ALUMS

Karen Bovenmyer (Popular Fiction, S’13) has 7 pieces of exciting news this month.

1. Her new short story “Snow as White as Skin as White as Snow” has been accepted into fellow alumni Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam’s Art & Words Show—Karen is so very excited to participate in the show again!!!!
2. Also, Karen’s haunted house flash “So Normal and Unwritten” (reprint) is forthcoming in Iron Soap’s 200 CCs on October 7, 2016.
3. The sad puppies kerfuffle poem Karen mentioned last month, “Keep Hugo Stormed,” is now available for reading (scroll all the way to the bottom) at Eye to the Telescope Magazine. She is still nervous about potential reactions to the poem but as yet has received only positive feedback.
4. Her epic science fiction novella “Failsafe” (18k word salute to Aliens) will be reprinted in a forthcoming science fiction anthology put out by Onyx Neon Shorts.
5. A 1250-word “Like a Soul” flash, originally published in The Stonecoast Review, will be reprinted in Centum Press’s first anthology, One Hundred Voices.
6. She’s going to be an author guest (with Stonecoaster Mur Lafferty) at the GenCon Writer’s Symposium this August, moderating/speaking on seven panels and one critique workshop.
7. The DSP Publications editing team working on her 27,000-word pirate adventure novella “Swift for the Sun” (coming 1st quarter 2017) have crafted this very cool blurb:

Benjamin Swift imagines himself a smuggler, a gun runner, and an all-around scoundrel. A preacher’s son turned hard-bitten criminal. Sinner extraordinaire. But first and foremost, a survivor.

He’s never considered himself noble.

When Benjamin is shipwrecked on a tropical island, fortune sends an unlikely savior: a blond savage who is everything Benjamin didn’t know he needed. Falling in love with Sun is easy, but pirates have come looking for the remains of Benjamin’s cargo. They find their former slave, Sun, instead.

Held captive by the pirates, Benjamin learns the depths of Sun’s past and the horrors he has been exposed to and forced to perpetrate. Together, they must not only escape, but prevent a shipment of weapons from making its way to rebellious colonists. Benjamin is determined to save the man he loves and ensure their peaceful future together is never threatened again. To succeed might require the unthinkable—an altruistic sacrifice.

Amy Burroughs (Creative Nonfiction, W’16) will have an essay appear in the fall issue of Jabberwock Review. Thanks to the mentors and members of Suzanne Strempek Shea‘s workshop who helped her work on this piece. This is Amy’s first published essay.

Paula Treick DeBoard’s (Fiction, S’10) third novel, The Drowning Girls, was published on April 26 by Mira. It was chosen by Target as an Emerging Authors pick and has received early critical acclaim, including a starred review in Library Journal. She was a recent guest on Capital Public Radio’s Insight with Beth Ruyak to discuss writing the book. Her first novel, The Mourning Hours (workshopped at Stonecoast and mentored by Suzanne Strempek Shea and Boman Desai), is being rereleased this summer in a mass market format. Paula is a lecturer in writing at the University of California, Merced, and will serve this summer as permanent faculty at Go Deep, a writing and yoga retreat in the Sierra Nevadas.  More information can be found on her website www.paulatreickdeboard.com

In April, Mike Langworthy (Creative Nonfiction, W’11) was hired by Sony Television International as a consultant in Moscow on Russian adaptations of American television comedies. After a month on The Voronins, the Russian version of Everybody Loves Raymond, he has been assigned to run the writers’ room on Lucky Us, the Russian version of Roseanne. Mike will oversee the writing staff as it prepares outlines and scripts for episodes of the series.

Joe M. McDermott (Popular Fiction, S’11) sold a new science fiction novel called The Fortress at the End of Time to Tor.com.

Laura Navarre‘s (Popular Fiction, W’11) award-winning Tudor fallen angel romance Magick By Moonrise was picked up by Harlequin’s worldwide paranormal romance program as a direct-to-consumer release for August 2016, thereby proving again the wisdom of the writer’s adage: “Don’t follow the trends. Write what you love.” Laura’s amazed that it worked. 🙂

John Christopher Nelson‘s (Fiction, S’15) short story, “Sola Fide,” will be featured in the summer issue of Able Muse Review.

Historic Acadia National Park: The Stories Behind One of America’s Great Treasures by Catherine Schmitt (Creative Nonfiction, W’12) has just been published by Lyons Press, part of a series of books in observance of the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service in 2016. Schmitt will host a launch party at the Northeast Harbor Library on May 18.

Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam‘s (Popular Fiction, S’13) short story “The Split,” a fantastical fictionalization of her move to Eugene, OR, in 2010, appeared in The Master’s Review. She has also announced the participants in the 2016 Art & Words Collaborative Show she curates annually, which started out as her Stonecoast Third Semester Project, and she was thrilled to see a plethora of Stonecoast alumni in her submissions queue. This year the show will feature alum Shawna Borman and Karen Bovenmyer. For a complete list of participants, click here.

From Joanne Turnbull (Fiction, S’11):

Thanks to the contributions of Stonecoast leaders and alumni, Artists Wielding Words and Images was a huge success. Robin Talbot‘s unassuming grace made it possible for 85 artists, students, and community members to gather and explore the power of art (broadly defined to include written word and visual image) to effect social change. Justin Tussing moderated a panel of writers and photographers who shared challenges of creating work that reflects social issues. Novelist Ellen Meeropol (Fiction, ‘06) discussed the personal journey that led to two novels with themes addressing the emotional impact of political activism. Alumna Helen Peppe (Creative Nonfiction, ‘11) and student Jenny O’Connell (‘17) helped to create breakout sessions in which participants experienced ways in which their own creativity might influence social change. Adult artists and the King Fellows (high school students whose creative writing focuses on racism and social justice) facilitated the breakouts. Artists Wielding Words and Images will be the blueprint for ongoing community conversations about art as an agent of social change.

Jennifer Wade (Creative Nonfiction, W’13) is a reader for Creative Nonfiction magazine and its new enterprise, True Story magazine, which will debut this fall, featuring one long form CNF piece each issue.

Ashley Warren (Fiction, S’12) has four poems—“Modern Witchcraft: A Business Meeting,” “Ode to Procrastination,” “Spreadsheet,” and “Symptoms of a Brain Injury”—in an April 2016 issue of Easy Street.

STUDENTS

Carina Bissett‘s (Popular Fiction) poem “Swimming with the Shark Boys” is featured online in the May selections of Mythic Delirium (Issue 2.4).

Ellie O’Leary’s (Poetry) poem “The Ghosts Rondeau in the Granite” will appear in issue 36 of The Northern New England Review. Her poem “The Woods Are Open to Me Now” (a rimas dissolutas) will be in the book The Crafty Poet II: A Portable Workshop by Diane Lockward.

FACULTY

David Anthony Durham‘s (Fiction, Popular Fiction) novel, The Risen, about the Spartacus rebellion against ancient Rome will be published on May 3rd, both as a hardback and as an audiobook.

Aaron Hamburger (Creative Nonfiction, Fiction, Popular Fiction) will be teaching at the Peripatetic Writing Workshop this summer, in Woodstock, NY. It’s both a workshop and a writing retreat with lots of opportunities to get extensive feedback, especially for those working on longer projects. Check out their website for more info: http://www.peripateticwritingandart.org/home

Elizabeth Hand‘s (Fiction, Popular Fiction) novel Hard Light has received rave reviews from Maureen Corrigan at The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and the Associated Press, among others. She was featured as part of the Rubin Museum’s Brainwaves Festival in NYC, where she appeared with neuroscientist Dr. Carl Bazil in a conversation about parasomnia, spoke with the A.V. Club’s Jason Heller about her five favorite books on music, and did a reading at the Mysterious Bookshop in NYC. Just announced: she’s co-editing the upcoming issue of the literary magazine Conjunctions with Bradford Morrow. Her essay on Hillary Chute’s Disaster Drawn: Visual Witness, Comics, and Documentary Form appeared in The Boston Review. Recent reviews include Lavie Tidhar’s A Man Lies Dreaming for The Washington Post.

Nancy Holder (Popular Fiction) will participate in StokerCon™, the annual horror conference presented by the Horror Writers Association, at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas from May 12-15. She will be riding the HWA Los Angles StokerBus, leaving the Iliad Bookstore in North Hollywood on Thursday around 10 AM. There are still seats available! Cost is currently $176 but will decrease with every new rider. Contact Nancy if you are interested. At StokerCon, she will participate in signings, readings, panel discussions, and teaching “How to Write Scary” at Horror University. Her panels include “Screenplay Writing for Authors” with Jack Ketchum and “The Romance of Horror” with Heather Graham. She will co-present the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel with Goosebumps author R.L. Stine. Also, Fire at Sea, Nancy’s third Beauty and the Beast novel, set in the universe of the CW TV show, will go on sale on May 31.

This month Mike Kimball (Popular Fiction, Scriptwriting) will make his acting debut as comedian Henny Youngman in his short play Henny and Hitler in Hell. The play is part of a collection of seven short plays in a show called Group Synergy. The Actors Studio of Newburyport. The Tannery, Mill #1, Suite 5, Newburyport, MA 01950.