Purdue University College of Liberal Arts
Information for
Creative Writing Program
News
Alums! Current students! We want to hear from you. If you have news or announcements, don't forget to let us know. We're going to do our best to post your goings-on here on the News page. Please contact Director of Creative Writing Porter Shreve and check here every few months for updates.
CURRENT NEWS
In an article entitled "The MFA Guide: How to Decide Where to Apply" from the November/December 2006 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, the MFA Program at Purdue is one of only fifteen programs mentioned by name and cited for offering extensive funding options and an atmosphere of support.
Congratulations to second year fiction writer Mehdi Okasi, whose short story, "Salvation Army," has been selected by series editor Natalie Danford and guest editor Mary Gaitskill for the Best New American Voices anthology, due out in Fall 2008. Mehdi also recently won the 2008 Joyce Horton Johnson Fiction Award from the Key West Literary Seminar for excellence in a fiction manuscript submission from a new writer. He will read his work on stage at the seminar where "established writers introduce new and emerging writers for an exploration of the expanding boundaries of contemporary literature."
After being shortlisted for the Leonore Marshall Prize in 2005 for her Poems New & Selected, Marianne Boruch made the most of her Guggenheim fellowship. She visited several writing colonies including Ragdale and MacDowell and wrote most of the poems that will be collected in her new book, Grace, Fallen From, which is forthcoming from Wesleyan University Press in February 2008.
Speaking of Grace, Donald Platt published his third book of poems, My Father Says Grace (University of Arkansas Press), in March. About the collection, Eavan Boland writes, "These are wonderful poems; they make superb, wrenching reading." Don, who has made two appearances in the Pushcart Prize Anthology, also made his second appearance in Best American Poetry, when guest judge Billy Collins selected "Two Poets Meet," originally published in Iowa Review, for the 2006 edition.
Bich Minh Nguyen launched her 14-city book tour in West Lafayette with a reading from her memoir, Stealing Buddha's Dinner. The book was critically acclaimed in newspapers and magazines such as the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe and San Francisco Chronicle. Bich was interviewed on NPR's "All Things Considered," NPR's "The Kojo Nnamdi Show," and was a featured selection on NBC's "Weekend Today Show." She was a Book Sense Top Pick, and one of her essays aired on "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer" on PBS.
In October 2007, Mary Leader got the year's poetry readings off to a terrific start, with a reading of almost entirely new work around the theme of the palimpsest. A month later, as part of her grant from the Purdue Center for Artistic Endeavor, Sharon Solwitz read from her novel-in-progress, set in Israel and Chicago. Sharon read again, along with her husband, poet Barry Silesky, and MFA Faculty members Marianne Boruch, Patricia Henley, and Porter Shreve at the annual Writers Harvest, all proceeds of which went to Lafayette Food Finders. Other readers in the 2006-2007 Visiting Writers Series included fiction writers Steve Yarbrough, Michael Martone, Amy Tan, and Davy Rothbart, poets David Young and Heather McHugh, and Literary Awards Keynote Speaker Sherman Alexie.
Congratulations to 2003 MFA Alum Bryan Penberthy whose debut collection of poetry, Lucktown, won the National Poetry Review Book Prize and will be published later this year. Lucktown was also honored as a finalist for the T.S. Eliot Prize, as well as an Honorable Mention in the Stevens Manuscript Competition. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in many journals, including Crazyhorse, New Orleans Review, River Styx, Bat City Review, and Poetry International, as well as online by Blackbird and Verse Daily.
Congratulations to Purdue English and Creative Writing alum Emily Rosko, whose first poetry collection, Raw Goods Inventory, won the 2005 Iowa Poetry Prize and was published in April 2006. Emily has been a Stegner, Ruth Lilly and Javits Fellow, an AWP Intro Journals Award winner, and her work has been published in journals such as Beloit Poetry Journal, Denver Quarterly, and Another Chicago Magazine. She is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
Emily is not the only Purdue graduate currently pursuing a PhD in poetry. 2005 MFA alum Beth McDermott just finished her first year at the University of Illinois-Chicago. 2003 MFA alum Ely Shipley, who has published poems in Prairie Schooner, Haydens Ferry, Cut Bank, and Greensboro Review is pursuing a PhD at the University of Utah. 2004 MFA alum Rebecca Bednarz, who has published poems in Cortland Review, Mid-American Review, Cimarron Review, The Threepenny Review and was an honorable mention for the 2005 Ruth Stone Prize in poetry, is currently pursuing a PhD at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. 2006 MFA grad Cody Lumpkin just finished his first year in the PhD in Lincoln as well. And 2007 MFA grad Laura Donnelly begins the PhD at Western Michigan University in the fall.
This past fall, 1997 MFA Alum Fred Arroyo begins a new position as Assistant Professor of English at Drake University, and in spring 2008 the University of Arizona Press will publish his first novel, In the Region of Lost Names, as part of its Camino del Sol series
Leslie St. John ('06) won first place in the statewide 2007 National Society of Arts and Letters Literature Contest for a ten-poem manuscript entitled "Beauty Like a Rope," and she was our 2006 nominee for the Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship. She also has forthcoming publications in Florida Review, Cimarron Review and Indiana Review.
Doubleday, publisher of the first two books by Elizabeth Stuckey-French, has signed up the 1989 alum for a new novel, The Last Summer of Peace. Elizabeth's stories have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Gettysburg Review, The Southern Review, Five Points, and other literary journals. In 2005, she received an O. Henry Award for the story "Mudlavia," cited by juror Richard Russo as "favorite story."
Congratulations to 2004 MFA Alum Sara Lamers, whose first book of poems, A City Without Trees, was just published by March Street Press. Her work has appeared in various literary journals such as The Midwest Poetry Review, Cold Mountain Review, Oxford Magazine, Hubbub, Rattle, and The Sierra Nevada College Review.
Congratulations to Purdue English and Creative Writing alum Laura Van Prooyen, whose first book of poems, Inkblot and Altar, was published in 2006. Her work has also appeared in Blackbird, Cimarron Review and 32 Poems, among other places. She is a recent recipient of fellowships from Ragdale Foundation and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
Additional congrats to alums Sarah Green, Martin Walls, J. Arron Small, Yu Shibuya, Lila Snow, Nicholas Reading, Aaron Morales and Regina McMorris for recent publications or acceptances in Gettysburg Review, Black Warrior Review, Gulf Coast, Mid-American Review, Wisconsin Review, Pearl, Commonweal, Salt Hill, North Dakota Quarterly, Passages North and Boulevard.
Our entirely MFA student-run literary journal Sycamore Review put out three more excellent issues in 2006/2007. Sycamore 18.2 featured interviews with Nick Hornby, Denise Duhamel and Nick Flynn. Janet Burroway selected "The Source of My Troubles" by Jeff P. Jones as the winning story in the first-ever Wabash Prize for Fiction. Sycamore 19.1 featured interviews with Michael Martone and artists Tom Benedek and Natalie and Drew. Ellen Bryant Voigt selected "For My Father Who Thinks I'm Going to Hell" by Cindy May Murphy as the winning poem in the second Wabash Prize for Poetry. And Sycamore 19.2 included poetry by Jim Daniels and Lucia Perillo and "Exposure" by Jacob M. Appel, winner of the 2007 Wabash Prize for Fiction.
Congratulations to Editor in Chief Rebekah Silverman, Managing Editor Patrick Nevins, Assistant Director of Creative Writing Daryll Lynne Evans, Poetry Editors Gretchen Steele and Laura Donnelly, Fiction Editor Tadd Adcox, Nonfiction Editor Jessica Mehr, Web Editor Mark Leahy, MFA Student Reading Series Coordinator Jon Sealy, and the entire staff of Sycamore Review on a great year. And Special congratulations are due to seven graduating MFAs, who on April 6 and April 20 gave readings from their thesis manuscripts: Tracy Martin, from her novel Skin Deep; Gretchen Steele, from her poetry collection One Island; Erica McGeady, from her novel Tallgrass Prairie; James Tadd Adcox, from his novel The Caprichos; Dana Bisignani, from her poetry collection DRIVE; Laura Donnelly, from her poetry collection Below the Good Angel; and Rebekah Silverman, from her poetry collection The Little Flaw.
For the Spring 2008 Purdue MFA Program Newsletter (in pdf format), click here.