ANNOUNCEMENTS

MESA VERDE WRITERS CONFERENCE
Mesa Verde Writers Conference is getting ready for its third year. They hope to add a one-day literary festival featuring up to 30 writers offering pop-up workshops and readings. Anyone interested can contact Lisa C. Taylor (Poetry, S’04). They are still looking for next year’s poet so please send Lisa an email if you know of someone. The conference is July 10 and 11 (though a public reading takes place on July 9) in Mancos, Colorado (near Mesa Verde National Park). Their faculty is expected to be available the entire two days and will also offer two workshops. www.mesaverdewritersconference.org

ALUMS 

Unexpectedly, Elisabeth Tova Bailey’s (Creative Nonfiction, ) The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating glided onto Wall Street. It appeared in an article in The Wall Street Journal titled “Five Best: Books on the Animal Kingdom” by Susana Monso, author of Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death. In addition to Wild Snail, the other four book titles cover the whale, octopus, and birds, and one covers a variety of animals. Since snails can digest cellulose, they would have no problem eating paper money on Wall Street. 

Sarah C. Baldwin (Creative Nonfiction, S’15) had two articles published, one of the history of impairment in the insurance industry (it’s quite dark and interesting, actually!) and another on a new center for advanced lung care. She also won a CASE District 1 award for her profile of forensic pathologist Priya Banerjee. She is really looking forward to a mini writing retreat with some fellow Stonecoasters in November, where she is determined to focus on her personal writing.

Peter Adrian Behravesh (Popular Fiction, W’18) is thrilled to announce that his interactive novel, Heavens’ Revolution: A Lion Among the Cypress, was published by Choice of Games on October 23, with brand-new art to accompany its release! If interactive fiction is your thing, you can play the first four chapters for free on the web, on Steam, or on iOS / Android (through the Choice of Games app). In addition, Peter’s essay, “Pearls from a Dark Cloud: Monsters in Persian Myth,” was published in The Oxford Handbook of Monsters in Classical Myth on October 31. If you live in the UK, you can order it here; the U.S. edition will be published on December 31, 2024. Finally, Peter narrated Kyle Piper’s story “The House That Stands Over Your Grave” for the October 25 episode of PseudoPod, which you can listen to here.

Kathy Briccetti (Crreative Nonfiction, W’07) recorded another piece for her local PBS affiliate, KQED, which aired on October 24. It’s archived here.

J Brooke’s (Poetry, S’19) 2024 essay “The Name Dropper” has been nominated for a Best of the Net award. Their short film Roommates screens this Sunday at the Virginia Film Festival where Brooke and their film partner/spouse are part of a panel on “Voices of the Formerly Incarcerated.”

Teri Elam’s (Poetry, S’19) screenplay, Andi Lake Has Things to Do, won Best Half Hour Pilot Script at the 2024 Nashville Film Festival, and her Hour Pilot Script, The BattleGround, was a finalist. At the 2024 Furious Flower Poetry Conference, she was featured on a panel moderated by Amber Flora Thomas, “Poetics & Politics of the Unspoken: Mental Health, Trauma, & Resilience, along with Robin Caudell and Yona Harvey. Teri shared her two-part essay, “Mad and Madness in A Black Family – Part One: Aunt Dean and Part Two: Mama – Four Years in The Life of An Unwitting Caretaker.” And finally, Teri’s monthly article in Rough Draft Atlanta explores the definition of art/creativity during interviews with chefs, screenwriters, actors, poets, attorneys, musicians, a former Taylor Swift dancer, and, most recently, former Governor of Georgia turned children’s book author. You can check out her column here.

Elisha Emerson (Fiction, S’16) is excited to share that her story “Yesterday’s Disasters” has been published by The Missouri Review as part of their online-only prose series. She is grateful to Stonecoast for its support and for helping her grow as a writer.

Veda Boyd Jones (Fiction, S’17) sold another short story to Woman’s World, 11/11 issue, which hits checkout stands November 1st. 

Nina B. Lichtenstein (Creative Nonfiction, S’20), is happy to announce that fellow Stonecoast alum Jonathan Pessant (Poetry, W’21) will be the guest at Maine Writers Studio’s November 20th Literary Salon & Open Mic, on the joyous occasion of the November 18th publication of his collection of poetry, Prisonegg; find out more here. Nina is also teaching a generative writing workshop (hybrid: in person or on Zoom) at Maine Writers Studio on Sunday December 15th, on the theme of “The Places We Belong (or not)”; details found here. Finally, the newly launched In a Flash lit mag (where Nina is a founding member and one of five co-editors) is open for submissions November 1-15. This month’s theme is “Body” and we accept CNF pieces 500 words or less. Check out the submission guidelines here.  

Nadja Maril (Fiction, W’20) is pleased to share that her essay “The March of the Brigadier General” is now live on the Manifest Station site. Stirring: A Literary Collection has included Nadja’s poem “Fruit Trade” in their fall issue, and Parchemon online published her CNF piece “Urge to Sing with Joni.” Nadja has also been nominated for BEST of the NET for her story “REBOOT,” a CNF Flash piece, by the publishers of Instant Noodles Literary Magazine. Last month Nadja released the book for Who IS Santa?, a poem with illustrations to benefit  research on a rare children’s cancer. The book is selling well and more information and purchases can be found here.

Jonathan Pessant (Poetry, W’21) won Third Place—Short Form in Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association’s annual poetry contest for his poem “Reading Arthur C. Clarke, Sipping Hot Cocoa.” Read it here. 

Marisca Pichette (Popular Fiction, S’21) enjoyed her first World Fantasy Convention in Niagara Falls! She met many friends in person for the first time and sat on two excellent panels: “Is this the Queerest Era of Fantasy & Horror?” and “Divergence: Alternative Storytelling.” On her return to Massachusetts, she attended VICFA, where she read new poetry as part of “Writing in Conversation with Our Ancestors.” Now, she’s taking a much-needed rest from conventions.

Catherine Schmitt (Creative Nonfiction, W’12) reported on efforts to reforest Cambridge and Boston, one triangle of trees at a time, in Northern Woodlands; updates on ferns in The Outside Story and seawall beaches in The Working Waterfront; and—for something completely different—an exploration of the tangled histories of conservation and eugenics in Parks Stewardship Forum.

The Animal Rescue Podcast will feature an interview with sid sibo (W’19 fiction alum sidney woods) about recent Bison Books debut novel The Scent of Distant Family, and about life with over 30 rescued animals. Saha Soundararajan will also conduct an interview to publish in The Maine Review. Links or further info will find a spot at sidsibo.com after they come out.

Lisa C. Taylor’s (Poetry, S’04) forthcoming novel (pictured below) will be available for preorder in the months to come. She’ll be doing a driving trip/book tour from Colorado to New England starting in mid-April. Please contact her at whitewaterwriting@gmail.com or through her website if you know of venues along the way. The book has a theme of long grief (a woman losing a child) and Lisa is particularly interested in bringing it to communities where people might benefit from its message. Her second novel is out to beta readers and she has an interested agent. Fingers crossed! Also, Lisa has a new short story in the international online magazine Live Encounters.

Adrienne S. Wallner (Poetry, W’09) has a series of poems featured in the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration’s Marine Debris Awareness exhibit “Support Superior” at Isle Royale National Park. Her ekphrastic poem responding to “Layers of Comfort” by Amy Cannestra was displayed in the Wausau Center for Visual Arts’ “Gathering: A Poetry and Art Exhibit.”

Christopher Watkins’s (Poetry, W’08) forthcoming collection “Shoebox and other broken sonnets” is a finalist for the Quillkeepers Press Spring 2025 Chapbook competition. Additionally, Christopher’s poem “Kite” has been selected for inclusion in the forthcoming poetry anthology Bards West. Finally, the new Preacher Boy album (the name under which Christopher records music) was released on November 1, 2024, by Coast Road Records. This is his tenth full-length release. The album release is accompanied by the publication of Ghost Notes: Songs and Stories, a 200+ page enhanced lyric booklet with lyrics, essays, photos, chord charts, and more.

FACULTY  

Ron Currie, Jr.’s first new novel in eight years, The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne, will be released on March 25th. Ron says, “That’s right—I wrote a crime novel. The criminals in question are a gang of 60-something Franco-American women in Maine. They are funny, but they are no joke.”

Elizabeth Hand’s (Popular Fiction, Fiction) novel A Haunting on the Hill has been optioned by Pakistani-Canadien director Zarrar Kahn, whose first feature, In Flames, debuted at Cannes last year and was Pakistan’s official submission to the 2024 Academy Awards. She appeared remotely at the Hay Festival Book Club, talking with UK presenter Danny Robins about Shirley Jackson’s legacy, and was featured in a Portland Press Herald piece on Maine horror writers.

As a co-chair of Writers For Blue, Elizabeth Searle (Fiction, Scriptwriting) and fellow WFB volunteers celebrated meeting their goal of raising $47K—in support of making Kamala Harris the 47th President—at a Newtonville Books event on Oct 29th. The group raised the funds via targeted outreach to a growing WFB Supporter community of over 400 writers and readers. THANKS to all Stonecoasters who donated! Special thanks to Aaron Hamburger for appearing in the WFB virtual workshop event in September. An earlier incarnation of WritersForBlue, which Elizabeth and five other writers founded in 2020, raised over $70K for a variety of Progressive causes including The Equal Justice Initiative and Planned Parenthood. Watch for future initiatives at www.writersforblue.com.