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2016-2017 CRWR Newsletter

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2016-2017 CRWR Newsletter Nonprofit Organizaon SPRINGSPRING 2015 2015 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 Interview with Visiting Assistant Professor Sara Jaffe by Sam Axelrod, MFA FicƟon ‘18 Sara Jaffe joined the program’s faculty for the 2016 academic year as a visiting profes- The University of Oregon is an equal-opportunity, affirma- sor of fiction. Her first novel, Dryland, was tive-action institution committed to cultural diversity and compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. This published by Tin House Books in Septem- publication will be made available in accessible formats ber 2015. Her short fiction and criticism upon request. © 2015 University of Oregon have appeared in Fence, BOMB, NOON, Paul Revere’s Horse, matchbook, and The Los Angeles Review of Books. Drawing on her experience as guitarist for post-punk band Congratulations Erase Errata, she also co-edited The Art of In this Issue Touring (Yeti, 2009), an anthology of writ- Sara Jaffe (SJ): So, to speak first about 2017 Graduates! ing and visual art by musicians. the publishing experience, and the recep- Sara holds a BA from Wesleyan tion of having a book out in the world—I University and an MFA from the Universi- think it certainly felt very vulnerable at ty of Massachusetts Amherst, and has re- first to open myself up to readers I don’t Interview with Sara Jaffe ........................................... 1 ceived fellowships from the Virginia Cen- know, and to being reviewed and stuff, Literary Reference ...................................................... 2 ter for the Creative Arts, RADAR Produc- but I think almost across the board when I Faculty News .......................................................... 3–6 tions, and the Regional Arts and Culture received unfavorable reviews, it seemed Program Awards ........................................................ 6 Council. She is also a co-founding editor of pretty clear to me that they were not my New Herring Press, a publisher of prose readers. That what they felt I had failed to Kidd Tutorial Program .............................................. 7 chapbooks. do was not something I was trying to do Alumni News ........................................................ 8–9 anyway. So that was reassuring in a way, FICTION POETRY — — — — — — Welcome New Students .................................... 10–11 and sort of helped to clarify my intent. Reading Series .................................................... 12, 15 Kevin Bartz Joanna Chen During Spring term, Sara met with Sam That was one thing that was useful. Now strangers read my book. That’s a reality, Call for Alumni News ............................................. 14 Claire Luchette Allison Donohue Axelrod, a first-year MFA candidate in fic- tion, to talk about her writing. but I also have con- Giving ........................................................................ 15 Ishelle Payer Leah Gómez tinued to feel Charlie Schneider Erik Johnson Sam Axelrod (SA): Now that it’s a bit buoyed by the writ- Leah Velez Tia North behind you, what would you say you ing community that learned from writing and publishing Dry- I’ve built up over the land? Jaffe Interview — Cont’d page 2 16 UNIVERSITY OF OREGON COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES Spring 2017 crwr.uoregon.eduLiterary Reference CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAM 1 Visiting Authors (continued) Jaffe Interview Annual Giving Literary with a tantalizing quote from Emily Dickinson: “When I state myself, years, and a lot of the most valuable more about making experiments in as the representative of the verse, it does not mean me, but a supposed Reminder Reference feedback I’ve gotten has been from various ways that I can sustain more person.” _______________________ writers I’ve been in conversation effectively over shorter work. Obvi- C. DALE YOUNG FACULTY with for a long time, and I think that ously, there are the questions and much of the press or blurbs or read- stylistic tics that continue through- C. Dale Young is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently ings happened through people that I out all of one’s work, but to me it The Halo (Four Way Books 2016). His recently completed linked short made connections with, through feels pretty different. story collection will be also published by Four Way Books in early Poetry building community, for the last SA: Would you say you think of 2018. A recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment of the Garrett Hongo however many years. And that felt yourself as a novelist, or a short sto- Arts, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the Daniel Anderson really gratifying to me. Of course ry writer, or neither, or both? Is that Rockefeller Foundation, he practices medicine full-time and teaches in Geri Doran there was work that Tin House did something that you think about? the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. as my publisher, but I also was able SJ: My ideal is to write three pages His spring term Kidd Talk, entitled “Doubt and Uncertainty: to activate these networks that I’ve or 250 pages. The Interrogative Gesture as Rhetorical Strategy,” emphasized the Fiction cultivated—not in order to have SA: So “both” would be the easy importance of questions in both poetry and fiction, with C. Dale Jason Brown them help me in a publicity sense— answer. providing examples from a wide range of texts by Elizabeth Bishop, Marjorie Celona but just having those connections SJ: Both. But I’ve never been a sol- Flannery O’Connor, Eudora Welty, and William Butler Yeats. and becomes really grounding and use- id fifteen-page short story writer. Sara Jaffe, ful. That’s never been my thing. CHINELO OKPARANTA SA: It’s as if you’d been working SA: Right. So, let’s go back a little. Visiting Writer Born and raised in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, Chinelo Okparanta received up to this for a while. I know you’re Before writing, your main artistic her BS from Pennsylvania State University, her MA from Rutgers working on a collection of stories outlet was music. Do you feel you he faculty and staff in the Instructors University, and her MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. A Colgate now, Hurricane Envy, but did pub- were once a “music person” and Creative Writing Program Cai Emmons University Olive B. O’Connor Fellow in Fiction, as well as a recipient T lishing a novel affect your novel- now you’re a “writing person,” or do are committed to advancing the Brian Trapp of the University of Iowa’s Provost’s Postgraduate Fellowship in Fic- writing-life in terms of wanting to you still feel like you’re both? Can educational and scholarly mission tion, Okparanta was nominated for a US Artists Fellowship in 2012. start writing another one? Or per- you talk a little about how you made of the university. However, lim- She is the winner of a Lambda Literary Award and an O. Henry haps the opposite.? that transition, and what your trajec- ited financial resources restrict _______________________ Prize. Her debut short story collection, Happiness, Like Water, was cited SJ: When I was really ready to sit tory was like going from music to our ability to develop educational as an editors’ choice in the New York Times Book Review and was includ- ADMINSTRATIVE down and start the next project, I’d writing? Was writing always there? opportunities that benefit our stu- ed on the list of The Guardian’s Best African Fiction of 2013. The book STAFF been saying it was going to be a col- And do you miss playing music? dents. Donations to the program was nominated for the Nigerian Writers Award (Young Motivational lection, and then I felt like, “I don’t SJ: I always identified as a writer and program-related funds allow George E. Rowe Writer of the Year), longlisted for the 2013 Frank O’Connor Interna- want to write a collection of stories. I from the time I was really young. us to provide a competitive edu- Program Director tional Short Story Award, and a finalist for the 2014 New York Public want to write another novel. I want And I also played music from a pret- cation for our growing body of Library Young Lions Fiction Award, as well as the Etisalat Prize for to dive back into writing something ty young age, but the difference, I undergraduates and our graduate Julia A. Schewanick Literature. She was also a finalist for the 2013 Caine Prize for longer-form.” Which surprised me, think, when I got really into music— students through Graduate Business Manager African Writing, the 2013 Society of Midland Authors Award, and the because while I was writing the nov- both listening and playing, as a teen- Teaching Fellowships. 2014 Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative in Literature. Chinelo is _______________________ el, I wanted to write stories in order ager—it defined my social world. So Please consider giving to the currently Assistant Professor of English & Creative Writing at Bucknell to be able to work on that smaller I’d really say that the major shift that Creative Writing Program. Your University, where she is also C. Graydon and Mary E. Rogers Faculty scale. But since then I really have happened is that now my social gift will help maintain the pro- Creative Writing Program Research Fellow. She was recently named one of Granta’s Best Young gotten back into story-mode. I have world, and my artistic community, is gram's excellence and dedication 5243 University of Oregon American Novelists. some ideas for longer-form stuff that more writing-oriented, as opposed to to emerging graduate and under- Eugene, OR 97403-5243 In May, Chinelo read from her debut novel, Under the Udala Trees, I’m really excited to get back to—but music-oriented. But also, I have not graduate writers—our future lit- T: (541) 346-3944 the story of a 57-year-old Nigerian woman looking back on her adoles- it’s also been the right time for me to been playing music very much for erary voices.
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