ANNOUNCEMENTS

From faculty member Rick Bass:
Dear Stonecoasters,
Exciting updates from the efforts to designate the ancient inland rainforest in the Black Ram region of Montana’s Yaak Valley as the nation’s first Climate Refuge, dedicated to maximizing the amount of carbon that can be stored in long-term safekeeping of old and mature forests. Representative Chellie Pingree of Portland—long a climate champion—has helped us successfully defend this forest from proposed clearcuts and deserves a big thank you. Here’s her address—please let her know! In this era of renewed hope, it’s so important to let our elected officials know what we like, not just what we don’t like.
Some of y’all are heading out to Montana in late September for the second annual Climate Aid featuring the debut of Jeff Bridges’s and Breedlove Guitars’ newest Black Ram Guitar. Let us know if we can help arrange anything for you out this way, should you be able to make it. Tom Coash is making the journey, as well as Eben Thomas. We’d love to see any if you who might be in the area!

CURRENT STUDENTS

Second-semester student Mary Sawyer (Poetry) will be reading at her first poetry feature for Tesoro “Woman Heart” Open Mic September 26th at 8:00 p.m. Standard Time. 

ALUMS 

Peter Adrian Behravesh (Popular Fiction, W’18) is thrilled to announce that his interactive novel from Choice of Games has a publication date! Heavens’ Revolution: A Lion Among the Cypress will be released on October 10, 2024. You can wish list it now on Steam. In addition, Peter’s poem “Brave,” about grappling with mixed identity and assimilation, was published in Volume 4, Issue 1 of Nowruz Journal. You can read it here. Finally, Iran + 100, an anthology of short stories from Iranian writers that imagines what Iran will be like in the year 2053 (which Peter is co-editing), has been awarded a PEN Translates grant. Iran + 100 will be published by Comma Press in Spring 2025.

Anthony D’Aries (Creative Nonfiction, W’09) was awarded a full year sabbatical from Western Connecticut State University (WCSU) to complete his novel and short-story collection. Anthony has directed WCSU’s low-residency MFA in Creative and Professional Writing since 2017. This year, the program is celebrating its 20th anniversary, with events planned at the Oscar Wilde House in Dublin, the Highlights Foundation Retreat Center in the Pocono Mountains, on the WCSU campus in Danbury, Connecticut, as well as virtual readings. Follow us and stay tuned! 

Terri Glass (Poetry/Creative Nonfiction, S’13) was selected to read for Quiet Lightning’s Poetry in the Parks literary mixtape, held at China Camp in San Rafael, CA, on September 14, 2024, at 2:00 p.m. Quiet Lightning brings in a bevy of diverse writers for a live show that is videotaped. Each poem read is published in sPARKLE & bLINK, their literary journal. Terri’s poem “Yellow Tulip” was also selected to be published in YELLOW: A Hue Are You anthology series from Jambu Press.

Veda Boyd Jones (Fiction, S’17) sold another short story to Woman’s World, which is in the September 2 issue.

Nadja Maril (Fiction, W’20) is pleased to share that her poem “My Inheritance” was recently published in the online literary magazine Five South and that her CNF Flash piece “Too Much of a Good Thing” will appear in the September/Fall issue of the online magazine Instant Noodles Literary Review. Her first chapbook of short prose and poetry, Recipes from My Garden, was nominated by her publisher Old Scratch Press for the National Book Award and it will be available for purchase this month.

Catharine H Murray (Creative Nonfiction, S’17) will be teaching writing at the  Memoirs on the Marsh Women’s Writing Weekend September 20-22. The weekend will be a gathering of emerging writers who want to hone their craft, write their stories, and connect with other creative women. For more information, go to Memoirs on the Marsh. Catharine’s online class, Memoir 101 Writing the Stories of Your Life and her online workshop Little Frankensteins will both be open to new students at the end of September. Click here for more information.

Laura Navarre’s (Popular Fiction, W’11) new release in her spicy poly paranormal Dark Witch Academy series, Gemini Wicked, launched with a black bestseller ribbon on Amazon August 20th.  This award-winning, queer-friendly, why-choose series, starring a harem of seven hot bi warlocks and the badass witch who loves them, is slated to wrap in 2025 with Gemini Hunted: A Dark Witch Academy Paranormal Romance, up now for preorder. Audiobook production for the series is underway through Ascendant Press. 

Marisca Pichette (Popular Fiction, S’21) is thrilled to announce that her novella, Every Dark Cloud, will be published by Ghost Orchid Press in spring 2025! In a post-climate disaster world shrouded in artificial fog, Mallory’s eternal night is shattered when they encounter the impossible: a refugee from the other side of the clouds.

Genevieve Williams’s (Popular Fiction, S’14) story “Song of the Water People” is in the Fairwood Press anthology Two Hour Transport 2, featuring authors who’ve appeared in the Seattle-based reading series Two Hour Transport.  

Living on the edge (of a state with few bookstores) means sid sibo (sidney woods, Fiction, W’19) will make a three-state tour in September, supported by a WY Arts Council grant, in conversation with other authors about this first novel, The Scent of Distant Family. Swag will be available courtesy of Stonecoast compadres (Darcy Duda and Kathryn Balteff, also W’19 Fiction grads) who donated artwork and production skills toward the project, which will send all proceeds to animal welfare organizations. Follow sidsibo.com for events updates—October will include Idaho, Montana and more WY appearances.​

FACULTY  

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; it’s now also available in Portuguese. In a starred review, the School Library Journal calls the book “a pillar to narrative nonfiction;” 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 the Year by the Bank Street Children’s Book Committee and by the School Library Journal, which calls that book a “masterpiece.” John and Ouisie are now researching a true crime book for a general audience; John is also writing an historical crime novel as part of his doctoral studies with the University of Glasgow.

Aaron Hamburger‘s essay “Dwell in Gratitude,” (which has a shoutout for Stonecoast alum Dave Patterson!) is in the latest issue of Poets & Writers.

Elizabeth Searle (Fiction, Scriptwriting) is a Co-Chair of Writers for Blue, a fundraising group that has raised over $35K so far in donations for the Kamala Harris campaign. On September 23rd, 7:00-9:00 p.m. ET, Elizabeth will help to host a virtual workshopping event via Writers for Blue, featuring writers such as fellow Stonecoast faculty Aaron Hamburger, as well as Gish Jen and 2024 Pulitzer Prize winner Jayne Anne Phillips. The event will support donating and also volunteering for Harris/Walz. It is free, with donations encouraged but not required and information provided on how to volunteer and how to ‘use your words’ for social and political change. Aaron will be among the all-star writers workshopping “first pages” live at the event. All are welcome! See https://writersforblue.com/