Spring 2017 news
NEW WORK BY STUDENTS, ALUMNI & FACULTY ON THE SHELVES AND ONLINE: Congratulations to the HeartWood editors (program alums) for the launch of Issue 3, and to poetry faculty Diane Gilliam on Dreadful Wind & Rain, her verse narrative now available from Red Hen Press! Read work from Kevin Chesser (Poetry 2015) and Chris Chapman (Fiction 2015), along with fiction faculty Marie Manilla, in the live issue of Still: The Journal; two new poems by Vince Trimboli (Poetry 2015) in Entropy: “Misanthropia” and “In her eyes, were I a boat”; and “Memory Dissection: A Statue, My Father, and a Camera,” an essay by Lara Lillibridge (Nonfiction 2016) at Roar. Check out the first blog post by Jeff Webb (Fiction 2015) on Teaching Tolerance, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and an interview with Elizabeth Gaucher (Nonfiction 2015) by the Burlington Writers Workshop. WV Wesleyan’s own Vandalia is hot off the presses, featuring work by Shauna Jones (Nonfiction 2013), Megan Mallory Martin (Nonfiction 2017), Larry Thacker (Poetry 2018), and Scottie Westfall (Nonfiction 2019); and Poetry Journal in Print recently featured a poem by Phill Provance (Poetry 2018): “Too Funny,” translated into Vietnamese.
FORTHCOMING WORK: The summer edition of Still: The Journal will feature three poems by fiction faculty Laura Long, along with poems by Rachel Hicks (Poetry 2016); Rachel, along with Jeff Webb, will also have poems in the 2017 edition of The Pikeville Review, edited by Amanda Jo Runyon (Fiction 2017). You can look for poems forthcoming from Larry Thacker in The Lake (UK), Black Market Re-View (UK), The Ibis Head Review, The Quail Bell Magazine, The Wild Word, Space and Time Magazine, Ofi Press, Matador Review, Trailer Park Quarterly, and Spillway: A Poetry Magazine. And Lara Lillibridge’s memoir Girlish: Growing Up in a Lesbian Home, due out in November with Skyhorse, is now available for pre-order!
GIGS & ACCOLADES: Congrats to Delaney McLemore (Nonfiction 2018) now serving as freelance essayist for Gurl.com and podcast reviewer for entropymag.org. In February, Lisa Hayes Minney (Nonfiction 2017) started a writer’s group that meets on the first Thursday of every month at the Gilmer County Public Library, and Lisa has also completed 11.5 continuing-education training hours in library science—kudos! In early March Megan Mallory Martin spoke on a panel for Mercersburg Academy’s Writing Center Fellows (students who serve as mentors in the Writing Center) on “Writing in the Real World,” and Kevin Chesser read and gave a workshop at Lamplight Gallery in Thomas, WV. Kevin also read April 5 at the last reading of the season for Wordstock Wednesday—a monthly reading series curated by Jessica Spruill (Poetry 2015) at The Market Place in Philippi, WV. Several from the MFA community presented this year at the Appalachian Studies Association in Blacksburg (March 9-12): Ginny Rachel, Danielle Kelly, Rebecca Elswick, Amanda Jo Runyon, Jessie van Eerden, Dee Sydnor, Vince Trimboli, Phill Provance, and Laura Long. And nonfiction faculty Katie Fallon launched her new book in Blacksburg that weekend—Vulture: The Private Life of an Unloved Bird. On April 8, prose faculty Karen Salyer McElmurray gave a reading at Mercer University; and Eyes Glowing at the Edge of the Woods: Fiction and Poetry from West Virginia, the anthology co-edited by faculty Doug Van Gundy and Laura Long, launched in March/April with a reception at WVU and readings at Blackbear Club and WV Wesleyan.
UPCOMING EVENTS:
April 17 @ 7pm, Doug Van Gundy and program director Jessie van Eerden read at Empire Books, Huntington, WV.
April 22, 3-6 pm, Contributors to Eyes Glowing at the Edge of the Woods, including Andi Fekete (Fiction 2014), read at The Blennerhassett Hotel in Parkersburg, WV.
April 27, Joyce Allan (Fiction 2015) hosts the second annual Windy Ridge Writers Retreat for children’s and YA writers.
April 28 @ 10 am, Doug Van Gundy reads at the CityLit Festival in Baltimore, MD.
April 28 @ 7 pm, Doug Van Gundy and WV Poet Laureate Marc Harshman read together at the Randolph County Community Arts Center in Elkins, WV. They will also perform in England and Wales during the first week of June.
May 3 & 4, Doug Van Gundy reads at BridgeValley Community and Technical College.
May 12 @ 7 pm, Contributors to Eyes Glowing at the Edge of the Woods, including Doug Van Gundy, read at Taylor Books, Charleston, WV.
May 13 @ 7 pm, Contributors to Eyes Glowing at the Edge of the Woods, including Andi Fekete and Marie Manilla, read at Empire Books, Huntington, WV.
June: Kevin Chesser goes on tour with the Travelin’ Appalachians Revue, hitting about ten stops all around West Virginia (for info, go to travelinappalachiansrevue.org).
July 8-15, Karen Salyer McElmurray and fiction faculty Gail Galloway Adams teach at Wildacres Writers Workshop.
July 23, Chris Chapman represents the MFA program on a professional panel at the WV Writers Workshop in Morgantown, WV.
October 7 Lisa Hayes Minney hosts the annual Heritage Village Writer’s Workshop (registration now open).
You can keep up with regular MFA news blasts at: www.heartwoodlitmag.com/wvwcmfa/