ALUMNI

Adam Kreutz Gallardo (Popular Fiction, S’12) is pleased to announce that he has signed a two-book deal with Kensignton Teen, a division of Kensington Publishing. His debut novel, Zomburbia, will be released in Spring 2014 and its sequel will be released the following year. The deal was facilitated by Ann Collette of the Rees Agency who has been a frequent guest of Stonecoast. Updates about progress on the books may be found on Adam’s Facebook page and on his website.

Melissa Heath (Creative Nonfiction, S’10) has been awarded a Calderwood Fellowship in Writing Instruction at hte Boston Athenaeum. The Calderwood Fellowship is a year-long fellowship offered in partnership with UMASS-Boston.

Tara Mantel‘s (Fiction, S’09) story collection, Elemental, is a Tartts First Fiction Award Winner. The collection will be published by Livingston Press in June 2014.

Sandra McDonald (Popular Fiction, W’05) is happy to announce the publication of her ninth book. City of Soldiers (written as Sam Burke), published by Dreamspinner Press, is a gay and asexual thriller about military veterans, a serial killer, and a supernatural secret buried under Philadelphia. She also sold the story “Story of Our Lives” to Asimov’s Science Fiction.

Julie Scharf (Creative Nonfiction, S’10) has recently published her short memoir piece titled “A Boy Named Bobby” in the summer 2013 edition of Mused: Bella Online Literary Review.

Catherine Schmitt‘s (Creative Nonfiction, W’12) article on The Champlain Society, a group of students who camped and practiced science on Mount Desert Island in the 1880s, was published online by the Maine Historical Society in partnership with the Northeast Harbor Library and Mount Desert Island Historical Society.

Joanne Turnbull (Fiction, W’11) is the winner of the Jewish Community Alliance’s 2013 Linda & Joel Abromson Award. She will use the award to conduct writing workshops with seniors, helping them to craft “legacy letters.”

Tamra Wilson (Fiction, S’11) will present “What Makes a Southern Story Southern” as part of the Lifelong Learning Program at Eastern Carolina University on August 24. Wilson, a Road Scholar with the NC Humanities Council, developed her illustrated talk from work for her graduating presentation at Stonecoast. See Tamra’s website for more information.

Erin Underwood (Popular Fiction, S’09) now blogs for Amazing Stories Magazine. She has a new interview published by Amazing Stories with actress Trenna Keating, who plays the ultra-cool alien Doc Yewll from the new Syfy television show Defiance. You can find the interview with Trenna here.

STUDENTS

Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam‘s (Popular Fiction) poem “The Ferryman” appears in the recent spring issue of Goblin Fruit. Read it here!

FACULTY

Nancy Holder (Popular Fiction) has a story in The Living Dead, published by Orbit in the UK. “Passion Play” is about the crucifixion of a zombie during the Oberammergau Passion Play.

Dolen Perkins-Valdez (Fiction) has signed a second book deal with HarperCollins for her new novel Balm, a Civil War-era story of families struggling to recover from the wounds of war.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

Via Alexandria Delcourt (Fiction): The Stonecoast Review is currently accepting submissions in Creative Nonfiction, Literary Fiction, Poetry, and Popular (genre) Fiction. If you have pieces to submit, we would love to read them. We are planning to put our first issue out in October, so please send us your best work! (We are especially in need of great CNF and PopFic.) You can find more information as well as our submission guidelines here.

CONFERENCES

Penny Guisinger (Creative Nonfiction, S’13) has launched an exciting new writers’ conference called Iota: The Conference of Short Prose. Featuring faculty members Sven Birkerts, Lewis Robinson, and Arielle Greenberg, Iota offers workshops in essay, short fiction, and poetry/hybrid forms. The conference will take place August 22-25, 2013, on beautiful Campobello Island, New Brunswick, which is just across the bridge from lovely Lubec, Maine. Participants will stay in the restored homes that make up the historic Roosevelt Campobello International Park, former home of Franklin D. and Eleanor Roosevelt. Iota was begun as Penny’s third-semester project, and she is eager to see it come to life! Registrations are due by July 22, and the conference costs between $375 and $650 (depending on lodging and meal needs). For more information, visit the conference website or call Penny at 207.733.2233.

KICKSTARTER

Naomi Farr (Creative Nonfiction, S’12): Love nature-inspired weddings? Sweet Violet Bride is a nature-inspired blog (founded by Naomi) and soon to be a print magazine. It is currently on Kickstarter and needs your support! It would mean the world if you’d spread the word simply by clicking the Facebook and Twitter sharing buttons below the video on the Kickstarter page. Just two clicks make a huge difference!