Hopwood Newsletter Vol. LXXVIII, 2 lsa.umich.edu/hopwood July 2017 HOPWOOD
The Hopwood Newsletter is published electronically twice a year, in January and July. It lists the publications and activities of winners of the Summer Hopwood Contest, Hopwood Underclassmen Contest, Graduate and Undergraduate Hopwood Contest, and the Hopwood Award Theodore Roethke Prize.
The Hopwood Program has a new director, former Hopwood Award winner Michael Byers. He is a former Stegner Fellow, holds an MFA from the University of Michigan (1996) and is the author of three books: The Coast of Good Intentions, a book of stories, and the novels Long for This World and Percival’s Planet. The Coast of Good Intentions won the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award, garnered a Whiting Writer’s Award, and was a New York Times Notable Book, among other citations. Long for This World was also a New York Times Notable Book, was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award, won the Virginia Commonwealth University First Novel Award, and won the annual prize for fiction from Friends of American Writers. His stories have appeared in Best American Short Stories and Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards.
We’re happy to announce next year’s speakers. Antonya Nelson will read at the Hopwood Underclassmen Awards Ceremony on Michael Byers January 30 at 3:30 in the Rackham Amphitheatre. She is the author of four novels, including Living to Tell and Bound, and seven short story collections, including Some Fun, Nothing Right, and, most recently, Funny Once. Her short stories have appeared in Esquire, The New Yorker, Ploughshares, Quarterly West, Harper’s, and other magazines. They have been anthologized in Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards and Best American Short Stories. She teaches in the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers, as well as in the University of Houston’s Creative Writing Program.
Continued, page 2
INSIDE: 2 Books and Chapbooks 3 Articles and Essays 4 Reviews 4 Fiction 5 Poetry 6 Dramatic Performances and Publications 7 Film/Video/Audio 8 News and Notes Antonya Nelson 9 Awards and Honors Photo Credit: Dolly Trouster 10 Deaths 11 Special Annoucements Editor Andrea Beauchamp Design Jessica Greer Janet Leahy will deliver the Hopwood Lecture following the announcement of the awards at the Graduate and Undergraduate Hopwood Awards Ceremony. It will be held on April 18, at 3:30 p.m. in the Rackham Amphitheatre. She was a graduate of UCLA’s school of film and television. She started her career as a secretary on the situation comedy Newhart and went on to become a freelance writer for the series. From there she spent eighteen years as a comedy writer, producing, writing and executive producing for series such as Cheers, The Cosby Show, Roseanne, and Grace Under Fire, amongst others. Her work continued in the one hour arena as Consulting Producer on Gilmore Girls, followed by Executive Producer of Boston Legal, Life Unexpected, and Mad Men. She has received several Emmy nominations and awards, as well as the Writers’ Guild and Janet Leahy Peabody awards for her work.
LETTER FROM ANDREA:
Dear Friends,
This will be my penultimate newsletter, sort of a Prospero’s farewell to the stage. I hope to deliver the January one to the designer before I retire at the end of December, but my successor may finish it. I’m very grateful for the past 38 years with the Hopwood Awards Program in what I’ve always considered the best job on campus. To be surrounded by bright, dedicated, energetic young writers, to be able to offer them coffee and encouragement, and to follow their literary careers over the years has been a joy.
I have worked with five Hopwood Program directors, first with the critic John Aldridge, and then from 1988 until his retirement in 2015, with Nicholas Delbanco (author of 29 books). We had a wonderful run together and he presided over the program with consummate grace and boundless good humor. Next I worked with the novelist Peter Ho Davies, and then with the poet and fiction writer Laura Kasischke, herself a former Hopwood winner, and lastly with the novelist and short story writer Michael Byers, also a former winner. The students have been fortunate to have such writers on-site; they are exemplars of what it means to be creative writers.
In addition to Avery Hopwood’s generosity in endowing the awards program, donors have bestowed additional prizes for works in specific genres; the program has been made more successful by their commitment to rewarding excellence in writing and by their offering encouragement for students at a critical time in their careers.
Please continue to send me news of your publications and activities. I’ll follow you with great interest and affection. When the English Department selects a new administrator, I’ll post the name and email address on our website, but do copy me on your messages—it’s always wonderful to hear from you.
With very best wishes, Andrea
The Hopwood Underclassmen Awards Ceremony was held on January 27, 2017. The awards were presented by Professor Laura Kasischke, Director of the Hopwood Awards Program, and Tracy K. Smith gave a poetry reading. The judges for the Underclassmen Contest and the other poetry contests were all former Hopwood Award winners. Lizzie Hutton and Benjamin Landry judged the poetry and Emily McLaughlin and Ian Singleton judged the Underclassmen Contest’s fiction and nonfiction. Elizabeth Goodenough judged the Roy W. Cowden Memorial Fellowship. And the winners were:
Hopwood Underclassmen Fiction: Zoya Gurm, $800; Kate Velguth, $800; Daphnecay Cantuba, $1,000; Laura Dzubay, $1,500 Hopwood Underclassmen Nonfiction: Elena Ramirez-Gorski, $2,000; Kate Velguth, $2,000 Hopwood Underclassmen Poetry: Julia Moss, $800; Zoya Gurm, $1,500; Miriam Saperstein, $1,500 Academy of American Poets Prize: (Graduate Division) Clare Hogan, $100; (Undergraduate Division) Hannah Klemkow, $100
2 Bain-Swiggett Poetry Prize: Jonathan Holland, $650 Michael R. Gutterman Award in Poetry: Fatimah Asghar, $500; Tara E. Jay, $700 Jeffrey L. Weisberg Memorial Prize in Poetry: Caroline Rothrock, $650; Sara Carretero, $850 Roy and Helen Meador Writing Award: Elena Ramirez-Gorski, $2,000 Roy W. Cowden Memorial Fellowship: Stephanie Mullings, $1,000; Ben Rappoport, $1,000; Tierra Christian, $2,000; Brooke White, $2,000; Josh Mandilk, $5,000; Serena Scholz, $5,000
The Graduate and Undergraduate Awards Ceremony was held on April 20. Former Hopwood Awards Program Director Nicholas Delbanco presented the lecture. The local judges for the contests were: Enoch Brater, Jamien Delp, Pamela Erbe, Kate Glahn, Michael Hinken, Supriya Kelkar, Matthew Moser Miller, Lynne Raughley, Eddie Rubin, Leslie Stainton, Alison Swan, E. J. Westlake, and Hopwood Award winners Frank Beaver, John Ganiard, Nicholas Harp, Bradford Kammin, Todd McKinney, James Pinto, Sharon Pomerantz, Greg Schutz, and Ali Shapiro.
The national judges were: Drama: Robert Boswell and D. Tucker Smith Novel: Bich Minh Nguyen and Chigozie Obioma (Hopwood winners) Screenplay: Christopher Cosmos and Olivia Dahan Nonfiction: John D’Agata and Susan Neville Short Fiction: Antonya Nelson and Steven Schwartz Poetry: James Harms and Diane Seuss Hopwood Award Theodore Roethke Prize: Clarisse Baleja Saidi Kasdan Scholarship in Creative Writing: Kasdan Pictures
And the Hopwood Award winners were:
Hopwood Drama: Clarisse Baleja Saidi, $2,500; Maxim Vinogradov, $6,500; Jeff Henebury, $10,000 Hopwood Novel: Jonathan Holland, $2,000; Yasin Abdul-Muqit, $2,500; Graham Cotten, $2,500; Kristen Roupenian, $6,500 Hopwood Screenplay: Abigail Buchmeyer, $2,500; Owen Dawson, $2,500; Fahim Rahman, $2,500; Nikita Mungarwadi, $3,000 Hopwood Undergraduate Nonfiction: Meagan Malm, $2,000; Kathryn Cammell, $3,000; Yoshiko Iwai, $10,000 Hopwood Graduate Nonfiction: Austin Gorsuch, $6,000; Laura Preston, $10,000 Hopwood Undergraduate Short Fiction: Rachel Beglin, $2,000; Sabrina Deutsch, $3,000; Lily C. Buday, $3,500; Jean Anne Heng, $6,000 Hopwood Graduate Short Fiction: Graham Cotten, $3,000; Callie Collins, $3,500; Nell David, $6,000, Kristen Roupenian, $6,000 Hopwood Undergraduate Poetry: Hannah Klemkow, $3,000; Isabel Sandweiss, $3,000; Shana Toor, $4,000; Sofia Fall, $5,500 Hopwood Graduate Poetry: Fatimah Asghar, $3,000; Franny Choi, $4,000; Robert E. Heald, $4,000; Courtney Faye Taylor, $4,500 Hopwood Award Theodore Roethke Prize: Clarisse Baleja Saidi, $5,000
Winners of other prizes administered by the Hopwood Awards Program:
Andrea Beauchamp Prize (donated by Professor John Wagner): Kristen Roupenian, $1,100 Frank and Gail Beaver Script Writing Prize: Abigail Buchmeyer, $1,300 Chamberlain Award for Creative Writing: Samuel Jensen, $1,300; Kristin Nelson, $1,300; Laura Preston, $1,300 Helen J. Daniels Prize: Yoshiko Iwai, $3,000 Geoffrey James Gosling Prize: Kristen Roupenian, $850 Paul and Sonia Handleman Poetry Award: Sofia Fall, $3,000 Robert F. Haugh Prize: Jean Anne Heng, $2,800 Kasdan Scholarship in Creative Writing: Karly Thomas, $2,500; Noah Kieserman, $6,500 Dennis McIntyre Prize for Distinction in Undergraduate Playwriting: Maxim Vinogradov, $7,500 Meader Family Award: Clare Hogan, $2,100; Leah Xue, $2,100; YoungEun Yook, $2,100
3 Arthur Miller Award: Kate Velguth, $2,700 Leonard and Eileen Newman Writing Prizes: In Dramatic Writing: Abigail Buchmeyer, $2,000; Owen Dawson, $2,000; Kelsey Fox, $2,000; Nikita Mungarwadi, $2,000; Fahim Rahman, $2,000 In Fiction: Vaqaas Aslam, $2,000; Rachel Beglin, $2,000; Lily C. Buday, $2,000; Sabrina Deutsch, $2,000; Serena Scholz, $2,000 Naomi Saferstein Literary Award: Nikita Mungarwadi, $1,300 Stanley S. Schwartz Prize: Lily C. Buday, $600 Helen S. and John Wagner Prize: Courtney Faye Taylor, $1,100 John Wagner Prize: Laura Preston, $1,100
Publications by Hopwood Winners*
Books and Chapbooks
Donald Beagle What Must Arise, poetry, Library Partners Press, 2017. While LPP is called a “digital imprint,” all of its titles come out in print editions (on demand) as well as ebooks. He is also pleased to announce that his newly-edited book, Radcliffe Squires: Selected Poems 1950-1985 is nearing publication by Library Partners Press @ ZSR Library/ Wake Forest University, with release expected in August. Anyone interested in an advance review copy may contact Don at [email protected] .
Victoria Chang Barbie Chang, poetry, forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press in the fall.
Alex Cigale Russian Absurd: Daniil Kharms, Selected Writings, in Northwestern University Press World Classics Series, February 2017.
Gabrielle Civil Swallow the Fish, a memoir in performance art, selected for the #RECURRENT series of Civil Coping Mechanisms Press, 2017.
Tina DeBord Smell My Elephant, a picture book for children, Sleeping Bear Press, 2017.
Larry O. Dean Activities of Daily Living, Salmon Poetry, 2017.
Mary Gaitskill Somebody with a Little Hammer, nonfiction, Pantheon, 2017.
David Gewanter Fort Necessity, poems, University of Chicago Press, Phoenix Poets Series, March 2018. “The title poem shapes newspaper reports, court testimony, and convict ledgers into poems, and traces the body broken by factory work and industrial violence, from the Carnegie era to the Koch brothers.”
Edward Grinnan Always By My Side: Life Lessons from Millie and All the Dogs I’ve Loved, forward by Debbie Macomber, Howard Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2017. Mr. Grinnan is Editor-in-Chief of Guideposts.
Rae Gouirand Open Winter, poetry, Bellday Books, 2011.
Steve Hamilton Exit Strategy: A Nick Mason Novel, Putnam, 2017.
Katie Hartsock Bed of Impatiens, poetry, Able Muse Press, 2016.
Matthew Hittinger The Masque of Marilyn, poetry, GOSS183, 2017. Matthew also did the cover art.
Elizabeth Kostova The Shadow Land, a novel, Ballantine, 2017.
4 Kristin Lems With Leah D. Miller, and Tenena M. Soro, Teaching Reading to English Language Learners: Insights from Linguistics, The Guilford Press, 2010.
Jardine Libaire White Fur, a novel, Hogarth, 2017. “This is a gritty, psychedelic, joyful Romeo + Juliet story that takes place in the mid-80s in NYC, and explores the great social divide in our country. It’s been optioned for a TV drama, and I’m currently writing the season.” “And my documentary-format collaboration with photographer Phyllis B. Dooney is coming out April 11, 2017, called Gravity Is Stronger Here. This is the story of an archetypal American family in Mississippi, living in poverty, and dreaming and loving on a big scale.”
Bart Plantenga Paris Scratch, Sensitive Skin Books, 2016; NY Sin Phoney in Face Flat Minor, Sensitive Skin Books, 2017.
Paisley Rekdal The Broken Country: On Trauma, a Crime, and the Continuing Legacy of Vietnam is forthcoming in 2017.
Matthew Rohrer The Others, poetry, Wave Books, 2017.
Sara Schaff Say Something Nice About Me, stories, Augury Books, 2016.
Laura Hulthen Thomas States of Motion, stories, Wayne State University Press, 2016.
Laurence W. Thomas Be Not Proud, Poems of Passing, a poetry chapbook, UPS, 2017; The Games Children Play, a poetry chapbook, 2017.
Sam Walker The Captain Class: The Hidden Force that Creates the World’s Greatest Teams, Random House, 2017.
Articles and Essays
John U. Bacon “How Brady went from 7th string at Michigan to NFL’s best,” MSN.com, February 10, 2017.
Sven Birkerts “Onward,” The AGNI Newsletter, December 2016; “Balancing Acts,” AGNI Newsletter, February 2017; “No Man Loses His Shadow,” AGNI Newsletter, March 2017.
Carmen Bugan “Being an immigrant writer in American Today.” There was also a formerly unpublished poem by Carmen linked to the article.
Alex Cigale A series of 5 articles on Daniil Kharms’s life and work in Best American Poetry blog (February 14-19) timed to correspond with the release of his Kharms, Selected book with Northwestern.
Roohi Choudhry “The Undertaker’s Home,” Ploughshares, Winter 2016-17.
Mary Gaitskill “Nice Girls,” Harper’s, April 2017.
Barry Garelick “How Attempts to Force Equity in Math Can Protect Kids from Learning,” The Federalist, 2017.
David Gewanter “The Love Bite,” AGNI online, 2015.
Dan Jaffe Guest Edited “Introduction: Jazz Writing,” New Letters, v. 83, nos. 2 & 3, 2017.
Jascha Kessler Letters: The Los Angeles Times, January 5, 2017; The Financial Times, a letter with no date given in 2017, another letter in May 23, 2017.
Kristin Lems “Learning English through Music in the Digital Age. TESOL Video News, Alexandria, VA: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages,” 2016; with E. Taguchi, G. Gorsuch, and R. Rozzwell, “How repetition and an auditory model help readers,” Reading in a Foreign Language, 28(1), 2016; Introduction to Music Section in M. Snarski, Ed., The Monster Book of Language Teaching Activities (2nd
5 edition). United States Information Service, 2015; “Woody Guthrie: America’s Merry Prankster,” Woody Guthrie Annual v1, 2015; “Laughing all the way: Teaching English using puns,” English Teaching Forum 51(1), 2013; “Pun work helps English language learners get the joke,” The Reading Teacher 65(3), 2011.
Derek Mong “We Wear the Mask,” The Gettysburg Review, Summer 2017.
Davi Napoleon “Michigan Is the Common Thread,” Michigan Alumnus, The Bicentennial Issue, Spring 2017.
Marge Piercy “Barbie Doll 45 Years Later,” Open Road/Early Bird Books Newsletter, March 2017; “Poetry Tip,” Poetry Tips, April 2017.
Bart Plantenga “Paris Scratch [12 snapshots],” 3AM Magazine, 11.16; “Paris Scratch: The Children Snapshots,” [Les enfants instantanés], Coalhill Review, 12.16; “Paris Scratch experts,” Vox Populi, 3.17; “Exploration vs Consumption in Paris Scratch & NY Sin Phoney Ol’ Shanty,” Scotland, 3.17; “The Father Will Never Return To A Land That He Abandoned,” Urban Graffiti, 9.16; “Mark McCawley RIP,” Sensitive Skin, 3.16; “Yodeling in Heaven’s Garage1 [1900-1970],” Perfect Sound Forever, 4.16; “Yodeling in Heaven’s Garage2 [1970–2016]”, Perfect Sound Forever, 6.16.
Brian Short “Speak for Yourself,” LSA Today: The Bicentennial Issue, Spring 2017.
Dr. Sherman Silber “Chapter 13: Human Ovarian Tissue Vitrification” in Cryoperservation in Mammalian Gametes and Embryos: Methods and Protocols, edited by Zsolt Peter Nagy, Alex C. Varghese, and Ashok Argawal, Humana Press, 2017.
Ian Singleton An interview with Laura Hulthen Thomas, 2017
Jia Tolentino “Mind No Mind,” Poetry, January 2017.
Howard R. Wolf Two journalistic pieces: “An Evening in Casacais” and “Return to Cascais,” forthcoming in The Journal of Cascais.
Reviews
Leah Falk “Ink Stain on My Fingers,” a review of Walking Backwards by Lee Sharkey, Field, Spring 2017.
David Gewanter A review of My Grandmother’s Glass Eye by Craig Raine, Times Higher Education Supplement (UK), August 4, 2016.
Matthew Hittinger A review of Sharon Dolin’s Manual for Living at The Rumpus, August 2015; interview with Denise Duhamel in PoetsArtists #58, October 2014.
Nami Mun A review of Human Acts by Han Kang, New York Times Book Review, January 15, 2017.
Bart Plantenga Reviews in Paris Scratch and NY Sin Phoney: Book Review: Paris Scratch, Kevin Riordan 1.17; Paris Scratch: A review of Bart’s latest book, Win Harms, Rough Night 2.17; Paris Scratch Outtakes Review, Steve Dalachinsky, Brooklyn Rail 11.16; Paris Scratch Review, Bob Bishop, Paris Voice 11.16; NY Sin Phoney Review, Paul Knobloch, Goodreads 3.17; Flash Fictions Galore: NY Sin Phoney IN FACE FLAT MINOR, Peter Bates, Stylus, 3.17; Paris Scratch: Not Quite Poems, Alfred Vitale; Gastronomy of the Eye, X3Jane.
Matthew Thorburn Five recent interviews with writers in Ploughshares online: “A Poet of the Intimate Spaces,” an Interview with Gbenga Adesina; “Becoming A Parent Made Me A Ruthless Editor of My Own Work,” an Interview with Elizabeth Onusko; “Without Any Agenda to Pay Close Attention,” an Interview with Marianne Boruch; “Ten Pounds of Potatoes in a 10 Pound Bag,” an Interview with Eileen Pollack; “Hyperconsciousness of the Historical Instability of Words,” an Interview with Monica Youn.
6 Edmund White “Library as Muse,” a review of Public Library and Other Stories by Ali Smith, New York Times, December 4, 2016.
Fiction
Jim Allyn “The Master of Negwegon,” Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, November 2016.
Natalie Bakopoulos “There Is No Place That Does Not See You,” The Iowa Review, Spring 2017.
Michael Byers “City Light,” Colorado Review, Spring 2017.
Alex Cigale Translation of Chapter 1 of Sergei Loiko’s novel, Airport, about the siege of Donetsk Airport during Russia’s war in Ukraine, in Odessa Review 7, March 2017.
Ariel Djanikian “Summerwalk Circle,” srw, Spring/Summer 2017. Nichols Arboretum Photo Credit: Trip Advisor Alison Hagy “Antebellum,” The Idaho Review #16, 2017.
Yoshiko Iwai “the coughing sound,” Xylem Literary Magazine, 2016-17, produced by the Undergraduate English Association at the University of Michigan.
Poetry
Natalie Bakopoulous “Thessaloniki,” Michigan Quarterly Review, Fall 2016.
Stephen Eric Berry (with lithographs by John Elkerr) “American American,” “Dirge for Ann Arbor,” “The Narcissus of Fairmount,” Puerto del Sol: The Publication Issue, Winter 2017.
Carmen Bugan “Is this window ours?” Picador’s “Friday Poem,” “A Prayer for my Children,” Picador, 2017
Alex Cigale Translations of 4 shorts by Daniil Kharms in B O D Y; Translations of 5 poems by Mikhail Eremin in Eleven Eleven 22, 3 poems by Arseny Tarkovsky in Harvard Review Online (Omniglots, Feb. 17, 2017); 4 poems by Vladislav Khodasevich in The Hopkins Review 10.3; “January 1, 1924” by Osip Mandelstam in Michigan Quarterly Review, Winter 2017; 2 poems by Boris Khersonsky in Plume, March 2017; 6 poems by Mikhail Eremin in Two Lines 26; poems by Mikhail Eremin, Shashad Abdullaev, and Amarsana Ulzytuev in Words Without Borders, April 2017.
Lauren Clark “In a Dream We Are Eating Dinner Together by the Atlantic Ocean,” “The Reception Continues,” Field, Spring 2017.
Larry. O. Dean “Spoiler Alert(s),” Razor Literary Magazine, #3, April 2017; “Cyberia.” Kairos, I, 3, March 2017; “Bill Murray Admits a Painting Saved His Life,” Little River, #6, March 2017; “The Beard Won’t Shave Itself,” Picaroon #6, January 2017; “Powerbar Pro Meets Ferret Expert,” Jazz Cigarette, #2, October 2016; “A Cat That’s Surprisingly Good at Jenga,” “Man Finds Fake Skeletons Posed in Lawn Chairs While Snorkeling,” Kairos, I, 1, August 2016.
Adie Dolan “what it is like to want something,” Xylem Literary Magazine 2016-17, produced by the Undergraduate English Association at the University of Michigan.
Laura Dzubay “the boys of summer,” Xylem Literary Magazine 2016-17, produced by the Undergraduate English Association at the University of Michigan.
7 Rae Gouirand “The Personal,” Crazyhorse, Fall 2016.
David Gewanter “A late evening in the future” and “Scope,” forthcoming from Poet Lore; “Fort Necessity” (first section) and “Second Eden,” forthcoming from Poetry International; “The Coin Purse,” forthcoming from Agni Online; “Wellfleet: Off-Season,” Ploughshares, XLII, 1; “The Lords of Labor,” Tikkun 31; “The Unspeakable,” In the Shape of a Human Body I am Visiting the Earth, McSweeney’s Publishing, 2017; “Goya’s Third of May, 1808,” Goya en la Poesía, Iberoamericana (Madrid), 2016, translated by Helmut Jacobs, also in Die Rezeption und Deutung von Goyas Werk in der Lyrik, Königshausen & Neumann (Würzburg, Germany), 2015, translated by Helmut Jacobs; “The Unspeakable,” “Marriage: Six Primers,” and “Bill,” Poetry International, 2017; “Old Egg,” Beltway.com, XVI, 1
Clare Higgins “AC 749 Fly” (poem + lino print) in issue 5.3 of Star 82 Review; “Bomb” in Issue 14 of The American Poetry Journal; “71 Irving Place” in Issue 1 of Impossible Archetype; “Upon Reading Tiepolo’s Hound,” unpublished poem from his archives/tribute to Derek Walcott on my blog; “Cafe Imagination” and “Proof of Intent to Marry” appeared in the “Mirrors & Prisms: Writers of Marginalized Orientations & Gender Identities” issue (Spring/Summer 2016. Vol. 59, No. 2) of Nimrod International Journal of Prose and Poetry; “7 Uber 7” and “Color Keyboard Eye Hammer” appeared in The Ekphrastic Review; “Xanadu Xanadu” appeared in PoetsArtists #73, published in conjunction with the exhibit “Freak Out!”, an homage to disco, at Zhou B Art Center in Chicago. Anthologies: “Wednesdays at the Laundromat” appeared in Rabbit Ears: TV Poems edited by Joel Allegretti (New York Quarterly Books, 2015); “Orange Colored Sky,” appeared in Drawn to Marvel: Poems from the Comic Books edited by Bryan D. Dietrich and Marta Ferguson (Minor Arcana Press, 2014); “The Light, the Idea of Light, Repeats Itself at South Beach” appeared in The Queer South edited by Douglas Ray (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2014). Older Poetry Publications (2014-2015): “Monocacy” was the December 2015 poem in Animal: A Beast of a Literary Magazine; “Beau Buck at Dusk” appeared in Volume 9 (Spring 2015) of Mead: The Magazine of Literature & Libations; “Dear Art Dear M” and “I Prefer Gentlemen in Bed” appeared in PoetsArtists #62 and in the show “Immortality and Vulnerability” at Zhou B Art Center in Chicago; “1 January 200X” appeared in Issue 13 of iARTistas (January 2015); “There Were Turtles” appeared in Memorious #23; “M Dreams,” a lyric dream sequence, was published at Fogged Clarity on Day 26 of their month long Lyric Dream Project (October 2014); “Wrestlers Unfinished” and “Wrestlers Finished” were reprinted in Assaracus #16; “I Am Not a Myth” was the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-day September 12, 2014; “A Minor Dilemma” appeared at The Good Men Project; “Cross Bucket Candle Knife” appeared at The Offending Adam.
Garrett Hongo “I Got Heaven…,” The Best American Poetry 2016, edited by Edward Hirsch, Scribner Poetry, 2016.
Patricia Hooper “In the Frame,” Alaska Quarterly Review, Winter & Spring 2017 and in Poetry Daily; “In the Clearing,” “Lens,” “From a Park Bench,” The Southern Review, Spring 2017; “At the Terminal,” included in Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac radio program; “Sunday Flying,” included in Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry; “All Morning,” “Sunflowers,” The Hudson Review, Autumn 2016; “Autumn,” “In Tennessee,” “My Junco,” “Lakewood Path,” “Sandhill Cranes,” Missouri Review, Vol. 39, I, Spring, 2016; “Three Weeks of Peonies,” Poet Lore, Summer 2016; “Apple,” The Gettysburg Review, Summer 2017.
Yoshiko Iwai “dissection,” Xylem Literary Magazine 2016-17, produced by the Undergraduate English Association at the University of Michigan.
Dan Jaffe “Still Consequences,” New Letters, 2016-17; “Heading for Another Gig,” “bop talk at Mintons,” “Who Remembers the Buena Vista Social Club” New Letters, v. 83, nos. 2 & 3, 2017.
Lawrence Joseph “Back to That,” “Made of This, Sensory Fact,” Subtropics #22, 2017; “Visions of Labor,” The Best American Poetry 2016, edited by Edward Hirsch, Scribner Poetry, 2016.
Laura Kasischke “My Crying Towel,” The Massachusetts Review, LVII, 4, 2016; “On the Properties of Summer,” Alaska Quarterly Review, Winter & Spring 2017; “Spies,” Willow Springs #79, Spring 2017; “March,” The New York Times Magazine, March 25, 2017; “Talisman,” Poetry, May 2017.
Kristin Lems “The Second Train,” The North Branch Literary and Fine Arts Journal, 2015.
8 Karyna McGlynn “Hit It,” The Georgia Review, Spring 2017. Karyna is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Oberlin College.
Marge Piercy “The Air Smelled Dirty,” “Abundance Is Wonderful and Then It Isn’t,” Third Wednesday, X, 1, Winter 2017; “The longest night approaching,” Canopic Jars Suite, December 2016; “The war at home now,” HOWL, 2016!, January 2017; “At least a hill,” “My shadow is long,” San Diego Poetry Annual 2016-17; “This is no longer my room,” “The cemetery of spent passions,” The Comstock Review, 30th Anniversary Issue, Fall/ Winter 2016; “I pass them,” “Cats for dummies,” “At the turning of the tide,” Marsh Hawk Review, Spring 2017; “Long polished,” Visions International #95; “Between, neither sleeping or awake,” “Chicago one summer,” December, XXVIII, 1 Spring/Summer 2017.
Elena Ramirez-Gorski “young love,” Xylem Literary Magazine 2016-17, produced by the Undergraduate English Association at the University of Michigan.
Maria Robins-Somerville “gape,” “on blueberries,” Xylem Literary Magazine 2016-17, produced by the Undergraduate English Association at the University of Michigan.
Penelope Scambly Schott “On the Road to Terelj National Park in Mongolia,” “Autumn Comes to Northern Mongolia,” The Georgia Review, Spring 2017.
Danez Smith “The 17-Year-Old & the Gay Bar,” Poetry, February 2017.
Mairead Small Stead “Plumb & Line,” “A Girl’s Guide to Vivisection,” Ploughshares, Winter 2016-2017.
Anne Stevenson “A Compensation of Sorts,” “How Poems Arrive,” “Dover Beach Reconsidered,” The Hudson Review, Spring 2017.
Laurence W. Thomas “Fairy Tale,” Blue Unicorn; “Knife Incident,” Third Wednesday, Spring 2017.
Drama Performances and Publications
Tyler Dean will be directing his own show (Zombie Farm) in the first weekend in August at the Power Center in Ann Arbor.
Tina Datsko de Sanchez “We [Tina and her husband, José Sanchez-H.] completed the Spanish subtitles for our spoken-word documentary, Searching for Simón Bolivar: One Poet’s journey, that is a companion to Tina’s book. As Poet in Residence at our Church, Tina contributed a suite of poems for Holy Week, as well as a new poem for Advent. We also made two poetry videos for the church. As a new adventure, Tina sang and acted in the church’s production of Titanic: The Musical, which she thoroughly enjoyed—especially her costume.”
Kristin Lems You, Me, and All of the Above, a new CD consisting of 13 original songs by Kristin Lems was released on CD on Carolsdatter Productions. This is Kristin’s 8th full length CD of original songs. CD release concert took place August, 2016 at the Old Town School of Folk Music, Chicago, IL. “Farmer,” a song about American farm women who lost their family farms due to unfair inheritance tax laws, placed fifth in the 2016 Wisconsin Singer-songwriters Competition, where she performed it. (It was written up in Ms. Magazine, Farm Journal Magazine, and even appeared in an Ann Landers column). It is on her album Oh Mama Plus! It can be heard on iTunes, Amazon, or at Kristin’s website; “We are Stars/Anach nous colanu cochavin,” a round, was performed at the annual concert of the Tucson’s Women’s Chorus in 2016.
Jardine Libaire “My documentary-format collaboration with photographer Phyllis B. Dooney is coming out April 11, 2017, called Gravity Is Stronger Here. This is the story of an archetypal American family in Mississippi, living in poverty, and dreaming and loving on a big scale”
Bart Plantenga Radio: WFMU Optimized!: Extyo (Extreme Yodel), 6.16; WFMU Vocal Fry with Dan Bodah, Radio @ Wreck This Mess WTM: Wreck Dys-Topic 1203 political; Wreck Durutti Column 1202; Wreck Pop Group 1201;
9 Wreck Covers 1200*; Wreck The Walker 1199; Wreck 1198: Paris Scratch: FREE Paris Scratch soundtrack; Wreck 1197 Gangster Poet; Wreck 1196 Min Max Mark; Wreck 1195 In Search of Lost Yodels. Films about Bart Plantenga: Revolting News Crimes of the Beats part 2; Poetry Thin Air, Unbearables, Interview with bart plantenga. Youtube [his own films]:What Would Thatcher Say Today – About Trump; Bicycling Through What Looks Like Amsterdam; Now Playing...On Turntable Green; Paris Scratch: #56 À Suivre de la Seine Urine [Following the Seine of Urine].
Dr. Sherman J. Silber DVDs: “Father and Son Fly Fishing in Alaska 2016,” “Polar Bears and Glaciers: What It Feels Like Going Extinct,” The Infertility Center of St. Louis; video: This is a documentary I made of Syria when I became an honorary lifetime member of the Middle East Fertility Society in Damascus, 4 months before the Arab spring. In this video, you will see what a wonderful place Syria was, and that it was moving in a direction toward opening to the West. Who would have predicted then the half million deaths and many millions of displaced immigrants. Watch this video from 5 years ago, and you will understand the Syrian disaster of today much better.”
Oliver Thornton “I just wanted to let you both know that the Hopwood episode of the ongoing ‘An Uncommon Education’ Bicentennial series went live this morning. It can be viewed at http://www.dptv.org/umich.”
Howard R. Wolf “I’ll be reading a script for an evening (April 22) of song – ‘From Paris to Broadway’ -- in the Cultural Center of Cascais 9CCC, a beautifully restored (as a concert venue) small church. There will be two singers, Ana Stilwell and Gino Vitale, a sax, piano, and violincello. My brother Ron and I spent about six hours yesterday editing my text. I’ve also been writing a column for the Cultural Journal of Cascais: C. ‘An Evening in Cascais’ appears in the March 2017 issue. One of my “C” pieces” will be published in the ‘My View’ column of Buffalo News on April 20.”
News & Notes
Samiyah Bashir “I write tonight [December 16] to introduce: Friday Field Notes, a weekly multimedia poetry lovebomb. As the changing season brings its manner of madness, let’s have at least one day to receive a little dollop of poetic love. For the next 12 weeks I will craft together a weekly winter fix from the FIELD. Get a sneak peak of the poetry as it’s lived in the wild, the films that re-imagine them, and the word on the street from those who know.”
Stephen Eric Berry “Thanks to an invitation from the Emily Dickinson Museum, in March I was honored to receive a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The funding will allow me to participate in a week-long series of workshops this summer in Amherst, Massachusetts titled: Emily Dickinson: Person, Poetry and Place, A Landmarks of American History and Culture Workshop. In the fall of 2017 and the winter of 2018, I will lead seminars in the Ann Arbor Public Schools to share my experiences at the workshops with high school students.”
Karen Duan was the Editor-in-Chief of the 2016-17 Xylem Literary Magazine, produced by the Undergraduate English Association at the University of Michigan.
Matthew Hittinger Matthew and Michael Ernest Sweet were married in June, 2015. A portrait of Matthew by the painter Nadine Robbins appeared on the cover of Chronogram Magazine and PoetsArtists #62. Matthew Hittinger Photo Credit: Nadine Robbins
10 Kristin Lems Presentations: “Music and the Brain,” Keynote Presentation at the Fall Meeting of Merit School of Music Faculty and Staff, Chicago, IL, 2015; “Songs and music help with CCSS for ELLs, and more,” Post- convention Institute, Annual Meeting of Teachers of English as a Second Language, Toronto, CA, March 2015; “Music works in teaching ESL: Ideas and more,” featured workshop at Annual Meeting of Illinois Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages/Bilingual Education, Lisle, IL, 2015; “Notes from four decades teaching ESL, or my life in totebags,” Closing Keynote for Annual Meeting of Illinois Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages/Bilingual Education, Lisle, IL, 2014.
Marge Piercy spoke at PEN International Festival on a panel on gender, power and dystopia at the New School in New York City in May of 2017.
Howard R. Wolf “I lectured February 21 at Lisbon University (American Studies unit) to undergraduates on: ‘The Rise of Literary Journalism in America.’ I’ve also been on a panel re “The Legacy of JFK” under the auspices of the Cultural Center of Cascais; and I was interviewed by a critic-novelist, Prof. Mario Avelar, at the Open (Aberta) University. In Myanmar, I’ll give a public lecture on: ‘Liberal Education as a Defense Against Inhumanity.’ In March, he wrote: “I returned from Myanmar a week ago where I lectured for two weeks in Parami Institute on American Literature. I now am in Cascais, Portugal, on the coast near Lisbon where my brother has lived for 50 years. I gave a talk on JFK’s legacy at a palace in Cascais (Guimaraes) before I left for Yangon (old Rangoon). I’ve written and published here (some have appeared, will) a series of autobiograhical travel vignettes in The Journal of Cascais.”
Awards& Honors
Derrick Austin was a finalist for the $10,000 Kate Tufts Discovery Award.
Donald Beagle His poem “Imprisoned Pasts” has won a prize in the 2017 Ekphrasis Poetry Contest at Oakland University
Brit Bennett was awarded a $1,000 National Book Foundation 2016 “5 Under 35” award for her novel, The Mothers, published by Riverhead in 2016.
Russell Brakefield is the recipient of the Ben Prize for outstanding teaching of writing at the University of Michigan.
Carmen Bugan received the Orwell Prize Fellowship in February 2017. It is called “the most prestigious prize given in the UK for political writing.”
Victoria Chang “I wanted to let you know that I have won a Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry for the 2017/2018 year, which is very exciting news! I also have a new book, Barbie Chang, coming out from Copper Canyon Press this fall. My previous, The Boss, published by McSweeney’s, won the PEN Center USA Literary award and a California Book Award. My website is somewhat updated: www.victoriachangpoet.com.”
Katie Harsock “Hello! I’m excited to announce that Bed of Impatiens is a finalist for the 2017 Ohioana Award in poetry! They have a separate Reader’s Choice awards for books across all the categories, which is done simply by which book gets the most votes: if you have a moment, would you vote for my book? Here’s the link, voting closes at noon on July 3: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/MB6DT2D ”
Matthew The Erotic Postulate was named to the 2015 Over the Rainbow List for Poetry, which is compiled by the Matthew Hittinger Hittinger American Library Association’s GLBT Round Table Photo Credit: Nadine Robbins Laura Her novel, Mind of Winter, published by Bourgois in France under the title Esprit d’hiver, won Elle Kasischke Magazine’s prize for best novel of 2014. She was a featured writer in “Festival American,” held in Vincennes in September 2016 and taught in Switzerland at the Geneva Writers Group Internation Association of Writers in November. She received a Fellowship at the Institute for the Humanities for
11 this coming academic year, and her next book, entitled Where Now: New and Selected Poems (Copper Canyon), will be out in July.
Susan Lamoreaux swill be going abroad this fall to teach English on a Fulbright grant to north-eastern Germany. Susan, who majored in German, is thrilled for the opportunity to live abroad for a time, and to continue practicing and improving her language skills. While she will miss her hometown of Ann Arbor, she hopes to make the most of every minute of the 10-month grant, and has every intention to keep composing stories and poetry while away.
Susan Landers “My third book, Franklinstein, was just named one of Entropy Magazine’s Best Non-Fiction Books of 2016. The book tells the story of one Philadelphia neighborhood, Germantown—a historic, beloved place, wrestling with legacies of colonialism, racism, and capitalism. The book was called ‘a church of stained glass truth-telling,’ by Philadelphia Poet Laureate Yolanda Wisher.”
Bart Plantenga Best of / About: Perfect Sound Forever 2016 WRITER’S POLL; WFMU DJs Pick 5 Songs on World of Echo; Sensitive Skin Best of 2016; ABC No Rio Dinero: The Story of a Lower East Side Art Galler.
Paisley Rekdal was named Utah’s Poet Laureate in 2017. She is the author of a book of essays, The Night My Mother Met Bruce Lee, a hybrid-genre photo-text memoir entitled Intimate, and four books of poetry: A Crash of Rhinos, Six Girls Without Pants, The Invention of the Kaleidoscope and Animal Eye, which was a finalist for the 2013 Kingsley Tufts Prize, the Balcones Prize and winner of the UNT Rilke Prize. Her newest book of poems is Imaginary Vessels, and a book- length essay, The Broken Country: On Trauma, a Crime, and Paisley Rekdal the Continuing Legacy of Vietnam is forthcoming in 2017.
Danez Smith received the 26th annual John C. Zacharis First Book from Ploughshares for his book of poetry [insert] boy (2014 Yes Yes Books). The $1,500 award honors the best debut book by a Ploughshares writer and alternates annually between poetry and fiction.
Laurence W. Thomas was made Honorary Chancellor of the Poetry Society of Michigan in 2017.
Deaths
Murry Frymer recipient of a Hopwood Minor Drama Award in 1955, died in San Jose on December 13, 2016. He served as an editor at Newsday, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and the Boston Herald before heading west to write. He covered theater, film and television before finding his “dream job” at Mercury News. He was the paper’s theater critic for a decade and spent the next decade as the “At Large” columnist. The Mercury News published a collection of his writings, They’re Coming for My Mattress—And Other Tales of Life. In 1999, he announced his retirement. “Then-Mayor Ron Gonzales declared May 18 ‘Murry Frymer Day’” in San Jose, and readers responded with sadness to the imminent loss of his Tuesday-Thursday- Saturday musings.
Neil Gordon winner of a Hopwood Minor Fiction Award in 1980 and a Major Fiction (Short Story) Award in 1981, died May 19 in NYC of multiple myeloma. He was 59. The June 8, 2017 New York Times reported: “Mr. Gordon had been the dean of Eugene Lang College at the New School in New York, dean of the American University of Paris and the founding literary editor of Boston Review. He was best known outside academia as a novelist, especially after The Company You Keep, his third novel [part of it set in Ann Arbor], a fugitive thriller published in 2003, was adapted into a feature film directed by and starring Robert Redford….Mr. Gordon’s last book, You’re a Big Girl Now (2014), is a sequel that surveyed the American left from the time of the Spanish Civil War to the Occupy Wall Street protests in recent years.” He was also the author of The Sacrifice of Isaac and The Gun Runner’s Daughter.
12 Nancy Willard was born in Ann Arbor and died in Poughkeepsie on February 19 at the age of 80. She was the recipient of numerous Hopwood Awards: Freshman Essay, 1955; Freshman Poetry, 1955; Minor Poetry, 1955; Minor Essay, 1956; Minor Poetry, 1957; Major Essay, 1958; Major Poetry, 1958. Her February 22 obituary in the Poughkeepsie Journal notes: “Ms. Willard’s published more than 70 books, poetry, children’s books, short stories, novels, essays and criticism, in a career that spanned over fifty years. Her last children’s book is due out this fall. She was also published in a number of limited-edition books, some of them with her poems paired with photographs by her husband, Eric Lindbloom, with Brighton Press in San Diego. Her poems are widely anthologized. She received a number of awards for her books, the most prominent being the Newbery Award in 1982 for her William Blake’s Inn, illustrated by Alice & Martin Provensen. It was the first poetry book to be awarded the Newbery. Ms. Willard received grants from the N.E.A. in both poetry and fiction. She graduated from the University of Michigan with highest honors, and went on to earn an MA from Stanford. She returned to the University of Michigan to earn her PhD. Her dissertation was on the use of physical objects in the poetry of Rilke, William Carlos Williams, Neruda, and Francis Ponge. It was published as Testimony of the Invisible Man, by the University of Missouri Press. In 1964 she eloped with Eric Lindbloom, who had been pursuing her for nine years; they settled in Poughkeepsie, NY, which became home base for the rest of her life. Their son, James Anatole Lindbloom, was born in 1970. She joined Vassar College’s English Department in 1965, and taught there through the fall semester of 2012.”
Kathleen Wheatley who wrote under the pseudonym Karen Snow, died in Sun City, Arizona, on February 20. In the exhibit “A Remarkable Legacy: Hopwood Winners from Arthur Miller to Elizabeth Kostova,” in the University of Michigan’s Special Collections Library in 2006, Kathryn Beam noted “Kathleen (née Musser) Wheatley / Karen Snow, (1923 - ) Major award, fiction, 1951 Major award, poetry, 1951 Kathleen Wheatley (M.A. 1950) is a poet and novelist currently living in Arizona. Under the pseudonym Kim Myers, Wheatley won a Major Award in Fiction for “Undertow: a Novel,” and a Major Award in Poetry for “Diary: Two Series of Poems.” While raising two sons and managing the upheaval of frequent moves, she continued to write her intensely personal and acutely observed novels and poems, this time using Paisley Rekdal the pseudonym, Karen Snow. These works include the novel Willo (1976), and two books of poetry, Wonders (1980), and Outsiders (1983). Wonders attracted the most widespread critical attention of any of Wheatley’s books, winning a Walt Whitman Award from the American Academy of Poets in 1978.”
Special Annoucements
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! If you have any news or information you would like me to share, I would be delighted to hear about it through email ([email protected]), but please remember to type Hopwood in the subject line so your message isn’t deleted by mistake. You could also write a letter to 1176 Angell Hall, 435 S State Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1003. The Hopwood Room’s phone number is 734-764-6296. The cutoff date for listings was in June. If your information arrived after that, it will be included in our next newsletter in January. The cutoff date for that newsletter will be November 28. Unfortunately, so many of you have personal websites and blogs that we’re unable to make note of them. We’re trying to keep the newsletter to a manageable size.
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.
The Hopwood Program has a web page address: lsa.umich.edu/hopwood/. Visit the English Department’s Helen Zell Writers’ Program site at lsa.umich.edu/writers.
Do stop by to say hello if you’re visiting Ann Arbor. All best wishes for a happy summer.
Andrea Beauchamp Assistant Director Hopwood Awards Program
13