The Chapbook King Returns

These bits of good news arrived in this morning's mail from Michael Meyerhofer (MFA '06, poetry):

" I found out this morning that my manuscript, "The Clay-Shaper's Husband", won the Codhill Press Chapbook Award. The prize is $500 and fifty copies. I know, I know... four chapbooks now, and I'm still trying to get that second full-length book taken somewhere! ;)

I also found out in today's mail that two of my poems, "Peccadillo" and "Samsara", are forthcoming in River Styx! :)"

Congrats, MM! You're on a roll!

Meyerhofer Reviewed in Mid-American Review

Congratulations to Michael Meyerhofer (MFA '06, poetry) for receiving a rave review of his first full-length collection of poems, Leaving Iowa (Briery Creek Press, 2007) from Mid-American Review, the national literary journal headquartered at Bowling Green State University. An excerpt from the review, written by Karen Craigo, the journal's editor-in-chief, reads as follows:

"What is striking about the collection is its unabashed confessionalism. But it is confessionalism that has an effect on the reader--not just the effect of catharsis for the writer, like so many poems that tread into personal black waters. In writing about his own life, the death of his mother, his childhood poverty, his medical problems at birth that left visible marks on him for a lifetime--Meyerhofer offers a brand new way of seeing."

Congrats, MM!

Chapbook Forthcoming for Melanie Jordan (MFA '01)

Great news from Melanie Jordan (MFA '01, poetry)--Melanie's chapbook "Ghost Season" will be published by Ropewalk Press in Spring 2008. This press. located at the University of Southern Indiana, was the publisher of fellow SIUC MFA alum Matt Guenette's chapbook, A Hush of Something Endless.

Congrats, Melanie!

For more about Ropewalk Press, visit:

Ropewalk Press

Happy News from Jake Boyd (MFA '07)

Just received this note from Jake Boyd (MFA '07, poetry) about a sonnet of his to be published in an upcoming issue of Measure:

"It's called "Crow & Winter" and gonna be in the 2008 issue. So I'm stoked. Merry Christmas to you."

Congrats, Mr. Boyd!

For more about Measure, look here:

Measure

Beth Lordan and "Writers on the Road" to read at Murray State University

Beth Lordan, fierce fiction writer, longtime SIUC creative writing faculty member, and director of the SIUC Irish Studies Program will read at Murray State University on January 9, 2008 at 7:30 p.m. in the Clara M. Eagle Art Gallery (6th floor, Price-Doyle Fine Arts Building).

Earlier that same day, a trio of SIUC MFA graduate students--poets Will Tyler and Andy McFadyen-Ketchum and fiction writer Jared Sexton--will read during the Murray State MFA January residency. They will read in Faculty Hall, room 208 from 1-2 pm.

For more information on Murray State's MFA program, visit

Murray State MFA