ANNOUNCEMENTS

ACADEMY OF INTENTIONAL MAGIC

Lissa Kiernan (Poetry, S’11) is delighted to announce the launch of the Academy of Intentional Magic (AIM), a new 501(c)(3) nonprofit expanding the nearly two-decade legacy of the Poetry Barn into an interdisciplinary creative learning community for writers, artists, and lifelong learners. AIM is currently seeking teaching artists interested in developing imaginative, thoughtful, and accessible online offerings for adults. We welcome proposals from artists and independent scholars working in writing, visual art, music, somatic and contemplative practices, nature-based learning, and symbolic, mythic, and esoteric traditions—including dreams, mythology, folklore, alchemy, storytelling, symbolism, and Jungian psychology. We are especially interested in teachers whose work invites curiosity, experimentation, reflection, and meaningful connection—and who value process over performance, attention over urgency, and the creative life as an evolving practice. Learn more here and send your proposal(s) to do@aimhigher.org.

MESA VERDE WRITERS CONFERENCE

There are still a few openings for the Mesa Verde Writers Conference in beautiful Mancos, Colorado September 2, 3, 4. Write to mesaverdewriters@gmail.com for a special discount coupon. www.mesaverdewriters.org to register.

MIDNIGHT DRAFT WRITERS STUDIO

Frank Ard (Popular Fiction, S’14) has launched the Midnight Draft Writers Studio, a virtual writing community designed to help busy writers build sustainable creative habits alongside careers, family, and everyday life. The growing online space offers weekly live writing sprints, monthly craft talks, writing challenges, goal-setting threads, and (beginning this fall) critique roundtables—all designed to help writers gain momentum, strengthen their craft, and finish their projects. The studio recently completed its inaugural six-week From Idea to Draft workshop and continues to expand with regular programming focused on accountability, craft development, and community. Stonecoast alumni and writers at every stage are welcome to join the free community. Learn more here. 

CURRENT STUDENTS

Miles Meth (Fiction) has a micro story titled “Theyhood” in issue 54 of Cleaver Magazine. It can be read for free here.

On July 22nd, Stonecoast students, graduates, and professor Rick Bass finished a two-week long road trip from Maine to Montana. The project, known as the Green Curtain Roadshow, aims to educate, identify and designate places as climate refugia. Currently, this designation does not exist, but these areas are vital to species’ survival against climate change. Moreover, keeping these climate refugia intact creates ecosystem benefits: old growth forests are often fire buffers, carbon sinks, and flood protectors.

Participants worked with local community organizations to visit and learn about climate refugia sites in the area. Many of these sites are old-growth forests, which sequester incredible amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. At events and on the trails, the Green Curtain crew shared their ideas and experiences with people across nine states. They also featured the Black Ram guitar, made from a 315-year-old spruce tree. Attendees were encouraged to touch, hold, and play this symbol of renewal. In the Yaak valley, the Green Curtain crew got to see the exact tree where the guitar was made from after a logging project exposed it in a high wind area. 

Green Curtain writers will spend the summer and fall generating new work based on this experience, which they will share at an event in Portland on January 12, 2027. There will also be an anthology published with this work. More details to come in future updates.

Read more about the Green Curtain Roadshow on student blog posted here. In the meantime, there’s a climate aid concert on October 2nd in Bozeman, MT, featuring Ruth Moody, Ada Limón and Bill McKibben. Check out more details here. Follow the Green Curtain Roadshow on Instagram @gcroadshow  

Student road trip participants included Melanie Collins, Jules Guerra, Luke Johnson, Ryan Schmidt, Lea Smith, Calvin Soule, and Eben Thomas, with many others helping fundraise, plan, and communicate with local organizations, including Michael Ferry, Heather Jones, Adrian Lyne, Miles Meth, Mary Sawyer, Sam Schipani, and Jenna Simanskas.

ALUMS 

Peter Adrian Behravesh (Popular Fiction, W’18) will be appearing at Worldcon in Anaheim, which runs from August 27–31. Here’s where you can find him:

• August 27 – 1001 Years Later, 1:30 p.m.
• August 28 – Writing Between Worlds: Diasporic Influence in SFF, 12:00 p.m.
• August 29 – Working with an Editor, 1:30 p.m. | Roots on the Page: Writing Shaped by Heritage (Virtual), 6:00 p.m.

J Brooke‘s (Poetry, S’19) debut (USA TODAY Bestseller) book, I Can Tell You The Version That Will Make You Take My Side (Driftwood Press and available for purchase: Order from an indie bookstore or order from Amazon) had July events in New York City for Bryant Park Summer Reading Series (where they read along with Philip Schultz); Philadelphia at the legendary Giovanni’s Room; Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, during their Pride Weekend at Browseabout Books; and to Politics and Prose (big life goal!) on Conn Ave in Washington, DC, where they were in conversation with Stonecoast’s own Aaron Hamburger—you can watch J and Aaron on YouTube here. Brooke’s other upcoming readings and events can be found on their website jbrookewrites.com 

Jess Flarity (Popular Fiction, S’18) is leading an academic panel on The Backrooms at next year’s NeMLA conference corresponding with an essay he recently published at Blind Field Journal. 

Veda Boyd Jones (Fiction, S17) explores family and friendships, kindness and spitefulness, in the fifth and final of her slice-of-life Lost Creek novel series, The Bookstore on Main, available now on Kindle.

Laura Navarre (Popular Fiction, W’11) can’t seem to escape the Witching World. Her spicy, shifty, sword-crossy polyamorous Dark Witch Academy Omnibus Box Set (Books 1-7) is an August 1 release from Ascendant Press.

In a couple weeks, John Christopher Nelson (Fiction, S’15)’s ambulance essay, “Attrition,” will be featured in Volume Four of The Spring Crab, over at Crab Creek Review. Look out for further information about an online event on August 19th, at 5:30 p.m. PT, when you can catch John reading “Attrition.” In the meantime, you can read John’s reminisces about guiding ghost tours at a haunted hotel, “In Which I Indulge High Desert Nostalgia and George Wingfield Gets Away With Murder,” over at Be About It Press. Lastly, John’s flash piece about a MySpace era houseparty, “Mood Board,” will be featured in the “Darlings” themed issue of Lit Angels, curated by Hannah Eko. The issue launches on August 15th. 

Roxanne Ocasio’s (Popular Fiction, W’15) short story “Shift Change” will appear in Hope Is Not Passive, an anthology benefitting Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), which provides legal representation for immigrant children. Preorders can be made via the Quills and Cosmos Press website beginning July 27th. Roxanne has also recently accepted a position at Oberlin College.

Alexandra Oliver (Poetry, W’12) is the subject of James Pollock’s extended feature “Virtual Horror Movies: The Poetry of Alexandra Oliver” for Canadian Notes and Queries (Number 115, Spring Summer 2026). On the critical front, she has just had a critical essay—“‘The First and Simplest Things Were Best’: The Pleasure and Power of A.F. Moritz’s Lyrics of the Ordinary”—published in Living History (Gordon Hill/Porcupine’s Quill Press), which is currently available in bookstores and online.

Suri Parmar (Popular Fiction, W’17) has a new story, “Anaïs,” published in Issue 03 of Outskirts Literary Journal, marking their first attempt at literary fiction. You can read it here.

Bruce Pratt (Fiction, S’04) recently presented poems at the annual Sport Literature Conference held at the University of Iowa. His poems “Hunting After a School Shooting,” One Stroke,” “Pampered,” and “Barney Quigley” are forthcoming from Aerthlon, The Journal of Sport Literature. He has two poems, “I Should Like to Pass in an Autumn Field” and “Half Hour After Sunset,” forthcoming in Sport Literate. His short story “Winter Ball” is forthcoming from Spitball. His poem “Martha 1914” is scheduled to appear in the September edition of Gray’s Sporting Journal.

Fellow Stonecoast alum Tanya Eby selected sid sibo (sidney woods | Fiction, W’19) as part of her Author Highlight series on the Tanya Eby Writes Substack, followed by many of her fellow audiobook narrators, as well as authors and other creatives. You can also find the interview here at sid’s Acoustic Burro blog, along with the human-created cover of the upcoming collection, (un)Familiar: stories.

Tamie Parker Song (Creative Nonfiction, S’12) has self-published a chapbook that is a long essay titled “Yellow Arrows to Santiago,” about her experience walking the Camino de Santiago. It is an essay about marriage—and choosing whether to stay married. It’s an essay about how to know what choices to make in life—especially when those choices are very hard. It’s an essay about how we live out the stories that were told to us about ourselves way before we had the opportunity to decide whether those stories were wise or good. You can order it for $7 + postage cost through Tamie’s website. The details are here. 

Registration is open for Gina Troisi‘s (Creative Nonfiction, W’09) writing classes, via Zoom, beginning in September. Full descriptions of the classes, Where Fire Meets Form and Honing Your Craft, can be found on her website gina-troisi.com, via the Classes & Coaching tab. 

Sean Ulman (Fiction, S’05) recently published a book of stories for kids, Whimby Shines and Other Stories. Here is the link to purchase.  

Robin Clifford Wood (Creative Nonfiction, S’15) will share an event with author Cara Benson, as Benson promotes her new book, An Armsfull of Birds: A Personal Guide to Love, Loss, and Commitment. Robin and Benson’s conversation about grief, recovery, the writing process, and the natural world will take place from 7:00-8:00 p.m. on August 6th, at Print: A Bookstore in Portland, Maine. Here’s a link to the event.

FACULTY 

John Florio (Popular Fiction, Fiction, Creative Nonfiction Faculty | Fiction/Popular Fiction, S’07) has been awarded a Doctor of Fine Arts (DFA) in Creative Writing by the University of Glasgow. His dissertation, King of the World: How the U.S. Government Targeted Performing Artists During the Second Red Scare, examines government overreach during the 1950s and includes the creative work King of the World, his next novel.

Aaron Hamburger has been appointed as a full-time Visiting Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at the George Washington University. His latest novel The Shiva Bandit is currently scheduled for an April 6, 2027, release.

Elizabeth Searle’s book The Drama Room is one of six Finalists for the Kirkus Indie Award in Literary Fiction. Her book will be featured in the August 11th ‘Critic’s Choice’ Newsletter from Kirkus Reviews. Her forthcoming novel Lock Her Up now has a publication date in the USA of October 6th. The book is already available in translation in France via French Amazon and more. For additional translation updates and other Lock Her Up news, click here.