ANNOUNCEMENTS

ALUMS

Peter Adrian Behravesh (Popular Fiction, W’18) appeared on the August 28th episode of PodCastle as part of a full-cast narration for Ken Liu’s story “To the Moon.” He was also a program participant at Worldcon 76 in San Jose, where he presented his award-winning essay, “The Vault of Heaven: Science Fiction’s Perso-Arabic Origins,” and spoke on a panel about the different expectations when writing prose vs. writing comics.

Karen Bovenmyer (Popular Fiction, S’13) is thrilled to announce she’s the new Assistant Editor of the Pseudopod Podcast. She is also Western Technical College’s newest Adjunct Instructor in Viroqua, Wisconsin, where she will teach English Composition 1 on Fridays this fall.

Brenda Cooper‘s (Fiction, S’17) novel Reading the Wind was re-released in a new Author’s Preferred 10th anniversary edition by WordFire Press on August 30th, 2018.

Naomi Farr (Creative Nonfiction, W’12) launched a book subscription box in spring 2017. Unicorn Crate is a monthly subscription that contains a new hardcover release in YA Fantasy plus 5-6 bookish items relating to each month’s theme. You’ll always get at least one unicorn-inspired item too! Naomi carefully selects the books and themed items each month (such as bookish candles, bookmarks, prints, pins, totes, teas, accessories, etc.) and was recently interviewed on The Bookworm Files where she reveals what it’s really like to run a subscription box! Unicorn Crate has a thriving Instagram feed in the bookstagram community, which you can check out @unicorncrate.

Hank Garfield (Fiction, S’04) will spend the 2018-19 academic year at the American University in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria, teaching English composition. He will continue to write his blog, Slower Traffic: walking, bicycling, public transportation, and not owning a car, which can be found at slowertraffic.net and on the Slower Traffic Facebook page. He’d love to hear from any and all Stonecoasters during his months abroad. hankwgarfield@gmail.com

Josh Gauthier‘s (Popular Fiction, S’17) monologue “After the Questions” will be debuting as part of the King of Crows play festival at the St. Lawrence Arts Center in Portland, Maine. The festival opens on September 6th, and the final show is September 16th. For more information, see the Facebook event here.

Terri Glass’s (Poetry & Creative Nonfiction, S’13) poem “ The Bear that Reversed the Tale of Goldilocks” will be published in sPARKLE and bLINK 95 by Quiet Lightning and will part of their anthology reading in the redwoods of Samuel P. Taylor State Park in California on September 16th.

Cindy Williams Gutiérrez (Poetry, W’08) won the 2018 Editor’s Choice Poetry Prize from Willow Books/Aquarius Press. Her book Inlay with Nacre: The Names of Forgotten Women, which explores the global oppression of women, is forthcoming in March of 2019.

Cliff Johns‘ (Popular Fiction, W’18) personal essay about his grandfather, “Trunk Stories,” is the featured essay in bioStories.

Veda Boyd Jones (Fiction, S’17) has been accepted at The Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. During her residency, she’ll revise her Vietnam novel one more time. She also has articles in the 2019 Harris Farmer’s Almanac, currently on newsstands.

Paul Kirsch (Popular Fiction, W’11) has published three promotional short stories for Beast of Winter, the first DLC for Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire. Landlocked is the story of the kindly innkeeper Valbrendhür and what brought him to a frozen island to wait out the end of the world. Descent is the story of Ehrys, a religious fanatic who doesn’t feel quite at home among the rest of her fellow religious fanatics. Last but not least, Mouth of the Beast is a “choose your own adventure” story about Neriscyrlas, an indignant undead dragon. All of the stories are collected at https://eternity.obsidian.net/media.

Joe M. McDermott (Popular Fiction, W’11) has sold a short story, called “Finnegan, Why You Gotta Bring the Pain?” to Analog Magazine.

Sandra McDonald (Popular Fiction, W’05) recently sold three stories to Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine and Daily Science Fiction. Her transgender story “Sexy Robot Heroes” appears in the new Australian anthology Mother of Invention. Visit her at www.sandramcdonald.com.

Alison McMahan‘s (Popular Fiction, W’10) short story, “King Hanuman,” will be published in the the new Sisters in Crime/LA anthology Fatally Haunted (Down and Out Books, Spring 2019), edited by Rachel Howzell Hall, Sheila Lowe, and Laurie Stevens.

Ellen Meeropol’s (Fiction, W’06) essay was published in the August 26th Boston Globe Magazine’s Connections column. The online version is here.

Kelsey Olesen (Popular Fiction, W’17) presented a paper, “Women in a Magical History: Feminine Power in British Regency Fantasy Novels,” at Worldcon 76 in San Jose as part of its Academic Track. She was interviewed after her presentation by podcast Androids and Assets; her interview has since appeared in an episode that aired on August 31st. She presented a version of this same paper at the International Conference of the Fantastic in the Arts in March.

Shannon Ratliff‘s (Creative Nonfiction, S’16) chapbook, Arch, was released from dancing girl press and studio as part of its annual chapbook series, devoted to publishing innovative writing by women authors in unique handmade editions. This essay appeared in its entirety in her thesis. It’s available for purchase here.

Catherine Schmitt (Creative Nonfiction, W’12) has an essay about Native American shell middens in the 2018 Island Journal; an update on the Katahdin Woods & Waters National Monument in Down East magazine; and an article co-authored with Aliya Uteuova on the status of Maine’s blue mussel populations in Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors Magazine.

Jacob Strunk’s (Fiction, W ’07) short story “She Screams”—written many moons ago during his time at Stonecoast—appears in the anthology Vintage Love Stories, available now at Amazon and as an audiobook at Audible.

Nancy Swan (Fiction, W’12) is proud to be among the contributors to the anthology Idol Talk: Women Writers on the Teenage Infatuations that Changed Their Lives. Edited by Elizabeth Searle and Tamra Wilson (Fiction, S’11), Idol Talk was published in June 2018 by McFarland Publishing and is meeting with great success in the marketplace.

FACULTY

Tom Coash‘s (Playwriting, Dramatic Arts) short musical Stepping Into Fire, featuring a young tightrope walker dealing with a tragic accident on the wire, will be produced twice during September. South African star Kiruna-Lind Devar will be performing the play at the Pink Room in Johannesburg, South Africa, Sept. 28-30 as part of the RedFest, raising money for rural schools. New Jersey Repertory Theatre will produce the play as part of their “When the Circus Comes to Town Festival,” September 30, 2:00 p.m.

Susan Conley’s (Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, Writing for Social Change) new novel Elsey Come Home was a Library Journal Pre-Pub Pick for January 2019. The novel will be out with Knopf on January 15th, and the audiobook and Large Print format have recently been sold.

Aaron Hamburger (Fiction, Creative Nonfiction) has just sold his novel Nirvana is Here to Three Rooms Press, with a planned release in 2019. An interracial love story set to an early 90s grunge soundtrack, the book touches on issues of identity, race, the #metoo movement, and family with poignancy and humor, combining the sensuality and haunting nostalgia of Andre Aciman’s Call Me By Your Name with the edge of the songwriting of Kurt Cobain. Also, an interview with Aaron is up on the Debut Writer Blog.

On September 1^st in Austin, TX, Amanda Johnston (Poetry, Writing for Social Change) will feature at the Six Square Cultural Arts Fest. Six curated sites make up this festival that celebrates the rich African American history of east Austin. Enjoy poetry, music, food, and more. Tickets start at $15.

Jim Kelly’s (Popular Fiction) story “Yukui!” original to his new collection The Promise of Space from Prime Books, was reprinted much faster than he expected.  It appeared in the August issue of Clarkesworld, two weeks after he made the sale. His ten-minute play Panspermia was accepted for production at the fourth annual PARAGON Sci-Fi + Fantasy Play Festival to take place November 17 & 18, 2018, at the Otherworld Theater (3914 N Clark St, Chicago, IL).  This will be the third year in a row Jim’s work has been staged at PARAGON.

Elizabeth Searle’s (Fiction, Playwriting, Popular Fiction, Scriptwriting) one-act play Stolen Girl Song will be performed by Broadway actress Heidi Friese on September 7th as a reading at The Hobart Book Village Festival of Women Writers, co-founded by Breena Clarke, and running September 6-8th in Hobart Book Village, NY. Breena spotlighted Stolen Girl and Heidi on the Hobart blog. Heidi, who performed in Broadway’s Matilda and has played leads in Gypsy and more, also played ‘Oksana Baiul’ in the New York Musical Theater Festival production of Elizabeth’s rock opera. September readings in New England from Elizabeth’s and Tammy Wilson’s anthology Idol Talk will take place at Belmont Books on September 20th and at Broadside Books in Northampton (featuring Suzanne Strempek Shea and former SC faculty Lesléa Newman) on September 26th, both at 7:00 p.m. Updates: www.elizabethsearle.net