ALUMNI NEWS

Cal Armistead‘s (Fiction, W’07) debut young adult novel, Being Henry David, was released three weeks ahead of its March 1 release date by Albert Whitman Teen. It has received favorable reviews, including a starred review in Kirkus Reviews, and has already sold out is first printing! Luckily, a second printing is underway.

Kathy Briccetti (Creative Nonfiction, W’07) will be attending the Vermont College of Fine Arts Post-Graduate Writers’ Conference in Montpelier in August to work on her novel manuscript with Lee Martin.

Libby Cudmore (Popular Fiction, S’10) has begun her yearlong stunt memoir project, Geek Girl Goes Glam, testing and following vintage beauty, dating, career, and housekeeping tips and advice.

David Hewitt (Popular Fiction, S’09) will, as of Fall 2013, be taking up a permanent full-time post on the English faculty of the Community College of Baltimore County.

Zachary Jernigan‘s (Popular Fiction, S’11) debut fantasy novel, No Return, comes out from Night Shade Books in hardcover, ebook, and Audible audiobook on March 5th, 2013.

Lissa Kiernan‘s (Poetry, S’11) “The Art of Hurricanes” appears in Underwater New York, and two poems, “Whereas” and “Ecologue on Decommissioning,” are featured as finalists in Terrain.org’s third annual contest.

Mike Langworthy (Creative Nonfiction, W’11) has been hired as a consulting producer on Spun Out, a new situation comedy starring Dave Foley recently ordered for 13 episodes by Candian television network CTV, with production tentative scheduled to begin May 2013 for a summer launch. He continues in development on a syndicated children’s series, working title Rock Island, as co-creator and executive producer. The Star Angel, from Colonial Radio Theater, on which he worked as a consulting producer, has been nominated for an Audie Award as best audio drama. He is currently adapting the story as an animated feature. Also in development is a romantic comedy movie for television, working title Survey Monkey, with director Brian Roberts for MarVista Entertainment.

Will Ludwigsen‘s (Popular Fiction, W’11) collection In Search Of and Others releases today and has already received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews. He has also been interviewed by Adam Mills (Popular Fiction, W’12) for Weird Fiction Review and by Zachary Jernigan (Popular Fiction, S’11) at his blog.

Matthew Quinn Martin‘s (Popular Fiction, S’10) novel Nightlife (an earlier draft of which was his MFA thesis) has sold to Pocket Star (Simon & Schuster) as part of a two-book deal along with an, as yet, unwritten sequel.

Sandra McDonald‘s (Popular Fiction, W’05) latest GLBTQ novel for teen readers (under the pseudonym Sam Cameron) goes on sale this month. Kings of Ruin is about teens, aliens, rock ‘n’ roll, and secret government agencies.

The launch book in Laura Navarre‘s (Popular Fiction, W’11) Tudor paranormal romance trilogy for Harlequin/Carina, titled Magick by Moonrise, comes out in print and Audible formats on March 11. When Tudor England and the Faerie kingdom collide, the players risk all for power. But only love can save them. Magick by Moonrise won the Pacific Northwest Writers Association’s 2012 award for romance. Pick up your copy here.

Bruce Pratt‘s (Fiction, 04) poem “A distant ship tiding home,” awarded the 2007 Ellipsis poetry prize by James Galvin for Ellipsis: A Journal of Literature and Art, and included in his collection Boreal from Antrim House Books, also 2007, has been selected for inclusion in the non-fiction and poetry anthology The Heart of All That Is: Reflections on Home, from Holy Cow Press to be published in October 2013. His short play Memories of Paradise will be performed as part of the 2013 Maine Play Festival at the St. Lawrence Arts Center in Portland. The festival runs from April 25 through May 5. Information on the festival, which also includes work by Stonecoast faculty member Mike Kimball, is available here. The play will also be published in the forthcoming Spring issue of Aethlon: The Journal of Sport Literature and will be presented as a reading at the annual Sport Literature Association Conference in Monmouth, NJ, this June. obdriveway@aol.com

Michaela Roessner-Herman (Popular Fiction, S’08) is contributing essays on writing to the Western State Colorado University Fiction Concentration blog. To date, she’s posted articles on the author/reader contract, misdirection, and cueing/filtering.

Steve Rhodes (Poetry, W’11) reports that Still has just published his poem “Red-eyed Vireo,” which also was a finalist in that journal’s recent poetry contest. In addition, Christianity and Literature has accepted his poem “Into the Woods.”

Catherine Schmitt (Creative Nonfiction, W’12) is organizing a reading series by authors of recent Gulf of Maine-related books at the Maine Fishermen’s Forum March 1-2. More information can be found here. She also has a review of one of the books, Mortal Sea by Jeffrey Bolster, in the current issue of The Working Waterfront newspaper.

STUDENT NEWS

Sheila Boneham (Creative Nonfiction/Cross Genre) will be reading “Chasm Familiaris” at the bi-annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Literature & Environment in Lawrence, KS, in May. “Chasm” is excerpted from a long narrative nonfiction WIP that “blends elements of memoir, science, folklore, contemporary culture, and history…not to provide answers but to provoke thoughtful (re)considerations of our attitudes and actions as they may affect the future of Canis lupus familiaris, both the species and the warm muzzles in our hands.” Sheila’s reading will be part of a panel called “Connecting with Canines: A Creative Nonfiction Reading.” Also, Sheila spoke on plot character development in her mystery Drop Dead on Recall at Book ‘Em North Carolina Writers Conference and Book Fair on February 23. The Book ‘Em Foundation, a partnership between authors and law enforcement, holds events to raise public awareness of the correlation between high illiteracy rates and high crime rates. Sheila and other authors donated at least 40% of proceeds from the sales of their books to the community—in this case, Robesome County and Lumberton, NC—for the purpose of increasing literacy and reducing crime.

The Hermes & Hekate Road Show, a radio drama-style serial podcast that Genevieve Williams (Popular Fiction) has been working, on launches in March with a “season” of seven episodes; if it’s well received additional “seasons” will be written and produced. Interested listeners can find it here or check out the Facebook page.

FACULTY NEWS

Tony Barnstone‘s (Poetry, Translation) new book of poems, Buddha in Flames, has been accepted for publication in 2014 by Sheep Meadow Press. In addition, his CD of original music, Tokyo’s Burning: WWII Songs, is available for purchase at CD Baby, Amazon.com, iTunes, and Spotify. His selected poems Bestia en el Apartamento: Antología poética (1999-2012) will appear in a bilingual Spanish-English edition with Ediciones El Tucán de Virginia (Mexico City) in 2013, with translations by Mariano Zaro.

David Anthony Durham (Popular Fiction) has two new foreign language publications. The Sacred Band has just been released in France as L’alliance sacrée, and the first half of The Other Lands has been released in Portugal as Outras Terras (they’re publishing the trilogy as a six-book series).

Nancy Holder (Popular Fiction) will appear on three panels at the Tucson Festival of Books, the fourth largest book festival in the U.S.:

Romance: The Last Frontier in SciFi & Fantasy
Saturday, March 9th, 10:00-11:00 a.m.
Integrated Learning Center – Room 140

It’s Not all Demons, Death and Destruction
Saturday, March 9th, 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Koffler – Room 216

Writing Fantasy for a Young Adult Audience
Saturday, March 9th, 2:30-3:30 p.m.
Integrated Learning Center – Room 140

Nancy will also be a guest lecturer at Pepperdine University on March 27th, and she will be one of two Author Guests of Honor at the 2014 World Horror Convention in Portland, OR (the other is Jack Ketchum).

Two of Mike Kimball‘s (Popular Fiction, Scriptwriting) short plays, Henny and Hitler in Hell and Falling Falling: A Gothic Mystery, will be featured in a show called Evening Broadcasts III, which will be staged at The Players’ Ring in Portsmouth, NH, from March 8-24. For reservations and additional information, click here.