ALUMS 

Sarah Baldwin (Creative Nonfiction, S’15) now has a website, where she can park all of her work. She hopes to beef up the Personal Writing page in 2024 by channeling Stonecoast!

Peter Adrian Behravesh (Popular Fiction, W’18) narrated Dana Vickerson’s story “The Best Way to Procure Breakfast” for the March 2 Patreon-exclusive episode of CatsCast. You can listen to a preview (and patrons can listen to the whole thing) here.

Carina Bissett (Popular Fiction, S’18) is thrilled to announce the publication of her debut short story collection Dead Girl, Driving and Other Devastations (Trepidatio Publishing, March 2024).  

• In this powerful debut, Carina Bissett explores the liminal spaces between the magical and the mundane, horror and humor, fairy tales and fabulism. A young woman discovers apotheosis at the intersection of her cross-cultural heritage. A simulacrum rebels against her coding to create a new universe of her own making. A poison assassin tears the world apart in the relentless pursuit of her true love—the one person alive who can destroy her. Dead Girl, Driving and Other Devastations erases expectations, forging new trails on the map of contemporary fiction. Includes an introduction by Julie C. Day, author of Uncommon Miracles and The Rampant.
• “Carina Bissett’s collection is a thing of wonder and beauty. It is a true representation of Carina herself: whimsical, visceral, lovely, and fierce. You can hear women’s voices screaming while roses fall from their lips. Dead Girl, Driving and Other Devastations is a triumph.” ~Mercedes M. Yardley, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Little Dead Red

Dead Girl, Driving and Other Devastations is available for purchase at Trepidatio Publishing and at Amazon.

Kendall Giles (Popular Fiction, W’13) is playing a bit of catch-up in terms of letting us know what he has been up to. Here are a number of Kendall’s publications you might find of interest. His commissioned book review “Giles on Solar, ‘Cybersecurity Governance in Latin America: States, Threats, and Alliances'” was published on H-Sci-Med-Tech (Humanities and Social Sciences Online Network on Science, Medicine and Technology). His collaborative book review with Leo Campos and Tiffany Smith, “Tributaries on a Heraclitian River: A Collaborative Review of Joseph Pitt’s Heraclitus Redux,” was published in Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, 10 (5): 6-13. Kendall’s book review “Reflections on Academic Agonies and How to Avoid Them by Joseph Agassi” was published in Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective, 9 (12): 37-39. Finally, his article “Expand Your Writing Potential with a Smart Notebook and Pen” was a ProfHacker Column Guest Post on The Chronicle of Higher Education. Other bits and bytes can be found on https://kendallgiles.com.

Cindy Williams Gutiérrez’s (Poetry/Drama, W’08) choreopoem In the Name of Forgotten Women will be screened on Wednesday, April 17th, at 7:00 p.m. at the Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington, New York (423 Park Avenue), and on Monday, April 22nd, at 6:00 p.m. at the Savoy Theatre in Montpelier, Vermont (26 Main St.). Proceeds benefit What BETTER Looks Like and Mosaic Vermont, respectively.

Nina B. Lichtenstein (Creative Nonfiction, S’20) is honored to host four Stonecoast alumni who will read from and talk about the fresh off the press charity anthology Maine Character Energy at Maine Writers Studio’s Literary Salon & Open Mic, April 17th, in Brunswick, ME. Find out more information here. Hope you can join us if you are local! Nina is also thrilled to be invited (back) to the Stonecoast 2024 summer residency to present on “Writing From the Body,” a session filled with fresh ideas, writing prompts, and literary examples about how to mine the treasure chest that is the body for stories.

Nadja Maril (Fiction, W’20) is pleased to share that two of her poems, “Red Tomato Harvest” and “Recipe for Fried Tofu,” will appear this month in the online magazine The Inquisitive Eater. Both poems are scheduled for inclusion in her forthcoming chapbook, Recipes from My Garden: Herbs and Memoir, Short Prose and Poetry, to be published this fall. You can read or listen to Nadja’s poem “Instant” in the spring issue of Instant Noodles Literary Magazine.

“The News this Week,” by Julia McKenzie Munemo (Creative Nonfiction, S’16), was published in Electric Literature in March. It’s part of her second book, Dreaming in Whitopia: Essays on Race, Mental Health, and Motherhood from a White American Town, publication of which she hopes to announce very soon. 

Catharine H. Murray (Creative Nonfiction, S’17) is heading to Vashon Island Artists’ Residency for the month of April to work on the manuscript for her next memoir. On April 5th Catharine’s genre-bending short-form poetry and prose class resumes. Sparking fun and originality through the application of constraints takes the writing to new levels of excellence. Finding opportunities in each piece for more depth and exploration is the aim of the weekly workshops. The small-group class will meet Fridays from 1:00- 3:00 p.m. EST on Zoom for five weeks. For more information, contact Catharine at this link.  

Jenny O’Connell (Creative Nonfiction, S’17) is teaching an advanced nonfiction character intensive with Hugo House that starts this month! It’s a fast-paced, generative writing class (only $386 for 6 sessions) in which Jenny will share the hard-won craft tools she’s gathered over the last decade of writing about the enigmatic legendary woman that inspired her adventure memoir, Finding Petronella. Writers will learn how to map desire, craft character around contextual details, supercharge dialogue, and create intimacy with the reader. Featuring mentor texts from the Stonecoast community, this is a great class for anyone looking for fresh and creative ways to bring their nonfiction characters to life. Jenny is also teaching a personal essay class with Maine Media Workshops this spring—her favorite short form, and a medium in which she’s won awards and published widely in magazines across the country. In this course, writers will turn personal stories into artful essays, and will leave with a polished piece of writing and actionable steps for getting it published. Jenny is offering a free 30-minute creative writing consultation for interested students who sign up for either class between now and April 10th. More information is available on her website.

Marisca Pichette (Popular Fiction, S’21) had a great time at the  45th International Conference of the Fantastic in the Arts! In addition to reading from her collection and moderating a panel on horror, she connected with fellow Stonecoast alumnae Erin Roberts (Popular Fiction, W’18) and Julie C Day (Popular Fiction, S’12). At the end of March, she read poetry as part of the virtual launch for Door Is a Jar‘s spring 2024 issue.

Three stories by Jacob Strunk (Fiction, W’07) were loosed into the wild in March. His toothy little tale of men and monsters in post-War Berlin, “Under the Wall,” appeared in the latest Well Read Magazine. “The Night Belongs to Ghosts” is the featured story in this spring’s edition of The Lab. And “Charlotte, Damned by Waters” appears in the newest Writing Disorder.

Annie Wenstrup (Poetry, S’22) is pleased to share that she is the recipient of the New England Review’s tenth annual Award for Emerging Writers and will receive a full scholarship to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in August 2024 as the Stephen Donadio Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference Scholar. Annie’s poems “Ghost Pixels,” and “Exhibit D: Unsent Memo” appeared in the print version of NER 44.4 and are available to view online through Project Muse. Earlier this year, Annie discussed her poems and writing process with NER Reader Nico Amador and you can read the full interview at the NER Blog. 

FACULTY  

David Anthony Durham will be at the 2024 LA Times Festival of Books on the USC campus on April 20th/21st. He’ll be discussing The Longest Night in Egypt on the panel “Ordinary Kids, Extraordinary Adventures in Middle Grade Fiction,” Saturday the 20th from 12:40 p.m.-1:40 p.m.

John Florio (Popular Fiction, Fiction, Creative Nonfiction Faculty | Fiction/Popular Fiction, S’07) and Ouisie Shapiro’s YA nonfic book MARKED MAN: Frank Serpico’s Inside Battle Against Police Corruption was released in March. The Junior Library Guild named it a Gold Standard Selection; Publishers Weekly calls it an “edge-of-the-seat read” and “riveting.” Their previous YA book, DOOMED: Sacco, Vanzetti, and the End of the American Dream was named one of the Best Books of 2023 by School Library Journal, selected for the Notable Social Studies Books list by the Children’s Book Council, and is a nominee for the Garden State Teen Book Award sponsored by the New Jersey Library Association. John is also working on a novel as part of his doctoral studies with the University of Glasgow.

This April, Aaron Hamburger is bringing Hotel Cuba to Florida! East Coast Events, Miami Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton, and more:

• April 8 at 7:00 p.m.
• April 9 at 11:00 a.m.
• April 9 at 2:00 p.m.
• April 10 at 12:30 p.m.
• April 11 at 10:30 a.m.
• April 11 at 2:00 p.m.

West Coast Events, Boca Grande:

• April 18 at 4:00 p.m.
• April 19, special class 10:00 a.m.-noon

Elizabeth Searle (Fiction, Popular Fiction, Scriptwriting) will be appearing at the New Bedford Film Festival where the short film FourSided, based on Elizabeth’s feature script, will screen live on April 19th at the Whaling Museum in New Bedford, MA. This is the 20th festival to screen the 11-minute short film. Elizabeth will also be offering a class at the New Bedford Festival (details TBD). Elizabeth’s feature film script Lock Her Up won Best Thriller Script at the New York International Film Awards (March 2024).