summer 2016 news
NEW WORK BY STUDENTS, ALUMNI & FACULTY ON THE SHELVES AND ONLINE: Read the essay “What to Do on a Day Like This” by Danielle Kelly (Fiction 2015) live in r.k.v.r.y quarterly. Order & devour the chapbook “Chance to Win” by Kevin Chesser (Poetry 2015)—a homemade zine-style book in the spirit of classic DIY/punk publications; to order, contact Kevin through Facebook or his website. Listen to and read “The Unimaginable,” a story by Chris Chapman (Fiction 2015) in Dime Show Review. Read three poems by poetry faculty Doug Van Gundy in Still, and five essays featured in “Essaying the Body Electric” at Welcome Table Press, launched by nonfiction faculty Kim Dana Kupperman. Read poems by Aaron Morris (Poetry 2018) in Unbroken (“The Hat Horizon”) and Jet Fuel Review (“Traumatized, Traumatizing”), and look for Aaron’s poem “Kanawha County, West Virginia, 2014” in Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel: Volume 19: Appalachia Under Thirty forthcoming in October. Read work by Larry Thacker (Poetry 2017) in Dime Show Review, HIV Here and Now Project, AvantAppal(achia), Fifty Word Stories, and Sick Lit Magazine. More poems from Larry forthcoming in Dauntless: A Devotional for Ares and Mars and Appalachian Nature Writing and Ecocriticism Anthology.
MORE FORTHCOMING WORK: Look for “Dead Flies,” an essay by Lara Lillibridge (Nonfiction 2016), in Luna Luna Magazine‘s forthcoming Mental Health/Disability/Chronic illness issue, Lara’s flash piece “Medium” in Pure Slush‘s print anthology, “Tall-ish: Pure Slush Vol. 11,” and Lara’s essay “The Right Tap” in the September 2016 edition of Hippocampus. A condensed version of Amanda Jo Runyon’s (Fiction 2017) Critical Essay “Robbing the Headlines: Repurposing True Events in Fiction” will appear in a forthcoming issue of Appalachian Heritage, and Chris Chapman’s story “Signs” will appear in Cactus + Elbow.
Two chapbooks by alums are set to be released this September: other milkweed diners, a second chapbook by Vince Trimboli (Poetry 2013) will be released with Ghost City Press, and Music & Blood, a collection of short fiction from Chris Chapman, will be the second chapbook release from Latham House Press, founded by MFA core faculty Dr. Eric Waggoner. See lathamhousepress.com, and follow Latham House Press on Facebook and Twitter, for pre-order announcements.
Eyes Glowing at the Edge of the Woods, an anthology of writing from West Virginia, co-edited by Laura Long and Doug Van Gundy, will be published by West Virginia University Press in February 2017 and will include WVWC MFA visiting writers and faculty including program founder Irene McKinney, visiting writers and faculty Jayne Anne Phillips, Maggie Anderson, Ann Pancake, Marc Harshman, Scott McClanahan, Mesha Maren, Gail Galloway Adams, Pinckney Benedict, Marie Manilla, Scott McClanahan, Mary Ann Samyn, Sara Pritchard, Aaron Smith, Erin Veith and co-editor Laura Long. Recent Wesleyan MFA graduates Vince Trimboli, Crystal Good (Poetry 2016), and Andi Fekete (Fiction 2014), and core faculty Mark DeFoe, Devon McNamara, Jessie van Eerden and Doug Van Gundy will also have work included. The book will debut at AWP 2017 in Washington, DC this February.
GIGS & ACCOLADES: Andi Fekete was selected as a fully funded 2016 Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation Creative Fellow for residency at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Kevin Chesser read poems with the Travelin’ Appalachians Revue at their stop in Thomas, WV in June; the Revue also published four of Kevin’s poems in the print companion to the 2016 tour, and a recording of the show was featured on the Dr. Doctor podcast. A proposal by Phill Provance (Poetry 2018), “Warring with Whitmania: Second Wave Neo-formalism as a Theoretically and Practically Coherent Curative to Free Verse Absolutism,” has been accepted for the “Celebrating the Poetic Legacy of Whitman, Williams, and Ginsberg” Conference to be held on June 3, 2017 at the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College in Paterson, New Jersey. “Parasite” by Amanda Jo Runyon was awarded the Gurney Norman Prose Prize from the Kudzu Literary Journal; the prize comes with a $100 honorarium. Sheryl Browne (Fiction 2015) won both first AND second place in Charleston, WV’s FestivALL playwriting contest, winning a one hundred and fifty dollar prize and having the plays produced—first place for “Justifiable Homicide” and second for “Doggone It.” Delaney McLemore (Nonfiction 2018) is serving as a counselor and workshop leader for Girls Rock! Rochester, a chapter of the Girls Rock! Camps that started in Portland, Oregon; Delaney is teaching a workshop to more than fifty girls and gender non-conforming people called “Rage in Writing.” Benjamin B. Bolger (Nonfiction 2016) has recently been appointed to the Board of Directors of Red Hen Press. Based in California, Red Hen Press is a nonprofit literary organization that aims to publish high quality literature that is impactful to society and its readers. Benjamin encourages students and other interested authors to consider Red Hen Press as a useful resource as their literary careers unfold. In April, Doug Van Gundy read in Frostburg, MD for the 4th annual Rock and Read fundraiser for the Frostburg State University Center for Literary Arts, along with Gerry LaFemina, Christina Stroud and four rock bands. In May, Joyce Allan (Fiction 2015) hosted the first annual Windy Ridge Writers’ Retreat, a celebration of children’s literature. And in June, Pathlight Magazine of the Pulmonary Hypertension Association, edited by Megan Mallory (Nonfiction 2017), received a Bronze EXCEL publication award. David Evans (Nonfiction 2018) recently taught a class on publishing for James Madison University’s Lifelong Learning Institute; the class was organized around Jane Friedman’s “Publishing 101.” Lara Lillibridge has been enlisted as a reader for Weirderary.com, which has also published Lara’s review of Lidia Yuknavitch’s The Chronology of Water.
Congratulations to all! You can keep up with regular MFA news blasts at: www.heartwoodlitmag.com/wcwvmfa/