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RKANSAS NGLISH Fall/Winter 2014/2015 News from the University of Arkansas Department of EnglishE FulbrightA College of Arts and Sciences FACULTY NEWS New Faces Geffrey Davis Toni Jensen We are happy to have The Department of Eng- Geffrey Davis as a new Assistant lish welcomes Toni Jensen as an Professor in Creative Writing at Assistant Professor of Creative the University of Arkansas. Davis Writing here at the University of moved to Northwest Arkansas Arkansas. Jensen hails from Exira, when his wife, Lissette Szwydky, Iowa, a small town in the South- received her position in the Eng- ern part of the state. She received lish department last year, and upon her undergraduate and master’s finishing his graduate work, Davis degrees from the University of was able to join us in the Creative South Dakota at Vermillion and Writing and Translation program. her Ph.D. in Creative Writing and “I feel that it’s an exciting time to Native American Literature from be here at the University of Ar- Texas Tech University. The Fall kansas,” Davis says, “especially to 2014 semester was her first at the be in Fulbright College and to be University of Arkansas; she and working with the English De- Geffrey Davis her family moved from Pennsylva- partment’s Programs in Creative nia to Arkansas shortly before the Writing and Translation. I feel beginning of the semester. surrounded by colleagues who are Jensen’s work and research enthusiastic about what’s around interests have been heavily influ- the academic corner.” enced both by her family back- Davis, who is originally ground—Métis on her father’s from Tacoma, Washington, did side and Irish Catholic on her his graduate work at Penn State mother’s—and the places she has University, where he was en- lived. Her collection of linked rolled in a dual-track MA/Ph.D. stories, From the Hilltop: Stories, program. Throughout that pro- follows two Native families in two gram, Davis participated in poetry fictional towns: one in Minnesota, writing workshops and was soon based on Jensen’s hometown in approached by a professor of Iowa, and one in West Texas, simi- creative writing who urged him to lar to the area in which she did her make his poetry a priority. Davis graduate work. Her motivation Toni Jensen Continued on Page 2 Continued on Page 2 333 Kimpel Hall, Fayetteville, AR 72701 tel (479) 575-4301 fax (479) 575-5919 email: [email protected] FACULTY NEWS (Geffrey Davis, cont.) then became simultaneously enrolled in the MFA and Ph.D. program. In 2012, he received his MFA in poetry, and in 2014, he received his Ph.D. in Literary Criticism, focusing on 20th and 21st Century American Poetics, specifically about the intersection between creative and critical writing. Davis’s poetry has been featured in The Academy of American Poets, The Feminist Wire, Poem-of-the- Week, and Verse Daily, as well as in Crazyhorse, Green Mountains Review, The Greensboro Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Massachusetts Review, Mississippi Review, Nimrod International Journal, [PANK], and Sycamore Review, among other places. His first book,Revising the Storm, received the A. Poulin, Jr., Poetry Prize in 2013. According to Davis, “at the core of the book is a desire to question difficult relationships, to find language that salvages experiences that felt flat or singular in their emotional charge…experiences of trauma, loss, regret, or frustration, and to try to interrogate the singularity of those memories, events, and relationships and push them to be something more.” He is currently working on a collaborative chapbook with California poet Doug Brown. The chapbook, which is scheduled for publication this year, focuses on themes of fatherhood and masculinity. While completing his graduate work, Davis taught a variety of college-level courses in composition, lit- erature, and creative writing. He has a particular fondness for introductory composition classes because he feels that these courses “set a standard for students’ critical inquiry that will ripple throughout their whole education.” Of course, he also enjoys teaching poetry courses and has enjoyed teaching a graduate-level poetry workshop at the University of Arkansas in the Fall 2014 semester. Of teaching poetry, Davis says, “I consider writing and teaching the writing of creative writing very important critical work, as poetry contributes to the languages and forms we have available for navigating the conditions of being human—which include joy and fear and trauma and survival and celebration, et cetera.” Continued on Page 3 (Toni Jensen, cont.) for this collection came from “trying to explore place and the lives of native people who didn’t live on reser- vations or in big urban Indian centers…that was my experience living in rural Iowa, we were the only Native family there.” Jensen’s work has also been featured in the Stories from the South: The Year’s Best, 2007; Best of the West: Stories from the Wide Side of the Missouri, 2011; Denver Quarterly; and Iron Horse Literary Review, among others. Her story “At the Powwow Hotel” won the Katherine Anne Porter Prize for Fiction in 2006. She is currently working on a collection of interconnected stories about the neighborhood of Lubbock, Texas, and a nonfiction piece about the Indian Division of the Civilian Conservation Corps, a topic on which there is rela- tively little scholarship. Jensen has been teaching at the college level for 11 years now, having held positions in both community colleges and universities, including Chatham University in Pittsburgh, the University of Central Florida, and, most recently, Penn State University. She has taught primarily creative writing courses but also enjoys teaching courses in Native American literature. Her favorite course to teach is the advanced undergraduate fiction work- shop, in which she feels she “gets a chance as a professor to shape students’ interests a little bit and introduce them to experimental literature that they’ve never read before.” Jensen now teaches both undergraduate and graduate fiction writing classes at the University of Arkansas. Since moving to Fayetteville with her husband, seven-year-old daughter, “rotten little dog named Bear,” and two fish, Jensen has enjoyed the number of outdoor activities that Fayetteville has to offer. Her husband, Don, enjoys the bike trails and disc golf course, and her daughter, Eva, enjoys school and playing at Wilson Park. So far, the family enjoys Northwest Arkansas, though Jensen does admit that she is looking forward to a little less humidity in the cooler months! 2 FACULTY NEWS (Geffrey Davis, cont.) Because of his wife’s appointment as Faculty in Residence, Davis is in the rather unusual position of liv- ing on the University of Arkansas campus. He and Szwydky are able to interact with a much wider population of students, and they also work with Resident Assistants on campus. Their young son, Carlos, has also enjoyed this opportunity; he’s gained a few extra tee-ball teammates and has no problem telling college students when they’re out too late! Davis enjoys living in Fayetteville and “the rich creative writing community that exists even outside the university.” Davis also enjoys fly-fishing, boxing, and spending time with his family. Padma Viswanathan New Faces Kay Yandell The Department of English In the fall of last year, we is happy to have Padma Viswana- welcomed Dr. Kay Yandell to our than as an Assistant Professor of department as Assistant Professor Creative Writing. She had previ- of English. Coming to the Uni- ously been teaching at the Univer- versity of Arkansas was actually sity of Arkansas for four years as a homecoming for Yandell, who a visiting professor, so we are glad was born and raised in Fayette- to have her taking on a bigger role ville. Yandell’s family has lived in within our Creative Writing pro- Northwest Arkansas since the early gram. nineteenth century, and she says A native of Edmonton, that she has always felt that this is Alberta, Viswanathan graduated the place she belongs. This is her from the University of Alberta and second year back in Fayetteville, received her MA from the Writ- and she says, “I wake up every day ing Seminars at Johns Hopkins grateful that I have finally returned University. In 2006, she received Padma Viswanathan home.” her MFA from the University of Yandell graduated Magna Arizona. Her debut novel, The Toss Cum Laude from the UofA in of a Lemon, was a finalist for the the nineties, then traveled the Commonwealth (Regional) First world and lived in various coun- Book Prize, the Amazon.ca First tries before returning to the US Novel Prize, and the Pen Center to pursue a PhD in Literature at USA Fiction Prize. Her second Cornell University in New York. novel, The Ever After of Ashwin After completing her PhD in 2004, Rao, was published earlier this she worked at the University of year. Set in 2004, 20 years after Wisconsin-Madison and began the bombing of an Air India flight her “decade long quest toward a to Vancouver, her novel centers faculty position in the University around Ashwin Rao, an Indian psy- of Arkansas English Department.” chologist trained in Canada. The She is especially grateful to her novel begins with the character, colleagues in the department and but Viswanathan notes that “pretty department chair Dorothy Stephens much every South Asian Canadian Padma’s first novel for making it possible for her to Continued on Page 4 Continued on Page 4 3 FACULTY NEWS (Padma Viswanathan, cont.) is only one degree of separation from somebody who lost their whole family in that bombing,” so it was a very influential event in her life and community.

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