, and Cycle” both on March 1, 2007.

Kathleen Driskell’s poem “Nude Model” is forthcoming in the North American Review. She was re-appointed to the Kentucky Poet Laureate Selection Committee of the Kentucky Arts Council in 2006. Last fall, she was a guest on WFPL’s State of Affairs show, a radio broadcast of Louisville’s local NPR affiliate. She discussed the Kentucky Women’s Book Festival, where she was a featured speaker.

Robert Finch’s essay “Transparent Beauty,” first published in River Styx, has been chosen as one of the “Notable Essays of 2005” in Houghton-Mifflin’s Best American Essays 2006, edited by Lauren Slater.

Richard Goodman is to be a featured speaker at the workshop and seminar “Writing the Garden” at the New York Botanical Garden, Sunday, January 28, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Information is available at www.nybg.org/edu/cont_ed_cat.php. His article about the St. John’s Bible, the first illuminated manuscript Bible in 500 years, is the cover story for the January/February issue of Fine Books & Collections magazine.

Roy Hoffman’s feature “Amidst Gethsemani” about a visit to the Trappist abbey and the hermitage of Thomas Merton, highlighting Dianne Aprile and her book The Abbey of Gethsemani appeared in the Mobile Press-Register on January 8 and was distributed nationally on the Religion News Wire. Roy’s review of Wendell Berry’s novel Andy Catlett: Early Travels is in the New York Times Book Review, Sunday, January 28. (top)

Robin Lippincott’s novel Mr. Dalloway has gone into a fourth printing. An article titled “Mrs. Dalloway and Three of Its Children,” has just appeared in Papers on Language and Literature (XLII, 4, 2006): The article discusses Mr. Dalloway, along with the book and movie of The Hours. Robin was recently accepted into The Writers Room of Boston and gave a reading, along with other members of the Room, at Porter Square Books in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Robin also served as a judge for the Drue Heinz Literature Prize again this year.

Nancy McCabe has an essay, “Bats in the Attic,” in the Fall/Winter 2006 issue (number 39) of Hayden’s Ferry Review, due out this month.

Jeanie Thompson participated in a book signing for All Out of Faith: Southern Women Writers on Spirituality at the Alabama Booksmith in Birmingham on October 3 and was a panelist with the anthology’s editor Jennifer Horne at the Southern Festival of Books (Memphis) on October 12. She conducted a poetry panel titled “Integrity of the Line” at the Eugene Walter Writers’ Festival on October 6 in Mobile, Alabama. Jeanie was a featured reader in the Writers in Performance Series of the Montgomery County Literary Arts Council and Montgomery Community College in Conroe, Texas, near Houston on October 19. Her poem “Abandon” appears in the latest edition of New Millennium Writings (U. of Tennessee/Knoxville).

Luke Wallin’s new book, Conservation Writing: Essays at the Crossroads of Nature and Culture, is out from the Center for Policy Analysis, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Many of the pieces have appeared in journals and books, including High Horse. The cover painting is by his wife, Mary Elizabeth Gordon, and the content can be previewed at lukewallin.com. (top)

Alumni

Troy Alvey (Fall 2005) teaches English and Communications courses at Northwood University in Louisville. He has two poems, “Ants and Yellow Jackets” and “Old Ybor Community Center,” forthcoming in Minnetonka Review.

Deborah Begel (Spring 2006) invites Spalding students and alumni (those who are emerging with no books published, yet) to submit short poems, essays, monologues, or songs for possible use in four-minute radio modules. If selected for this first round of 20 modules, the contributor records the chosen reading three or four times at a public radio or audio studio in the local area. Other writings are held for later use, with permission of course. The author is to retain all rights to his/her work. The audio version is for radio and promotional purposes. Sorry, no pay at this point! By April 15 send stories, poems and essays by email to CallingAmerica12@aol.com. Submissions should be no longer than 3.5 minutes read aloud, please. Cut and paste writing into an email, rather than sending attachments, along with the following information: name, address, telephone, age, email, and gender. Topics are open. Chosen works are to be offered to public radio stations in the U.S. in the fall of 2007.

Myra Bellin’s (Fall 2005) profile of potter Kenny Delio, titled “The Functional Fantastic Forms of Kenny Delio,” has been accepted for publication in Ceramics Monthly, an internationally distributed monthly magazine devoted to ceramic arts.

Gwen Broderick (Fall 2006) of Albany, New York, presents her class “The Surprise of Poetry” on December 8, 2006, and February 23 through her local adult education program Knowledge Network (www.knowledgenetwork.org). Her poem “Late” appears in the forthcoming anthology Bleeding on the Page: Women Writing About Menstruation. Gwen is now teaching a weekly writing class to a group of men in recovery. (top)

R. L. Burkhead (May 2004) wrote the feature story for the summer 2006 issue of the The Tennessee Writer, the quarterly newsletter published by the Tennessee Writers Alliance. Titled “Aspiring Writers Smash Glass at Inaugural TWA Conference,” the piece was the feature story for an issue devoted to their inaugural literary conference. In addition, his short story “Topography” appeared in the January/February 2007 issue of the e-zine Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal, located at: http://asouthernjournal.com. In September 2006 and January 2007, he attended and participated in the Writer’s Loft semester kickoff literary day.

Kathryn Eastburn’s (Spring 2006) article “Stories to Stir the Heart,” a Q&A profile of acclaimed Texas short story writer Annette Sanford, appeared in the December 2006 issue of Texas Highways magazine.

Dan DiStasio’s (Fall 2005) short story “X-Vision” has been accepted for publication in The Caribbean Writer 2007. Dan participated in the Key West Literary Seminar’s four-day program “Wondrous Strange: Mystery, Intrigue and Psychological Drama,” which included panelists Ian McEwan, Michael Cunningham, Margaret Atwood, Geoffrey Eugenides, Amy Tan, David Tate, Joyce Carol Oates, and Aimee Bender.

Thea Gavin (Spring 2005) served as a judge of the 2006 Corona del Mar High School/Middle School PTA Reflections literary contest in November. Her poem, “Big Dan Goertzen of the Zumwalt Country,” an oral history in blank verse, was read at the building fundraiser for the Wallowa County Museum by northeastern Oregon writer/museum board member Janie Tippet in October 2006.

Mike Hampton (Fall 2005) received word that two of his poems have been accepted for publication by Main Street Rag and will most likely appear in their winter issue. (top)

Chris Helvey (Fall 2006) read from his novel-in-progress, Dancing on the Rim, in December at the Jazz Factory as part of the ongoing Jazz and the Spoken Word series.

Stephanie Horton (Spring 2006) was awarded a Kentucky Foundation for Women 2006 Artist Enrichment Grant in December 2006.

Leesteffy Jenkins (Fall 2005) recently won second place in the ABROAD Writer’s Contest. Her story “The Inverse of Nothing” is forthcoming in Driftwood. In addition, she was awarded a scholarship to the ABROAD Writer’s Conference in Thailand next year. Leesteffy used this story for her workshop piece her last residency at Spalding and would like to thank everyone in her workshop and, in particular, Mary Waters and Kirby Gann for their insightful, much needed, and appreciated comments.

Erin Keane (Spring 2004) has poems forthcoming in Nimrod and Bloodlines, an anthology of emerging Kentucky writers published by the Jesse Stuart Foundation. Her review of Diane Gilliam Fisher’s book of persona poems, Kettle Bottom, appears in the new issue of Now & Then: The Appalachian Magazine. The Kentucky Arts Council recently awarded her the Al Smith Fellowship, and her debut full-length collection of poems, The Gravity Soundtrack, is to be published by WordFarm this spring, with a launch at the Printer’s Row Book Fair in Chicago in early June. Much of this manuscript was completed during her time at Spalding and a version served as her creative thesis. She is grateful for the help and support she received from faculty and fellow students. She spent the fall teaching “Pop Music in American Literature” at Bellarmine University and promoting her chapbook, The One-Hit Wonders, at various readings in Indiana and Kentucky, and is to read from her newly-completed manuscript of circus poems at the Louisville Conference on Literature and Culture Since 1900 in February and at the Morrison Art Gallery Reading Series at Elizabethtown Community and Technical College in March. She continues to direct the InKY Reading Series (www.inkyreadingseries.com), which is entering its fourth season. The organization achieved federal tax-exempt status in October. Erin’s activities can be followed at www.sensilla.com, which also contains her blog that won second place in the 2006 LEO Reader’s Choice Awards. (top)

The Poetry Factory reading and workshop series, run by Marci Johnson (Spring 2005), has received a grant for its 2007 season. Readers in the spring include Ander Monson, David Dodd Lee, and Orlando Menes. Kevin Prufer and Mary Ann Samyn lead the workshop sessions for the Workshop Weekend, March 17-18. For more information see www.poetryfactory.net.

Maribeth Lysen (Spring 2006) was a runner-up for Georgetown Review’s 2007 contest and has three poems, “Silver Acorns,” “On a Montana Highway Map,” and “Sheet Music” forthcoming in the 2007 issue. Her poem “The Origins of the Frog Tattoo” is forthcoming in a 2007 issue of PoemMemoirStory (PMS). Her Santa Fe gallery, Muse, opened at the end of November 2006. The gallery website is www.musenm.com. Artist inquiries are welcome.

Jae Newman’s (Fall 2006) poem “Unnamed” is forthcoming in a future issue of Tiger’s Eye. His poem “Hole-in-one” has also been accepted for publication by the editor of Redivider. In addition, Newman has had four poems accepted by Korean Quarterly. “Land of the Morning Calm,” “Fall Harvest Festival,” and “Apartment near Airport” appeared in the winter 2006 issue. “Blue Periods,” a long poem, appears in the spring 2007 issue.

Zola Troutman Noble’s (Spring 2005) essay, “An Ordinary Woman: Sarah McIntyre of Saltville, Virginia,” is forthcoming in the 2007 issue of The Smithfield Review, to be released in February. Issues may be ordered online at http://civic.bev.net/smithfield/review.html.

Rebecca Norris’s (Fall 2006) article “Pride Cushions a Fall” is to appear in HomeLife Magazine in July 2007. (top)

Linda Busby Parker’s (Fall 2003) book review of Mary Gordon’s Complete Short Stories appeared in the San Diego Union Tribune in October. Her review of Darnell Arnoult’s book of poetry, What Travels With Us, and of her novel, Sufficient Grace, appeared in the January 14 Mobile Press Register. In early February, she travels to Wofford College in South Carolina to meet with cross-disciplinary classes that have read Seven Laurels. At that time, she is also to work with students in the South Carolina District 7 schools.

Tom Pierce’s (Fall 2005) short story “Sleeper Hold” has been accepted for publication by Quarterly West magazine.

Mary Popham’s (Fall 2003) essay “An Abundance of Peace” appeared in the ezine New Southerner in December 2006, and her review of Misha Feigin’s poetry book, The Last Word in Astronomy, appeared in the Louisville Courier-Journal Book Forum in January. She also read her essay for the series “This I Believe” on NPR in January.

Heather Shaw’s (Fall 2004) essay “A Mother’s Gift” appears in the current issue of New Southerner magazine, along with her regular column about food. Her poem “Wilson’s Cove” has finally appeared in The Antigonish Review, issue #147. She welcomes submissions of food articles of approximately 700 words at heathershaw@newsoutherner.com Further guidelines may be found at www.newsoutherner.com. (top)

Janet Shea (Spring 2006) recently recorded “Solitary Feast,” an essay from her collection Enduring Love, at the Portland studio of Maine Public Broadcasting Network. This piece is to be aired on “Maine Things Considered” sometime this winter.

Judy Shearer (Spring 2006) has received a 2007 Al Smith Fellowship from the Kentucky Arts Council for $7,500 to complete her research for a book she began at Spalding about a Kentucky slave named Cassy. The Kentucky Foundation for Women has awarded her and Murray State University printmaking professor Nicole Hand a grant for their collaborative project, a hand-edition book.

Pamela Steele (Spring 2004) was one of the dueling judges for the Oregon State Poetry Association’s annual competition in October 2006 at their annual conference, as well as a featured reader at the Eastern Oregon Poet’s Gathering.

Amy Watkins’s (Spring 2006) poem “Photo of My Brother and Sister Sorting Apples” has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize by The Louisville Review. Another of her poems appears in the new issue of BloodLotus (www.bloodlotus.org). (top)

Julia Watts (Fall 2005) is to read from and sign copies of her new novel, Women’s Studies, at 4 p.m. Saturday, February 17, at Carmichael’s Bookstore in Louisville. She would love for any Spalding friends in the area to come by and say hello.

Vickie Weaver’s (Fall 2005) novel excerpt “Staining All the Way Down,” from her novel in progress Below the Heart, is included in the anthology Bleeding on the Page: Women Writing About Menstruation.

Jonathan Weinert (Fall 2005) has poems forthcoming in Green Mountains Review, Notre Dame Review, Redactions: Poetry and Poetics, Blood Lotus, Tuesday: An Art Project, and CrossConnect (http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/xconnect).

Aimee Zaring’s (Spring 2005) book review on Alice McDermott’s latest novel, After This, appeared in Louisville’s Courier-Journal on December 23. (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.