Stonecoast in Ireland
Stonecoast in Ireland will host its 20th residency in January 2016. Information and applications are available from Ted Deppe at theodore.deppe@maine.edu. The deadline for applying is 14 May 2015.
Alumni
Sheila Boneham (Creative Nonfiction/Cross Genre, S’13) is honored to have learned that guest editor Rebecca Skloot has selected Sheila’s essay “A Question of Corvids” for inclusion in the 2015 Best Science and Nature Writing anthology, to be published this fall by Houghton Mifflin. The essay, an earlier version of which was Sheila’s graduation reading, won the 2014 Prime Number Magazine Award for Creative Nonfiction and has been nominated for a Pushcart Award.
Jennifer Marie Brissett (Popular Fiction S ’11) her novel Elysium received the 2014 Philip K. Dick Award Special Citation at Norwescon 38 in Seattle, WA.
Meg Elison, Rod Duncan, Emmi Itäranta, and Jennifer Marie Brissett (l-r)
Julie C. Day‘s (Popular Fiction, S’12) story “Raising Babies”—inspired by memories of southern Indiana,”The Yellow Wallpaper,” and spring—is now available in issue 145 of Crack the Spine.
Sarah R. Flynn (Popular Fiction, W’15) has a piece forthcoming in the July issue of The Writer magazine. The feature article outlines how to create a writing workshop for adult literacy students and was influenced by her third semester project and graduate presentation. This is her first professional sale.
Cynthia Kraack‘s (Fiction, W’10) first literary novel, The High Cost of Flowers, is one of three finalists in two categories of the 25th Anniversary Midwest Book Awards: Literary Fiction and Contemporary Fiction. The competition, sponsored by the Midwest Independent Publishing Association, is judged by experts from all aspects of the book world. They select winners and finalists from a 12-state region based on overall excellence. Cynthia’s first speculative fiction novel, Minnesota Cold, won the 2009 Northeastern Book Award for Fiction.
Mur Lafferty (Popular Fiction, W’14) will be the editor-in-chief and Karen Bovenmyer (Popular Fiction, S’13) will be non-fiction editor of Escape Artists’ new speculative fiction e-zine this fall. Issue zero is slated for an August release. Escape Artists are best known for the Escape Pod, Pod Castle, and PseudoPod podcasts.
Matthew Quinn Martin’s (Popular Fiction, S’10) novella Nightlife: Hazardous Material will be released by Pocket Star/Simon & Schuster on May 11. T.L. Costa, critically acclaimed author of Playing Tyler, has called the book “A taut, mesmerizing tale of horror, madness and video games. It’s as if Stephen King penned Ready Player One. Readers will devour this in one sitting.”
Ellen Meeropol (Fiction, W’06) has a new essay, “Crossing Borders in Fiction,” in The Cleaver magazine, here.
For the second year in a row, Roxanne Ocasio (Popular Fiction, W’15) and Kristabelle Munson (Fiction, current) have been accepted into the prestigious VONA/Voices writers’ workshop in Miami. Co-founded by Junot Diaz, VONA is the only writers’ conference in the country with a multi-genre focus on writers of color as students and teachers.
Alexandra Oliver (Poetry, W’11) has had her latest manuscript, Lost Property Hotline, accepted for April 2016 publication by Biblioasis. Her poem “Margaret Rose” (previously published in The Walrus) will be appearing in Best Canadian Poetry 2015. This has been a busy time for Alexandra, who is also celebrating the release of Measure for Measure: An Anthology of Poetic Meters (Random House/Everyman), co-edited with Annie Finch. Here she is in action earlier this month, reading at the Tree Series in Ottawa:
Janet Passehl’s (Poetry, S’10) poems “Dear Colum,” and “his rented left brother and bottle of yellow music” are published in Calibanonline 19.
Bruce Pratt‘s (Fiction, S’04) poem “Think of Sophia Loren” will appear in the 2015 edition of Stolen Island Review. He recently played the principal role in the short film Harvey’s Dream adapted from the Stephen King story of the same name that appeared in The New Yorker several years ago. In addition to playing Harvey, he consulted with the writer-director, Ryan Shelley, on the script. A fall premier is to be scheduled at the University of Maine.
“Side Effects,” a short story by Karen Pullen (Popular Fiction, S’08), will appear in Reed Magazine, Issue 68, in May. In January, Karen’s story “Brown Jersey Cow” was published online by Every Day Fiction, the once-a-day flash fiction magazine.
Michaela Roessner-Herman‘s (Popular Fiction, S’08) short story “Flattened” has been picked for inclusion in the Western Weird anthology, the Speculative Fiction edition of the Manifest West literary anthology series.
Beth Slattery‘s (Creative Nonfiction, S’10) essay, “Hello to All That,” which explores Joan Didion’s writing, was published in the Spring 2015 issue of Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Study.
J.G. Strauss (Fiction, S’14) will read from her novel-in-progress, The Three Lives of Gráinne Ó Mháille as part of Cape Whale at SEA Space in Provincetown, MA, on May 1st, 2015.
Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam‘s (Popular fiction, S’13) fairy tale story “Dance Our Shoes to Pieces” appeared in the most recent issue of Farrago’s Wainscot. “An Exodus of Wings” has been reprinted in the audio magazine The Drabblecast. “Six Ways to Break Her” appeared on the newly-designed SmokeLong Quarterly along with an interview. “The Way of Things” appeared in Crack the Spine alongside another interview.
Ashley Warren‘s (Fiction, S’12) short story “Cataphile” has been selected as an honorable mention for Volume 27 of Allegory.
Tamra Wilson (Fiction, S’11) has retired from the Catawba County (NC) Library System. Her 9-year library newspaper column has converted to a more general one titled “Fork in the Road.” Her essays are also posted on her website.
Students
Elisabeth Tova Bailey‘s (Creative Nonfiction) book, The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, was published by Algonquin Books in 2010. Now the digital audiobook has just been released by audible.com. The CD edition of the audiobook will launch from Brilliance in July with narration by Renee Raudman. The Chicago Tribune audiobook review is here.
Kristabelle Munson (Fiction) has been invited to give a presentation at Queers & Comics, the first university conference for queer cartoonists and comics writers with keynote speakers Alison Bechdel and Howard Cruse. Kristabelle will show pages of a graphic novella written at Stonecoast.
Marian Romero‘s (Popular Fiction) poem “A portrait of the witch at sixteen” was featured in Abyss and Apex online magazine.
Faculty
Jaed Coffin (Creative Nonfiction, Fiction, Writing for Social Change) has accepted a tenure-track position as assistant professor in the English department at the University of New Hampshire, beginning in fall 2015. He’ll be teaching both in the MFA and undergraduate creative writing programs.
Ted and Annie Deppe (Poetry, Coordinator of Stonecoast in Ireland) will be giving a poetry reading at the Connemara Mussel Festival, Mweelrea Hotel, Tully Cross, Ireland, at 6:00 p.m. on 2 May 2015. They will also be reading on the Aran Islands on 21 May for Old Dominion University. Ted’s next U.S. reading has been confirmed for Old Dominion University in Virginia on 8 October 2015.
Nancy Holder (Popular Fiction) has a new book out: Beauty and the Beast: Some Gave All, based on the Beauty and the Beast reboot on the CW. She and Stonecoast alumna Erin Underwood (Popular Fiction, S’09) have a new column titled “Writing Reading Guides” in the Science Fiction Writers of America Bulletin.
When astronauts overcorrect a negative turtle jacket on their high-tail thruster, initiating precautionary self-destruct protocol, they have only one recourse: radio Mission Control. Unfortunately, Mission Control has been privatized. Mike Kimball‘s (Popular Fiction, Scriptwriting) 10-minute play Houston will be staged at the Boston Theatre Marathon—50 ten-minute plays, written by 50 playwrights, produced by 50 theatre companies in one day: Sunday, May 10, starting at 12:00 p.m. at the Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont Street, Boston. Houston will also be staged in Portland, Maine, at the Maine Playwrights’ Festival—seven short plays by Maine playwrights May 13-16 at the St. Lawrence Arts Center.
Elizabeth Searle‘s (Fiction, Popular Fiction, Scriptwriting) rock opera—Tonya & Nancy: the Rock Opera—will be produced in New York City this summer as an official full-production show at the New York Musical Festival (NYMF) with multiple performances in July, dates TBA. Elizabeth will be in NYC with the show during the residency but she hopes to see some Stonecoasters at “ringside” at the show. Check out the coverage in Theater Mania. For info and updates on performances and tickets, visit www.tonyaandnancytherockopera.com
Poster from previous Boston production; NYC dates TBD.
