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UNIVERSITY of HOUSTON Creative Writing Program UNIVERSITY of HOUSTON Creative Writing Program John Roberts Dean, CLASS Wyman Herendeen English Dept. Chair j. Kastely CWP Director Kathy Smathers Assistant Director 713.743.3015 [email protected] 2010-2011 Edition WWW.UH.EDU/CWP Every effort has been made to include faculty, students, and alumni news. Items not included will be published in the next edition. From the Director... In the past, I have used this column to celebrate some aspects of the program or to reflect upon an issue in graduate creative writing. This year I am announcing an initiative to secure our program’s future as we address the longstanding problem of providing adequate financial support for our graduate students. For those of you who studied here this must come as welcome news. Inadequate funding is an issue we have struggled with for a long time, and we are determined to deal with this set of concerns. To this end we are inaugurating a fundraising campaign that will both provide immediate assistance to our students and lay the foundation for an endowment to supply them the support they need and merit. Equally important, this funding will insure our program competes for the best writers, and that we will not lose them to other schools for lack of financial support. Given the state of Texas’ cuts to higher education, it is imperative we take decisive action to achieve a fiscal independence that will insure aesthetic and intellectual independence. Our goals are simple. We want to: 1) create fellowships to augment the currently deficient teaching assistant salaries; and 2) create fellowships that allow students, especially those in the latter part of their graduate studies, to concentrate on their writing. We believe that these fellowships will address the problem of inadequate support, freeing our writers from the need to sacrifice a great deal of their time to earn money for food and rent so that they can focus on the priority that matters most: their writing and intellectual development. Already 100% our Creative Writing Faculty have contributed money to this initiative. Now that we have finally completed the long process of hiring faculty, we are in a position to take an active role in determining the program’s future. This year, we are looking critically at our curriculum and discussing how it can better serve our students as well as how the faculty can more directly provide intellectual guidance. I sense a strong confidence and optimism among the faculty. We are in one of those rare moments where we can effect serious change. Several of you responded to our letter last year in which we began to formulate this campaign and we are deeply appreciative of your support. We invite and encourage all to join us as we help our students and invest in the pro- gram’s future. If you are interested in contributing to our fundraising effort, you can either send a check to the UH Creative Writing Program, or go on-line to UH CLASS website, click on the tab labeled “Giving,” click on the form for donations, go to the pull-down menu and click on creative writing. If you wish to get involved with or contrib- ute to our efforts, please contact me. With your investment in our program, we will continue to educate the best young writers and provide intellectual leadership in the field of creative writing. I want to thank you in advance for your help. As ever, j. Kastely, Director CWP NEWS 3 Kathy Smathers Remembering Program News It’s been a really busy year for Kathy. With Shatera’s departure, it became Marion Barthelme Can another year be starting al- clear very quickly just how valuable ready? The past year has gone Shatera was. Taking on the addi- so quickly. Students who it seems In March of tional Office Coordinator duties kept 2011, the CWP just got started in the program are her on her toes. She’s just thankful graduated now. Time does indeed community lost that j., the faculty and students were Marion Knox fly when you’re having fun. We had very patient during the transition. another successful graduates’ re- Barthelme Fort She learned everything she ever after a long ception at Inprint House back in May wants to know about the applica- battle with can- and everyone enjoyed themselves. tion process. With a bumper crop cer. Though We always hope our alums will stay of applications she really missed in touch and sometimes they actu- Shatera’s incredible organizational she had no ally do. skills. Luckily, there were some great official title at systems in place for processing and UH, the pro- This year was relatively quiet in the tracking the applications. Of course, gram bears the Creative Writing Program. There there were also the other “duties as mark of years of her kindness. She was no faculty search and that’s a assigned” to learn and take care of. was a tireless advocate, a gener- good thing. We hope we can keep ous patron, a mentor, and a friend to this very energetic and exciting Kathy was ready for the fall when the the program’s students, faculty, and group of faculty members for a long new students got in, the old students editors. She contributed to its ethos time. Kathy and j. were kept very got back and the faculty returned. a sense of collaboration and pos- busy during the application process It’s awfully quiet during the summer sibility, and here, as elsewhere, she in 2011. We had 356 student ap- months and, although she’s able to plicants to the program. That’s the get lots of stuff done when it’s quiet, found solutions that gave others the highest number of applicants we’ve she likes the hustle and bustle of the freedom to live wholeheartedly and ever had and we think it provided us new semester. create fiercely. with a stellar group of news students for the Fall 2011. Kathy’s escape is still her place at Marion came Lake Livingston which she shares to Houston in Sadly, Shatera Anderson left us with her partner, her dog, Happy, 1982 with her in December 2010. With budget and her cat, Dixie. husband Don- changes all over the UH campus, ald when he the Creative Writing Program’s Office Mike Doyle began teach- Mike continues to help the Creative Coordinator position was eliminated. ing in the CWP. Writing Program where he can. In We still miss Shatera a lot and wish Even after his addition to working with the CWP, her all the best. She is a full time stu- death, she re- dent at TSU and plans to graduate Mike is the Director of Communica- tions for a church in north Houston. mained a force with a degree in Sociology this Fall. on the boards She’s also still working on her singing Among his more recent projects he of Inprint, which they both helped career with gigs around Houston and worked with the Vienna Boys Choir, found, and at Gulf Coast, which he Galveston as well as engagements in during their most recent U.S. tour. As Chicago and New York City this year. always, Mike enjoys keeping up with had. Over the years, she sponsored CWP students and alumni. student scholarships and prizes, We’re really proud of the successes hosted readings and salons, and of our students and alumni this year opened her home and hearth to art- as you will see though out this news- ists in the community. Her deep ap- letter. We wish the best of luck to preciation for aesthetics and ideas everyone for a prosperous and satis- was contagious. fying year to come. Please keep us posted when wonderful things hap- Marion’s delight in words showed in pen for you. her affinity and skill for helping those who made them—and in her own Lauren Cobb, Mike Doyle, Lourdes Gomez & writing, where her voice was as in- Sean Hill at Goode Co. Bbq. telligent, incisive, and witty as she CWP NEWS 4 was. After her BA in International Led by CWPs Mat Johnson, a Relations and French from the Uni- Cynthia Woods novelist who has also written three versity of Wisconsin, Marion became Mitchell graphic novels, this year’s show a correspondent for Time magazine featured comics by Erica Ciesiel- and freelanced for other publica- Center for the Arts ski Chaikin, Shane Patrick Boyle, tions, including The New Yorker. Her Ashleigh Eisinger, Ted Closson, book, Women in the Texas Populist UH CWP Graphic Novel Chuck Ivy, Jill Hogno (with Ashley Movement: Letters from the South- Course Celebrates Murray), Whitney Mower (with Jar- ern Mercury, was published after she ed Snow), Andy Dimond (with Cris- earned a His- Second Year tina Tortarolo), James Roberts (with tory MA from Mike Cavallaro), Brandon White Rice Univer- On May 13th, a packed crowd (with Dean Haspiel), and Jonathan sity. She stud- at Montrose’s Joanna Gallery Niles-Gill (with Joe Infurnari). ied throughout were treated to a literal look into her life, read- the storytelling of UH students at - Mat Johnson ing voraciously, “GRAPHIC CONTENT: Comics from traveling, and The UH Graphic Novel Seminar attending sem- 2010-2011.” Showing the creations inars with the of two courses worth of comic book ongoing appe- creations from UH, the walls were tite of someone covered with work that spoke to wholly alive and curious. Together the variety of styles and voices that with her husband, Jeff Fort, Marion develop at UH CWP. supported Houston arts for many years, serving with organizations in- The Graphic Novel Seminar com- cluding the Alley Theater, Menil Col- bines close reading of some of the lection, Houston Seminar, and De most prominent graphic novels Camera.
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