SPRINGSPRING 2015 2018
New Fic on Faculty Interview with Karen Thompson Walker by Marcie Alexander, MFA Fic on ‘19
Karen Thompson Walker joined the pro- Marcie Alexander (MA): Your new novel, gram’s faculty in the 2017 academic year as a The Dreamers, comes out early next year. new Assistant Professor of fic on. Walker’s What's the premise? first novel, The Age of Miracles, was named Karen Thompson Walker (KTW): It’s about one of the best books of the year by People; a contagious sleeping sickness that spreads O, The Oprah Magazine; The Financial Times; through a small college town. People fall Kirkus; Publishers Weekly; Amazon; and Barnes asleep, and they can’t wake up. Eventually, it & Noble. It has been translated into 27 becomes clear that this strange perpetual languages and op oned for film by River Road sleep is accompanied by extraordinary Entertainment. Walker’s wri ng has also dreams. appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New MA: What led you to the idea? York Times, and Real Simple, and she gave a I've always been TED talk about fear and the imagina on at interested in contagion TEDGlobal 2012. Karen previously worked as a stories. (Blindness, by book editor at Simon & Schuster and is a José Saramago, which graduate of UCLA and Columbia. Her new imagines an epidemic novel, The Dreamers, is set for release in Walker January 2019. • • • — Cont’d page 2 crwr.uoregon.edu Literary Reference CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAM 1
Literary Walker (con nued from page 1) of blindness, is one of my favorite books and a major influence.) At the me that I Reference started wri ng this book, I was living in Iowa City. Living in a college town reminded ______me of some of the weirdness of college, and of the narra ve possibili es of the crowded environment of a dorm floor, which is where The Dreamers begins. The FACULTY idea that it would be a sleeping sickness came a li le later—and actually came partly from a dream, as convenient as that may sound. I had a dream that I couldn’t Poetry wake up. I like wri ng about the uncanny elements of ordinary life, and sleep and dreaming are such clear examples. Garre Hongo MA: So it just fit right into what you were already working on. Daniel Anderson KTW: Right. It was returning to territory that I was interested in and wrote Geri Doran about in The Age of Miracles, which is the collision of ordinary life and ordinary people with some kind of extreme and strange disaster situa on, to see how it Fic on affects them, or how it does or does not change them. MA: How was the process of approaching and wri ng your second novel Jason Brown different for you than going in to your first? Marjorie Celona KTW: I think I was able to foresee problems a li le more successfully. And just Karen Thompson Walker the feeling of having wri en one novel before made me a li le more calm and a li le more confident, which are feelings that were totally absent when wri ng my Career Instructor first book. I didn't even know if I could do it. Can I even write 250 pages about the Cai Emmons same characters and world and situa on? Can this story even be something that Brian Trapp anyone would think to call a novel? Wri ng the second novel felt more like, I know I can write a novel, but is it going to be a good novel? Every novel has its own Instructors challenges, of course, and I’m always learning. Ulrick Casimir MA: Your first novel got a lot of posi ve cri cal recep on and acclaim—you Michael Copperman had TED talks, ar cles in The Wall Street Journal, all these reviews and all these Miriam Gershow interviews, and I can imagine that felt both amazing and also kind of overwhelming. Tia North Do you feel like it affected your approach, or gave you any sort of hesita on toward Jacob Powers your next novel at all? Or was it more like, great, that worked out, and so now I'm ______just going to go do that again? KTW: [laughs] No, I wouldn't describe it that way. I had a very strange and ADMINISTRATIVE lucky experience that the book got a certain amount of a en on. It was great, but for a writer, it was weird. I remember feeling that I was much more produc ve, and P. Lowell Bowditch more comfortable wri ng and in my wri ng head once me had passed. That first Program Director year or so, the reviews were in my head—even Amazon reviews, or even things people had said at readings, about things they didn't think worked. Or things that Julia A. Schewanick did, and I thought, well this me I'm doing the opposite.… It was just distrac ng, for Business Manager a while. That was 2012. I spent about four and a half, five years wri ng the new ______book. And the further I got from that crazy me, the easier it was to work. MA: Your previous book was narrated by a first person narrator, looking Crea ve Wri ng Program back on her life to the me when she was 12. Does The Dreamers have a similar 5243 University of Oregon narra ve situa on? Eugene, OR 97403-5243 KTW: No, it’s in third person. It has a large cast of characters, and the narra ve T: (541) 346-3944 voice dips into various people’s heads in different parts of the story. F: (541) 346-0537 MA: In choosing that, what was your reasoning behind, this is how I can best E: [email protected] tell this par cular story, versus the perspec ve of your previous book, of an h p://crwr.uoregon.edu individual looking back on her experience? Walker — Cont’d page 14
2 UNIVERSITY OF OREGON COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES Spring 2018
Art and the Ekphras c Tradi on Interview with Ma Donovan by Ka e Haemmerle, MFA Poetry ‘18
Ma Donovan is the finding ways to conjure it but not exhaust it. I don't know author of the collec on of if you’ve been to the Pantheon, but for me there's no essays, A Cloud of Unusual subs tute for standing in that space. Photographs are Size and Shape: Medita ons going to fail and certainly language as a medium is going on Ruin and Redemp on, as to fail. But what I can do is ask ques ons. Why am I so well as two collec ons of haunted by and obsessed with this space? What am I poetry – Vellum and trying to get at? What is it about the light, that small Rapture & the Big Bam. window of sky, that is haun ng me? Then at the same me you have to confront that seemingly impossible task • • • of trying to recreate an aspect of that, trying to focus on Ka e Haemmerle (KH): The subjects of your poems so the minu a and find a way to draw the reader's a en on o en are rooted in artwork and music. How have those to a par cular detail that you otherwise might not have subjects come to inform your poetry and interest in the appreciated as a viewer. Those are the moments for me ekphras c tradi on? where it’s actual inves ga on on my part. The course of Ma Donovan (MD): I've always been excited about the wri ng process is a medita on where I'm just forced art and the ekphras c tradi on. Learning about a piece of to look at it and look at it and look at it. This is something art in the process of finding the poem is to find forms that that I feel poetry can and should do, in addi on to change one's rela onship to that art and serve as an innumerable other things: teach us about the act of interroga on of the piece, or expansion of that piece— looking and the world of art. something that can rupture the stasis of visual art and KH: The "I" speaker you deploy in Vellum is an work through narra ve or ask ques ons about it as a observer, a ques oner, a meditator. Was this a result of means of engagement. The poem is in part asking working in the ekphras c tradi on? Have you perhaps ques ons about it, si ng with it, trying to get to that changed your approach to the speaker with your more moment of the aesthe c experience and then also recent collec on, Rapture & the Big Bam? pushing beyond that, which poetry affords as a narra ve MD: When I look back at the poems in Vellum, which form or form that can include narra ve. O en for me, a at this point were wri en a while ago, it’s something that source of a poem might be having some sort of response I was cri cized for when I was in grad school, that I didn't to a piece of music or an ar st or a pain ng or sculpture have enough of myself in the poems. At the me, I really and just wan ng to understand it and go through that act resisted the need to have the personal in there. Maybe of looking. Inevitably for me, even the act of wri ng the some of that was coming out of a resistance to the poem, whether it ends up being a failed poem or a piece confessional tradi on, and I didn't feel like poems needed that I feel is finally se led or dis lled, will have opened up to do that. But when I look back at them, I feel like those that work of art from the course of trying to approach it, poems can risk holding their cards too close, making it understand it, interrogate it. about the aesthe c experience but not risking emo onal KH: How have you been able to balance that vulnerability in an emo onal persona as part of those moment of looking with the process of conveying— pieces. It wasn't something that I set out deliberately to without falling into abstrac on—the beauty that’s in a do, but when I was star ng as a poet it was definitely work of art? something that inevitably was a part of my process and MD: The task of the poem when it's approaching a habits as a writer. I feel like those poems could have been work of art is not to reproduce it. It's going to fail if it's improved by having more of the actual self in there, and trying to be merely illustra ve. So for me I'm interested in by actual self I mean self as a construct. Donovan — Cont’d page 15 crwr.uoregon.edu CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAM 3
who demonstrate financial need, awarding approximately $50,000 each year. The Kidd Program used to be a year-long capstone course for advanced fic on writers and poets. However, last year the Kidd Program transi oned to targe ng introductory and intermediate level students as a gateway to more advanced classes with faculty— facilita ng enrollment in the minor. Students now a end lectures each week by faculty members in poetry and fic on in the Fall term. In the Winter and Spring terms, Kidd students con nue to work with their tutors to develop a cri cal, cra -centered paper called a Line of Inquiry as well as their crea ve por olios. Students Upda ng the Kidd collect their best work in the annual Kidd anthology and by Brian Trapp celebrate their progress with an end-of-year literary Kidd Director reading. This year, we rebranded the Kidd Program, changing The Kidd Program has undergone many the name from The Kidd Tutorial to The Walter and Nancy exci ng changes in its 25th year. Kidd Crea ve Wri ng Workshops. We hope the new name First, a li le history: Founded by will make it clearer to the UO undergraduate popula on Garre Hongo in 1991 with a bequest about what cons tutes the Kidd Program, namely, young from Walter and Nancy Kidd, the Kidd aspiring writers producing their own crea ve work and Program was modeled on the Watson Founda on of helping one another grow as ar sts. We also redesigned Rhode Island, the Hopwood Lectures and Contests at the our website and adver sing material and expanded our University of Michigan, and the Harvard Tutorials. The visibility on campus. The results have been promising. Kidd Program aims for the same rigorous intellectual This year, we had a 50 percent increase in applica ons. In inquiry as these esteemed ins tu ons. 2018-2019, we are welcoming our largest Kidd class ever, However, the model that the Kidd Program truly with 46 talented undergraduate writers. For the first me aspires to is the Wa ’s Writer’s Workshop, a federally in many years, we are able to offer a second poetry class. funded program, directed by Dudley Randall, which In its 25th year, the Kidd Program remains commi ed included adult writers (Quincy Troupe, Lonnie Elder, and more than ever to its mission of helping undergraduate Stanley Crouch, among others) teaching middle school writers find their community here at the University of and high school students in the "inner city" of Los Angeles Oregon. during the summer of 1967. It was a way for the African In my first year as Kidd Director, it has been a bit American community to rebuild itself a er the Wa s nerve-wracking sheparding the program through so many riots. Community leaders saw the workshop as a way to changes. But I was also able to witness the powerful promote cultural life, raise moral, and build an African- opportunity that the Kidd Program offers. As I hosted the American literary consciousness. Borrowing from Wa s, lectures, I saw each speaker engage the students’ the Kidd Program aspires to be a community in every way: curiosity and passion for wri ng in a new way. As I helped to help students grow as ar sts and individuals; to our tutors compile the Kidd Anthology this spring, I saw develop their own literary consciousness; to find their the quantum leaps forward that the Kidd students took as voices and be heard; and to make their pocket of the ar sts and people. Reading through the mountain of world a be er place. applica ons this spring, I couldn’t help but be excited Kidd par cipants enjoy a highly individualized, intense about the progress these young writers would make in year of study in a small group se ng, as well as access to just a year’s me. Throughout the year, I kept thinking: visi ng writers (at least two each term) in the Crea ve Man, I wish my alma mater had a program like this when I Wri ng Program’s annual Reading Series. In keeping with was an undergraduate student. I am con nually struck by the bequest by Nancy and Walter Kidd, the Kidd Program how unique and special the Kidd Program truly is. We are also offers substan al scholarships to admi ed students lucky to have it. ■
4 UNIVERSITY OF OREGON COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES Spring 2018
Reading Series
From le to right: Michael Copperman, Robin Coste Lewis, Ma Donovan, Mia Alvar, Mary Jo Salter, and Andre Dubus III
MICHAEL COPPERMAN (MFA Fic on ‘06) began She thrilled us by allowing us to be the first audience our reading series with a cra talk about naviga ng to hear an excerpt from her upcoming novel. Her cra different types of retrospec on, a common challenge talk covered many methods fic on writers can use to faced during first dra s. communicate a character’s emo ons to the reader. During his reading, he read from his memoir, Teacher: Two Years in the Mississippi Delta, which was a finalist for MARY JO SALTER has published eight books of the 2018 Oregon Book Award in crea ve nonfic on. poetry, including A Phone Call to the Future: New and Selected Poems, Nothing by Design, and The Surveyors. ROBIN COSTE LEWIS is the 2015 Na onal Book She served as co-editor of three edi ons of The Norton Award winner for her book Voyage of the Sable Venus. Anthology of Poetry and is a Krieger-Eisenhower Professor Her poetry has appeared in The Massachuse s Review, in The Wri ng Seminars at Johns Hopkins University. Callaloo, The Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review, VIDA, and Through an analysis of Dickinson’s heightened Phantom Limb, among others. She holds an MFA from a en on to language, her cra talk considered the NYU and an MTS in Sanskrit and compara ve religious significance of words as both signifiers and things in the literature from the Divinity School at Harvard University. world. The lecture focused on the unconscious work a In her cra talk, she read from “Boarding the poet does that changes word choice and mo vates Voyage,” her lyric essay about the archaeological act of decisions later in a poem. researching that went into the wri ng of Voyage of the Sable Venus. ANDRE DUBUS III is the author of six books including House of Sand and Fog which was adapted MATT DONOVAN, author of two poetry collec ons, into an Academy Award-nominated mo on picture. He Vellum and Rapture & the Big Bam, as well as the essay has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, The collec on A Cloud of Unusual Size and Shape: Medita ons Na onal Magazine Award for Fic on, two Pushcart Prizes, on Ruin and Redemp on. He is the recipient of an NEA and an American Academy of Arts and Le ers Award in Fellowship, the Rome Prize in Literature, a Pushcart Prize, Literature. and the Larry Levis Reading Prize. As a novelist and short story writer, he gave a His cra talk explored the role of syntax in the elegy cra talk about abandoning outlines and following the through close readings of Gwendolyn Brooks’ “We Real subconscious when construc ng a narra ve. He encour- Cool,” Frank O’Hara’s “The Day Lady Died,” Rickey aged students in the audience to make their art their first Lauren is’ “Wri ng an Elegy” and a scene from Hamlet. priority. In an unconven onal reading, Dubus personalized MIA ALVAR’s short story collec on, In the Country, the event by cha ng with the audience about his life won the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fic on. experiences and his upbringing. He then read an excerpt Her work has also appeared in The New York Times Book from his memoir, Townie, that detailed the moment he Review, One Story, The Missouri Review, The Cincinna knew he’d become a writer. ■ Review, and elsewhere. crwr.uoregon.edu CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAM 5
Faculty News
Mat Johnson Marjorie Celona Professor of Fic on Assistant Professor of Fic on
Mat Johnson joins the university in Marjorie Celona’s story “Counter- a shared posi on with English and blast” won an O. Henry Award and will begin teaching in the Crea ve will be reprinted in The O. Henry Wri ng Program in Fall 2018. Prize Stories 2018. Marjorie was the Mat is the author of the novels recipient of a Faculty Research Loving Day, Pym, Drop, Hun ng in Award from the Office of the Vice Poet and Former Harlem, the nonfic on novella The President for Research and Innova- Great Negro Plot, and the comic on and a Faculty Research Grant Program Director books Incognegro and Dark Rain. He from the Center for the Study of Passes Away is a recipient of the American Book Women in Society. Both grants were Award, the United States Ar st in support of her second novel, Ralph Salisbury, Professor Emeritus James Baldwin Fellowship, The which will be published in Canada, of Crea ve Wri ng and Literature, Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, a the UK, and Spain in 2019. In former director of the MFA in Barnes & Noble Discover Great New addi on, she was a Visi ng Writer at Crea ve Wri ng and editor-in-chief Writers selec on, and the John Dos Willame e University and at Ohio of the Northwest Review, passed Passos Prize for Literature. University, and will be a Visi ng away on October 9, 2017. Writer at the Mineral School next Ralph began his career at the September. University of Oregon in 1960. Early on he directed the MFA in Crea ve Wri ng program (which he helped to develop) in addi on to serving as editor-in-chief of the Northwest Review for six years. He also edited A Na on Within, an anthology of contemporary Na ve American wri ng (Outriggers Press, New Brian Trapp Geri Doran Zealand) and won many accolades in Career Instructor of Fic on Associate Professor of Poetry poetry, including a Rockefeller Founda on Residency at the Villa Brian Trapp was a Visi ng Assistant In this last year, Geri Doran's poems Serbelloni, Bellagio, Italy; the Professor at Willame e University, have appeared in Yale Review, New Chapelbrook Award; the Northwest where he taught crea ve wri ng and England Review, and A Poetry Poetry Award; three Fulbright disability studies. He won an Oregon Congeries (a feature of the online professorships to Germany and Arts Fellowship in Nonfic on for his journal, Connota on Press). Her new Norway; and an Amparts (USIS) memoir-in-progress, Twelve Words. poetry collec on, Blue Marble, is lectureship in India. ■ He also received a wri ng residency forthcoming in 2019 from Tupelo at Centrum in Port Townsend, WA. Press.
6 UNIVERSITY OF OREGON COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES Spring 2018
P. Lowell Bowditch Cai Emmons Professor of Classics Career Instructor of Fic on
Program Welcomes New Director Cai Emmons’ new novel Weather Woman will be Lowell joined the program to take the place of published by Red Hen Press Professor Rowe who served the program from 2010 on Oct. 9, 2018. Margot to 2017. Lowell will serve as the program’s director Livesey calls the book, through June 2020. “deeply fascina ng and Professor Bowditch has been at the university extremely mely.” Eileen Pollack says it is, “a rive ng tug-of- since 1993 and has taught a wide range of language war between science and intui on.” Caroline Leavi raves: “I and literature courses on epic, tragedy, gender and love this novel so much I want to marry it.” In June and July, sexuality in an quity, and the Augustan era. She is Cai will be driving a transit van throughout the northwest currently wri ng a book on love elegy and Roman and to Colorado to hand-deliver advance review copies to imperialism. independent booksellers.
Garrett Hongo Professor of Poetry
Garre Hongo released a new essay collec on, The Mirror Diary, in the pres gious Poets on Poetry series from University of Michigan Press in November 2017. “The Mirror Diary tracks the emergence of an original poe c voice and a learned consciousness amid mul ple and some mes compe ng influences of complex literary tradi ons and regional and ethnic histories. Beginning with a literary inquiry into the history of Japanese Americans in Hawai`i and California, Garre Hongo draws on his own history to consider the mosaic of American iden es—personal, cultural, and poe c—in the context of a postmodern diaspora.” In addi on to readings in California and Washington this past year, Garre ’s poems have appeared in the Harvard Review and Renga for Obama. He has poems forthcoming in New England Review, Kenyon Review, Harvard Review, and the Asian American Literary Review. Last summer he par cipated in the Smithsonian Ins tute’s Asian American Literary Fes val and taught at Bread Loaf Writers Conference. This spring and summer he will be a Lucas Fellow at the Lucas Ar st Retreats at Villa Montalvo (Saratoga CA), visi ng ar st at the American Academy (Rome, Italy), and fellow at the Djerassi Ar st Retreats (Woodside CA). ■ crwr.uoregon.edu CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAM 7
Student News
Scholarships, Fellowships, and What’s Next
From le to right: Amanda Cox, Blaine Ely, Ka e Haemmerle, Ndinda Kioko, Kieran Mundy, and Erik Neave.
Amanda Cox (Poetry ‘19) annual fellowship is designed to support writers com- Amanda was awarded The Miriam McFall Starlin ple ng their first book, and provides a generous s pend, Poetry Prize. This summer award honors a first-year office space, and an intellectual community for the recipi- program student in poetry. ents. Ndinda will teach a crea ve-wri ng workshop each semester and give a public reading of her work. Blaine Ely (Fic on ‘18) Ndinda also won the Logsdon Award for Crea ve Blaine will join the University of Houston's PhD Fic on Wri ng for 2018. This prize honors a second-year program in Literature and Crea ve Wri ng in the fall. program student in fic on.
Ka e Haemmerle (Fic on ‘18) Kieran Mundy (Fic on ‘19) Ka e was named a Sewanee Writers’ Conference Kieran’s story “Melon” appeared in Hobart in January, Scholar. She will a end the workshops in Tennessee 2018. Her story “Homonyms” was named one of Wigleaf’s in July. Top 50 Very Short Fic ons of 2017.
Ndinda Kioko (Fic on ‘18) Erik Neave (Poetry ‘18) Ndinda received an Olive B. O’Connor Fellowship in Erik also was named a Sewanee Writers’ Conference Fic on from Colgate University for 2018–19. The Scholar for 2018. He will join Ka e in Tennessee in July. ■
Annual Giving Reminder
Consider giving to the Crea ve Wri ng Program. Your generous support helps us educate students, strengthen our program, and prepare tomorrow’s writers—our future literary voices. There are a variety of ways to support the program and gi s of all sizes are a powerful investment in our mission and community. Whether you are making a one- me gi , making a pledge of recurring contribu ons, considering a planned gi , or establishing an endowed fund, dona ons to the program and program-related funds allow us to provide a compe ve educa on for our growing body of undergraduates and graduate students. The faculty and staff in the Crea ve Wri ng Program are commi ed to advancing the educa onal and scholarly mission of the university and we thank you for your generosity. For more informa on, visit our webpage: h p://crwr.uoregon.edu/give-now/.
8 UNIVERSITY OF OREGON COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES Spring 2018
The Walter and Nancy Kidd Wri ng Compe on
Fic on winners with personalized cita ons by guest judge, Andre Dubus, III 1st Selene Steets 2nd Garod Drumm 3rd Patrick Riley “Crystal” “Waning” “Confina ” “Wri en with gri y, evoca ve, and “Told in the wonderfully authen c “’Confina ’ is a wise, compassionate, honest prose, ’Crystal’ is a haun ng voice of a troubled young girl with and naturalis c gem. I could have lament, a cry for connec on in a too much weight on her shoulders, spent a novel’s stretch of pages with place where all the es that bind ‘Waning’ brims over with a myriad of these compelling characters in The have broken. This is a deeply emo onal truths. It also show-cases Crooked Mountains of Italy.” affec ng, moving, and important the work of a truly gi ed young short story, and it marks the appear- writer.” ance of a talented new writer among us.”
Pictured below from le to right:
Patrick Riley (Fic on, 3rd place) and Sarah Hovet (Poetry, 1st place) with guest author, Andre Dubus, III
Poetry winners with personalized cita ons by guest judge, Mary Jo Salter 1st Sarah Hovet 2nd James Barton 3rd Veronica Fernandez‐Alvarado “The Ar st” “Pieter Bruegel: “Amor de Veracruz” Winter Landscape, 1565”
"In ‘The Ar st,’ the poet lavishes "This poem begins by seeing into the “’Amor de Veracruz’ deals with a careful a en on on the various minds of people depicted in a social problem, physical and verbal crea ons of a ta oo ar st, as if they Breughel winter landscape, although abuse in families, with a sense of the were masterpieces in a museum. But the people themselves ‘cannot see complicated compromises people these ta oos are the work of a beyond the river’s bend.’ That is, o en make. The poem’s best ‘cartographer’—they map the world they can neither see beyond their moment is in its ending, when the and also are dispersed all over the daily environment, nor beyond the harsh words of family members world, on the bodies of people. The bounds of the pain ng that frames coexist with their choice (daily, it ta oos are described in words them. The poet not only sees but seems) to make peace at the end of whose precision mirrors the hears everything going on in the the day." ■ ta ooist’s, and whose musical winter landscape, and makes a harmonies make us delight in them welcome connec on between further." Flemish sixteenth-century culture and a small town of the present." crwr.uoregon.edu CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAM 9
Welcome
Angela Bogart‐Monteith years trying to find something else to He holds a BA in religion from Columbia University and an MA in Angela originally hails from North major in. Family friends have warned wri ng from Coastal Carolina Univer- Idaho, where her family has lived for her about the solitary life of a writer, sity. Between degrees, Mark has four genera ons. She graduated with which at mes has pushed her away worked as a heavy metal photojour- a BA in Crea ve Wri ng from the from it—but secretly, she longs for nalist, a professional photographer, University of Colorado Denver, the quiet, calm of it, and she day- over-the-road trucker, and a mental where she worked behind the scenes dreams about owning a cat. health specialist. He is an avid collec- with Copper Nickel. tor of paperback horror and all Since leaving her home-town, Chris Connolly things Punisher, a collec on he will she spent the last decade living in Chris was born and raised in Dublin, be thinning down to help make the southern Germany; Chicago, IL; Ireland. Having spent much of his trek to Eugene with his son, Victor. Bend, OR; and Denver, CO, and is twen es working strange jobs, thrilled for the opportunity to study travelling to strange places, and at the university and trade in the dry making a series of strange decisions, Steven Kiernan Colorado climate for the mushroom- he decided to make one last one and Steven was born and raised in strewn mountains of coastal Oregon. try to write. He's been doing so for Northern California. At 17, he joined Beyond whole-heartedly locking her- the past few years, mostly from his the U.S. Marine Corps, where he self away to write for the next few room in the basement of a decrepit, served as an infantryman from years, she plans to make me for crumbling, riddled old Georgian 2005–2010. During his deployment po ery, gardening, and possibly mansion. to Iraq, he was wounded in an IED beekeeping. He's very much looking forward to blast which resulted in the amputa- escaping his basement and moving on of both legs and spent two years Beatrice Bugané 5,000 miles to kick things up a notch recovering at Walter Reed Army Hospital. Beatrice is from Brasília, a city in in Eugene: learning, mee ng, teach- A er being medically discharged, Brazil that is shaped like a plane— ing, seeing—all the important things. he received a BA in English Literature fi ng, given the many countries she from the University of Virginia and is has resided in. Finding many books Mark Hennion now looking forward to pursuing an along her travels, fic on has pro- Mark spent his early years reading MFA in crea ve wri ng. His work has vided her a sense of con nuity and and wri ng horror and slipstream appeared in Kenyon Review Online, stability she has yet to encounter in fic on in Harrisburg, PA. Since then, The Wrath‐Bearing Tree, and O‐ life. he has lived in Colorado Springs, CO; Dark‐Thirty. She will graduate from Brown Manha an, NY; and most recently He has been spli ng his me University in May of 2018 with a Myrtle Beach, SC. between Fredericksburg and Char- degree in English and a readiness to He is a veteran of the U.S. Army lo esville, VA, with his wife and two write more stories—she has spent and served as a Cavalry Scout with dogs. ■ too many of her undergraduate the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment during Opera on Iraqi Freedom.
10 UNIVERSITY OF OREGON COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES Spring 2018
New Students
Dewey Fox He studied language and litera- aspects of naming as a linguis c tool, and the place of human conscious- Dewey was born and grew up where ture at Indiana University, earning ness in the larger natural world. He the Susquehanna River emp es into his BA in Middle Eastern Language & also likes anime, animals, and spend- the Chesapeake Bay, and he has Culture with a minor in crea ve ing me in the woods. He is beyond lived in Bal more, MD, for the last wri ng. He spent several years as an excited to join this year’s class of decade. English teacher between the West incoming MFA students and to His occupa onal history is varied: Bank, Cairo, and South Korea with con nue his studies in poetry at the sportswriter, police reporter, roofer, s nts back in Tennessee working in University of Oregon. editor, teacher, crab steamer, water cafés where he honed his sandwich deliverer, clothier, and forthcoming, cra . student of poetry at the University of Most recently, he earned his Natalie Staples Oregon, which is a dream that he MA in English at East Tennessee Natalie received her BA in English, State University where he specialized with an emphasis in Crea ve Wri ng, keeps wai ng to wake from. A jour- th nalist and fic on writer for most of in 20 century Bri sh literature, from Kenyon College in 2014. Since his adult life, he decided to direct all par cularly on the work of Welsh gradua on, she has worked for a his energies to poetry a er reading a poet R. S. Thomas. college-access program, The Schuler copy of Charles Wright's Country He enjoys hiking with his wife Scholar Program, that serves under- Music that he purchased at a used Rachel and his puppy Nova, and he’s represented students in the Chicago bookstore. thrilled to con nue reading, wri ng, area. As a wri ng program associate, Outside of reading and wri ng, he and exploring with the folks and she teaches wri ng to ninth- enjoys pain ng, playing guitar, and forests of Oregon this fall. through twel h-grade students. le ng the Orioles break his heart She grew up on the east coast and every baseball season. He's going to Nathaniel Nelson has spent eight years studying and drive from Maryland to Oregon at Nathaniel hails from Cha anooga, living in the Midwest; she can’t wait some point in August with nothing TN, by way of Crawfordsville, IN, and to see what the west coast has to but his clothes and boxes of books— New York City. He discovered poetry offer! Her interests include riding he's more excited about this than he while working on his BA in English horses and ogling at strangers' dogs. can convey here. Literature, which he earned from She is thrilled to be studying poetry Sewanee: The University of the at Oregon this fall. ■ Jonathan Hill South. Currently, he works as the Jonathan was born in Atlanta, GA, Tennessee Williams Post-Bacca- and raised in Fairview, TN, a rural laureate Fellow for the Sewanee town outside Nashville, where he Writers’ Conference. grew up playing soccer, ge ng lost Recent poe c interests include in the woods, and reading in his the luminosity of everyday objects, family’s bucolic backyard. gender expression, iden ty, and fluidity, the posi ve and nega ve crwr.uoregon.edu CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAM 11
Alumni News
Chris an Knoeller Award‐winning Civil Copperman Named MFA Poetry ’81
Twilight reviewed Finalist for Oregon Chris an Knoeller has published at Huffington Post Book Award book chapters and ar cles widely on both cri cal and pedagogical topics,
including interna onally in Canada Jeffrey Schultz (MFA Poetry ’03) is a Mike Copperman (MFA Fic on ’06) and Australia. His work on environ- was named one of five finalists for rare two- me winner of the Na onal mental history as well as Midwestern the 2018 Oregon Book Awards/Sarah Poetry Series: and Na ve American Literature has Winnemucca Award for Crea ve 2013 for What Ridiculous Things appeared in leading ecocri cal Nonfic on. His book, Teacher: Two We Could Ask of Each Other journals including Interdisciplinary Years in the Mississippi Delta 2016 for Civil Twilight Studies in Literature and Environ‐ (University Press of Mississippi), was Jeff is a Visi ng Assistant Professor of ment and the Journal of Ecocri cism. selected by judges Steven Church, Crea ve Wri ng at Pepperdine/ This wide-ranging work is Alison Hawthorne Deming, and Seaver College (Malibu, CA) where consolidated in his new book-length, Lia Purpura. he served as Interim Director of ecocri cal study, Reimagining Crea ve Wri ng (2014–2015). Environmental History: Ecological Memory in the Wake of Landscape Change (University of Nevada Press, published in October 2017). Veach Releases Debut Collec on In addi on, Chris an was promo- ted to Full Professor of English at
Purdue. He is past President of Cindy Veach’s (MFA Poetry ’82) debut Society for the Study of Midwestern poetry collec on, Gloved Against Blood, Literature. has been published by CavanKerry Press. Gloved Against Blood explores the fraught rela onships of four genera ons of Call for Alumni News women against a backdrop of the patriarchal tex le mills of 19th century Submit through our Lowell, Massachuse s, that were fueled online portal: by the blood and sweat of exploited mill girls and enslaved African-Americans h p://crwr.uoregon.edu/ in the south. This collec on speaks to family, lost love, infideli es, or email: [email protected] abandonment and the close work, women’s work, of mending what is torn, (Subject: CRWR Alumni News). Be and making it like new despite the forces of inherited histories. sure to include your name, genre, and gradua on year.
12 UNIVERSITY OF OREGON COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES Spring 2018
2017 Philip Levine Prize Elizabeth George Founda on for Poetry Grant Winners
Tina Mozelle Braziel (MFA Poetry ‘15), Claire Luche e (MFA winner of the 2017 Philip Levine Prize for Fic on ’17) and Phoebe Poetry, directs the Ada Long Crea ve Bright (MFA Fic on ’16) Wri ng Workshop for high school have been awarded students at the University of Alabama- compe ve grants Birmingham. Her collec on, Known by from the Elizabeth Salt, will be published by Anhinga Press in George Founda on. 2019. Her chapbook, Rooted by Thirst, The Founda on makes was published by Porkbelly Press in 2016. ar s c grants to Her work has also appeared in The Cincinna Review, unpublished fic on writers, poets, emerging playwrights Southern Humani es Review, Tampa Review, and other and organiza ons benefi ng disadvantaged youth. journals.
Jenna Lynch Paul Hoobyar MFA Poetry ‘13 MFA Fic on ’89
Jenna Lynch recently accepted a posi on Paul Hoobyar’s novel, Rogue River at Fairleigh Dickinson University (Tea- Reprieve, going to print later this spring, neck, NJ) as the Reading and Wri ng is about a fishing guide who is confronted Specialist in the Academic Support with a mul -na onal corpora on's plans Center. Her chapbook, The Mouth of to open a heap-leach mine in the lower Which You Are, was accepted for publica- Rogue Canyon to mine gold. As the guide on by Finishing Line Press and is due out July 2018. learns more about the devasta on that the mine could Her work has appeared in Construc on Magazine, The wreak in his beloved Rogue River, the ac on shi s to his Westchester Review, Newtown Literary, Forkli , Ohio, and others' efforts to fight the corpora on and its among others. She was named a finalist for the 2013 Joy minions. Harjo Poetry Prize by Cu hroat: A Journal of the Arts, and Paul worked as a fishing guide, whitewater kayak has received fellowships and residencies at the Vermont instructor and adventure travel writer in the Pacific Studio Center and the Norman Mailer Writers Colony. Northwest for two decades. Jenna lives in Astoria, Queens (New York).
Eliza Ro erman Jacob Berns (MFA Fic on ‘15) MFA Poetry ‘06 Jacob’s story “Frieda, Callie, Kelly Lou” will be featured in an upcoming episode of Painted Bride Quarterly’s podcast Eliza Ro erman’s chapbook, Dirt Eaters, and published in the journal’s annual print edi on. selected by Brenta Shaghnessy for the Tupelo Press Snowbound Award will be J. S llwell Powers (MFA Fic on ‘16) released in 2018. Jake has been awarded a fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Eliza's poetry has appeared in Volta, Center in Provincetown for 2018–19. Quarterly West, Colorado Review and Poetry Interna onal, among others. She has received fel- Allison Donohue (MFA Poetry ‘17) lowships from the Vermont Studio Center and Squaw Val- Allison’s poems, “All Night I’ve Been Hearing Them ley Community of Writers. Currently she lives in Portland, So ly Begin” and “The Fires," will appear in Ninth Le er’s OR, and prac ces nursing. special issue on climate coming out Summer 2018. ■ crwr.uoregon.edu CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAM 13
Walker (con nued from page 2) KTW: It felt like it grew out of the premise. Inherent- on of the earth, so I decided to try wri ng a short story ly, the contagion is spreading from one person to another with that detail in mind, except a more extreme version. person, so I was interested in following it to the next That was really the first me I wrote something that was person who gets it. If I had limited the book to one point outside of regular, real life. A few years later I came back of view I wouldn't have go en to explore that as much. to that story and turned it into a novel, but from the me I also wanted to try something that was different from I read Blindness to the me when I was deep into wri ng my first book. I had not wri en much in third person, so The Age of Miracles, I became more and more interested there's a lot I had to learn and figure out about how it in how writers figure out how to write about the fantas - could func on. Third person can some mes feel clunky. cal, and what they're using those elements for. You have to figure out how to make it feel like you're MA: You went to UCLA for your undergrad, and inhabi ng a character, almost like a first person narrator. to Colombia for your MFA. Were there any writers or But I also like the semi-omniscient feeling of third person, teachers there who had an especially strong influence on where the narrator is o en inside people's heads, but you, or who you felt taught you something integral and there's informa on coming from the outside world as important that stayed with you un l now? well. KTW: Aimee Bender and Mona Simpson were my MA: Between comple ng your MFA and your first teachers in college. They were both really crucial. In novel you worked in publishing. Did that experience I graduate school, Nathan Englander was one of my nfluence your work or wri ng in any way? teachers. He was really influen al just in terms of how KTW: I was an editorial assistant and eventually to think about story, how story can work. There was also moved up to editor. I think it made me a be er writer of the level of seriousness and almost sacredness that he sentences, because I was used to edi ng other people's treated wri ng, and how hard he worked at it. How many sentences. It also gave me a be er sense of long form hours, how perfec onis c he was. Those kinds of things narra ve. In graduate school, I thought more about short stayed with me. stories. But in publishing I was constantly helping people MA: What’s something you’re reading now or have refine these long book-length projects. It taught me read recently that you enjoyed or has affected you in something about how a story can be told over a few some way? hundred pages. KTW: I recently read Exit West by Mohsin Hamad, MA: Based on the reading we've done for your which I just loved and then put on the syllabus for my graduate courses, it seems like you have all sorts of course. It's a nice example of how a story with a literary influences. And you've men oned before that fantas cal element can really be about the real world. you've not always wri en, or always been interested in That line between what's real and unreal doesn't have to wri ng, fantas cal fic on. Can you talk a li le bit about be as clear or as fixed as we might otherwise think. what led you to embracing the fantas cal in your work? MA: What has your experience been like in the When I was younger I was interested in the fantas cal program this year? in the way that kids o en are, but my reading was mostly not in THE DREAMERS that direc on. The one fantas - Karen Thompson Walker’s second novel, The Dreamers, will be published by cal book that I really did love in Random House in January of 2019. Television rights have been op oned by high school was Slaughterhouse Warren Li lefield, execu ve producer of The Handmaid’s Tale and Fargo, at Five. But I didn't ever think of Fox 21 Television Studios. myself as planning to write in that way. Then in graduate school I took a fantas cal KTW: I’m really excited to be here. It has been so nice fic on class, where I read Saramago’s Blindness for the to work with both undergrads and graduate students, first me. Then, the final assignment for the course was and it keeps making me think, especially working with to write a short story with a fantas cal element. That graduate students—about the things I was trying to figure same semester, I’d read that, in 2004 the earthquake in out when I was a student. It has just been such an Indonesia really did, by a ny amount, change the rota- interes ng, and challenging and sa sfying, experience. ■
14 UNIVERSITY OF OREGON COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES Spring 2018
Donovan (con nued from page 3) KH: The poe c self. KH: Was wri ng in the essay form a way to sub- MD: Exactly. More of the “I” as a dynamic first consciously work with poetry, take a break from it, let person narrator rather than the “I” serving merely as a ideas fester and then return to it? remote observer asking ques ons, because the ekphras c MD: For me in part it was. It was a way of shaking tradi on can also risk the kind of a voice of a docent or myself out of my habits as a poet. Suddenly I'm wri ng in museum door. Poems have opportuni es to do some- a genre I've never wri en before. So even though many of thing more dynamic and complex than that. I don't think my essays do behave like poems and a lot of my cks and the emo onal stakes can only be generated by having a styles are probably s ll embedded in those prose essays, version of the self or the personal speaker in a poem. I it felt so libera ng to be working in a new genre and feel resist the idea that every poem needs to have that. But I as if I was moving through a blueprint of a piece in an do think it is a clear means to an end. If overall the body en rely different way, that was different than a standard of the work is resis ng those personal structure I may have relied on through some emo onal stakes, eventually that can be of my poems. a more limited experience for the reader. KH: I no ced many of your essays As I have moved forward as a writer, were wri en in a fragmented structure. I'm much more interested in the oppor- Was that a way of bringing in an idea of tuni es that having more of myself and poetry? personal experience in them can afford. MD: Absolutely. I'm s ll interested in The essays that I wrote, for example, the lyricism and the associa ve leaps. In have more of my own experience in the braiding that those essays do in prose, them. you can find corollaries with my poems. So KH: Aside from considera on of the yes, my habits are definitely s ll there. personal, did you no ce a large KH: The same braiding and weaving difference in process when wri ng those that defines the lyric essay, that connects essays? disparate parts, is a lot of what poetry MD: Here’s the story of how I found does. my way into nonfic on. I was trying to MD: Right. Through those associate write about the Trinity Test Site—the place in New connec ons, to be sugges ve rather than exhaus ve. The Mexico where the world’s first nuclear bomb was lyric essay means you are trying to brush shoulders with— tested—and I wrote a terrible poem about it. There was to associate with, to interrogate through—ambiguity and so much happening there on site. There was a Boy Scout accrual in a way that the academic essay doesn’t. I want troop that was running around and so much complicated the act of wri ng a poem to be similar to the act of history to bring into it. So I couldn't start with a place of wri ng an essay. We inherit the word “essay” from the compression as a poem might require. Form and French verb for “to try,” and I think in any successful enjambment went out the window, and it was incredibly essay you’re trying something out, you're asking libera ng for me to forget about line breaks and forget ques ons. It is an interroga ve act, and if I come out of a about compression and suddenly write in prose. I felt like poem and haven't learned something about myself or I was given a new lease on life in terms of being able to about the content that I'm wri ng about, that poem has ask all the ques ons that I wanted to ask and incorporate failed in some ways. I don't want to have a poem all the history and all of the details that I wanted to from suddenly reveal itself to me from the start. Those poems that visit. Given my interest in engaging with that have always felt dead on arrival to me. Robert Frost has complicated subject ma er, it made sense to address it in that maxim "No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. a much more direct way via prose. That's not to say No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.” I poems cannot do that, but for me it was incredibly feel the same way. I want there to be a moment of libera ng for my process and for that piece to just make revela on for me as a writer and new understanding sure that I could say it exactly the way I wanted to say it through the course of wri ng, because otherwise I don't and have a more direct engagement with the reader. know why I'm doing it. ■ crwr.uoregon.edu CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAM 15
Nonprofit Organiza on U.S. Postage College of Arts and Sciences PAID Eugene OR CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAM Permit No. 63 5243 University of Oregon Eugene OR 97403-5243
The University of Oregon is an equal-opportunity, affirma- tive-action institution committed to cultural diversity and compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. This publication will be made available in accessible formats upon request. © 2015 University of Oregon
In this Issue
Interview with Karen Thompson Walker ...... 1 Literary Reference ...... 2 Interview with Ma Donovan ...... 3 Kidd Crea ve Wri ng Workshops ...... 4 Reading Series ...... 5 Faculty News ...... 6–7 FICTION POETRY Student News ...... 8 • • • • • • Giving ...... 8 Sam Axelrod Maha Abdelwahab Kidd Wri ng Prize Winners ...... 9 Blaine Ely Ka e Haemmerle Welcome New Students ...... 10–11 Nicky Gonzalez Erik Neave Alumni News ...... 12–13 Ndinda Kioko Sarah Skochko Ryan MacLennan
16 UNIVERSITY OF OREGON COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES Spring 2018