The first issue of Stonecoast Review, Stonecoast MFA’s new literary publication, has just been released. You can read the issue here or purchase the issue here. About Stonecoast Review:
The Stonecoast Review is an online literary journal edited by students in the Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing. We are inspired by the Stonecoast program’s goals: excellence of craft, independence of voice and an acknowledgement of literature’s responsibility in shaping society. Publishing works of Creative Non-Fiction, Fiction, Poetry, and Popular Fiction, we are especially interested in quality writing that embodies our core values of social and environmental justice, cultural awareness, and international perspectives. We seek submissions from a diversity of writers—both published and emerging. If you would like to contact us with any questions or comments, please direct emails to editor@stonecoastreview.com.
ALUMNI
Sheila Boneham (Creative Nonfiction/Cross Genre, S’13) will be teaching a workshop and giving a reading at the North Carolina Writers’ Network annual conference in Wrightsville Beach, NC, November 15-17.
Anthony D’Aries‘s (Creative Nonfiction, W’09) essay “Heart of the City” is a finalist for the Diana Woods Memorial Creative Nonfiction Award. His essay will appear in Antioch MFA program’s literary journal, Lunch Ticket. Below is a video of Anthony reading the essay at Literary Fields, a reading series at the Middlesex Lounge in Cambridge, MA:
Kendall Giles’ (Popular Fiction, W’13) macabre short story “Rebel Yell” is in the anthology Surreal South ’13, edited by Josh Woods and published in Press 53. For more information, please visit Kendall’s blog. His flash fiction story “Here to Help” has been selected to be displayed as a part of the ThinkSmall7 art exhibition at the artspace Gallery @ Plant Zero, Richmond, VA, October-December 2013. ThinkSmall is a biennial international miniature invitational exhibition that challenges artists to produce small-scale work with a maximum dimension of 3″ x 3″, and ThinkSmall7 is in the 7th installment in the series. For more information, please read this blog post.
Bunny Goodjohn (Poetry, W’07) has three poems in the current issue of Prime Number Magazine: “To My Husband on the One-Year Anniversary of Our Separation,” “Conversation at Tastee Freeze: Stage Five,” and “Hard to Believe.”
Penny Guisinger‘s (Creative Nonfiction, S’13) essay “Coming Out” (which was a finalist in the 2013 Essay Contest at Fourth Genre) has now formally been accepted for publication at Fourth Genre and will appear in 2014. Also, she will participate in an online reading for the lit mag Under the Gum Tree on November 15th at 9:00 p.m. EST. The event is physically located in Sacramento, CA, but the broadcast will be streamed live for anyone who wants to watch. For more information, visit her website.
Jeff Kass (Fiction, S’09) recently had his poem “Elegy for a Sweathog” accepted by The Museum of Americana and his poem “I told the dentist” accepted by Union Station. In addition, Jeff’s Literary Arts Program, The VOLUME Youth Poetry Project, will host the 15th annual Poetry Night in Ann Arbor this November featuring Aaron Samuels and Kim Addonizio. Finally, Jeff’s youth-run Red Beard Press has released Uncommon Core: Contemporary Poems for Learning and Living, what the press is calling the ultimate collection of contemporary poems for classroom use. It features over 200 poems from 92 poets, including Stonecoast alums Adrienne Wallner, Kaarrie Waarala, and Teresa Scollon, as well as current and past Stonecoast instructors Tim Seibles, Patricia Smith, David Mura, and Lesléa Newman. Information about how to purchase the book and other Red Beard Press titles can be found here.
In October, Mike Langworthy (Creative Nonfiction, W’11) was hired as a creative consultant and writer on the web series The Day Crew, co-created by Jamie Widdoes and Tim O’Donnell. The Day Crew is the sequel to The 4 to 9ers, an original production of Hulu that was the service’s most-watched original programming last year. The Day Crew is the story of four “millennials” dealing with their first years out of college and living on their own.
Ellen Meeropol‘s (Fiction, W’06) second novel, Hurricane Island, has been sold to Red Hen Press for publication in Spring 2015.
Laura Navarre (Popular Fiction, W’11) signed a deal to co-author her first screenplay with writing partner Steven Denlinger. A dark historical adventure set in medieval France with paranormal and romantic elements, this film adaptation of The Execution by Sharon Cramer goes into pre-production in February. Laura and Steven were also contracted to develop at TV pilot for the series. Laura’s sinister twin, diplomat and playgirl Nikki Navarre, is celebrating the print release this month of her sexy spy romance The Russian Temptation with a Facebook Event on November 20. This “Passport to Suspense” party features six award-winning romantic suspense authors who write in exotic settings. Stop by, comment, and help spread the word for more chances to win a new Kindle Paperwhite and other fun prizes!
Three Rooms Press just published Lisa Panepinto‘s (Poetry, W’13) debut poetry collection, On This Borrowed Bike, available here and here.
“Bleat and Sigh, Night,” the second section of Janet Passehl‘s (Poetry, S’10) extended prose poem written in response to Gertrude Stein’s “Tender Buttons,” will be published in Caliban Online, issue 14, coming out in mid-November. “Bleat and Sigh, Night” was inspired by the “Mutton” section of “Tender Buttons.” (The previous section, “Glazed, blind cushion not mercy,” published in Caliban Online #13, which Janet erroneously attributed to “Mutton,” was actually inspired by Stein’s “Roast Beef.”) Janet will be reading poetry with Basil and Martha King at Infinite Well, 123 Court Street, New Haven, CT, on Wednesday, November 13, at 7:30 p.m.
Bruce Pratt (Fiction ’04) will host Rich Kimball on Downtown, a sports entertainment show on 92.9 FM The Ticket for a regular segment called “Sports Lit 101” where he will discuss literary works, novels, stories and story collections, poems and poetry collections that in some way reference sports. For the next few weeks, the segment will be heard at 4:45 Wednesday afternoons. The program is heard on a network of stations across Maine and may be streamed at www.929theticket.com.
Karen Pullen (Popular Fiction, S’08) entered a story in Sixfold‘s writer-judged competition. “Something to Tell Henry” made it through three elimination rounds and was published in their Fall 2013 Fiction issue. She recommends Sixfold—the feedback is honest and extensive from each round of writer-judges. Also, she’s grateful to Stonecoasters Lisa Romeo and Linda Sienkiewicz for recently inviting her onto their blogs.
An essay by Lisa Romeo (Creative Nonfiction, S’08), “Not a Shore Thing,” about her reaction to the destruction of the New Jersey Shore after Hurricane Sandy last fall and her circuitous relationship with the region, appears in bioStories. Lisa recently taught a series of Writing Your Life Stories interactive seminars at several senior living centers in southern New Jersey.
Adrienne S. Wallner‘s (Poetry, W’09) poem “Letter to Lake Michigan” was featured in the Wisconsin DNR Great Lakes Calendar 2013-2014. “Cheers” and “Morning” will be published in the forthcoming edition of Puff Poetry Prose and a Play, and “Never Fell” has been chosen for inclusion in Uncommon Core: Contemporary Poems for Learning and Living by Red Beard Press.
“Fit to Kill,” a story by Tamra Wilson (Fiction, S’11), appears in the Fall issue of The Main Street Rag.
STUDENTS
Erin Lyn Bodin (Fiction) is thrilled to share that her creative nonfiction essay “Waking Up in the City of Joy” has been selected by guest judge Dan Raffel as an Honorable Mention in Tiferet Journal‘s 2013 Writing Contest. Erin is also honored to have her poem, “Heavy,” selected by guest editor Laila Halaby for the most recent volume of Magnolia: A Journal of Women’s Socially Engaged Literature.
Genevieve Williams’ (Popular Fiction) short story “The Girl Whose Name Means Girl” is in the new anthology Beyond the Pillars from Bibliotheca Alexandria. The book is available in print and e-book format.
FACULTY
Tony Barnstone (Poetry, Translation) has won first place in the CZP/Rannu Fund for Writers of Speculative Poetry Prize. He will publish four books in the next year and a half: a new book of poems titles Beast in the Apartment (Sheep Meadows Press, 2014); a selected poems in Spanish translation titled Buda en llamas (Ediciones El Tucan de Virginia, 2014), translated by Mariano Zaro; Dead and Undead Poems (Everyman, 2014) and Human and Inhuman Monsters Poems (Everyman, 2015), both edited with Michelle Mitchell-Faust.
Jeanne Marie Beaumont‘s (Poetry) poem “A Stein’s Sestina” appears in the new anthology The Incredible Sestina Anthology, edited by Daniel Nestor, and she answers questions about her poem in a short interview on the website. She also has a poem in the latest issue of Harvard Review and appears in the new issue of Warwick Review (UK) in their feature on new poetry from the U.S.
Boman Desai (Fiction) has two bits of news: The first chapter from his novel The Lesbian Man was a joint winner in a competition for First Chapters. You may read it online until December 1st here. Second, he published Dancing About Architecture: A Songwriter’s Guide to the Lennon-McCartney Catalog, which runs through the 162 songs by Lennon and McCartney, tracing the song fingerprints of each songwriter. Most interesting, perhaps, is the origin of “Yesterday,” the only song for which Paul requested sole credit, saying it had blossomed full-blown when he woke from a night’s sleep and no one had anything to do with it but himself. Yoko Ono denied the request, but for the wrong reason. John’s influence on the song is undeniable, the book makes it clear, but Yoko doesn’t know what it is, and Paul McCartney himself may just be amazed. boman@core.com
Elizabeth Hand (Fiction, Popular Fiction) will be speaking at the Maine College of Art in Portland at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, November 6, in Osher Hall. Topic: Outsider Artists and the Strange Case of Richard Dadd. On Tuesday, November 12, she’ll speak at the Belfast Free Library, Belfast, Maine, at 6:30 p.m. Topic: Guided by Voices: Reading Aloud and Characterization.
Nancy Holder (Popular Fiction) is appearing at the World Fantasy Convention in Brighton, England, through November 3rd. She’s teaching “Romancing YA” for the Romance Writers of America University, November 4-8. She’ll appear at YALLFest in Charleston, SC, on November 9th and at Atomacon on November 10th. She’ll be doing a reading with James P. Blaylock at Whittier College on November 19, courtesy of fellow Stonecoast faculty member Tony Barnstone (poetry), and she’s tentatively scheduled for Long Beach Comic & Horror Con November 23-24.
Barbara Hurd‘s (Creative Nonfiction) essay “Keys” is one of thirteen essays now short-listed for a major award in Great Britain: the William Hazlitt Prize, which honors “the best essay in the English language, published or unpublished, on any subject.” She was also first runner-up for the Prairie Schooner Creative Nonfiction Contest and a finalist for the 2013 Annie Dillard Award. Those essays will be published in Prairie Schooner and in the Bellingham Review in the spring. All three essays are part of her forthcoming collection Putting an Ear to the Ground.
Jim Kelly (Popular Fiction) has had two new stories published. The first, titled “The Promise of Space,” was in the September issue of Clarkesworld. In addition to the print version, there is an audio version which features Jim and Clarkesworld‘s Podcast Director Kate Baker doing the readings. “The Promise of Space” is a story told entirely in dialog; a theatrical version will debut in March 2014 as part of the New Hampshire Theatre Project’s Intelligent Theatre Festival in Portsmouth, NH. The second story, “Sing, Pilgrim,” is a flash piece in the November/December issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. The first draft of this story was written at a Stonecoast residency, during one of Jim’s (infamous) flash fiction challenges. Jim has also sold a new story to the online magazine Lightspeed; “Miss Nobody Never Was” will be published in the December issue. Also, Jim will be reading with Mercurio D. Rivera on November 20th at 7:00 p.m. at the KGB Bar (85 East 4th Street just off 2nd Avenue, upstairs) in New York City. The reading will be the latest in the “Fantastic Fiction at KGB” monthly reading series, which began in the late ’90s. Fantastic Fiction is held on the third Wednesday of every month at the famous KGB Bar. Admission is free.
Mike Kimball (Popular Fiction, Scriptwriting) is directing the play Red, which will run three weekends, November 1-17, at The Actors Studio of Newburyport, MA. Red, by playwright/screenwriter/director John Logan is the story of abstract-expressionist Mark Rothko, holed up in his New York Studio in 1958-9, painting a group of murals for the exclusive Four Seasons restaurant. He gives orders to his assistant, Ken, as he mixes the paints, makes the frames, and paints the canvases. Ken, however, brashly questions Rothko’s theories of art and his acceding to work on such a commercial project. In 2010 the play won six Tony awards, including Best Play. The Actors Studio is located in The Tannery, 50 Water Street, Mill #1, Suite 5, Newburyport, MA. For reservations, call 978.465.1299 or visit the website.
Elizabeth Searle (Fiction, Popular Fiction, Scriptwriting) has a personal essay in a new anthology from Norton: Knitting Yarns, edited by former Stonecoast faculty Ann Hood and featuring fellow faculty Suzanne Strempek Shea along with writers such as Barbara Kingsolver, Anita Shreve, Andre Dubus III, Elinor Lipman, Ann Patchett, and Jane Smiley. Elizabeth and Suzanne will read from the anthology along with Ann Hood and others at Newtonville Books on November 14; Elizabeth will read from the anthology with others in Wellesley, MA, on November 21 at Wellesley Books. Elizabeth will also be reading “bedtime stories” from her fiction along with Suzanne at a “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Pajama Party” event sponsored by the Republican Newspaper in Springfield, MA, on November 15 at Delaney House. The event is featured in an article in The Republican and on Mass.Live. Elizabeth is also reading and partying on November 2nd at the Stonecoast Northeast event Lost Lit presents Stonecoast MFA in NYC, hosted by Stonecoast student Kristabelle Munson and featuring Stonecoast students and alumni. The reading is 7:00-8:00 p.m. at Grumpy Bert, 82 Bond Street in Brooklyn. Seating is limited, so RSVP for this event with lynne@lostlit.com.
