HopwoodThe Newsletter Vol. LXVIII, 2 http://www.lsa.umich.edu/english/hopwood/ June, 2007 HOPWOODHOPWOOD We are very sorry to announce the death of Professor John W. Aldridge, who directed the Hopwood Program from 1975 until 1988, when he was succeeded by Nicholas Delbanco. Professor Delbanco wrote this piece for the University Record:

John W. Aldridge, Emeritus Professor of English, passed away in Madison, Georgia, on February 7, 2007. He retired from active faculty status as of December 31, 1990, after a highly productive career as teacher and scholar. John Aldridge studied at the University of Chattanooga in his native Tennessee from 1940 to 1943; he was graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1947. His service in the Second World was distinguished; an Infantry Rifl eman and Information Specialist, he was decorated with the Bronze Star Medal and fi ve bronze combat stars for Normandy, Northern France, Rhineland, Central Europe, and the Ardennes. Having taught at such institutions as The University of Wyoming and Sarah Lawrence College, he came to Ann Arbor in 1964 and remained here until his retirement. He served as Chairman of the Editorial Board of the Michigan Quarterly Review and, for more than a decade, as Chairman of the Hopwood Writing Awards Committee. When After the Lost Generation appeared in 1951, it was immediately hailed as the rallying cry of a new generation of novelists—writers such as Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal, Truman Capote and Paul Bowles. In his 1985 Introduction to the re-issued text, Norman Mailer suggests that “Aldridge was the nearest guideline to absolute truth that the working novelist had in my young days. I wonder if there was ever a critic who understood any better the roots of the problems that beset the novelists of his own generation.” As critic and cultural arbiter, he remained in the forefront of the literary life of America. He wrote a novel, The Party at Cranton, and social commentary such as In the Country of the Young. His other works of literary criticism include such titles as Time to Murder and Create, The American Novel and the Way We Live Now, and Classics and Contemporaries; he was a regular Continued, page 2 Inside: 4 Publications by Hopwood Winners 4 -books and chapbooks 5 -articles and essays 7 -reviews 7 -fi ction 8 -poetry 10 -audio Former Director of the Hopwood Awards Program 11 -fi lm 11 -Drama Performances and Publications John W. Aldridge 12 News Notes 14 Awards and Honors 15 Deaths 15 Special Announcements Editortorr Andrea Beauchampa Design Anthony Cece contributor to such magazines as “The Atlantic Monthly,” “Esquire” and “Harper’s” as well as a book commentator on The MacNeil-Lehrer news hour. In his last years he continued to write—producing articles, book reviews and a memoir. Married fi ve times and the father of fi ve sons, he is survived by his widow Patsy Aldridge, who requests that donations in his memory be sent to the Hopwood Awards Program at UM.

We are happy to announce the publication of a special issue of Michigan Quarterly Review entirely devoted to “Hopwood Award Winners, 2000-2006,” edited by Nicholas Delbanco and Laurence Goldstein. This 256-page issue is mainly written by recent Hopwood winners, but it begins with three related items: The Hopwood Lecture for 2006 by Charles Baxter, “Losers”; a newspaper profi le and chat with Avery Hopwood from 1920; and a long interview with Arthur Miller during his last visit to the University of Michigan in the fall of 2004. Contributors to the issue include Robyn Anspach, Phillip Crymble, Rae Gouirand, Nicholas Harp, Matthew Hittinger, Evan McGarvey, Jennifer Metsker, Derek Mong, Rachel Richardson, Tung-Hui-Hu, Katie Umans (poetry); Jeremy Chamberlin, Travis Holland, Valerie Laken, Patrick O’Keeff e (fi ction); Margaret Lazarus Dean, Cyan James, Elizabeth Kostova (nonfi ction); Ashley David, Benjamin Paloff , Preeta Samarasan (review essays). For a copy of the issue, send a check for $9 to Michigan Quarterly Review, 3574 Rackham Building, 915 E. Washington St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1070.

Awards for the Hopwood Underclassmen Contest and for the other fall term writing contests were presented by Professor Nicholas Delbanco on January 30. A poetry reading by Linda Pastan followed the announcement of the awards. Judges for the contests were Margaret Dean, Robert Fanning, Elizabeth Hutton, Davy Rothbart, and Lynne Raughley. And the winners were:

The Hopwood Underclassmen Contest Nonfi ction: Xiaoqian Donica Liu, $600; Beenish Ahmed, $1,000; Jennifer Leija, $1,250; Jessica Vosgerchian, $1,200 Fiction: Lauren E. Walbridge, $800; Clare Smith Marash, $1,500; Rebecca Shafer, $1,500 Poetry: Hayley Berkshire, $600; Lauren Keils, $600; Beenish Ahmed, $1,000; Shaelyn Smith, $1,250; Keilor Kastella, $1,500 Academy of American Poets Prize: Graduate, KC Trommer, $100; Undergraduate, Evan Briggs McGarvey, $100 Bain-Swiggett Poetry Prize: Cyan James, $550 Michael R. Gutterman Award in Poetry: Chris Pruitt, $350; Michelle Brown, $450 Jeff rey L. Weisberg Memorial Prize in Poetry: Audra Puchalski, $500; Beenish Ahmed, $650 Roy W. Cowden Memorial Fellowships: James Dean Menter, $1,000; Erin Schlitts, $1,000; Natasha Stagg, $1,000; Melissa Shook, $1,500; Nithya Maria Joseph, $2,000; Erica Krutsch, $2,000; Noelle Williams, $2,500

Hopwood Lecturer Awards for the Graduate and Undergraduate Hopwood Contest were presented by Professor Nicholas Delbanco on April 18, with a lecture by Susan Stamberg Susan Stamberg, Special Correspondent for National Public Radio, following the announcement of the awards. A total of $137,000 was awarded in the Hopwood Contest and $37,700 in the other winter term writing contests. Local judges were Peggy Adler, Robyn Anspach, John Bacon, Geoff rey Bankowski, Paul Barron, Scott Beal, Frank Beaver, Charlotte Boulay, Jim Burnstein, Louis Cicciarelli, Ian Fulcher, Joseph Heininger, Lauren Kingsley, Jonathan Marwil, Raymond McDaniel, Jennifer Michaels, OyamO, Sharon Pomerantz, Alex Ralph, Leslie Stainton, and Beth Winsten. National judges were: Drama: P. J. Gibson and Peter Wallace

2 Novel: Elizabeth Kostova and Porter Shreve (Hopwood winners) Screenplay: Garrett Schiff and Joan Scott Nonfi ction: William Kittredge and Debra Spark Short Fiction: Percival Everett and Bich Nguyen (Hopwood winner) Poetry: Major Jackson and Chase Twichell The Hopwood Award Theodore Roethke Prize: Mark Halliday The winners were: Drama: Z. N. Lupetin, $3,500; Cyan James, $4,000; Eric Kahn Gale, $7,500 Novel: Cyan James, $6,000; Randa Jarrar, $8,500 Screenplay: Andy Kula, $6,000; Michael Lacher, $8,000 Undergraduate Nonfi ction: Natasha Stagg, $2,000; Amanda K. Nichols, $4,000; Rachel Harkai, $6,000; Michael Pifer, $6,000 Graduate Nonfi ction: Danielle Lazarin, $2,000; D’Anne Witkowski, $2,000; Ben Stroud, $4,500; Mika Perrine, $5,500 Undergraduate Short Fiction: Danielle Sandella, $3,000; Z. N. Lupetin, $4,000; Geetha Iyer, $7,500 Graduate Short Fiction: Christina McCarroll, $2,000; Steve Woodward, $2,000; Avery Hopwood outside the Jesse Danielle Lazarin, $4,000; Nami Mun, $5,000 Lasky Studios, NY, c. 1915; recently Undergraduate Poetry: Claire Smith, $2,000; Christopher L. Ruhlen, $3,500; discovered by Jack Sharrar Rachel Harkai, $9,000 Hopwood Graduate Poetry: Tina Ballon, $3,000; Ben Gunsberg, $3,500; Katie Hartsock, Avery $8,000 Hopwood Award Theodore Roethke Prize for the Long Poem or Poetic Sequence: Rachel Morgenstern-Clarren, $5,000

Other writing contest winners: Kasdan Scholarship in Creative Writing: Alex Gorosh, $6,500 Arthur Miller Award of the University of Michigan Club of New York Scholarship Fund: Gabriel Rivin, $2,000 Dennis McIntyre Prize for Distinction in Undergraduate Playwriting: Eric Kahn Gale, $3,000; Jacob McGlaun, $3,000; Zach Smilovitz, $3,000 Chamberlain Award for Creative Writing: Greg Schutz, $3,000 Helen S. and John Wagner Prize: Katie Hartsock, $800 Andrea Beauchamp Prize (donated by Professor John Wagner): Nami Mun, $800 John Wagner Prize: Mika Perrine, $800 Robert F. Haugh Prize: Geetha Iyer, $2,500 Meader Family Award: Joshua Edwards, $2,500; Ann Laura Wetherington, $2,500 Naomi Saferstein Literary Award: Michael Lacher, $1,000 Leonard and Eileen Newman Writing Prizes: In Dramatic Writing (awarded by the Department of Screen Arts and Cultures): Gil W. McRipley, Jr., $1,000 In Fiction: Abam Mambo, $1,000 Paul and Sonia Handleman Poetry Award: Rachel Harkai, $2,500 Geoff rey James Gosling Prize: Randa Jarrar, $800 Stanley S. Schwartz Prize: Z. N. Lupetin, $500

And we would like to announce a new award, The Helen J. Daniels Prize. The prize was donated by Professor Marilynn M. Rosenthal, who writes: “When I won my Hopwood (1970) in the Major Essay division, I used a pseudonym composed of my three children’s fi rst names, Helen J. Daniels. I am delighted to name this new undergraduate essay prize for them. Excellent essay writing is of vital importance in a world troubled with dis- and mis-information and the political manipulation of language. It is a special pleasure to recognize and reward young essayists at the University of Michigan.” The winner is Michael Pifer, $500. We are very grateful to Dr. Rosenthal for her generosity and support.

3 Publications by Hopwood Winners*

Books and Chapbooks

Dean Bakopoulos Harmony, a novel, forthcoming from Harcourt, 2007.

Jason Bredle Standing in Line for the Beast, poems, New Issues, 2007.

Howard Brick Transcending Capitalism: Visions of a New Society in Modern American Thought, Cornell University Press, 2006. He received an honorable mention from the 2007 Merle Curti Prize committee of the organization of American Historians.

Margaret Lazarus Dean The Time It Takes to Fall, a novel, Simon & Schuster, 2007.

Gloria Dyc East, West, and Beyond, poems, Plain View Press, Austin, TX, 2007.

Elizabeth K. Gordon (aka Kathryn Gordon) Walk With Us, a nonfi ction narrative, Crandall, Dostie and Douglass, forthcoming in August 2007.

Alyson Hagy Snow, Ashes, a novel, Graywolf Press, 2007.

Anne Devereaux Jordan with Virginia Schomp, two new books (her 10th and 11th), part of a nonfi ction history series, “Drama of African-American History,” for middle school-age kids: Slavery and Resistance and The Civil War, Marshall Cavendish Benchmark, Tarrytown, NY, 2007.

Joe Friedman Boobela and Worm, Orion’s Children’s Books, 2007, “available (as they say) in all good bookstores in the UK. It’s the fi rst of a series of three and is available in softback and CD.”

Kathleen Halme Drift and Pulse, poetry, Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2007.

Elizabeth Kincaid-Ehlers Leaping and Looming, poems, Merganser Press/Loon Publishing, West Hartford, CT, 2005.

Arthur F. Kinney co-edited with Ton Hoenselaars, Challenging Humanism: Essays in Honor of Dominic Baker-Smith, University of Delaware Press, 2006; Shakespeare and Cognition, Routledge, 2006.

Judith Kirscht Engaging Inquiry: Research and Writing in the Disciplines, an interdisciplinary composition text, Prentice Hall, 2002.

Erica Lehrer translated from Polish into English Diffi cult Questions in Polish-Jewish Dialogue, a joint publication of the Forum for Dialogue Among Nations and the American Jewish Committee, 2006. It is billed as “the fi rst endeavor in Polish publishing to build bridges of understanding between Poles and Jews in a way that takes equal account of history, politics, and daily life.” www.dialog.org.pl.

Jardine Libaire (writing as Carolyn Says and with Hobson Brown and Taylor Materne) The Upper Class, a novel, HarperTeen, 2007.

Mark Lloyd Prologue to a Farce: Communication and Democracy in America, University of Illinois Press, 2007.

Arthur Miller Presence: Stories, Viking, 2007. * Assume date unknown if no date is indicated.

4 Christine Montross Body of Work: Meditations on Mortality from the Human Anatomy Lab, a nonfi ction memoir, Penguin Press, 2007.

Benjamin Paloff translated Tworki by Marek Bienczyk, Northwestern University Press, 2007.

Marge Piercy The Crooked Inheritance, poems, Knopf, 2006; Sex Wars: A Novel of Gilded Age New York, Harper Perennial paperback, Fall 2006; Pesach for the Rest of Us: Making the Passover Seder Your Own, Schocken Books, 2007.

Timothy Prentiss A Good Pick, illustrated by Mernie Gallagher-Cole, and What Is a Good Citizen? fi ction and nonfi ction for children, Benchmark Education Company, 2007. Tim says they’re only available in packs of six per title. They may be ordered from his website: www. stayhomecollege.com.

Paisley Rekdal The Invention of the Kaleidoscope, poetry, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007.

Leo Rockas Mice Make War, described by Mr. Rockas as “a savage satire on the Bush administration,” Publish America, Baltimore, 2006.

Matthew Rohrer Rise Up, poetry, Wave Books, 2007; The Green Light, poetry, Wave Books, 2004.

David Rosenberg Abraham: The First Historical Biography, Basic Books, March 2007. It is a literary biography with original translations from the biblical Hebrew and ancient Sumerian poetry.

Elizabeth Schultz edited and “Introduction” with Haskell Springer, Melville and Women, Kent State University Press, 2006; Conversations: Art Into Poetry at the Spencer Museum of Art, introduction by Susan Earle, Kansas City, James Press, 2006.

Keith Waldrop translated from the French three books of poetry: Theory of Prepositions by Claude Royete-Journad, La Press (Iowa), 2006; Figured Image by Anne-Marie Albiach, Post-Apollo Press (Sausalito, CA), 2006; and with Rosmarie Waldrop, The Form of a City Changes Faster, Alas, Than the Human Heart by Jacques Roubaud, Dalkey Archive Press (Normal, IL), 2006.

Rosmarie Waldrop Dissonance (if you are interested): Collected Essays, Univ. of Alabama Press, 2005; Splitting Image, poetry, Zasterle Books (Tenerife), 2006. Her trilogy has been reissued in one volume: Curves to the Apple: The Reproduction of Profi les; Lawn of Excluded Middle; and Reluctant Gravities, New Directions, 2006.

Sam Walker Fantasyland: A Sportswriter’s Obsessive Bid to Win the World’s Most Ruthless Fantasy Baseball, paperback edition, Penguin, 2007. We were happy to see the book cracked the New York Times bestseller list.

Edmund White Chaos: A Novella and Stories, Carroll & Graf, 2007.

Nancy Willard The Flying Bed, illustrated by John Thompson, children’s literature, Scholastic/Blue Sky, 2007.

Articles and Essays

Laura Kasischke, Elizabeth Kostova, Patrick O’Keeff e, and Davy Rothbart had pieces on the writer’s craft in the latest U of M Department of English Newsletter and Nicholas Delbanco wrote on “Hopwood’s 75th Anniversary: A note from the Director: www.lsa. umich.edu/english. The issue also profi led Hopwood Award winner Michael Byers, who is a new Assistant Professor in the creative writing program.

5 Sven Birkerts “The Hive Life,” Agni #64, 2006.

Ashley David “How to Hunt & Gather,” a fi nalist in the Mid-American Review’s Creative Nonfi ction Contest, forthcoming as an “Editors’ Choice,” Mid-American Review, XXVII, 2, Spring 2007.

Margaret Lazarus Dean “The Imaginary Athlete,” Michigan Quarterly Review: A Special Issue, Hopwood Award Winners, 2000-2006, Winter 2007.

David Gewanter “The Music of the Sentence: An Interview with C. K. Williams,” PoetryFoundation.org, Spring 2006; “Albatross: Notes on the Poet’s Social Role,” Semicerchio. rivista di poesia comparata (Florence, Italy), XXXV; “Poesia in rete: industria pesante” (“Poetry on the Web: Heavy Industry,” translated by Antonella Francini), Semicerchio. rivista di poesia comparata, XXXIV; “Dante in 2006: the Contemporary,” Semicerchio. rivista di poesia comparata, XXXVI.

Matthew Hittinger “On the Transformative Power of Hybrid Forms: A Poetics,” Memorius #7, http://memorious.org/.

Donovan Hohn “Moby-Duck Or, the synthetic wilderness of childhood,” Harper’s Magazine, January 2007.

Cyan James “A Handful of Women: Recipes for the New World,” Michigan Quarterly Review: A Special Issue, Hopwood Award Winners, 2000-2006, Winter 2007.

X. J. Kennedy “The enduring specter of E. A. Robinson,” The New Criterion, April 2007.

Arthur F. Kinney “Performance as Variant,” Varianten-Variants-Variantes, Tübingen, Verlag, 2005.

Judith Kirscht “Staff Field, 1943,” River Oak Review, October 2004, and a number of academic articles throughout her professional life.

Elizabeth Kostova “In Sydney,” Michigan Quarterly Review: A Special Issue, Hopwood Award Winners, 2000- 2006, Winter 2007.

David Masello “My Trust Grows, Even as I Keep a Low Profi le,” Boston Globe, Nov. 19, 2006; “At My Age, Admonishment Still Stings,” Boston Globe, Jan. 14, 2007; “Given the Choice, I Let the Past Just Pass on By,” Boston Globe, Feb. 4, 2007; “Kurt From the Block,” New York Times, April 22, 2007, “a remembrance of my neighbor, Kurt Vonnegut.”

Arthur Miller An interview conducted by Mark Lamos, Michigan Quarterly Review: A Special Issue, Hopwood Award Winners, 2000-2006, Winter 2007.

Julia Older “Poetry’s Eternal Graffi ti: Late Night Conversations with Lawrence Ferlinghetti,” Poets & Writers, March/April 2007.

Marge Piercy “Touched by Ginsberg at a (Relatively) Tender Age,” Paterson Literary Review, Issue 35, 2006; “Professor Wrong,” in Mr. Wrong: Real-Life Stories About the Men We Used to Love, edited by Harriet Brown, Ballantine Books, 2007.

David Rosenberg “The Authentic Poet in the Late 20th Century,” Fascicle Online, issue 3, Winter 2006-2007: www.fascicle.com; “The Lost Poets of the Wild,” Jacket Online, issue 32, April 2007: www.jacketmagazine.com.

Elizabeth Schultz “Creating Icons: Melville in Visual Media and Popular Culture,” Companion to Melville Studies, ed. Wyn Kelley, Cambridge, Blackwell, 2006; “The Subordinate Phantoms,” Pacifi c Visions, ed. Jill Barnum et al., Kent State University Press, 2006; “Feminizing Moby-Dick: Women Perform the Whale,” The Ungraspable Phantom, ed. Mary K. Bercaw et al., Kent State UP, 2006; “Melville’s ‘Bartleby’ and Cary’s ‘Clovernook,’” Melville and Women, ed.

6 Elizabeth Schultz et. al., Kent State UP, 2006; “The Art of Open Spaces: Contemporary Sea and Prairiescapes,” Great Plains Quarterly, Spring 2007. She also wrote the column “Senses of Place” for the Kansas Land Trust Newsletter: “Mid-Day, Late April, Dunlap Road, Morris County,” Summer 2006; “Road, Railroad, River: Chase County, Afternoon, Summer High,” Fall 2006; “The Oregon Trail Crosses Pottawatomie County, Early Afternoon, Late Fall,” Winter 2006.

Lara Stapleton “An Interview with Jimmy Santiago Baca,” Indiana Review: Latino and Latina Writers, XXVIII, 1, Summer 2006.

Anne Stevenson “The Unifi ed Dance,” Poetry, March 2007.

Henry Van Dyke “Two Abortions,” excerpts from “Cloudy Mirror,” his memoir-in-progress, Michigan Quarterly Review, Spring 2006.

Rosmarie Waldrop “Love, Like Sentences: An Interview with Rosmarie Waldrop” by Matthew Cooperman, Denver Quarterly, XL, 3, 2006.

Edmund White “Playwright’s Diary,” a review of Notebooks by Tennessee Williams, The New York Times Book Review, March 4, 2007.

Reviews

Sven Birkerts A review of Messenger: New and Selected Poems, 1976-2006 by Ellen Bryant Voigt, New York Times Book Review, February 25, 2007.

Victoria Chang, “Victoria Chang Introduces Jennifer Chang,” Black Warrior Review, Spring/Summer 2007.

Ashley David “Monsters, Monsters Everywhere,” Michigan Quarterly Review: A Special Issue, Hopwood Award Winners, 2000-2006, Winter 2007.

David Gewanter “Zeppo’s First Wife: New and Selected Poems by Gail Mazur,” Tikkun Magazine.

Marge Piercy A review of Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt: The Story of a Daughter and a Mother in the Gilded Age by Amanda Mackenzie Sturart, The Washington Post Book World, January 22- 28, 2006; a review of The Thrall’s Tale by Judith Lindbergh, The Hartford Courant, February 5, 2006.

Benjamin Paloff “Due Consideration: On the Real Sophistication of Tony Hoagland,” Michigan Quarterly Review: A Special Issue, Hopwood Award Winners, 2000-2006, Winter 2007.

Jess Row “It Would Have Been Enough,” a review of The Stories of Mary Gordon, The Three Penny Review #109, Spring 2007.

Preeta Samarasan “Putting Words in Other People’s Mouths: On Empathy and Ventriloquism in Fiction,” Michigan Quarterly Review: A Special Issue, Hopwood Award Winners, 2000-2006, Winter 2007.

Fiction

Dean Bakopoulos A story (title unknown) in Avery: An Anthology of New Fiction, issue 1, 2007.

Stephen Eric Berry “When He Comes on Like a Sump of Malingering Things,” ten excerpts from his fi rst novel, When the Crowgull Sings, Salamander, XII, 1, 2006/2007. It has been nominated for the 2006 Pushcart Anthology.

7 Jeremiah Chamberlin “Missionaries,” Michigan Quarterly Review: A Special Issue, Hopwood Award Winners, 2000- 2006, Winter 2007.

Gail Gilliland “Tricks,” Perigee: Publication for the Arts, #16, April 2007, www.perigee-art.com.

Travis Holland “The Archivist’s Story,” Michigan Quarterly Review: A Special Issue, Hopwood Award Winners, 2000-2006, Winter 2007.

Scott Hutchins “Jack,” Story Quarterly #42, 2007.

Judith Kirscht “Ballgames,” an excerpt from an unpublished novel, in the online journal Mobius Magazine, October 2006.

Madeline Kotowicz “In Rut,” Boston Review, November/December 2006.

Valerie Laken “God of Fire,” Michigan Quarterly Review: A Special Issue, Hopwood Award Winners, 2000- 2006, Winter 2007.

Nami Mun “Shelter,” 2007 Pushcart Prize XXXI Best of the Small Presses, ed. Bill Henderson, 2006.

Celeste Ng “What Passes Over,” One Story #86, 2007; “Parallel,” Crazyhorse #71, 2007.

Patrick O’Keeff e “Accidents,” Michigan Quarterly Review: A Special Issue, Hopwood Award Winners, 2000- 2006, Winter 2007.

Sharon Pomerantz “The Virgin of Upper Broadway,” Prairie Schooner, Spring 2007.

Henry Van Dyke “Collateral Damage,” The Antioch Review, Spring 2007.

Poetry

Robyn Anspach “How Jacob pinned the angel by touching her thigh,” Third Coast, Fall 2005; “How Samson Became Strong,” “Delilah Speaks of Betrayal,” Michigan Quarterly Review: A Special Issue, Hopwood Award Winners, 2000-2006, Winter 2007.

Marie Ashley-France “What you missed,” “Trouble fi nds you,” Pavement Saw, Winter 2007; “Young girls,” Poetry Midwest, Winter 2007.

Al Averbach “Clear,” Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, XXV, 1, December 2006.

Victoria Chang “Litany for the Legion of Unrelated People,” “Written in the Year of the Lake: A Murder,” “Worker Ants,” “Anonymous Self Portrait with Dead Animals,” “Mulberry Tree,” TriQuarterly #126, 2007.

Alex Cigale “I have poems forthcoming in The Colorado Review, Hanging Loose, and Main Street Rag. Since I was last in touch a poem, “Teeth Extracted by the Latest Methodist,” appeared in Green Mountains Review’s Comedy in Contemporary American Poetry issue (Vol. 15, No. 1/2). GMR also published two poems, “The Postal Family” and “Our Towns,” in a subsequent issue (Vol. 16, No. 2). A poem, “People Just Didn’t Believe They Would Be Moved” appeared in the Beat Bush issue of Long Shot (Vol. 27). Manhattan Review published my translation from the Russian of Andrey Gritsman’s poem “Going Back” (Vol. 10, No. 1). And the following poems appeared on-line: “Chronicle of Calamities” in The Adirondack Review, “The Paul Bunyan Sestina” in McSweeneys, and “There are Birds Flying in my Vagina” in Perigee-Art.”

8 Phillip Crymble “Tomatoes,” “Forcing House,” Michigan Quarterly Review: A Special Issue, Hopwood Award Winners, 2000-2006, Winter 2007.

Ashley David “Ballad of the Chosen Sons,” “Weathervane Song,” The Southern Review: Writing in the South XVII, 2007.

Emery George “Ibsen in Egypt,” Iambs & Troches: A Journal of Metrical Verse, Fall/Winter 2006.

David Gewanter “Break-Up Café,” “1972: The Battery,” “Mistress Umlaut,” Fulcrum 5.

Gail Gilliland “The Bell-Boy,” Driftwood, April 2007; “’The Repentant Magdalene’ by De La Tour,” Broken Bridge, Aug./Sept. 2007.

Rae Gouirand “By Infi nity,” “Ten Second Windows,” Jubilat, #12, 2006; “Vanishing Point, 1425,” “Ritual Sum,” Michigan Quarterly Review: A Special Issue, Hopwood Award Winners, 2000-2006, Winter 2007.

Kathleen Halme “Comb,” “Drift and Pulse,” “What Self,” Long Journey: Contemporary Northwest Poets, edited by David Biespiel, Oregon State University Press, 2006; “Poppy Sleeping,” Ploughshares, Winter 2005-06; “Port of Entry,” “Are,” “The Galaxies Are Where They Want To Be,” “Orb,” The National Poetry Review, Summer/Fall 2006.

Nicholas Allen Harp “All This Now,” “The Dead Beach Boys Meet Richard Nixon,” Michigan Quarterly Review: A Special Issue, Hopwood Award Winners, 2000-2006, Winter 2007.

Matthew Hittinger “An Hour After the Meteor Shower,” “Wrestlers Unfi nished,” “Two Men in a Shower,” Disquieting Minds Quarterly Review, Fall 2006, www.dmqreview.com; “Square Dance,” “Euclid On the Erotic Postulate,” Memorius #7, http://memorious.org/; “H. D. in Prismatic Ecstasy,” “Two Ones Remain Two Ones,” Michigan Quarterly Review: A Special Issue, Hopwood Award Winners, 2000-2006, Winter 2007.

Garrett Hongo “Cane Fire,” “Aubade. Kawela,” “A Child’s Ark,” Ploughshares, Spring 2007.

Patricia Hooper “Flare,” The Southern Review, Spring 2007.

Tung-Hui Hu “The Masterly Play of Form,” “How to Care?” Prairie Schooner, Winter 2006; “Convalescence,” “The Camera in the Garden,” Michigan Quarterly Review: A Special Issue, Hopwood Award Winners, 2000-2006, Winter 2007.

Laura Kasischke “Almost There,” “Riddle,” New England Review, XXVII, 4, 2006.

Betsy Mitchell Martinez “Syllogism,” Northwest Review, XLV, 1, 2007.

Evan McGarvey “America’s Profound Connection to the Mongols of Iran,” “In the Louvre,” “Armor,” Michigan Quarterly Review: A Special Issue, Hopwood Award Winners, 2000-2006, Winter 2007.

Karyna McGlynn “[this old woman I will be given away in a taxi],” Fence, Winter/Spring 2007; “[the kitchen witch, my cousin, the corpse],” “[of the future tense our genitals wore helmets],” Notre Dame Review, forthcoming in Winter 2008; “Diamondback Rattler,” Indiana Review, forthcoming in December 2007; “My 3rd 9 A.M. Appointment,” Rattle, June 2007; “Latin for Americans” (parts I-IV), Ninth Letter, Spring 2007; “[my melancholic circuitry doesn’t mean],” Denver Quarterly, forthcoming in 2007; “[the wedding party fl oated away on an iceberg],” Pebble Lake Review, Spring 2007.

Jennifer Metsker “The True World Goes Down with the Hindenburg,” “The True World Casts No Shadow,” Michigan Quarterly Review: A Special Issue, Hopwood Award Winners, 2000-2006, Winter 2007.

9 Derek Mong translated “Tumulus Anni Morientis (The Tomb of the Dying Year)” by Vincenzo Guiniggi, Crazyhorse #70, Fall 2006; “Period,” “Fellini Sestina,” “Cabiria,” Michigan Quarterly Review: A Special Issue, Hopwood Award Winners, 2000-2006, Winter 2007.

Marge Piercy “Talking with my mother,” Fight These Bastards #3, Fall 2006; “Your proper place,” “Many, many loves,” “The lived-in look,” Irish Feminist, II, 2006; “Security bottle,” “Houses of invention,” “They exude light,” The Hampden-Sidney Poetry Review, Winter 2006; “Teaching scales,” “Bitter Herbs,” Quick Muse virtual agon (“this is a site where a quote, a subject is given and each poet has 15 minutes to write a poem online. I’ve done it twice, most recently April 1”); “In the sukkah,” Jewish Women’s Literary Annual, VII, 2006; “Shy no more,” “The odd bits,” “Rainy day allegro,” Caprice, XX, 2, Summer 2006; “Lurid Fields,” “Metamorphosis,” CT Review, XXIX, 1, Spring 2007; “My eyes delight,” “The dead at night,” Ward 6 Review, online, Winter 2006; “The movies every week,” Blue Fifth, Spring 2007.

Paisley Rekdal “The Lecturer Discusses Edward Curtis’s Vash Gonn” and “Edward Curtis’s Lewis and Clark’s Landing Place at Nihhluidih,” The Virginia Quarterly Review, Winter 2007; “Feel Like a Little Trepanning Today,” New England Review, XXVIII, 1, 2007.

Rachel Richardson “A Story,” “Night Book,” Michigan Quarterly Review: A Special Issue, Hopwood Award Winners, 2000-2006, Winter 2007.

Elizabeth Schultz “Fort Scott Cemetery,” Southern Indiana Review, Fall 2006; “Homage to Vermeer,” Coal City Review, XXI, 2006; “Plain Death,” Plain Song Review, VIII, 2006; “Hot Springs,” “Desire Turns to Memory,” Gin Bender, forthcoming; “Palestine,” “New Jersey Cemetery,” “Possum,” I-70 Review, III, 1, 2006; “She Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” Rockhurst Review, XIX, Spring 2006; A Matter of Course (“The Tongan Returns Home,” “Over the Edge,” “The Sea’s Residue”), Sea Stories, Spring 2006, www.seastories.org; “Mountain Woman,” “The Yard,” Blue Collar Review, Autumn 2006; “Will He Perish?,” “Ishmael Imagines Japan,” “Ahab at Pearl Harbor,” Leviathan, Winter 2006.

Anne Stevenson “City Lights,” Times Literary Supplement, December 8, 2006.

Deborah Tall “But in the Onset Come,” Ploughshares, Winter 2006-07.

Laurence W. Thomas “Under the Costumes, the Masks,” 37 ½ Cents (Missouri), an online publication, 2006; “Postulation,” Blue Unicorn, October 2006; “The Diners,” “Snowbound,” 37 ½ Cents, 2007; “Crossing Mackinac Bridge,” “All I Can Remember,” “Bird Point,” and “Mistaken Identities” in The Old-Millpond Anthology, Winter 2007; “Cold Night,” Blue Unicorn, XXX, 2, 2007; “Small Fry,” Just Bite Me, 2007; “Think of Me,” freefall, Spring 2007; “Coff ee Table Book,” “To Perfect Bloom.,” Rogue Poetry Review, 2007.

Matthew Thorburn “Exile,” “Horn of Plenty,” “Like It’s Going Out of Style,” in the online journal RealPolitik, December 2006; a portfolio of four poems, “Now is Always A Good Time,” “Triple Self- Portrait,” “To James, Before You’re Born,” and “Only the Mistakes Belong to Us,” The Paris Review #179, Winter 2007; “If What You Mean by ‘Content’ is Simply Happy,” Pindeldyboz #7, 2007.

Katie Umans “Cora, Bedside,” “Sestina to Undo the Little Albert Experiment,” Michigan Quarterly Review: A Special Issue, Hopwood Award Winners, 2000-2006, Winter 2007.

Audio

Kristin Lems “My double CD, Equality Road, is at the pressing plant, just in time for the reintroduction of the Equal Rights Amendment!! The two albums include songs like “We Will Never Give Up,” “Days of the Theocacy,” “How Nice,” “Rosa Parks,” “I’m gonna be an Engineer,”

10 and other favorites that have been out of print for years....along with three new bonus tracks. Peace, human rights, women’s rights, ecology, justice, democracy - it’s a harmonic convergence....”

Matthew Schmitt “Over the past months, I’ve been working with the amazing producer, musician, and engineer, Peter Munday on my fi rst professionally recorded album. Long gone are the days when I did it all myself….Please check out the fi rst songs that stepped up to the plate, ‘Last Thursday,’ ‘Flow,’ and ‘My Warrior’ on my new MySpace page at www.myspace. com/matthewjohnmusic. We’ll continue to record in 2007, aiming to fi nish an entire album and start playing out.”

Film

Tina Datsko In May and September, Tina went to NYC for the National Association of Latino Independent Producers screenwriters’ lab for which her screenplay La Paz was selected. In October, La Paz was selected for the Pitch Market at the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival.

Eric Jager Martin Scorsese will develop with an eye to direct the big-screen adaptation of Eric’s The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal and Trial by Combat in Medieval France (Broadway Books, 2004).

Drama Performances and Publications

Pat Kaufman There was a reading in NYC of her play The Bottomless Well at Pact Playhouse in September 2006 and a reading in Sarasota, Florida of her play Serving Hard Valentime in October 2006. The latter play is due to be performed in Sarasota in March 2007.

Brian Lobel Ball, for which he won a Hopwood Drama Award in 2003, continues to tour nationally and internationally at theaters, medical schools, and universities. Brian’s second play, Other Funny Stories About Cancer was named Critic’s Choice by the Chicago Reader and will also tour U.S. and Canadian theaters and universities before the summer. Tour information can be found at www.brianlobel.com.

Pamela M. Nash has been performing in some improvisational comedy shows at the DC Improv. “We make up our material on the spot, based upon audience suggestions. It’s great practice for a writer, since we are called upon to do diff erent characters, scenework, genres, etc., and there’s no time to re-write or edit!”

Nancy Shaw “Two of my books have been dramatized and put to music, in diff erent ways. Sheep on a Ship was animated in an episode on the PBS reading show Between the Lions last September. The Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra commissioned Joshua Penman, a doctoral student at the University of Michigan School of Music, to write an orchestral piece using Raccoon Tune. The A2SO premiered the work on January 21, featuring two percussionists and a narrator in raccoon masks. Trash-can lids made appealing instruments, and the illustrations were projected as the musical story unfolded.” Here’s a link about the concert: http://www.a2so.com/events/family_concerts/peter_wolf/index.shtml

Deborah Smith Boots on the Ground premiered last spring at Trinity Repertory Theater to much acclaim. Her next play, Some Things Are Private, will premiere at Trinity in February of 2008. She has been named playwright in residence at Trinity Rep.

11 News & Notes Alex Cigale “Having worked the previous year as an instructor for Outward Bound, I was back again as an English teacher in the NYC Dep’t. of Ed. but am now again ‘in transition.’ My proudest accomplishment in the summer of 2006 was bicycling the West Coast from Uclulet, BC to San Francisco. I’ll be bicycling this summer in New Mexico and Colorado.”

Gabrielle Civil is an Associate Professor of English at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul. She teaches creative writing and composition and is an international black literature specialist. Check out her website at www.gabriellecivil.com.

Christopher Paul Curtis delivered the fi rst annual Sarah Marwil Lamstein Children’s Literature Lecture” at the U of M in the English Department on March 30. The lecture was entitled “The Role of the Groit: An African American Story Teller.” Christopher is the winner of both the Newbery Award and the Coretta Scott King Medal and is the bestselling author of fi ve books, including Bud, Not Buddy and The Watsons Go to Birmingham. The lecture is available for download from the English Department’s website at www.lsa.umich.edu/english/media.

Gloria Dyc has been appointed Regents’ Professor of English at the University of New Mexico- Gallup.

Barry Garelick “I wrote a series of columns for a blog called Edspresso, using the pseudonym John Dewey, chronicling my adventures in ed school. See: http://www.edspresso.com.”

David Gewanter co-organized the international conference, “Dante: Art Generating Art” (Florence, Italy, November 2006) that brought together Italian, Russian, and American poets, scholars, and artists. His talk, “Dante in 2006: the Contemporary,” described Professor Ralph William’s free seminar on Dante.

Anne Devereaux Jordan “Other than writing, I’m still teaching part time at Eastern Connecticut State University, and I also work as an expert consultant in Children’s Literature. Most recently, I’ve been consulting for a law fi rm representing the Children’s Television Workshop in the case of Cavalier & Cavalier v. Random House, et. al.”

Laura Kasischke will teach in the 27th Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, July 29-August 3, Napa Valley College, St. Helena, California and in the Bear River Writer’s Conference on Walloon Lake, Michigan May 31-June 4.

Pat Kaufman “I’ve had two solo art shows in 2006 and have been included in four group shows [one solo show was “Serious Fun” at the Harmony Gallery in Sarasota, Florida last November]. The First Edition of the Sarasota Salon of Artists and Writers is featuring an evening in celebration of the new edition of my novel Perpetual Kin (Long Island University Press).”

Judith Kirscht “I retired from fi fteen years of teaching composition and interdisciplinary writing at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2001. I directed the writing program there for the last three years of my tenure and am now retired (and devoting myself, fi nally, to my own writing) and living on Camano Island in Washington State.”

Elizabeth Kostova will teach a writing workshop at the Bear River Writer’s Conference May 31-June 4.

Christine Montross and have a daughter, Maude Smith-Montross, who just turned 1 year old in March. Deborah Smith

Benjamin Paloff gave a lecture, “Intersubjectivity and Its Discontents; or, How to Make Fun of Witold Gombrowicz,” at the U of M on February 5. He is a doctoral candidate in Slavic Languages and Literatures at Harvard, an instructor in the honors History and Literature concentration, and is also a poetry editor at Boston Review.

12 Marcia Perry and three of her tree creations appeared in Ann Arbor on Friday, February 9th for the opening of the Venus of Willendorf: Redefi ning the Goddess art exhibition at the University of Michigan’s North campus Duderstadt Gallery. “There are 47 artists involved in what promises to be a powerful statement about how the femininity has evolved over the millennia.” She was also at Ypsilanti’s Riverside Arts Center Gallery’s opening reception on March 3 for a select show of salvaged wood art called “It Grows on Trees” which ran March 1 through April 7th. Marcia is “Making Waves,” steatite (Montana soapstone) a sculptor and poet living in Saugatuck, carving by Michigan. Marcia Perry

Marge Piercy “I did a lot of power point presentations centered around the era and the historical characters in Sex Wars all over the country. This late winter and early spring I was in bookstores publicizing Pesach for the Rest of Us and doing various radio programs and interviews. Such a book was diff erent from my experiences with all others in that publicity is unusually intense in the month before the holiday and drops to zero on the holiday. A shorter shelf life than heavy cream.”

Elizabeth Schultz was a Lecturer at the New York Summer Institute, University of St. Petersburg, Summer 2006. She was a Fulbright lecturer at Beijing Foreign Studies University in Spring 2007 and will be the Curator of Benton Spruance’s The Passion of Ahab at the Kendall Institute, New Bedford, MA, in Summer 2007.

Holly Spaulding is teaching at the college in Traverse City. “In the early spring I was contacted by an independent publisher, AK press, about doing a water book. I’ve always admired the projects that AK supports—all of them concentrated on increasing the accessibility of literature and ideas from the fringes, and especially anti-authoritarian and anarchist thinkers and writers. I was thrilled, of course, at the prospect, and have been developing the ideas, and more recently, writing toward the goal of having my fi rst book here in the near future. The idea of writing 80,000 or so words, even if it is something that I’ve been thinking and writing about for a number of years, has proved to be intimidating, but perhaps just the thing for me to focus on right now. I spent a couple of weeks at a writers retreat in northern California recently, and it was then that I was able to begin fi lling out the structure that I’ve developed to tell the stories that will comprise this book.”

Laurence W. Thomas is the editor of a new arts magazine, Third Wednesday, which features poetry, short fi ction, and black and white artwork. Details are available on the internet: thirdwednesday.org. He gave two lectures on how to read poetry at the Ozark Lucidity Poetry Retreat in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.

Thomas A. Thomas “I entered Getting Here into the 14th Annual Writer’s Digest International Self-Published Book Awards, and I’m happy to say my book received 1 of 5 Honorable Mentions (after just one paying prize) in the poetry division. The April ’07 issue of Writer’s Digest magazine lists the book and publication information in a nice spread and here’s a link for the online announcement: http://writersdigest.com/contests/self_pub_poetry06asp.”

Ian Reed Twiss will be ordained at the Episcopal church in Ann Arbor on June 23. He studied and served in Ann Arbor and Chicago.

13 Keith Waldrop writes of two new poetry titles from Burning Deck Press: Part of the Mass, by Catherine Imbriglio, and Secret Histories by Craig Watson.

Edmund White was a participant in the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature, held in New York City April 24-29. Awards& Honors

Al Averbach “In February I was a happy four-place winner in the 27th Bay Area Poets Coalition contest, as follows: Mini-poems (15 lines or less) lst prize for “Something took it on itself to fall”; lst honorable mention for “Physics”; 2nd honorable mention for “Facetime” Midi-poems (25 lines maximum) lst honorable mention for “The birds that glided”

Sven Birkerts “A Weekend at Montauk” is listed in “Notable Essays of 2005,” The Best American Essays 2006, edited by Lauren Slater and Robert Atwan, Houghton Miffl in Co., 2006.

Ashley David and were awarded the U of M’s Moscow Prizes for Excellence in Teaching Composition. Jennifer Metsker

Ariel Djanikian was named a Fulbright Fellow for 2006-07. She will travel to the Canadian Yukon to do further research related to her historical novel about the Klondike Gold Rush.

Mary Gaitskill “Today I’m Yours” appears in The Best American Short Stories 2006, edited by Ann Patchett and Katrina Kennison, Houghton Miffl in Company, 2006.

Alyson Hagy “Border” is listed in “Other Distinguished Stories of 2005” in The Best American Short Stories 2006, edited by Ann Patchett and Katrina Kennison, Houghton Miffl in Company, 2006.

Kathleen Halme was the recipient of a $2,700 Oregon Literary Fellowship for poetry in 2006.

Matthew Hittinger is the winner of the 2006 Spire Spring Chapbook Competition for Pear Slip. It will be published by Spire Press, 2007.

Laura Kasischke “At Gettysburg” appears in The Best American Poetry 2006, edited by Billy Collins and David Lehman, Scribner Poetry, 2006; she is the winner of a $600 2006 Cohen Award of Ploughshares for her story “If a Stranger Approaches You About Carrying a Foreign Object With You Onto the Plane.”

Arthur F. Kinney was awarded the Paul Osker Kristeller Lifetime Achievement Award, given by the Renaissance Society of America, in March 2006. This is an international award now given for the 12th time since 1956, the second time in English Literature.

Aric Knuth won the fi rst annual BEN Prize award from the English Department at the U of M. Each year this award recognizes two exceptional Lecturers who work with students to improve their writing skills. The BEN Prize, which carries an honorarium of $2,500, was made possible by a gift in honor of English Advisory Board member Larry Kirschbaum who named the award after his fi rst grandchild.

Rattawut Lapcharoensap “Sightseeing” is listed in “Other Distinguished Stories of 2005” in The Best American Short Stories 2006, edited by Ann Patchett and Katrina Kennison, Houghton Miffl in Company, 2006.

14 Marge Piercy The Graduate Library of the University of Michigan has purchased her papers with the assistance of Glen Horowitz and Kathryn Beam. Ms. Piercy won four Hopwood Awards as an undergraduate and is the author of seventeen novels including The New York Times Bestseller Gone To Soldiers; the National Bestsellers Braided Lives and The Longings of Women and the classic Woman on the Edge of Time; seventeen volumes of poetry, and a critically acclaimed memoir Sleeping with Cats. She was awarded four honorary doctorates, and has been described as a “key player in many of the major progressive political battles of our time, including the anti-Vietnam war and the women’s movement, and most recently an active participant in the resistance to the war in Iraq.”

David Tucker was chosen by U.S. Poet Laureate Donald Hall to receive one of two Witter Bynner Fellowships from the Library of Congress for 2007.

Edmund White “My Women” is listed in “Notable Essays of 2005,” The Best American Essays 2006, edited by Lauren Slater and Robert Atwan, Houghton Miffl in Co., 2006.

Deaths

John Ingwersen of Kennebunkport, Maine died on September 1, 2006. He was the winner of a $100 Minor Fiction Award in 1946.

Barbara Yanowski, winner of a 1956 Summer Fiction Award, died in St. Pete Beach, Florida in October 2006.

Special Announcements

Our thanks to all of you who have so generously donated copies of your books to the Hopwood Library. The special display of recent books by Hopwood winners always attracts a lot of attention. We appreciate your thoughtfulness very much and enjoy showing off your work to visitors.

Please help us to keep the Newsletter as accurate and up-to-date as possible by sending news of your publications and activities. Your friends would like to hear about you! You could write, fax (using the English Department’s number, 734-763-3128) or e-mail me: [email protected]. Important: if e- mailing, please type HOPWOOD in the subject line so your message isn’t deleted by mistake. The Hopwood Room’s phone number is 734-764-6296. The cutoff date for listings was April 30. If your information arrived after that, it will be included in our next newsletter, which will come out in January.

Unfortunately, so many of you have personal websites and blogs that we’ll be unable to make note of them in the future. We’re trying to keep the newsletter in manageable size.

The Hopwood Program has a Web page address: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/ english/hopwood/. Visit the English Department’s MFA Program site: http:// www.lsa.umich.edu/english/grad/mfa.

Best wishes for a very happy summer! Do stop by to say hello if you’re Hopwood Program Assistant visiting Ann Arbor.

Urvi Shah Andrea Beauchamp Assistant Director

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