ANNOUNCEMENTS

Registration Open for September 11 Virtual Writers’ Conference of Northern Appalachia

Writers are invited to attend the 2021 Virtual Writers’ Conference of Northern Appalachia (WCoNA) on Saturday, September 11, founded by Stonecoast grad PJ Piccirillo (Fiction, S’04). Workshops and readings will run from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., with an evening session of attendees’ readings from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. The cost is $35 per person and attendees will be treated to an all-day conference of panel discussions, readings, Q & A, and teaching on the art and craft of writing about and for Northern Appalachia.

Workshops include topics such as writing for anthologies, how to use storytelling elements in fiction and memoir, writing conflict in story, the writing life, writing in community, and how poetry tools invigorate your prose. Readings will focus on Cherokee History and poems about central Pennsylvania. A lunch discussion will focus on how to define Northern Appalachia’s identity. You are welcome to read a short passage from your own work during the evening session.

WCoNA brings together writers and others interested in the region’s literature to honor our distinct body of work and to enhance the craft of our authors. WCoNA is a catalyst to inspire more novels, poetry, essays, history, memoir, drama, and other modes of literary writing that represent, in some way, northern Appalachia, and so create and promote a canon of writers and writing of northern Appalachia.

Learn more at www.wcona.com/sept-virtual-event, or register here.

ALUMS 

Carina Bissett (Popular Fiction, S’18) is excited to announce the Japanese translation of her story “An Embrace of Poisonous Intent.” This piece was originally published by Egaeus Press in Bitter Distillations: An Anthology of Poisonous Tales (2020). The theme of Night Land Quarterly vol. 25 is “Memento Mori.” This is Bissett’s second appearance in the magazine.

Beyond Queer Words profiled J Brooke (Poetry, S’19) as a contributor to their forthcoming anthology to be released in December.

KT Bryski (Popular Fiction, W’16) is pleased to announce that her story “The Bone-Stag Walks” is a finalist for the Eugie Foster Memorial Award. She will attend the Eugie Award Virtual Symposium at GA Tech on September 23. As well, she is pleased to announce that the ephemera reading series—the monthly speculative fiction reading series she co-chairs—has received another year’s funding from the Ontario Arts Council.

Anthony D’Aries‘s (Creative Nonfiction, W’09) piece “James Caan: A Guided Sleep Meditation” was recently published in McSweeney’s. Anthony also had two short stories accepted for publication: “No Hurries, No Worries” in Blue Earth Review and “Cross on the Highway” in Five South. 

Jess Flarity (Popular Fiction, S’18) will be chairing a panel on Joanna Russ and feminist science fiction at NeMLA, the Northeast Modern Language Association, this coming spring. Abstracts are due September 30th; current students and alumni are encouraged to submit a proposal before then.

Elizabeth Garber (Creative Nonfiction, W’10) had two essays included in Brevity Blog this summer: “My 92-Year-Old Mom Reads Proust and Other Instagram Flash Stories” in August and “Falling in Love with Books” in June.

Gail Hovey (Creative Nonfiction, S’11) is pleased to report that her memoir, She Said God Blessed Us, has been added to the NSVRC Library (view the catalog entry here) and reviewed by Dr. Shelley Armitage, Roderick Professor Emerita, University of Texas at El Paso, American Studies. Dr. Armitage provides a full review of She Said God Blessed Us. She also places Hovey’s work within a larger discussion of memoir as a genre, pointing out the particular strengths of this example. View the review here.

Alan King‘s (Poetry, W’13) new chapbook, Crooked Smiling Light, is now out from Plan B Press. The collection received praise from Maryland Poet Laureate Grace Cavalieri and John Murillo, author of Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry (winner of the 2021 Kingsley Tuft Poetry Award). Murillow writes: “In this latest collection, King riffs on such varied themes as fatherhood and family, poetry and ambition, sex and sacrifice, with the same insight and style, the same blue candor, longtime readers have come to expect.” Order your copy from Plan B Press. Watch the book trailer, inspired by his poem “The Island of Smiles.” 

Under the name S.M. Mack, Sarah Mack‘s (Popular Fiction, S’19) third semester Stonecoast paper, “Wolves and Werewolves: How Our Beliefs About One Influence the Other,” was published in the SFRA Review, volume 51, issue 3, as part of a selection of papers presented at the 2021 International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts (ICFA). It is available to be read here. 

Nadja Maril’s (Fiction, W’20) creative-nonfiction essay “Bareback Rider” was published in the June issue of Thin Air and “The Land Holds My Memory” will be published in the fall issue of Invisible City Literary Journal. (This essay was inspired by the online workshop “Where Social and Environmental Justice Meet” 9/20/20 led by Debra Marquart.) “The Nature of Basil,” creative-nonfiction flash, appeared in the August issue 05 of Miniskirt Magazine and another piece of creative-nonfiction flash, “Tomato Harvest Management,” will be published in the September 30th issue of The Birdseed. In literary fiction, Nadja’s short story “The Perfect Picture” appeared in the August 17th issue of Potato Soup Journal and “Red Roses” (a hybrid short story prose poem) has been accepted for publication in the winter issue of Thimble Literary Magazine.

Roxanne Ocasio’s (Popular Fiction, W’15) short story “The Chupacabra Next Door” appears in Speculative Fiction for Dreamers: A Latinx Anthology, which will be available for sale on September 8th, 2021, from Ohio State University Press. The story will be reprinted in Dark Cheer: Cryptids Emerging sometime in 2022 under her married name, Roxanne Ocasio-Levine.

Ellie O’Leary (Poetry, W’17) has recently had three poems accepted for publication. “Bumps in the Road” and “At Least” will appear in the next issue of Muddy River Poetry Review and “Never, Often” will be in the next issue of Molecule. 

Cristina Perachio‘s (Fiction, S’14) short story “How To Be a Nanny” will appear in the Fall issue of ZYZZYVA which publishes this August. ZYZZYVA is available in most bookstores and for purchase on their website. 

Bruce Pratt‘s (Fiction, S’04) short story “Breaking and Entering” appears in the new anthology between the covers: an adult romance anthology from Red Penguin Books.

Shannon Ratliff‘s (Creative Nonfiction, S’16) essay “The Vigil” appears in the Summer ’21 issue of Seneca Review, currently available here.

Kevin St. Jarre (Popular Fiction, S’10) spent a week writing at the Hewnoaks Artist Colony in Lowell, ME, completing the first draft of his new novel “The Book of Emmaus.” For more information on Hewnoaks, go to http://hewnoaks.org 

The poem “Oceana,” by Olive L. Sullivan (Fiction/Poetry, S’15), has been included as part of a project called Spoken Sonatas, a collaboration between the music faculty at Emporia State University (Kansas) and several Kansas poets. The completed album is available here. The website includes notes on all the contributors and information about the project itself. Olive’s essay “Souvenirs for my Father,” about her father’s struggle with Alzheimer’s Disease and her own reaction to this ongoing grief, will appear in an anthology, 105: Meadowlark Reader, to be published by Meadowlark Books. Since she originally wrote the essay, which features a road trip with her husband, Steve Harmon, both Steve and her father, Victor Sullivan, have died, Steve of Covid in December of 2020 and her father on August 1 of this year.

Melanie Viets (Creative Nonfiction, Winter 17) wrote “Headwaters: A Writing Workshop with Rick Bass” for Big Sky Journal’s current Arts issue. Melanie also continues to serve as an editor at The Learned Pig, an online environmental arts magazine based in Edinburgh. Her Root Mapping section has reopened for submissions.

Adrienne S. Wallner (Poetry, W’09), Gina Troisi (Creative Nonfiction, W’09), and Christine Tierney (Poetry, W’09) will present “Poetry and Prose – A Reading and Conversation” hosted by A Novel Idea on Passynuk on Thursday, September 9, 2021 at 7:00 p.m. EST. Online registration is required for this virtual event; to register, visit https://anovelideaphilly.com/events/. Adrienne will also give the following readings during September featuring her book To the 4 a.m. Light:  

• Saturday, September 11, 11:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m. CST – Mind Chimes Bookshop, Three Lakes, WI.
• Tuesday, September 14, 6:00-7:00 p.m. EST – The Well Read Raccoon Books and Curiosities, Houghton, MI. 
• Thursday, September 16, 6:30-8:00 p.m. CST – La De Da Books & Beans, Manitowoc, WI.
• Saturday, September 18, 11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. CST – Poetry Trio Reading with Marlene Broemer and J.K. Roche at the LOLA Art Harvest, Land O Lakes, WI
• Saturday, September 25, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m.  CST – Central Wisconsin Book Festival Wisconsin Authors Book Fair, Whitewater Music Hall, Wausau, WI.
• Saturday, September 25, 2:00-3:30 p.m. CST – Typewriter Tarot Book Coven: Poetry Fed by Nature & Spirit with poet Tamiko Beyer. Online registration is required for this virtual event.
• Sunday, September 26, 7:00-8:00 p.m.  CST – Stonehouse Readers’ Series with authors Gina Troisi and Anthony D’Aries. 

FACULTY  

Faith Adiele’s (Creative Nonfiction) review of Kenyan artist Wangechi Mutu’s new installation at the San Francisco Legion of Honor, I Am Speaking, Are You Listening?, appeared in Hyperallergic. She was also interviewed about pandemic travel in the Toronto Star and appeared as the inaugural guest on the podcast series, Black Girl Back Talk™: Stories of Racial Bias from Girlhood to Womanhood, hosted by LaVerne Baker Hotep.

JJ Amaworo Wilson‘s (Fiction, Popular Fiction) new novel Nazaré is out. This work of magical realism is described by the Poet Laureate Emeritus of the United States, Juan Felipe Herrera, as “a rare, ground-shaking novel.” It tells the tale of a peasants’ revolt against a dictator, and was inspired by the Arab Spring and other struggles against tyranny.

Tom Coash‘s (Scriptwriting) short musical Stepping Into Fire will be featured on the Latest Draft Podcast. Free! Goes live Friday, September 24th. Book by Tom Coash, Music and Lyrics by Jonathan Brielle, starring Jane Bruce. A tightrope walker faces her moment of truth as she tries to regain her balance on the wire after a tragic accident.

Aaron Hamburger‘s (Fiction, Creative Nonfiction) short story “Simple Past Present Perfect” has been accepted by the Massachusetts Review (and a highly enlightened fiction editor there by the name of Morgan Talty!). Aaron will be teaching a special class on Philip Roth: The Complicated Legacy of an American Master, via Politics & Prose Bookstore online, so you can Zoom in from anywhere! 

Elizabeth Hand (Popular Fiction, Fiction) was an artist-in-residence at the Eastern Frontier Foundation this past July. In June, she was part of the virtual Shirley Jackson Day celebrations in Bennington, Vermont. Recent book reviews include Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Velvet was the Night for The Washington Post.

I’ll Show You Mine—the feature film that Elizabeth Searle (Fiction, Popular Fiction, Scriptwriting) co-wrote, which is forthcoming from Duplass Brothers Productions—has been drawing widespread media coverage, including articles in CinemaExpress, Variety, Women and Hollywood, Insider Voice, CelebReelz, First Post, Olli Mag and overseas in India Times, Daily Excelsior, The Hindu, Shenematic, Knowledia, and Diario De Latinos. The film is currently in post-production. Watch Elizabeth’s website for updates: www.elizabethsearle.net