Congrats to Melissa Scholes Young!

Melissa Scholes Young (MFA '11, fiction) writes with news of publication:

I have a poem entitled "Safety" up at Switched-on Gutenberg Issue 17:
Accidental. Judy, Mark, and Brenna had their hands all over this one.

http://www.switched-ongutenberg.org/current/Young.htm

Congrats, MSY

Mini-Conference on "Life After the MFA": October 15, 2011

On Saturday (yes, you read that right) Oct 15th, SIUC faculty poet
and MFA Program Director
Allison Joseph will lead a mini-conference on "life after the MFA."

Here's the mini-conference schedule:

1-3pm: CVs and Resumes, Academic Job Searches (How to read a job posting)

break

3:30 pm-5pm: Non Academic Jobs for MFAs, getting recommendations,
post-MFA fellowships, writing colonies andconferences; Should I get
another degree?

We will meet in the Faner Humanities Lounge.

Judy Jordan to speak for Sigma Tau Delta

SIUC faculty poet Judy Jordan will speak and read new poems for Sigma Tau Delta on Thursday, October 13th at 6 pm in the SIUC Student Center Mackinaw Room. All are welcome to attend.

Congrats to Nick Ostdick!

Happy news from Nick Ostdick (third-year fiction):

Super good news this morning: my short-short 'Junk' has been accepted
for publication by the Emprise Review for their forthcoming issue. No
firm date yet, but very cool. Thanks!

Congrats, NO!!!

Congrats to Beth Lordan!

Congrats to fiction faculty member Beth Lordan whose story "A Useful
Story" (which first appeared in New England Review, volume 31, number
1) has been cited as a "Distinguished Story of 2010" in Best American
Short Stories 2011!

Catching Up with Travis Mossotti (MFA '10)

Here's what Travis Mossotti (MFA '10, poetry) has been up to:

Pub Updates:
Got two: "Dust" got picked up at Burnside Review (with a reading in
Portland, OR at the Crow Manor House Wednesday, February 22, 2012);
"Santorini" got picked up at Cream City Review.

Other:
Interview with Tim Green should also be coming out soon with Rattle.
Edward Byrne at Valparaiso Poetry Review nominated "My Brother's
House" for "Best of the Net 2011." I'll be down in your neck of the
woods this Friday, October 7th: Reading @ 4pm in Harry T. Moore
Auditorium. Reading at the River Styx Reading Series in St. Louis with
Erika Meitner on Monday, October 17th @ 7:30pm @ Duff's in the CWE.
Invited to the Utah Humanities Book Festival October 26th & 27th for a
reading at the Salt Lake City Main Public Library, a screening of
"Decampment," followed by a reading at Utah State University the next
day.

See you soon, TM!

Congrats to Staci Schoenfeld!

First-year poet Staci Schoenfeld has these upcoming publications to announce:

My poem "Misdiagnosed" will be published in the Fall 2011 issue of
Appalachian Heritage. "Miscellaneous Merchandise" and "On the Way Home
from Lexington to Frankfort Via Leestown Road" will be published in
Accents Publishing's Bigger Than They Appear: Anthology of Very Short
Poems in November.

Congrats, Staci!!!

Shawn Mitchell update

Third-year fiction student Shawn Mitchell has been very busy:

I've got a few things up over at the Fiction Writers Review, inc.:

An appreciation/review of Pinckney Benedict's "Miracle Boy":

http://fictionwritersreview.com/reviews/miracle-boy-and-other-stories-by-pinckney-benedict

which is the book of the week over there right now!

An interview/conversation with Elif Batuman and Geoff Dyer at the Cuirt
Festival in Galway:
http://fictionwritersreview.com/interviews/writing-whatever-you-want-whenever-you-want-to-write-it-a-conversation-with-elif-batuman-and-geoff-dyer

A short appreciation of the Granta Book of the Irish Short Story:
http://fictionwritersreview.com/blog/stories-we-love-the-granta-book-of-the-irish-short-story

In fiction:

My story "The Pink Missive" just ran over at Johnny America just
today: http://www.johnnyamerica.net/
My story "She Was Beautiful, Yes" ran over at The Montreal Review awhile ago:
http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/She-Was-Beautiful-Yes.php

Congrats, Shawn!

SIUC Poet to Read at Central Methodist University

SIUC faculty poet Allison Joseph will read from her work at Central Methodist University on Wednesday, Sept 28, 2011:

Details here:
Poetry Reading, Fayette, MO

2011 Devil's Kitchen Literary Festival @ SIUC

Here's information on our upcoming annual fall literary festival

2011 Devil's Kitchen Literary Festival
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Wednesday, Thursday, & Friday, October 26 – 28
(All Events in SIUC's Morris Library)

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26

8:00 – 9:15 p.m.
Readings by Amina Gautier & Rodney Jones
John C. Guyon Auditorium (1st Floor Morris Library)

9:15 – 10:00 p.m.
Festival Reception (sponsored by the SIUC Dept. of English)
1st Floor Rotunda (Morris Library)

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27

—panel discussion, John C. Guyon Auditorium (1st Floor Morris Library)—

11:00 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.
Visiting Writers Panel featuring Amina Gautier, Alyson Hagy, Katherine
Riegel, Ira Sukrungruang, & Jerry Williams

2:00 – 3:15 p.m.
Readings by Brian Barker & Camille Dungy
John C. Guyon Auditorium (1st Floor Morris Library)

3:15 – 4:30 p.m.
Reception and Book Signing featuring all festival readers
1st Floor Rotunda (Morris Library)

4:30 – 6:00 p.m.
Readings by the 2011 Devil's Kitchen Reading Award Winners
Jerry Williams & Alyson Hagy
John C. Guyon Auditorium (1st Floor Morris Library)

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 28

11:00 – 11:50 a.m.
Readings by Katherine Riegel & Ira Sukrungruang
John C. Guyon Auditorium (1st Floor Morris Library)

2:00 – 3:30 p.m.
The Anthology Pathology: How to Edit a Creepy Book (Editors and
contributors discuss and read from two new anthologies--The Book of
Villains and Surreal South '11: Monsters and Ghosts)
John C. Guyon Auditorium (1st Floor Morris Library)

The festival is sponsored by GRASSROOTS, the Southern Illinois
University Carbondale Department of English's undergraduate literary
magazine. The Devil's Kitchen Fall Literary Festival is made possible
through funding from the SIUC Fine Arts Activity Fee, the SIUC
Creative Writing Program's Visiting Writers Series, and CRAB ORCHARD
REVIEW.

Festival author links:

Brian Barker website: http://brianbarker.net/

Laura and Pinckney Benedict bios and information on the Surreal South
anthologies on the Press 53 website:
http://www.press53.com/surrealsouth.html

Camille Dungy website: http://www.camilledungy.com/

Amina Gautier website: http://www.aminagautier.com/

Alyson Hagy author page at Graywolf Press with links to her books:
https://www.graywolfpress.org/index.php?option=com_phpshop&page=shop.author&product_id=302&author_id=39

Rodney Jones page at The Poetry Foundation:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/rodney-jones

Katherine Riegel website: http://www.katherineriegel.com/

Ira Sukrungruang website: http://www.sukrungruang.com/

Jerry Williams bio and Q&A on the blog How a Poem Happens:
http://howapoemhappens.blogspot.com/2010/02/jerry-williams.html

Josh Woods bio (bottom of the page) and his anthology The Book of
Villains at Main Street Rag Publishing website:
http://www.mainstreetrag.com/Villains.html

A Profile of the SIUC MFA Program

courtesy the Daily Egyptian, SIUC's student newspaper:


Profile

more Brewin news

Mark Jay Brewin Jr. (MFA '11, poetry) is definitely on a roll:

I am pleased to say that Cave Wall has accepted for publication the
untitled, prologue-poem for my book which I will affectionately refer
to as by its first line "Water was always the problem
surrounding...".

Congrats, MB, on all your recent publication acceptances!

Update: Kevin McKelvey (MFA '04, poetry)

An update from Kevin McKelvey, poetry alum:

So I'm still doing writing-in-the-schools programs, now with my UIndy
students through Second Story (secondstoryindy.org). My students are
also editing, designing, and publishing books for second through
eighth graders at local schools. Here's an article about some of that
work, which I co-wrote with my collaborators from a local IPS school,
Second Story, and a class at Butler University:

http://www.ascd.org/ascd-express/vol6/625-mckelvey.aspx

Great work, Kevin! Keep us posted!

more Brewin news

Mark Brewin (MFA '11) has more news:

I just found out I was a finalist in the 2011 New Letters Literary Award.

Congrats, MB!!

list of finalists here:
http://www.newletters.org/finalists_2011.asp

A Portrait of a New Literary Journal: Prime Mincer

Read here about Prime Mincer, a new literary journal founded by SIUC MFA alums and current creative writing graduate students:

Prime Mincer

Kudos to Lumans and Brewin

News from some recent alums:

Alex Lumans (MFA '09, fiction):

A story of mine entitled "The Dictionary of Your Fears" was published
yesterday at Necessary Fiction. And the day before, they posted an
essay of mine with a far too long title ("Parochial Plaids,
Self-Cogitation, the Water Moccasin Myth, and "I Might Want to Come
Back": How You're Already Trying to Figure Out What This List Means").

Also, Blackbird accepted my story "Signs and Wonders" for publication.

Mark Jay Brewin, Jr. (MFA '11, poetry):

I am happy to say that my poem "So Intricate, So Inconceivably
Complex" has been accepted for publication in Columbia Poetry Review.
You, Rodney and Judy have all seen this poem in every incantation, and
it would not have been picked up without your diligent work. Thanks
very much.

Congrats, Alex and Mark!!!

Writers Workshop, Carbondale Public Library, starting 9/20/11

Third-year MFA students Shawn Mitchell and Nick Ostdick will be
running a semester-long creative writing class/workshop at the
Carbondale Public Library every Tuesday from 6:30PM-8PM starting
September 20th.

Update: Rachel Furey (MFA '09)

Spectacular news from Rachel Furey (MFA '09, fiction):

I hope all is well in Carbondale.
I thought I'd pass along news of recent publications. My short story
"Jody's Solo" took second place in the American Fiction Prize and will
be published in Volume 12 of American Fiction: The Best Unpublished
Short Stories by Emerging Writers. The story was also a finalist for
the Normal School Fiction Prize, so I am happy it found a home. Also,
my story "Stealing Scalpels" will appear in Fifth Wednesday Journal,
my story "Baby Girl" in the Tidal Basin Review, and my story "The
Blood Donation" in New Texas.

Fiction Forthcoming from Nick Ostdick!

Congrats to third-year MFA fiction writer NIck Ostdick:

My flash fiction 'About That' has been accepted for publication by the good folks over Big Lucks for their 'real talk' issue.

Congrats, Nick!

Big Lucks:
Big Lucks

Congrats to Pete Lucas!

Second-year fiction MFA student Pete Lucas has this great news:

My short story, "For the Good of the Family" received an honorable
mention in Glimmer Train's June Fiction Open.
list of honorable mentions
List