FACULTY

The French translation of JJ Amaworo Wilson‘s (Fiction, Popular Fiction, Writing for Social Change) novel Damnificados, entitled Les Dévastés and translated by Camille Nivelle, has won the Prix Révélation de Traduction from Société des Gens de Lettres. The ceremony takes place in Paris on December 3rd, 2019.

Stonecoast faculty member Tobias S. Buckell (Popular Fiction) and co-author Paolo Bacigalupi won the World Fantasy Award for Best Collection with The Tangled Lands, a fantasy novel told in four novella-length parts about a land crippled by the use of magic. Buckell also sold new novel The Musketress to Audible Originals: in a far-future world where reading has been forbidden by mechanical archangels a general’s daughter and fugitive librarian search for world-changing secrets found in ancient, lost books.

Tom Coash‘s (Playwriting, Dramatic Arts) monologue, “Blind Dog,” was produced in New York City by The Playground Experiment as part of the Faces of America Monologue Festival in support of the ACLU. “Blind Dog” has also been published in the Faces of America Anthology.

The paperback edition of Susan Conley‘s (Fiction, Creative Nonfiction, Writing for Social Change) novel Elsey Come Home has been published by Vintage. Susan’s forthcoming novel Landslide will be published by Knopf in February of 2021.

Martín Espada (Poetry, Writing for Social Change) has edited and published a new anthology entitled What Saves Us: Poems of Empathy and Outrage in the Age of Trump from Northwestern University Press.

Aaron Hamburger (Fiction, Creative Nonfiction) received two special mentions, in both fiction and creative non-fiction, in the 2020 Pushcart Prizes: his short story “Refugees” (published in The Bennington Review) and his essay “Sweetness Mattered” (published in Tin House) were both honored.

Elizabeth Hand (Popular Fiction, Fiction) profiled Blondie frontwoman Debbie Harry for the pop culture site Please Kill Me. Her novel Curious Toys was named one of autumn’s best reads by Real Simple Magazine, as well as one of 2019’s best books by the Chicago Library, and was featured in Maine Women Magazine. Forthcoming reviews include Priya Sharma’s Ormeshadow, Tade Thompson’s The Survival of Molly Southborne, and Craig Laurance Gidney’s A Spectral Hue for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

Several chapters for Lauren Marie Schmidt‘s (Poetry, Writing for Social Justice) YA novel-in-progress, The Players, are forthcoming in the following journals: North American Review, Mobius: The Journal for Social Change, and The MacGuffin. Click here to learn more about the project and here to read samples.

Elizabeth Searle (Fiction, Playwriting, Popular Fiction, Scriptwriting) has a new short film, produced via LGBT Toronto Film Festival. The five-minute short, Sister Kin, is based on a studio recording of a single scene by Elizabeth. The ‘Screenplay Short’ film will screen at LGBT Toronto Film Festival in 2020. A longer short film, Four-Sided, also based on Elizabeth’s novel, has been an official selection at nine festivals so far this year and will screen next in Chicago. Elizabeth’s feature-film script has been recognized at 20 festivals or competitions. Elizabeth looks forward to leading Stonecoast’s first hands-on Screen Your Short seminar for students wanting to write and shoot a short film. For updates on Elizabeth’s film projects, see www.afoursidedbedfilm.com

 

ALUMS

Elisabeth Tova Bailey’s (Creative Nonfiction, S’15) film short adaptation of her memoir, The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, won the Best International Short Award at the Kerry International Film Festival in Kerry, Ireland.

Carina Bissett (Popular Fiction, S’18) placed her poem “Lepus antilocapra” in HWA Poetry Showcase Vol. VI, edited by Stephanie Wytovich. This piece found its final form under the guidance of Cate Marvin. In other news, her short story “Gaze with Undimmed Eyes and the World Drops Dead” is featured in the anthology Terror at 5280′. This piece originated from a ghost story prompt in workshop with Liz Hand.

KT Bryski (Popular Fiction, W’16) has a story in Lightspeed Magazine this month: “The Path of Pins, the Path of Needles” is available from December 5th. Her flash piece “By Jingly Bell, By Velvet Mouse” also came out from PodCastle recently.

Jessica de Koninck (Poetry, S’11) has a poem, “Good Humor”, in the most recent edition of Glassworks. Its online segment, “Looking Glass,” includes her reflections on the poem. Her poem “Crazy Eights” appears in the most recent edition of Presence. “Lullaby Ghazal” is in Southword (Munster Literary Center), and her poem “Revisiting the Psalms” is included in the anthology A Constellation of Kisses from Terrapin Books. Finally, her poem, “Pastoral”, was the daily poem on SWIMM on Friday, November 29, 2019.

Jess Flarity (Popular Fiction, S’18) was featured on the literary journal Barnstorm‘s website; you can read the tale of how he sold his first short story here.

Terri Glass’s (Poetry & Creative Nonfiction, S’13) poems “The Girl Who Became So Still” and “The God Hour” will be published in the New Rivers anthology Wild Gods: The Ecstatic in Contemporary Poetry and Prose.

Andrea Lani (Fiction, W’14) was honored to have her essay “Persistence Is the Thing with Fins” selected for inclusion in A Dangerous New World: Maine Voices on the Climate Crisis, which comes out this month from Littoral Books. A book launch party will be held on Sunday, December 8th, from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. at Space Gallery in Portland, Maine. Also, Andrea was also thrilled that her short story “The Quilt” was short-listed for the Peaceful Dumpling Environmental Writing Prize.

Ellen Meeropol (Fiction, W ‘06) has recent essays published in Ms Magazine—“No More Coat Hangers”—and Lilith Magazine—“When Life Imitates Your Own Art.”

John Christopher Nelson‘s (Fiction, S’15) short-fiction pieces “Avoidance,” “Meaning As Use,” and “Sola Fide” (the last of which was originally published in Able Muse, summer 2016) will be featured in Pleasure Boat Studio’s first biannual zine this December. Additionally, John will read “Sola Fide” at a Soul Food Coffee House event this December 19th.

Suri Parmar (Popular Fiction, W’17) is elated to announce that her live-action/animated film Rialia (2019) is an official selection at the National Screen Institute of Canada’s Online Short Film Festival and was their weekly featured film. Her short film The Bakebook (2017) will also be screening in Italy at the CineCiok Festival.

Dave Patterson (Fiction, W’13) had his novel, Soon the Light Will be Perfect, recently reviewed in The Portland Press Herald. The reviewer noted that the novel is “a beautiful exploration of what it means to come of age in difficult circumstances.”

Linda K. Sienkiewicz (Fiction, S’09) was selected to participate in the third annual Poets and Artists in Dialogue at The Grosse Pointe Congregational Church in Michigan. Two of Linda’s poems are published with accompanying art in the full-color book. The reading is January 9th, 2020.

Mary Katherine Spain (Fiction, S’16) has been awarded semi-finalist status in the Machigonne Fiction Contest sponsored by The New Guard Literary Review. Her short story “Collision” will be published in Volume IX of The New Guard Literary Review in 2020.

An anthology of poems and essays on the climate threat by Maine Writers, A Dangerous New World: Maine Voices on the Climate Crisis, edited by Kathleen Sullivan (Poetry, ’13) and Meghan Sterling, has been published by Littoral Books and can be purchased online here—or at the publication party at Space Gallery on December 8th in Portland. All Stonecoasters and their friends are invited! Also, The Portland Phoenix recently published an article about the anthology.

Morgan Talty‘s (Fiction, W’19) short story “Earth, Speak” will be published this December in Shenandoah‘s winter issue; the editors of Shenandoah have also nominated the story for a Pushcart.

Allister Timms (Popular Fiction, ‘13) has published his novel The Killing Moon with PS Publishing, the UK’s foremost specialist genre publisher of horror, sci-fi, and fantasy. The artwork for the novel is by Italian artist Daniele Serra, winner of the 2017 British Fantasy Award for Best Artist. The Washington Post has included The Killing Moon in its “Best Horror Fiction of the Year.” Allister Timms is from Wales and now lives in Belfast, Maine, and teaches Literature at Husson University in Bangor. Allister can be found at https://allistertimms16.wixsite.com/home