A Plethora of Good News from Alums and Current Students

So much good news to report from SIUC MFA alums and current students:

Betsy Taylor (MFA, fiction, '99) reports:
My flash fiction, The Chocolate Bar Kid, was accepted by Apparatus magazine, an online publication. The story went up this week, and the url is Apparatus

Tim Marsh (MFA, fiction, '06) says:
February has been a good month. Prick of the Spindle will publish my CNF piece "Getting to Know You" in its next issue (4.1, late March). I've also been selected as the feature poet for the Spring Issue of Litterbox Magazine (please refrain from the obvious joke if you don't like the poems). The poems "Post Grad" and "Adult Supervision, White Horse Beach. 4th of July" will appear in the issue.

Jason Brown (MFA, fiction, '08) writes:
Poetry: In early April, RockSaw Press will publish my poetry chapbook, Blue Collar Fathers, which should debut at the AWP conference, and I have poems in the current issue of the American Poetry Journal (“Advice for the New You”) and Spoon River Poetry Review (“Intersection”) —both poems are in the chapbook.

Fiction: The Literary Review has accepted for publication my short story “Big Cowboy” (a.k.a the penis festival story). And an excerpt “Hognose” from my thesis will appear in the Platte Valley Review.

Editing: I have finished editing, with Jay Prefontaine, the new anthology, New Stories from the Midwest (Ohio University Press), which is slated for a winter 2010/2011 publication. The generous Lee Martin wrote the introduction. I also have to say that the anthology would not have been possible without Shanie Latham, who I can’t thank enough.

Kerry James Evans (MFA, poetry, '09) sends this news:
SIUC alums are well-represented in Copper Nickel's new issue :
Adrian Matejka's "Ego Elevator Music," "Mass Appeal" and "Money Folder"
James Miller's "Ike Turner at the Stackhouse: Clarksdale, MS 1998" and "Evening Train: Skip James, February 1931"
Kerry James Evans' "Mary Magdalene Leaving Jesus" and "Atlanta"

A.K. Thompson (current second-year student, fiction) says:
The Smoking Poet accepted my creative non-fiction piece, "Poor Man's Cocaine ~ or ~ A Question of Tobacco" for publication in their next issue (March 2010), Website: The Smoking Poet

From James Scoles (current second-year student, fiction):
I got word yesterday that my story 'Train Running Through' was a Finalist in Glimmer Train's Open Fiction Contest. Also, huge, huge thanks to Pinckney Benedict for nominating a story of mine (featured in Prairie Fire) for Pushcart Prize XXXV.

From Rachel Furey (MFA, fiction, '09):
I have a couple more for you. Stymie Magazine accepted a piece I wrote back in Carbondale, "Hey, ref, what's up with the mercy rule?" for their Autumn/Winter '10 issue. I also had a short memoir piece,"Directing Frog Traffic," accepted into an upcoming anthology titled A Daughter's Story. A shout-out and thank you to the CRWROPPS list,where I discovered both of these opportunities.


Congrats to everyone on these successes! Thanks for keeping the MFA Carbondale blog lively!