edited by Emily Wilson edited by Emily

Winter 2014 Winter 2013

The Coast Line The Coast Line Newsletter of the UNCW Department of Creative Writing Chautauqua: Journeying into Issue 11

As we get closer to the release of Chautauqua Issue 11, section of “Journeys and Pilgrimages.” Both pieces recall “Wonders of the World,” it is important to recognize a specific time for their speakers when a second held the the significance of past issues in building upon and weight of an hour. Ramspeck has authored four poetry strengthening the Chautauqua values on which they were collections including his most recent book, Mechanical based. Chautauqua is an annual journal of creative writing Fireflies (Barrow Street Press, 2011), which received built as an anthology. The writing expresses the values the Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize. He’s the recipient of Chautauqua Institution, broadly construed: a sense of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award and of inquiry into questions of personal, social, political, teaches creative writing as well as directs the Writing spiritual, and aesthetic importance. Each issue has a Center at The Ohio State University at Lima. theme and is broken down into Chautauqua Institution’s Scott Russell Sanders contributed his essay “A Writer’s four pillars: art, spirit, life lessons, and leisure. Calling” to “Journeys and Pilgrimages.” The essay – a Chautauqua’s 10th issue, “Journeys and Pilgrimages,” thought-provoking reflection on the passion for writing came out in June 2013, focusing on the ever-changing and the attached stigmas – delves into the personal, yet adventure of what occurs before the occasion, between widely relatable, internal battles all writers face: from the origin and the destination. The voyages described in writing for a living to the daunting blank page. Sanders’s “Journeys and Pilgrimages” push the reader to question previous honors include the Lannon Literary Award, the the narrow definition of “journey” as each author seizes a Mark Twain Award, the Cecil Woods Award for Nonfiction, moment different than the last. The issue features more and the John Burroughs Essay Award. He was elected to than 40 contributors, including Daniel Nathan Terry, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012 and Doug Ramspeck, and Scott Russell Sanders. is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of English at Indiana University. Daniel Nathan Terry’s poem “Cycling to the Sea” simultaneously reminds us how insignificant we are while We are proud to represent these writers and look also realizing, were we not where we are right now, that forward to our next issue, which explores the themes of place, “you know, would be less without you.” Terry “Privacy and Secrets” and invites readers to peek behind has authored a chapbook and two full-length poetry previously closed doors. Spring submissions begin on collections, one of which won The Stevens Prize. Feb. 15, 2014. ✍

Doug Ramspeck’s poem “Counting Breaths” and flash fiction piece “Opuntia” are featured in the Life Lessons Ecotone Celebrates Contributors’ Successes

Ecotone released its 15th issue in spring 2013. The Ecotone will release its 16th issue in late January, with issue features poetry from Cynthia Huntington and work by Molly Antopol, Hailey Leithauser, Luis North Carolina Poet Laureate Joseph Bathanti, essays Alberto Urrea, and more. by Rick Bass and Eva Saulitis, fiction fromShawn This fall, also welcomed its new editor, Anna Vestal, and photography by Paula Rebsom, among Ecotone , formerly senior editor for other talented authors and artists. Lena Phillips American Scientist magazine and a founding editor of Fringe. In The magazine celebrated the success of many of its addition, the magazine welcomed new poetry editor past contributors this year. Mary Ruefle’s “Little Golf Laurel Jones, who joins Nicola DeRobertis-Theye Pencil” (no. 13) appeared in Best American Poetry (fiction),Carson Vaughan (nonfiction),Ana Cristina 2013. Andrew Tonkovich’s “Falling,” which originally Alvarez (designer), Drew Krepp (assistant editor), and appeared in Ecotone no. 14, was included in Best Sally J. Johnson (managing editor), along with faculty American Nonrequired Reading 2013. In addition, the Ecotone staff David Gessner (editor-in-chief), Emily collection gave notable mention to the following pieces: Smith (publisher and art director), and Beth Staples Rick Bass’s “The Blue Tree” (no. 12), Stephanie (associate editor). Ecotone is produced by this staff along Soileau’s “The Ranger Queen of Sulphur” (no. 11), and with members of the Ecotone M.F.A. practicum and Kevin Wilson’s “Birth in the Woods” (no. 11). Best Publishing Laboratory staff. ✍ American Essays 2013 awarded these past contributors with notable mentions: David Gessner for “Clappers” (no. 13), Brandon R. Schrand for “Esto Perpetua” (no. 13), and Matthew Vollmer for “NeVer ForgeT” (no. 13). Receiving notable mentions in Best American Science and Nature Writing 2013 are Beth Ann Fennelly for “Observations From The Jewel Rooms” (no. 14) and Anne Gisleson for “Shifting: Cycles of Loss on a Sinking Coast” (no. 14). Completing the list, the following Ecotone contributors received distinguished mentions from Best American Short Stories 2013: George Makana Clark for “The Incomplete Priest” (no. 14), Lauren Groff for “Abundance” (no. 13), and Peter Orner for “The Hole” (no. 13). Lookout Books Looks Forward to Astoria to Zion Lookout Books has had a productive year and continues to celebrate its successes over the past few months!

In addition to welcoming the talented Anna Lena Phillips to candidates who assisted with the story selection process spoke its editorial staff, Lookout author John Rybicki completed a about how challenging it was to choose only 26 short stories Be sure to keep an eye open book tour for his emotionally riveting poetry collection When from Ecotone’s reserve of great literature. for Lookout Books at the All the World Is Old, published last spring. Rybicki’s tour was “The sheer volume of incredible work that has generously supported by the North Carolina Arts Council and Ecotone 2014 AWP bookfair! published really sank in after spending weeks reading, taking included visits to oncology centers, several school classrooms, notes, and arguing for our favorite stories during Lookout a library, and a bookstore. The tour concluded April 13 with a meetings,” said third-year poet Kathleen Jones. “I feel really presentation at the North Carolina Writer’s Network Conference happy with the anthology that we’re publishing. That being said, at the University of North Carolina Greensboro. Lookout Books we could have filled a much larger volume with great pieces.” is excited Rybicki was able to share his collection about hope and healing in the face of loss with communities in Chapel Hill, Heather Hammerbeck, a second-year nonfiction writer, also Charlotte, Durham, Greensboro, and Saxapahaw. addressed how difficult the selection process was and how it encouraged students to articulate their literary preferences. The North Carolina Arts Council also supported Lookout author “There was a limited number of slots, obviously, and a lot of Ben Miller’s tour for his debut memoir, River Bend Chronicle: good stories, obviously,” said Hammerbeck, “so it often came The Junkification of a Boyhood Idyll amid the Curious Glory of down to who could make the best case for their pick. It pushed Urban Iowa. Miller’s tour included visits to UNCW’s campus and us to think very critically about them in a way that forces one bookstores in Asheville, Charlotte, Durham, and Greensboro past the knee-jerk reaction of ‘why I like it.’” April 14-18. In River Bend Chronicle, Miller uses humor and honesty to explore his eccentric family and its household during In his foreword to Astoria to Zion, Ben Fountain writes, economic hardships in the 1970s. The memoir is lauded by “Ecotone defines itself as the magazine for reimagining place, Publishers Weekly as being “funny and beautifully crafted.” a claim that deserves to be applauded as a rare instance of Miller was also named a 2013 One Story literary debutante in truth in contemporary advertising. In an age where place has June and was honored in City. never seemed more tenuous and abstract, it’s hard to conceive of a more relevant mission for a literary journal.” Lookout Books is enthusiastically completing production on Astoria to Zion: Twenty-Six Stories of Risk and Abandon from Helping readers reimagine place are both established voices, Ecotone’s First Decade, an anthology of short stories originally such as Steve Almond, Rick Bass, Edith Pearlman, and appearing in Ecotone. Astoria to Zion is a continuation of Brad Watson, and emerging talent, including Lauren Groff, Lookout and Ecotone’s mission to orient and make readers Ben Stroud, and Kevin Wilson, among others. Astoria to Zion aware of geographic and cultural terrain. The M.F.A. will be released in March 2014.✍ Writers Week

Nov. 4-8 marked UNCW’s 13th Writers Week. The annual Natasha Trethewey was the keynote speaker symposium facilitates workshops, panels, and readings hosted by at Writers Week this year. In addition to various distinguished writers, editors, and agents. B.F.A. and M.F.A serving her second appointment as the U.S. Poet Laureate, Trethewey is also the State students alike attend presentations and manuscript conferences. Poet Laureate of Mississippi. She has written All readings and panels are free and open to the public to further four collections of poetry and one nonfiction Xhenet Aliu’s debut short story collection, engender communal conversations about literature, craft, and work, Beyond Katrina: A Meditation on the Domesticated Wild Things and Other Stories Mississippi Gulf Coast (University of Georgia (University of Nebraska Press, 2013), won the current issues in the writing and publishing industries. Press, 2012). Her first collection,Domestic 2012 Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction. Work (Graywolf Press, 2000), received the Her fiction and essays have appeared in Cave Canem Foundation Poetry Prize as numerous journals, including Glimmer Train, selected by Rita Dove. Domestic Work was Hobart, The Barcelona Review, and Necessary followed by Bellocq’s Ophelia (Graywolf Press, Fiction, among others. She has been awarded 2002) and Native Guard (Houghton Mifflin, grants, fellowships, and scholarships from the 2006), for which she won the 2007 Pulitzer Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Elizabeth Prize for Poetry. Thrall is her latest collection George Foundation, and the Djerassi Resident (Houghton Mifflin, 2012). Trethewey’s other Artists Program. After recent stints in New York accolades include fellowships from the City, Montana, and Utah, she now lives Rockefeller Foundation and the John Simon in Athens, Georgia. Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Jin Auh was born in Seoul, Korea Stuart Borrett is a systems and attended the University of ecologist and an associate professor is the author of Virginia. Since 1995, she has Emma Bolden at UNCW, where he teaches , a book-length series of been with the Wylie Agency, Malificae ecological science to undergraduate poems about the witch trials in early an international literary agency. and graduate students in the modern Europe. She’s the author of Housed in New York and London, Department of Biology and Marine three chapbooks of poetry – this international agency has been How Biology. He is also affiliated with the (part of in business for more than three to Recognize a Lady Edge Center for Marine Science, and his by Edge, the third in the Quartet decades. Some of its represented research focuses on understanding Lan Samantha Chang is the author Series by Toadlily Press), The authors include: Chimamanda Ngozi the processes that create, constrain, of two novels, All Is Forgotten, Mariner’s Wife, and The Sad Epistles Wendy Brenner is the author of Adichie, Martin Amis, Shani Boianjiu, and sustain ecological systems Nothing is Lost and Inheritance, – and one nonfiction chapbook – NoViolet Bulawayo, Lan Samantha and developing a formal science two books of short fiction,Large which won the PEN Open Book Geography V, forthcoming from Chang, Kiran Desai, Louise Erdrich, of environment that can be used Animals in Everyday Life, which won Award for the novel. She is also the Winged City Press. Her poetry has Mary Gaitskill, A. M. Homes, David to comprehend the effects of local the Flannery O’Connor Award for author of “Hunger,” a short story appeared in such journals as Prairie Leavitt, Yiyun Li, Chinelo Okparanta, and global environmental changes. Short Fiction, and Phone Calls from collection which was a finalist for a Schooner, Conduit, Indiana Review, . She is also the recipient Emily Ruskovich, John Jeremiah His current projects focus on the the Dead Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She the Greensboro Review, Redivider, Sullivan, Justin Torres, Wells Tower, effect of sea level rise on nitrogen of a National Endowment for the Arts is the recipient of fellowships from Verse, Feminist Studies, the Journal, John Wray, Orhan Pamuk, Salvador cycling in the Cape Fear and New Creative Writing Fellowship, a North , the National Guernica, and Copper Nickel. Her Plascencia, Philip Roth, Salman River estuaries and the sustainability Carolina Arts Council fellowship, a Endowment for the Arts, and the work has been featured on Poetry Rushdie, Bennett Sims, the Estates of the urban water metabolism on Henfield Prize, and the AWP Intro Guggenheim Foundation. She has Daily and Verse Daily’s Web Weekly of Saul Bellow, Roberto Bolaño, Wilmington. In addition, Borrett Journals Project award. Her short taught fiction writing at Stanford feature. She was the recipient of Jorge Luis Borges, Raymond Carver, serves on the advisory board for the stories and essays have appeared in University, , and a Tennessee Williams Scholarship Philip K. Dick, Ralph Ellison, Vladimir Cape Fear Economic Development Allure, Travel & Leisure, Seventeen, Warren Wilson College. She lives for the 2008 Sewanee Writers’ Nabokov, Maurice Sendak, and Council. Borrett and his family are The Best American Magazine in Iowa City, where she is currently Conference and was named a finalist Susan Sontag. A full client list can be residents of the Burnt Mill Creek Writing, New Stories from the South, professor of creative writing at the for a Ruth Lilly Fellowship from the found on wylieagency.com. Auh lives watershed in Wilmington. You can and many other magazines, journals, and director of the Poetry Foundation. She can be found in Brooklyn. learn more about his work at and anthologies. Iowa Writers’ Workshop. at emmabolden.com. people.uncw.edu/borretts. Nina de Gramont is the author of the story collection Of Cats and Men, which was a Book Sense selection and won a Discovery Bill DiNome has, since 1998, award from the New England advised and managed business is a professor of Booksellers Association. Gossip of for UNCW’s student-run media: Rebecca Lee the Starlings, her first novel, was creative writing at UNCW. She is the the Seahawk newspaper, Atlantis Jill Gerard’s chapbook of poems, also a Book Sense pick. In addition author of The City Is a Rising Tide magazine,TealTV, Hawkstream Something Yet Unseen, was to co-editing an anthology called and Bobcat and Other Stories, which radio, and Flicker Film Society. published by Finishing Line Press. Choice, she has authored a novel was an Oprah Book of the Week and All these groups are encountering Her poems have appeared in Ars, for teens titled Every Little Thing in .com Best Book of the Month opportunities and threats similar to Medica, Blueline, the Cornstock the World, which was an American and received a front-page New York those experienced by professional Review, Eclipse, poemmeomoirstory, Library Association/Young Adult Times Arts review. Her stories have publishers due to the shifting media and Sojourn, among others. Her Library Services Association pick for been published in and landscape. He earned an M.F.A. essays have been aired on WVTF, Best Fiction for Young Adults. Her Zoetrope: All-Story, and she was in fiction from UNCW in 1997 and Charlottesville’s NPR affiliate, and next novel for teens, Meet Me at the the winner of the National Magazine teaches here part time. He worked appeared in Our State. Gerard River, was released in October 2013. Award for Fiction for “Fialta,” which two years for WHQR public radio, in edits Chautauqua and teaches She also authored Rogue Touch appears in Bobcat. Her fiction has the mid-1990s. During the 1980s, undergraduate and graduate courses under the name Christine Woodward; also been read on NPR’s Selected he was a full-time copywriter, for focused on the literary magazine. Rogue Touch was released in June Stories. Berkeley-Putnam and, later, St. She works with young writers 2013. Her work has appeared in Martin’s Press, and for 12 years through the John Hopkins Center Redbook, Harvard Review, Nerve, Writers Week thereafter a freelance author, for Talented Youth and has taught Post Road, and Seventeen. She lives copywriter, and editor. He is an classes at Chautauqua Institution. in North Carolina with her husband occasional contributor to the online and daughter. magazine Wilmington Faith & Values. Rebecca Petruck is a graduate of the M.F.A. program at UNCW. Steering Toward Normal, her first Yvette Neisser Moreno’s first novel, is an American Booksellers book of poetry, Grip, won the Gival Association “New Voices” top Press Poetry Award in 2011, was 10 children’s debut and will be named an honorable mention in the released by Abrams/Amulet in May New England Book Festival, and was 2014. She can be found online at a Split This Rock Recommended rebeccapetruck.com. Book of 2012. Moreno is a co- Bret Lott is the bestselling author the University of Massachusetts, translator of South Pole/Polo Sur by of 14 books, most recently the Amherst, in 1984, where he studied María Teresa Ogliastri and editor nonfiction collectionLetters and under James Baldwin. From 1986 of Difficult Beauty: Selected Poems Life: On Being a Writer, On Being to 2004, he was writer-in-residence by Luis Alberto Ambroggio. Her poems, translations, essays, and a Christian and the novel Dead and professor of English at the Kathy Pories has been a senior reviews have appeared in such Low Tide. His other works include College of Charleston, leaving to take editor at Algonquin Books for 15 publications as Foreign Policy in the story collection The Difference the position of editor and director of years. She acquires literary fiction Focus, Literal, the Virginia Quarterly Between Men and Women, the the Southern Review at Louisiana and narrative nonfiction, was for Review, and International Poetry nonfiction bookBefore We Get State University. Three years later, in many years the series editor of Review. Moreno has taught writing, Started: A Practical Memoir of the the fall of 2007, he returned to the New Stories from the South, and literature, and cultural studies at Writer’s Life, and the novels Jewel, College of Charleston and the job has been the editor for the last four various institutions, including the Anna Lena Phillips is the editor an Oprah Book Club pick, and A he most loves: teaching. His honors Bellwether Prize winners. Authors George Washington University of Ecotone. She formerly served as Song I Knew by Heart. His work include being named Fulbright she has worked with include and the Catholic University, and senior editor and book review editor has appeared in, among other Scholar and writer-in-residence Wendy Brenner, Nina de Gramont, currently works as a freelance writer, at American Scientist magazine places, the Yale Review, the New to Bar-Ilan University, speaking on Rebecca Lee, Michael Parker, editor, and Spanish translator/ and was a founding editor of the York Times, the Georgia Review, Flannery O’Connor at the White Robert Olmstead, Lauren Grodstein, interpreter. She also coordinates online journal Fringe. A Pocket Book and dozens of anthologies. Born House, and having served as a Stacey D’Erasmo, Hillary Jordan, the DC-Area Literary Translators of Forms, her letterpress-printed, in Los Angeles, he received his member of the National Council on Heidi Durrow, Gabrielle Zevin, Bill Network (DC-ALT) and serves on travel-sized guide to poetic forms, B.A. in English from California the Arts from 2006 to 2012. He and Roorbach, and others. She received the program committee of Split This is forthcoming this fall. Her projects State University, Long Beach in his wife, Melanie, live in Hanahan, her Ph.D. in English literature from Rock Poetry Festival. Her website is and pursuits are documented at 1981 and his M.F.A. in fiction from South Carolina. the University of North Carolina yneissermoreno.com. todointhenewyear.net. Chapel Hill. Emily Louise Smith is director of the Publishing Laboratory and founder and publisher of Lookout Books and its sister magazine, Ecotone. She teaches Books & Tim Seibles, born in Philadelphia Contemporary American Poetry, Publishing, Bookbuilding, and in 1955, is the author of several Black Nature, Evensong, Villanelles, Publishing Practicum, among other poetry collections including Hurdy- and Sunken Garden Poetry. His courses, and manages the staff of Dana Sachs is the author of four Gurdy, Hammerlock, and Buffalo poem “Allison Wolff” was included graduate interns. With a background books, the novels If You Lived Here Head Solos. His first book,Body in The Best American Poetry 2010, in advertising and development, and The Secret of the Nightingale Moves, was re-released by Carnegie and, most recently, his poem Smith began her publishing career Palace, and two books of nonfiction, Mellon University Press as part “Sotto Voce: Othello, Unplugged” as an assistant to former CEO of The House on Dream Street: Memoir of their Contemporary Classics was selected for inclusion in The HarperCollins Canada and Publishing of an American Woman in Vietnam series. His latest, Fast Animal, Best American Poetry 2012. He Laboratory founder, Stanley Colbert. and The Life We Were Given: was one of five poetry finalists for has been a workshop leader for After earning her M.F.A. in poetry, Operation Babylift, International the 2012 National Book Award. Cave Canem, a writer’s retreat for she went on to work as an editor, Adoption, and the Children of War in He spent the spring semester African American poets, and for the designer, and event coordinator for Vietnam. Her articles, reviews, and of 2010 as poet-in-residence at Hurston/Wright Foundation, another Hub City Press, then returned to essays have appeared in numerous Bucknell University in Lewisburg, organization dedicated to developing UNCW to direct the department’s magazines and journals, including Pennsylvania. A National Endowment black writers. Seibles is visiting then six-year-old teaching press. National Geographic, Mother Jones, for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow, faculty at the Stonecoast M.F.A. in She negotiated its distribution and the Asian edition of the Wall Seibles has also enjoyed a seven- Writing Program sponsored by the agreement, implemented the first Street Journal. Her translations of month writing fellowship from the University of Southern Maine. He overhaul and expansion of its

Vietnamese short fiction, on which Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center lives in Norfolk, Virginia, where he is popular textbook, Show & Tell: Writers Week she collaborated with Vietnamese in Massachusetts. His poetry is a member of the English and M.F.A. Writers on Writing, and in 2009 native-speaking partners, have been featured in several anthologies; in writing faculty at Old Dominion founded its award-winning literary published widely. among them are Rainbow Darkness, University. imprint, Lookout Books. The Manthology, Autumn House John Jeremiah Sullivan was Her writing has appeared twice born in Louisville, Kentucky, and in Oxford American as well as Year by the magazine Kate Sweeney lives in lives in North Carolina with his wife Economist Atlanta Magazine and New South, and led the Atlanta where she writes and and daughters. He’s a writer for New York Review of among other outlets. She is Books to call Sullivan “an original creates public radio stories. Magazine and curator of the popular bimonthly and greatly gifted writer.” His While pursuing her M.F.A. at the southern editor of the Paris nonfiction reading seriesTrue most recent collection, Pulphead: UNCW, she spent time with Review. He’s been the recipient Story, which Atlanta Magazine , published in 2011, made obit writers, funeral directors, of a Whiting Writers’ Award, two Essays voted a Best of Atlanta 2012 best numerous end-of-year Top 10 and ordinary Americans who National Magazine Awards, a lit event. Creative Loafing Atlanta lists, including that of found themselves involved with Pushcart Prize, and a research The New named Sweeney an “author to , which called it “the death and memorialization. The fellowship at the New York Public York Times watch” in 2012. She has taught best and most important collection resulting popular nonfiction Library’s Cullman Center for creative writing and English at of magazine writing since [David book, , will be Scholars and Writers. His work American Afterlife Emory Continuing Education, Foster] Wallace’s published by University of Georgia has been translated into eight A Supposedly Clayton State University, and Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again,” Press in March 2014. Sweeney’s languages and reproduced in The UNCW. While pursuing her M.F.A. and , where the radio stories appear regularly Best American Essays, The Best at UNCW, she won the 2007-09 book was described as “literary on Atlanta’s NPR station, WABE American Magazine Writing, and Robert H. Byington Award, the freedom in action.” Sullivan is 90.1 FM, and she has won three The Best Non-Required Reading 2008-09 Lavonne Adams Award, Writers Week working on a book-length project Edward R. Murrow awards as well anthologies. His first book,Blood and the 2008-09 Outstanding about a lost Utopian episode from as a number of Associated Press Horses: Notes of a Sportswriter’s M.F.A. Thesis Award for Creative early American history. awards for her work. Son, was named a Book of the Nonfiction. Ross White is the executive director of Bull City Press, a Durham- based press that publishes Inch, a magazine of short poems, short Heather D. Wilson is a graduate David Wright’s book, Fire on the prose, and one to two poetry titles of the University of North Carolina Beach: Recovering the Lost Story each year. Each year, Bull City at Chapel Hill, with a degree in of Richard Etheridge and the Pea Press sponsors the Frost Place English and a minor in creative Island Lifesavers, was a New Yorker library user services. Scholarly Chapbook Competition, which writing. After working as an assistant notable selection and one of the St. and creative activities include awards publication, a monetary manuscript editor for Houghton Louis Post-Dispatch’s “Best Books received Sarah Barbara Watstein publications (administration, AIDS prize, a fellowship to the Frost Place Mifflin in Boston, she moved back of 2001.” Memphis Flyer called it her B.A. from Northwestern, M.L.S. and infectious diseases, artificial Poetry Seminar, and a week to live down south where she received her “social history at its readable best.” from UCLA, and M.P.A. from New intelligence, burnout, information and write in the Robert Frost House M.F.A. in creative writing at UNCW Wright wrote the screenplay for the York University. She has worked technology, online and instructional and Museum in Franconia, New and co-founded Ecotone. A writer, documentary, Rescue Men, based in academic libraries for nearly 35 services, reference services Hampshire. White is the author of teacher, arts administrator, and on the book. Magic Johnson’s Aspire years, including both public and and sources, women’s studies) How We Came Upon the Colony, grant writer, Wilson enjoys leading network premiered it Sept. 15, and it private institutions on both coasts. and presentations. Watstein has forthcoming from Unicorn Press in the Chautauqua class and working still airs regularly. Producer Richard She began her career at California published extensively in two broad 2014. His poems have appeared with the journal’s talented team Brick is adapting Fire on the Beach State University, Long Beach in areas – academic librarianship and in Best New Poets 2012, New of graduate and undergraduate into a feature. Wright’s fiction and the late 1970s and continued HIV/AIDS. Her record of service to England Review, Poetry Daily, and students. essays have been recognized with at New York University, Hunter the library and information science the Southern Review, among others. awards from the Hurston/Wright College, Virginia Commonwealth professionals at the regional, With Matthew Olzmann, he edited Foundation, the Texas Institute of University, and UCLA prior to national, and international levels Another & Another: An Anthology Letters, and the National Association relocating to Wilmington in May is equally robust. She has held from the Grind Daily Writing Series. of Black Journalists, among others, 2010. Watstein serves as UNCW’s and holds a variety of leadership He has taught creative writing at and appeared in the Village Voice, university librarian. She co-edits positions within the American the University of North Carolina at the Kenyon Review, Newsday, , a Reference Services Review Library Association. Professional Chapel Hill since 2006. In 2012, he Callaloo, the Massachusetts Review, quarterly refereed international service has focused on three areas also joined the faculty at the North the Chronicle of Higher Education, journal dedicated to the enrichment – publishing, reference, and user Carolina School of Science and and elsewhere. He teaches at the of reference knowledge and the services and women’s studies. Mathematics. He is a co-founder of University of Illinois and serves on advancement of reference and The Hinge Literary Center, which serves the editorial board of Callaloo. ✍ writers in the Raleigh-Durham area. Visiting Writer: Jason Mott

Jason Mott received both his B.F.A. and M.F.A. from the University of North Carolina Wilmington. He is the author of two collections of poetry, We Call This Thing Between Us Love (Main Rag Street, 2009) and “…hide behind me…” (Main Rag Street, 2011). Jason is receiving attention and acclaim for his debut novel The Returned (Harlequin, 2013). The Returned is a New York Times bestseller and was optioned by Plan B, Brad Pitt’s production company. The show will debut on ABC in March 2014, under the title Resurrection. Mott was kind enough to speak with first-year poet Emily Wilson about deconstructing genres, how readers of The Returned surprise him, and Tar Heel pride.

EW: Your role as visiting writing this semester JM: Personally, I don’t like the idea of “genre marks a return of your own to UNCW. Can you fidelity” or “genre infidelity.” Writing is writing. describe what your experience on campus The distinctions between the genres are primarily has been like thus far? constructs we create. Why we choose to confine ourselves – and, consequently, our creativity – JM: In a word, it’s been terrific. UNCW’s Creative to any one genre is something I’ve never quite Writing Department was very important to me, understood. As a reader, my earliest memories both professionally and personally. When I was are of epic narrative poems such as Beowulf and in the program, I was going through some pretty The Odyssey. So, for me, poetry and fiction were difficult personal time, and the department was as bound together from the very beginning. supportive and caring as I could have ever hoped for. While teaching me about writing, they taught me As for how the two inform one another as a writer, I about living. And that’s something I will always be think they are both parts of a toolbox that, hopefully, grateful for. So, for me, coming back was a chance helps me make better work as a whole. In fiction, to, in some small way, repay that – a wonderful if there is a time when I need to be concise, having opportunity. the poetry background helps. And, with poetry, if I’m struggling to create the connective tissue that a EW: As a poet who experiences genre infidelity poem or a collection needs, then having the fiction myself, I’m interested to hear your thoughts on background helps me identify where the narrative how your poetry speaks to your prose and vice elements are flagging. versa, either technically or thematically. EW: During your on-campus reading this October, you was able to treat that discussion in a respectful and non-offensive mentioned how readers have shared with you their way. I never wanted the book to become a novel “about religion,” wide-ranging interpretations of The Returned. Has any but rather, a novel that leaves such decisions in the hands particular interpretation of the book surprised you? of the readers.

JM: The two biggest surprises that I’ve had from readers have EW: Has there been any piece of critical acclaim or praise been somewhat connected. Essentially they stem from readers for the novel which has been particularly meaningful for you? taking polar opposite opinions on the book’s themes. I was This may sound strange, but I honestly try to stay away from contacted by one reader who lauded the books very secular JM: any of the critical reviews…even the accolades. I don’t read and non-committed approach to religion, only to find myself reviews, and I try to stay away from discussion of how the book contacted, just a few days later, from a reader who felt the is doing or who said what about it. But, having said that, I will say book was a completely Christian novel. To have two people that I am thankful to all of the reviewers who have taken time take stances on the ends of such a spectrum was intriguing. out to read and review the novel. EW: The role of geography and culture in The Returned Finally, if you could have one writer become a member definitely created the opportunity for religion to serve as a EW: of the Returned and grab a cup of coffee with you (their prominent theme in the novel. From one North Carolinian to treat), who would it be and why? another, what role does place play in The Returned? Were All over the world people’s loved ones you aware from the onset of the writing process where the JM: I’m not really sure. I’m really no good at these types of are returning from beyond. No one setting would be or did you play with other locations? questions. Ha, ha! Whatever person I name, I’m doing so knows how or why this is happening, based on an assumption of who they are and what I think the JM: I’m a born and bred North Carolinian, and from the very whether it’s a miracle or a sign of the conversation with them might be like. One thing I’ve learned beginning this was designed to be a story that took place in end. Not even Harold and Lucille can recently is that we have to be careful about those types of North Carolina. I’m very proud of my state and its people, agree on whether the boy is real or a assumptions. Still, having said all that, maybe it would be and I think that much of my fiction will be centered around wondrous imitation, but one thing they good to have coffee with John Gardner. He’s the writer whose North Carolina stories. know for sure: he’s their son. As chaos work gave me “permission to write” and, at the very least, erupts around the globe, the newly As for the religion aspect, I think that it would have been pretty I wish I could thank him for that. ✍ reunited Hargrave family finds itself impossible to place this type of story in the South and not have at at the center of a community on the least some religious discussion. Religion is a complicated topic brink of collapse, forced to navigate a and no less complicated for Southerners, so those elements were mysterious new reality and a conflict inherent within the story and its characters. But my hope is that I that threatens to unravel the very meaning of what it is to be human. RT: So I loved “Fialta” [from Bobcat and Other Stories]. One of the things that spoke to me most was the way that all of these students – brilliant in their own rights – were absolutely in thrall to their instructor, like planets circling a star that could go supernova at any moment. What kind of research did you do Faculty Spotlight: about Frank Lloyd Wright before writing this story? RL: “Fialta” has a weird history. I had recently moved to Wilmington when I got a phone call from the editor – Adrienne Brodeur – of a Rebecca Lee literary magazine that had been founded by Frances Ford Coppola. He had come up with an idea and was looking for a writer to write it. Rebecca Lee is an associate professor of creative writing at UNCW. Her I accepted the assignment, of course, and set to work. His idea was for most recent book, Bobcat and Other Stories (Algonquin Books, 2013), was a story in which an authority figure doesn’t allow a love affair to occur. named Amazon Book of the Month for June 2013 and won the Danuta Gleed Literary Award for a debut English-language collection of short I had been living near Madison, Wisconsin, before coming to stories. Rusty Thornsburg is a second-year fiction M.F.A. candidate. If Wilmington and had toured Taliesen, Frank Lloyd Wright’s former he was not a writer, Thornsburg would be a baker, a baseball game, or a school/commune/studio, many times. You don’t actually even tour video-game character. He sat down with Lee to ask her questions about it, you can just walk around, which is the most beautiful extreme education in everything – architecture, home, the prairies, life, love, Bobcat, Frank Lloyd Wright, and writers’ bad behaviors. time. It’s just amazing to be there. So I grafted my love of that place onto the story. Faculty Spotlight RT: It shows, the love that is. I wonder, do you think that I like knitting and vacuuming and folding clothes. Just things inside the Prairie Style would have been a bigger architectural a house. So maybe something like that. Cleaning houses. Any of the movement if Frank Lloyd Wright hadn’t been such a fancy professions I’d be lousy at—doctor, lawyer, etc. jerk in real life? RT: Switching gears to a standard-ish interview question: RL: I read, and loved, that book – Loving Frank. That kind of If you could have dinner with any three people, living or dead single-mindedness is inspiring, really, but maybe more so (you know, if there were a time machine or a way to bring from a distance? people back, whatever), who would they be?

RT: Keeping with that theme, what is it about genius that RL: Kafka, for one. I’ve been reading his letters to Milena, and seems to entitle people to behave badly? he always sees the bad when others see the good but in a really life-affirming, energizing way that would be useful in conversation RL: That’s such a great question. My unofficial, intermittent, and (when the writer Joy Williams was here, we took her to the Oceanic, unscientific longitudinal study of writers in the form of students and and it was so fun when she said she didn’t like the ocean, and all friends over the years has revealed that there are some qualities she thought about when she looked at it were all the dead things that are troublesome in life that nevertheless can help the writer. floating around in it). Irresponsibility, for one (not condoning it! – just noticing!). Any writer or artist needs to know how to turn off the phone and the And Salman Rushdie, I love him. email and the requests that you volunteer for this or that, and it And then, always, Emerson. He’s mine. might be that this requires a little bit of un-citizenlike behavior (I said that as carefully as possible). RT: Speaking of dinner parties – like the disastrous one in – what is the best thing you’ve ever eaten and RT: Ha! That’s actually useful advice. Bobcat where were you when you consumed it? RL: But maybe you’re talking about other more interesting types of This is going to sound like a lie, but it’s the truth: I was traveling bad behavior that are higher up on the spectrum like yelling at RL: with my parents and brother in Costa Rica, and I ate a piece of fish innocent people or betraying spouses and dear friends and parents, there – this was in the late ’80s – it was sort of dry, actually – but it etc. I’d be interested in the answer to that myself – how much of tasted like the ocean, it just did. Every piece of fish since then that is a stereotype and how much of it springs from the same has been a compromised version of that. source as genius. I don’t know. What do you think? I mean, I also have Alice Munro in my sights, and she’s never done a single RT: That actually sounds lovely and sad. thing wrong in her life. RL: More recently, there was a restaurant in Wilmington that RT: I don’t know the answer to that; I was hoping you did. was open for a few months, called Bouche (right beside Sienna’s), If you weren’t a writer, what would you be? and they had a salad with a weird poached egg on it that kind of broke over the salad in a way that could seem gross but RL: My brain is not processing that well, since I never had other was so great and delicious. ambitions. Oh, except one! I remember thinking I wanted to be a tiler. Is that even a word? A profession? Like someone who tiles RT: Now I’m hungry. Thank you, Bekki. ✍ bathrooms and kitchens. You can tell I didn’t pursue it ardently, as I don’t even know what to call it. ED: When were you first introduced toEcotone ? What were your first impressions of the magazine?

ALP: I came across Ecotone at AWP several years back, around 2006 or 2007. I loved the magazine’s mission – the idea of UNCW Welcomes making a venue for innovative writing that considers place, and, as David Gessner put it at the time, inhabiting the edges between disciplines and genres, “places that are alive and electric, as well Anna Lena Phillips as new and dangerous.” There are other magazines with similar concerns, but Ecotone was going about it in a fresh way – and Anna Lena Phillips is the new editor of Ecotone and its sister imprint, Lookout still is. I’m really pleased to be continuing that work. Books. She teaches the Ecotone practicum as well as special-topics courses in publishing. She formerly served as senior editor and book review editor at ED: You’re now a few months into your work with Ecotone. American Scientist magazine, where she worked as an editor and writer from How would you describe your overall experience so far, both 2007 to 2013. She is a founding editor of Fringe, for which she served as with the practicum members and the editing/designing staff? poetry editor during the journal’s seven-year run. Her projects and pursuits ALP: Ecotone has a fabulous staff, one that includes both include letterpress printing, old-time Appalachian music and dance, and students and faculty. We rely on practicum members to read investigations of the Piedmont landscape. A Pocket Book of Forms, her submissions, and over the fall semester, I’ve been impressed letterpress-printed, travel-sized guide to poetic forms, is forthcoming with how diligently everyone has worked to find new voices for in fall 2013. Phillips spoke with first-year poet Elizabeth Davis the magazine. The work the genre editors and the practicum about her time on staff thus far. students have done, across many parts of our editorial process, Faculty Spotlight has made the issue much stronger, and Publishing and design staff made an incredible team. Being able Laboratory TAs made some beautiful opening spreads. to have that same kind of working environment within a And it’s impossible to succinctly convey the extent of literary context is a lucky, lucky thing. And it’s great to be the work done on the magazine this semester by faculty teaching again. members Emily Smith, Beth Staples, and David Gessner. Like , is professionally I’m thankful for these new colleagues, and I’m looking American Scientist Ecotone printed, but students can get a hands-on experience of forward to gearing up for the spring issue. the production process via other courses offered in the ED: Your loyalties lie in poetry, whereas past Publishing Laboratory. Although it’s still possible to do Ecotone editors have been fiction and nonfiction some of the work on hard copy, an editor spends much writers. Will this affect upcoming issues of Ecotone? of her time staring at a computer screen, and I get a little weary of that sometimes. Being around the older ALP: I’m a hybrid: poetry is my first literary love, but I’m technology of printing and binding equipment makes the also a writer and editor of prose. So the balance of all process feel more real, which I love. And to be able to the genres, including our regular departments and visual perfectly trim a stack of paper is one of life’s pleasures. work, is foremost in my mind. That said, I’m thinking a lot about poetry in Ecotone, and we’re planning a new I’m also really enjoying working with Emily and Beth department devoted to it. on Lookout Books’ projects. One of those, Lookout’s anthology of fiction fromEcotone , will be out this spring: ED: Before coming to UNCW, you were an editor Astoria to Zion: Twenty-Six Stories of Risk and Abandon at American Scientist. How will that influence from Ecotone’s First Decade. You can get previews of your work here? some of the stories in it at the Lookout blog (http://blog. ALP: One of the things I love about Ecotone is the way lookout.org/). I’m biased, of course, but I can say this will it has incorporated science in service of good writing— be a book worth curling up on the couch with. which, in turn, opens up science for people who might ED: Any hints about the thematic direction not otherwise think much about it. At , American Scientist of the next Ecotone? I was concerned with similar questions: What can science bring to the table for art, and vice versa? They’re things ALP: Our fall issue, which will be out in mid-January, has I’ll keep asking. the theme of migration. The spring issue is unthemed, and we’ll announce the theme for next fall’s issue in the ED: How does your experience at UNCW differ from coming semester. Sorry, no hints yet – but there’s a lot to your experiences as an editor at other journals? look forward to! ✍ ALP: My position at UNCW unites the things I liked best about my former work. Something I enjoyed about working at American Scientist was that our editorial Writers-In-Action started in 2000 under the guidance of Layne Clark, an AIG teacher at John J. Blair Elementary. Its purpose was simple: to get creative writing graduate students into classrooms and let them share their love of the written word. This outreach program, sponsored by the Department of Creative Writing and in partnership with local schools, has grown to such a degree that this year, for the first time, we have more volunteers than we do classrooms, resulting in several teams of paired volunteers. Through positive word-of-mouth, though, other teachers in the area have begun requesting their own WIA teachers.

My experience with Writers-In-Action has been incredibly rewarding thus far, though I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a giant ball of anxiety that first day. Having had no previous experience teaching at the fourth and fifth grade level, I didn’t know what to expect. I tried thinking back to what I was like at that age. All I could come up with is that I remember having a strong affinity for soft pretzels— not exactly the stuff of brilliant pedagogy.

After introducing myself, I kicked things off by going around the room and asking each student what they liked to write. Their answers, to put it mildly, exploded my brain. One boy said he loved to write comedies. Another student preferred to compose adventure stories. A quiet girl Writers-In-Action: in the back raised her hand and told me that she “primarily wrote historical nonfiction.” And that’s when it finally clicked—the passion for writing was already there, my job was merely to channel it and then get A Personal Account out of the way. With that rather pedestrian epiphany, my nervousness by Justin T. Klose instantly disappeared, and I spent the rest of the class enjoying their candid creativity.

First-year fiction M.F.A. candidate Justin T. Klose is the first- At the end of the day, I gave them an assignment to be handed in the following week. They were to write a one-page story with a clear year coordinator with Writers-In-Action. Klose’s discussion beginning, middle, and end. Two weeks later, I sat at my desk and read of his experience with the program speaks to how powerful a piece one student had written about war and peace (the concepts, creative outreach can be in the classroom. not the novel). “Peace is quiet,” she wrote, “like a train made of chocolate.” I leaned back, put down my red pen, and breathed in the awesomeness.

Education, I learned, works both ways. ✍ M.F.A. student Eric Cipriani’s short story “The Gas M.F.A. student Leah Poole Osowski was a nonfiction Man” was selected as an entry in the 2014 Association finalist in the 2013 Black Warrior Review Contest in of Writers and Writing Program’s (AWP) Intro Journals Prose, Poetry, and Nonfiction: bwr.ua.edu/9th-annual- Project. contest-results.

M.F.A. student Christina Clark won first place in Green M.F.A. student Rachel Richardson’s story “Carry My Briar Review’s first Federico Garcia Lorca Poetry Prize Bones Up from This Place” was accepted at Newfound for her poem “What the Other Eye Sees.” Read more at journal. www.greenbriarreview.com/Federico-Garcia-Lorca.html. M.F.A. student Catherine Shubert’s poem “Childhood M.F.A. student Michelle Crouch’s story “Free Coffee Is Like a Wedding Reception Dance Floor” appeared for Atheists” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by the in the 2013 edition of The Bread Loaf Journal. Read it editors of Cleaver Magazine: www.cleavermagazine. at www.middlebury.edu/media/view/459553/original/ com/free-coffee-for-atheists-by-michelle-crouch. Her blse_journal_2013_pages.pdf. short story “I Love a Ferris Wheel” appeared in Weave Magazine’s Issue No. 9. M.F.A. student Carson Vaughan’s piece “On Balance” appeared on EssayDaily: essaydaily.blogspot. M.F.A. student Alexa Doran had her poem “Every Poet com/2013/10/carson-vaughan-on-balance.html. Is a Partition, Every Love Is a Sea” featured in the fall issue of Ekphrasis. In addition, her poems “Fuck the B.F.A. student Caleb Ward had his first purchased Goddess of Fertility” and “A Day at the Beach” appeared fiction story published by Bound Off, an audio literature in S/tick’s fall edition. Her poem “Lesbians Don’t Need magazine. A podcast of Bound Off’s Issue 92, which Luck, Just a Mean Left Hook” is forthcoming in the next features Ward’s work, can be found at boundoff.com. issue of Petrichor Review. Her poem “Some Call it Dada, Some Call it Divorce” will appear in the upcoming issue M.F.A. student Emily Wilson published her poem of Thin Air Magazine. “Lonicera Japonica” in Kenning Journal. Listen to a recording of the piece at www.kenningjournal. M.F.A. student Christine Hennessey published “Yes,” com/2013/07/03/emily-wilson-lonicera-japonica. a flash nonfiction piece, in Prime Number Magazine. Her translation, “To Mary, the goddess announced in Her piece “Stalagmites” appeared in the fall edition of Florence,” is forthcoming in Asymptote. The poem, Summerset Review. written in Latin, was composed by the 15th century Italian poet Antonio Geraldini. Her poem “Conjugation” M.F.A. student Sally Johnson’s poem “honeycomb and was selected as an entry in the 2014 AWP Intro clamor” was selected as an entry in the 2014 AWP Intro Journals Project. Journals Project. M.F.A. student Joe Worthen’s final installment of his M.F.A. student Kathleen Jones had her poems “Gold series “An Assessment of Fast Food Hamburgers in the Standard” and “Fractions” appear in the July 2013 Southeastern ” appeared on hobartpulp. edition of Gesture literary journal. Her poem “Nanny com. It can be read at www.hobartpulp.com/web_ Fairchild Offers Wisdom to Her Nearly Grown Up Charge” features/an-assessment-of-fast-food-hamburgers-in- was selected as an entry in the 2014 AWP Intro Journals the-southeastern-united-states-pt-4. ✍ Project.

M.F.A. student Ali Nolan’s nonfiction piece was selected as an entry in the 2014 AWP Intro Journals Project. STUDNET NEWS Hannah Dela Cruz Abrams (M.F.A. ’07) received one Kate Cumiskey (M.F.A. ’06) accepted a four-book in the Just Dessert Short-Short Fiction Contest and of this year’s Whiting Writers’ Awards for her novella The contract with Silent E publishing. Her poetry collection was reviewed in NewPages. Her essay “A Disbeliever in Man Who Danced with Dolls. The Whiting Writers’ Award Yonder was released in October, which will be followed Limbo,” originally published in Image, No. 74, received a is one of the richest prizes in American literature and has by two nonfiction works and another project. notable mention in The Best American Essays 2013. been given annually since 1985 to writers of exceptional talent and promise early in their career. The novella is Samantha Deal (M.F.A. ’13) was a semi-finalist in the Erato Ioannou-Moustaka’s (M.F.A. ’01) short story the portrait of a family’s legacy–the language of their River Styx international poetry contest. “Μωρό” (meaning “baby” in Greek) appears in the fall memories, the secrets of their buried past, and the 2013 issue of Cadences, a journal of literature and the subway busker whose wordless dancing punctuates their Daren Dean (M.F.A. ’03) published “The Misread arts in Cyprus. lives. In addition, Abrams’s nonfiction piece “Glass House: Classic: Action Versus Meaning in the Adventures of The First Moment of Her Leaving” appeared in the fall Huckleberry Finn” in Missouri Life. An excerpt titled Bad Shawna Kenney (M.F.A. ’07) won Creative Nonfiction’s 2013 issue of Waccamaw Journal. She also had a poem Company from his Civil War novel-in-progress, Secessia: daily Tiny Truths Twitter contest. appear in the fall 2013 issue of Off the Coast Journal. A Novel of the Civil War, is forthcoming in the Green Hills Literary Lantern. Monica Keirn (B.F.A. ’11) has secured a position as a Josh Maclvor-Andersen (M.F.A. ’11) had a piece, “On support geoscientist with Ikon Sciences in London. couch forts and bean burritos: A brief look at the essence William Flowers (M.F.A ’10) had two poems appear in of essay writing,” appear on The North Wind Online at Watershed Review. Read them at www.csuchico.edu/ Gwendolyn Knapp’s (M.F.A. ’06) essay “The Mother www.thenorthwindonline.com/?p=3868654. watershed/2013-spring/poetry/flowers-two-poems. Load” received an honorable mention in The Best shtml. American Essays 2013. The piece was originally George Bishop, Jr.’s (M.F.A. ’01) second novel, The published in the Southeast Review, 30.1. Night of the Comet, was named a Kirkus Best Fiction Jason Frye (M.F.A. ’05) has a monthly column in Salt Book of 2013: www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/ and had the cover story in the September issue. He has Johannes Lichtman’s (M.F.A ’12) recent publications george-bishop/night-of-the-comet. also been hired as a food blogger for Our State. can be found at lareviewofbooks.org/essay/psych- lies-and-audiotape-the-tarnished-legacy-of-the- Emma Bolden (M.F.A. ’05) published four prose David Harris-Gershon (M.F.A. ’09) was interviewed on milgram-shock-experiments and www.hobartpulp.com/ poems in the anthology narrative (dis)continuities: prose SkyNews for the European release of his memoir, What web_features/i-love-the-fuck-out-of-you-right-now-one- experiments by younger american writers. Read them at Do You Buy the Children of the Terrorist Who Tried to Kill night-at-eugene-celebration. www.moriapoetry.com/darlinganthebook.pdf. Your Wife?, which was released on Sept. 9 in the United States. Corrine Manning (M.F.A. ’10) is the recipient of an Emily Kruse Carr (M.F.A. ’04) is now the director of the Artists Trust Grants for Artist Projects which includes low-residency M.F.A. program at Oregon State University Ben Hoffman (M.F.A. ’13) published an experimental a month long residency at the Centrum artist colony Cascades. recipe for an English class lesson plan at theneweryork. in addition to funding. She was interviewed by HTML com/notes-for-class-5-cupcake-day-ben-hoffman. His Giant for her reading series “The Furnace:” htmlgiant. Claudette Cohen (M.F.A. ’00) had her poem “Mole piece “Small Spade” appeared in MonkeyBicycle and can com/behind-the-scenes/stories-keep-us-warm-how- Crab” accepted into Press 53’s Prime Number Magazine. be read at monkeybicycle.net/small-spade. He was also an-innovative-reading-series-is-firing-up-the-seattle- Her poetry made the semifinalist round for the James a finalist for the 2013 David Nathan Meyerson Fiction literary-scene. Applewhite Prize. She read at the Poetry Scope event at Prize for his piece “The Defenders of Burh Park,” and he the N.C. Natural Science Museum in Raleigh. In addition, was a finalist in the Green Mountains Review Brattleboro Janie Miller (M.F.A. ’08) had two poems appear in her short story “Three Pieces of Ice” was awarded first Literary Festival Flash Fiction contest for his piece “How CURA and four poems at Terrain.org. prize in the fiction category of the On the Same Page a Perfect Husband Acts.” Writers Competition. She was invited to read from the Kathryn Miller (M.F.A. ’13) published her essay “Wide story that won the Page Crafters Prize at Ashe County’s Rochelle Hurt (M.F.A. ’11) was nominated for a Open Spaces” in the September 2013 issue of Brevity. Literary Festival in September. Her blurb on “What makes Pushcart Prize for her piece “Diorama of a Fire” in The the Cape Fear Coast a unique place to be a writer” Adroit Journal (No. 7). Her piece “Poem in Which I Play Amelia Morris (M.F.A. ’09) kicked off season two of was featured in the North Carolina Writers’ Network fall the Runaway” was included in this year’s Best New her PBS show, Bon Appétempt! A video in which she newsletter. Poets anthology. This poem was originally published in prepares chocolate cream pie and shares a surprise The Collagist. Her story “Dirty Girl,” which appeared in with her mom can be viewed at www.youtube.com/ Passages North, No. 43, received an honorable mention watch?v=yQ-J2i-VgIU. ALUMNI NEWS ALUMNI NEWS March 2014. in inIndianapolis Composition andCommunication theConferenceonCollegeand at writing digitally College andwillmakeapresentionon teachingcreative Ivy is chairoftheEnglishdepartmentat Tech Community of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency 2014. inearly Sams ‘Africa,’ ErnestHemingway” by inTheBest willappear Review.edition ofFoundPoetry Hispiece “Toto’s “Extrapolation” Foster publishedintheDavid Wallace Sams(M.F.A.Anthony ’10)hadhispoem Russell’s M.F.A. thesis. thisnovel,Street hostedalaunchfor whichbeganas CreekPress.Depression withBradley OldBooksonFront Anne Russell(M.F.A. ’99)published hernovelTropical New Writers. for AwardStory wonsecondplaceinGlimmer The story Train’s Short “Episodic Tremors,” editionofChinaGrove. inthelatest Allsion Reavis(M.F.A. ’11)publishedashortstory, be releasedby 2014. Abrams/Amulet inMay theirNew for Association Voices promotion. The novelwill top 10children’s the debutby American Booksellers Normal (formerly, herM.F.A. thesis)wasselectedasa Rebecca Petruck’s (M.F.A. ’07)novel Steering Toward fiction/?page=9. kirkusreviews.com/issue/best-of-2013/section/ was namedaKirkusBestFictionBookof2013: www. Jason Mott’s (M.F.A. ’08)debutnovelTheReturned is-an-alien-spacecraft-a-poem-by-john-mortara. andriffpub.com/2013/08/23/my-heart- by-john-mortara org/2013/08/13/beach-party-castle-bravo-audio-poem- Spacecraft.” rhinopoetry. at The recordingscanbefound postedarecordingofhis Pubb “My HeartIsan Alien “beach partycastlebravo” fromRhino2012, Riff and postedanaudiorecordingofMortara’sRhino Poetry at coordinator The FoodBankof Western Massachusetts. communications has acceptedapositionasnewdigital by publication planet wasselectedfor YesYes Books. He John Mortara’s (M.F.A. collection some ’13)poetry book MeadowlandTilt . inRaleighwhichreleasedhisnew publishing endeavor Steven Vineis (B.F.A. ’10)startedGame7Press, a onOct.longform 17, 2012. Clay, HeartofIron,” onsbnation.com/ featured originally hispiece Sports Writingfor “Feet of Best American The Matt Tullis (M.F.A. mentionin ’05)receivedanotable com. “How We Killed Houston&Ghost”Whitney onhobartpulp. Eric Tran (M.F.A. ’13)publishedhisnonfictionpiece “What Apocalypse”. onlineinTheCollagist Gabriella Tallmadge (M.F.A. ’13)publishedherpoem Resignation” frominTar isforthcoming . RiverPoetry OrchardFirstBookPrize.the Crab Herpoem “Letter of thesis, HouseontheBones, Playing for wasafinalist Atlas, thecompany’s for app Apple products. Sutton’s Books,publisher Barefoot promotingBarefoot World thechildren’s afreelancejobwritingfor offered book inWeaveforthcoming . Magazine This summer, shewas Anna Sutton’s (M.F.A. ’13)poem “Clever Girl” is

✍ Lavonne J. Adams was one of 12 Philip Gerard’s “Indivisible” received a Sarah Messer’s second poetry finalists for the Tampa Review Prize for notable mention in The Best American manuscript, Dress Made of Mice, will be Poetry for her manuscript “Small Wishes Essays of 2013. The piece was originally published by Black Lawrence Press in for Grown Women.” Her poems “I Married published in Our State. His series “The 2015. Her tiny story/essay “The Goats” Kit Carson’s Ghost” and “Artifact: Ink Civil War: Life in North Carolina” is being appeared in Diagram (13.5). Read it at Bottle” appeared in The MacGuffin. featured in installments in Our State thediagram.com/13_5/messer.html. She and will continue to be released monthly also has poems forthcoming in the Green Wendy Brenner’s essay “Telegram” through May 2015. The series can be Mountains Review, Eleveneleven, and the appeared in the fall issue of Oxford read at www.ourstate.com/civil-war. He Academy of American Poets “Poem-A- American. A short film adaptation of is a regular commentator on WHQR. His Day” site, poets.org. “Telegram” debuted as the inaugural broadcasts run every other Thursday at episode of SoLit: Southern Literature in 7:35 a.m., 8:50 a.m., and 5:45 p.m. and Malena Mörling’s newest book The Motion, an innovative new online video can be heard at www.whqr.org/people/ Star By My Head: Poets from Sweden series by filmmaker Dave Anderson. philip-gerard. was released by Milkweed Editions. The Both the essay and video feature book is “an essential bilingual volume conversations with Tully Beatty (M.F.A. David Gessner’s essay “Clappers,” that offers stark, exquisite translations ’00). The issue of Oxford American originally appearing in Ecotone (no. by internationally acclaimed poets and which features “Telegram” can be found 13), was a notable mention in The translators Malena Mörling and Jonas at http://www.oxfordamerican.org/ Best American Essays 2013. His essay Ellerström.” Published in partnership with articles/2013/sep/24/telegram/ and “Spoiling Walden: Or How I Learned to the Poetry Foundation, The Star By My the film can be viewed at http://www. Stop Worrying and Love Cape Wind,” Head is the premiere American anthology youtube.com/watch?feature=player_ originally appearing on www.onearth. of 20th-and 21st-century Swedish poetry embedded&v=vH9mgJfhI4E. org, was a notable mention in The Best in English translation. American Science and Nature Writing Clyde Edgerton’s literature was 2013. Noted as an honorable mention in Robert Anthony Siegel’s “The Right celebrated by a series of programs– The Best American Sports Writing 2013 Imaginary Person,” which first appeared focusing on his work with Southern is his piece “Ultimate Glory,” published by in Tin House, Vol. 14, No. 2, received an characters and themes–facilitated by the Billanddavescocktailhour.com, on Jan. 26, honorable mention in The Best American Greenville County Reads events in libraries 2012. He spoke to the hosts of MSNBC’s Short Stories 2013. His interview with throughout Greenville County, South The Cycle about Hurricane Sandy, the Karen E. Bender appeared in Bookforum: Carolina. His novel The Night Train was the future of our coasts, and the question bookforum.com/interview/12265. Also reading selection for the One Book/Many of whether or not to rebuild. The video in Bookforum, Siegel interviewed Peter Voices program at Berry College in Rome, can be seen at http://www.msnbc.com/ Trachtenberg in “Cats, Proust, Ulysses S. Georgia. He was interviewed on WUNC, the-cycle/watch/hurricane-sandy-one- Grant:” bookforum.com/interview/12901. Chapel Hill’s NPR station, about the late year-later-56848963789. The interview In addition, he explored the orphan Louis Rubin. Listen at wunc.org/post/ highlighted Gessner’s article in Outside fictions of Japanese Nobel laureate southern-literature-mourns-louis-rubin. Online. Kawabata Yasunari in the fall 2013 issue of Ploughshares, which can be found Phil Furia hosts the daily segment “The Virginia Holman had her short story at: http://www.pshares.org/read/article- Great American Songbook” on WHQR from “The Road to Mars” appear in the fall detail.cfm?intArticleID=9802. In Harvard 1:30 to 2 p.m. and during the Morning issue of Brain, Child. Review 44, Siegel wrote about death and Edition on Fridays at 6 a.m. vegetarianism: http://harvardreview.fas. harvard.edu/?q=print-issues/harvard- Jill Gerard had a poem appear in the review-44. ✍ current issue of Outside In: Literary and Travel Magazine (Issue 15). Read it at: outsideinmagazine.com/issue-fifteen/ poetry/caught-fast-jill-gerard. FACULTY NEWS