Kevin Canty read from his new collection of short stories, Where the Money Went, in Missoula, Seattle, Portland and in New York City as part of the Happy Ending Reading Series. The 406 Writers’ Workshop, a salon-style writing workshop with many University of Montana MFA Program alumni serving as instructors, launched its summer workshop series with classes by Michael Fitzgerald, Chris Dombrowski (MFA '01), Elizabeth Urschel (MFA '00), and Bryan Di Salvatore ('76). Robert Stubblefield (MFA '94) taught a short fiction workshop at Summer Fishtrap 2009. John Myers (Second Year MFA) had his poem "Sigilism" published in the Fall 2009 issue of A cappella Zoo. Myers also had a piece called "Accretion" accepted for publication online at elimae.com. Aaron Shulman (MFA '09) was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to Guatemala for the coming year to work on his novel and teach American literature at the Universidad del Valle. Also, Shulman recently wrote a cover story for AARP's bilingual magazine, Segunda Juventud. Sharma Shields (MFA '04) had stories published in The Hawaii Review, The Sonora Review and Fugue, with another story forthcoming in The Iowa Review. Shields also just won a grant from Artist Trust of Washington State to submit her short story collection, Field Guide to Monsters of the Inland Northwest, to various agents and publishers.
The Baseball Field at Night, last poems by Patricia Goedicke, has been named winner of the Gold Medal (First Place) in the Independent Publisher Book Award in Poetry. This is the last collection of poems completed by Goedicke before her untimely death in 2006. She taught in the creative writing program at the University of Montana for 25 years, and a Patricia Goedicke Scholarship Fund has been established in her honor. Mike Kautz (Second Year MFA) will be a lecturer in English and American Studies at the Ataturk University in Erzurum, Turkey as a Fulbright Scholar in the fall of 2009. Caitlin Moore (Second Year MFA) and Lisa Schumaier (Second Year MFA) won the Academy of American Poets 2009 contest judged by Jena Osman. July Cole (First Year MFA) and Kristen Gleason (Second Year MFA) received honorable mention. Sara Pevar (First Year MFA) is the recipient of the Merriam Frontier Award. She received a $500 honorarium, and the Creative Writing Program will sponsor the publication of her manuscript submission. Pevar’s work was selected by a panel of judges consisting of Ginny Merriam, Lois Welch and Rob Schlegel (MFA '04). The University of Montana Creative Writing faculty have awarded the following students with scholarships for the 2009/10 academic year: Anne Marie Wirth -Cauchon (A. B. Guthrie Scholarship), July Cole (Goedicke/Robinson Scholarship), Lena Viall (Beebe Memorial Scholarship) and Jordann Lankford (James P. Welch Scholarship). Lindsay Bland and Caitlin Moore are the recipients of the Greta Wrolstad Travel Award. Mike Kautz and Lauren Hamlin are the recipients of the Nettie Weber Award for summer writing workshops. Megan Kruse (First Year MFA) had two stories published in May: "Lila" in the Portland Noir Anthology from Akashic books and "The Trailer" in Portland Queer: Tales of the Rose City. Kruse is also the recipient of a Bertha Morton Award from the University of Montana Graduate School. Lehua Shelton (First Year MFA) had a short story entitled “Suit” published in issue VII of Versal Magazine under the pen name Lehua Taitano. Shelton will also present her professional paper entitled "Categories of Indigenousness and Minoritization: A Literary and Theoretical Investigation of Chamorro Identity" at the Native American & Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA) Conference, held at the University of Minnesota.
Prageeta Sharma had four of her poems translated by Eduardo Chirinos and published in Literal Magazine #15. Chris Dombrowski (MFA '01) had a book of poetry By Cold Water published by Wayne State University Press. Robert Stubblefield's essay on ecosystem adaptation to climate change entitled "Better Than You Found It" was published in Your National Forests magazine. Kevin Canty’s short story “Blue Boy” was made into a film that will premiere at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival. Brian Kevin (Second Year MFA Student) had an essay titled "Why I Ride the Greyhound" published in the April 6 issue of High Country News. Judy Blunt was featured in the March-April issue of Montana Magazine. Brandon Henderson (First Year MFA) had an essay published in Spectrum. Henderson also presented a professional paper at the Pop Culture/American Culture National Conference in New Orleans.
Brandon Henderson (First Year MFA) had an essay, "Divisions," published in the Spring Edition of Raving Dove. Brian Kevin (Second Year MFA) received a grant from the President's Excellence Fund to pursue a month of research in Colombia this summer, gathering material for a book. Rob Schlegel (MFA '04), won the 2009 Colorado Prize for Poetry with his manuscript The Lesser Fields. The book is scheduled to be released November, 2009. Prageeta Sharma's poem "Ode to Badminton" was featured on March 15 on BBC's Words and Music, read by actor Angela Wynter. Sharma also participated in the Best of Fence reading hosted by Fence Books.
Several Creative Writing MFA students, along with faculty Greg Pape, Prageeta Sharma and Karen Volkman, attended The Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) conference in Chicago, February 11 – 14. Prageeta Sharma and UM Native American Studies professor Angelica Lawson participated in the panel discussion “Post-Racial Writing” at the AWP conference. Greg Pape participated in a panel at the AWP, moderated by Beth Shadur, which featured pairs of poets and visual artists reflecting on their collaborative process. Poetry by several CWP faculty and alumni was featured in the January / February issue of the Boston Review, including Brandon Shimoda (MFA ’06), Rob Schlegel (MFA '04), Ken White (MFA) and Joanna Klink. Karen Volkman wrote an introduction to Shimoda’s work in the same issue. Kathryn Puerini (Second Year MFA) had a poem in the latest issue of the online journal Apocryphal Text. Lauren Hamlin’s (Second Year MFA) interview with writer Robin Romm was in Poets & Writers. Brandon Henderson’s (First Year MFA) non-fiction piece “Immersion” won first place for the Journey’s contest held by Cezanne's Carrot and was published in the magazine's Winter Solstice 2008 edition. Pete Jones (MFA ‘07) had an essay in the January / February 2009 of The Humanist. He also did the cover art (a portrait of Charles Darwin) for the same issue. Mark Gibbons (MFA ’98) recently came out with a new book of poems, War, Madness and Love, published by R & R Publishing.
The Creative Writing Program welcomes visiting faculty Beverly Lowry and Brian Blanchfield for the Fall Semester Brandon Henderson (MFA Incoming) was published in the Fall 2007 issue of Touchstones and has a recently released children's book The Legend of the Kukui Nut. Megan Kruse (MFA Incoming) has work in the following journals: Bellingham Review, Phoebe, Gertrude Press, Vespertine Press, Oyez Review, Oregon Literary Review, and Fiddlehead as well as a story forthcoming from the Portland Noir anthology from Akashic books. Caren Beilin (MFA Returning) has fiction in the current LIT Magazine, in the September issue of Open Letters, in the forthcoming issue of Fugue Magazine, in an upcoming issue of The Lifted Brow, online at 5_trope, and will be reading a story for the next McSweeney's audiobook. Ed McFadden (MFA Returning) has a poem called Sharp Relief which won an honorable mention in the Nebraska Shakespeare Sonnet Writing Contest link here this past spring. He also has poems forthcoming in Sugar Mule in November: Lao Tzu; Somewhere Near Red Lodge; Petri Dish; Abandoned Laboratory; and Lying in Bed with a Dish of Beans. Laura Dunn (MFA Returning) also has a poem on the Nebraska Shakespeare Sonnet Writing Contest site link here. Carrie Ojanen (MFA Incoming) has two poems forthcoming from Prairie Schooner: Blue Cabin and All Her Breath is Gone as well as having a personal essay published in the Gadfly this year. Scott Jones (MFA Returning) has a piece entitled The Ambulance Driver Assures Us Self-Inflicted Says Nothing of Intention forthcoming in Third Coast, spring 2009; Coins published in Bombay Gin, issue 34.2, spring 2008; When Amsterdam Becomes New Atlantis forthcoming in Forklift Ohio, spring 2008; Indian Summer's End and Northwest Passage from Camas, spring 2008; and an as-yet untitled chapbook forthcoming this spring with Bedouin Books. Marvin Shackelford (MFA Returning) has a story entitled Floaters forthcoming in the Spring/Summer issue of Quarterly West. Chris Dombrowski’s (MFA '01) chapbook (Punctilious Press, 2008) is out and available through Missoula's Shakespeare and Company and online - click here. Matthew Eck's (MFA '02) novel The Farther Shore (Milkweed Editions, 2007) has received recent awards and recognitions including: being selected as one of The National Book Foundation's "5 Under 35" Fiction Selections for 2008, a Barnes & Noble 2007 Discover Great New Writers Award Finalist, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection, a Kansas City Star Top Ten Book of the Year, a 2007 Milkweed National Fiction Prize, a LitBlog Read This! Winter 2007 Selection; and has received critical praise comparing it to literary works such as Cormac McCarthy's powerful contemporary novel The Road and Stephen Crane's classic The Red Badge of Courage. Naomi Kimbell's (MFA '08) satirical essay Whistling in the Dark has been unanimously selected for publication in the next issue of Black Warrior Review.
A hypertext version of Caren Beilin's story, "Animals are Placebos," is available for view in New River: Journal of Digital Writing and Art. To experience the story, as interpreted by artist Jennifer Smith, click here , Caren is entering into her second year in the MFA program. Carter Benton (MFA '08) and Aryn Kyle (MFA '03) will both be featured in The Atlantic's Fourth Annual Fiction Issue, coming soon in both print and on The Atlantic website here. Their stories will be featured among stories by Julie Schumacher, Wendell Berry, Jess Row, Ann Patchett, and Cristina Henriquez. Stay tuned for updates. Worse Than Myself, a collection of horror stories by Adam Golaski (MFA '05), is now available from Raw Dog Screaming Press. The stories, writes author Glen Hirshberg, "lure readers through deceptively familiar portals: rural roadside diners, uninhabited river islands, shadowed woods. But inside are worlds fresh and strange, haunted as much by loneliness as fear, where the living and the less-than-dead alternately terrify and cling to each other." For complete information, visit the book's web page here. Five poems by Matthew Kaler (MFA '08) have been published by zafusy: contemporary poetry journal. To view the poems, visit zafusy here. "The Dancing School," a short story by Kate Kostelnik (MFA '05), is featured in the current issue of Hayden's Ferry Review. For more information on the current issue, visit here. Ed McFadden (currently in the MFA program) has give poems forthcoming in the magazine Sugar Mule. Stay tuned to the website here to read Ed's poems. Karen Volkman's Nomina (recently out from BOA Editions) is reviewed by poet Daniel Nester in the May 14-20 edition of Time Out New York. Read the review here.
Judy Blunt's Breaking Clean (Knopf, 2002) was recently mentioned by the Wall Street Journal as one of the five best books evoking the Modern American West. The list also includes books by Gretel Ehrlich, James Galvin, Geoffrey O'Gara and Terry Tempest Williams. To read the full article, visit the WSJ here. Richard Greenfield's (MFA '99) second full-length collection of poems, Tracer, was recently accepted for publication by Omnidawn Books; it is expected to be released in early 2009. Tom Lombardi's (MFA '99) debut novel, My Summer on Earth, is out from Simon & Schuster. Tom's writing has also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, McSweeney's, Fence and Nerve, among other places. Read more about Tom's novel here.
Lucas Farrell (MFA '08) has been selected as the recipient of the 3rd Annual Greta Wrolstad Travel Award in support of a collaborative project based in Inuvik, Northwest Territories. To read more about the award and Lucas's proposal, click here. Ellen Finnigan (MFA '98) has been selected as the recipient of the 2008 Merriam-Frontier Award, awarded by the English Department at the University of Montana. The Creative Writing Program will sponsor the publication of a selection of three essays. To read more about the award and the judges' citation on Ellen's work, click here. The first and only issue of Left Facing Bird, an online journal of new writing conceived and edited in a single day, is now live, and features the work of 100 writers, including current and former Missoulians Caren Beilin, Elisabeth Benjamin, Steffen Brown, Haines Eason, Ashley Gorham, Richard Greenfield, Matthew Kaler, Youna Kwak, Jeremy Pataky, Grier Phillips and Lisa Schumaier. Other contributors include Kazim Ali, Maxine Chernoff, Paul Hoover, Bhanu Kapil, Ed Roberson, Tomaz Salamun, Leonard Schwartz, among many others. View the issue here. The current issue of American Poet magazine is featuring an essay by Karen Volkman and poems by Joanna Klink and Prageeta Sharma, excerpted from their collections Circadian and Infamous Landscapes, respectively. American Poet is a biannual publication of the Academy of American Poets. For more information, visit the website here. Karen Volkman's full-length collection of sonnets, Nomina, is now available from BOA Editions. Visit the BOA site here for more information, and to read an excerpt. Her translation of Francis Ponge's "The Trees Delete Themselves Inside a Fog-Sphere" is appearing in Poetry magazine's April 2008 translation issue. Read the translation on the Poetry Foundation website here.
Chris Dombrowski and his wife Mary, have welcomed a daughter into their family. Molly Dombrowski was born on February 4th. In other news, Chris has new poems in recent or forthcoming issues of Basalt, Denver Quarterly, New Orleans Review, Poetry; an essay forthcoming in the March/April issue of Orion;
a chapbook, Fragments with Dusk in Them, forthcoming this Spring from Punctilious Press. He also recently signed an advance book contract with Wayne State University Press for a manuscript of poetry tentatively titled By Cold Water. Chris was also invited to be a participant in the Skagit River Poetry Festival (WA), this coming May. Red Rover by Deirdre McNamer was awarded the 2007 Montana Book Award, which recognizes literary excellence in a book written by someone who lives in Montana, set in Montana, or dealing with Montana themes and issues. The prize will be presented to McNamer on Thursday, April 10th, during the Montana Library Association convention in Great Falls. Red Rover, published by Viking in 2007, will be released in trade paperback by Penguin in August 2008. The 10th issue of Octopus Magazine, an online journal of poetry, is now live, and features work by 80 poets, including both former and current Missoulians Nathan Bartel, Linh Dinh, Grace Egbert, Rob Schlegel, Sandra Simonds, Karen Volkman and Greta Wrolstad. Other contributors include Martha Ronk, Tomaz Salamun, Will Oldham and CD Wright, among many others. View the issue here. Jasmine Dreame Wagner (MFA '08) has four prose poems in the current issue of Action, Yes, a long poem on the Greenpoint Terminal Market in the current of American Letters & Commentary, and one poem forthcoming in NOÖ Journal.
Jill Beauchesne (MFA '06) was recently selected for a writer's residency at the Caldera Arts Center in Oregon for March 2008. Rose Bunch (MFA ‘06) is currently in her first year at the PhD program at FSU, which she avers has “kick-ass instructors and a healthy extended community of talented students, events and visiting writers, editors and agents ... I would be happy to suggest it to anyone considering continuing their studies after the MFA.” Her story, “Donkey Hammer,” is in the current issue of Gulf Coast (#20), and was also recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize. "Skin," a poem by Trina Burke (MFA '08), was selected for publication by Hayden's Ferry Review. Trina has also had poems appear in 580 Split, Borderlands, Burnside Review, Rattle, The Southeast Review and elsewhere. Freeman Walker, a novel, by David Allan Cates (MFA ‘92), will be published in October 2008 by Unbridled Books. Kelly Ferguson (MFA '08) was selected as a finalist for the 2008 New Works Competition by the Richard Hugo House in Seattle. Kelly's work, "50 States," was selected by literary agent Elizabeth Wales. Adam Golaski’s (MFA '05) Color Plates, a museum that houses little stories—plates—drawn from the painting of Éduoard Manet, Edgar Degas, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Mary Cassatt, will be published by Rose Metal Press in 2009. Worse Than Myself, a collection of twelve strange stories, five of which are set in Montana, will be published by Raw Dog Screaming Press in 2008. “Green,” my translation of Sir Gawain & the Green Knight, is being serialized by Open Letters. The Baseball Field at Night, the last poems of Patricia Goedicke, is now available from Lost Horse Press. For more information about the book, visit both Lost Horse Press and Amazon.com for info. To download Melissa Kwasny's introduction to the book, visit its original publication in Drumlummon Views here. Joanna Klink's second book, Circadian, will be featured in the spring 2008 issue of American Poet, the journal of the Academy of American Poets. She'll read at the launch in New York in late April. Diana Spechler's (MFA ‘03) novel Who By Fire sold to Harper Perennial and comes out September 2008. The novel has been excerpted in Moment Magazine and the Greensboro Review.
Casey Charles (English Department Chair) was chosen as a semi-finalist for the 2007 Pavement Saw Press Transcontinental Award. Hope & Anchor, a chapbook of prose poems by Joshua Corey (MFA '99), has just been published by Noemi Press. Visit Noemi's site for more information, to read an excerpt and to order the book. Michael FitzGerald's debut novel, Radiant Days (Shoemaker & Hoard, 2007) has been selected by L.A. Weekly as one of their "Favorite Undernourished Books of the Year." Read about Michael's book, as well as the other selections, here. Karen Volkman's sonnet "Blank bride of the hour" was included in the Poetry Foundation blog entry "Sonnetude" by A.E. Stallings. Four of her new poems ([What's wrong with the hear, Doctor], [Cedar spiking to heaven], [O thou, in a restless bracken], and [Have we said moments are gods or questions]) have been accepted for publication in New American Writing.
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