Author: MFA Writing

Notebook

The paragraph or so of writing in preparation for this post I began on an empty page of an old, located notebook, one that flips vertically like a police ticket or meter maid book, but unlike law enforcement trappings

MFAW-WA Faculty Member Keenan Norris’s Article on Micheline Aharonian Marcom

MFAW-WA faculty member Keenan Norris has interviewed another MFAW-WA faculty member Micheline Aharonian Marcom about her work as Creative Director of the New American Story Project (NASP).  The NASP is a collaboration of artists presenting oral histories and stories of immigrants and refugees in order to bear witness, raise awareness, and provoke transformative conversation. Here’s the… Continue reading MFAW-WA Faculty Member Keenan Norris’s Article on Micheline Aharonian Marcom

MFAW-VT Student Steven Dunn’s New Book “Water & Power”

MFAW-WA student Steven Dunn’s new book water & power is ready for pre-order at Tarpaulin Sky Press.  See description and blurb below.  This is one for the hybrid lovers.  Navy veteran Steven Dunn’s second novel, water & power, plunges into military culture and engages with perceptions of heroism and terrorism. In this shifting landscape, deployments are feared, absurd bureaucracy… Continue reading MFAW-VT Student Steven Dunn’s New Book “Water & Power”

Highlights from the Clockhouse Writers’ Conference & Retreat

The 2018 Clockhouse Writers’ Conference & Retreat took place last week–here are a few snapshots!                                                 If you missed this year’s Clockhouse Writers’ Conference & Retreat, we hope you’ll think about joining… Continue reading Highlights from the Clockhouse Writers’ Conference & Retreat

Michael Klein, Goddard College 2018

But beauty is still important, isn’t it?  It seems to me and other fairly intelligent people in America, that we are living in a time when the failure to describe the time we are living in is truly mystifying.  So, please bear with me—I will get to today’s reason for all of us being here, but I don’t know what to say to you today that somehow hasn’t come out of outrage and disbelief—outrage and disbelief at the fact that one of the last bastions of seemingly liberal thought—the fourth estate—has normalized an aberration. 

MFAW-VT Kyle Tijerina Publishes in PRIDE Edition of Online Journal

MFAW-VT alumni Kyle Tijerina’s poem “para mi mujer pequeño,” was published in the online PRIDE edition of Cliterature Journal. Writer and performer for over three decades, queer poet and political theorist A Kyle (a pseudonym) began her writing career as a scriptwriter, writing teatro guerrillero defending the rights of Mexican farmworkers. An Odawa/Potawatomi and Mejicana native,… Continue reading MFAW-VT Kyle Tijerina Publishes in PRIDE Edition of Online Journal

MFAW-WA Alum James Gapinski Releases Two Chapbooks

MFAW-WA alumnus James Gapinksi has had two chapbooks published this year, Messiah Tortoise and Edge of the Known Bus Line.   Here are the press releases for each:   In Edge of the Known Bus Line, a woman’s daily commute takes an abrupt turn when she’s dropped off in a grotesque shantytown. The townsfolk live in… Continue reading MFAW-WA Alum James Gapinski Releases Two Chapbooks

MFAW-WA Alumna Liz Kellebrew’s Anthology Contribution

MFAW-WA alumna Liz Kellebrew’s prose poem, “Flood, Fire, Mountain,” will appear in Writers Resist: The Anthology 2018, coming this October from Running Wild Press. There are also plans for a reading at AWP ’19 in Portland, OR. And here, from the publisher’s website, is how the anthology came into being: It began November 9, 2016, in a… Continue reading MFAW-WA Alumna Liz Kellebrew’s Anthology Contribution

MFAW-VT Faculty Kenny Fries Posts a Piece on Disability and Diversity Online at MEDIUM

MFAW-VT faculty member Kenny Fries has published a response to Lionel Shriver’s recent attack on Penguin/Random House UK’s push for diversity online at Medium.  The piece is called “The Exclusivity of Inclusion: On Disability and Diversity”   In the article he quotes fellow faculty member Reiko Rizzuto.  Fries’ article is a response to Lionel Shriver’s screed… Continue reading MFAW-VT Faculty Kenny Fries Posts a Piece on Disability and Diversity Online at MEDIUM

MFAW-VT Faculty Member Reiko Rizzuto Pens Article for SALON Online

MFAW-VT faculty member ​Rahna Reiko Rizzuto’s article on the Supreme Court decision travel ban, which is expected this month, and Hawaii’s history in resisting the US government’s racist exclusionary policies during World War II has been published on Salon.  Here’s a sneak peek including headline: Hawaii’s fight against Trump’s Muslim travel ban has long roots… Continue reading MFAW-VT Faculty Member Reiko Rizzuto Pens Article for SALON Online

What’s Happening at the CWC&R and One More Chance to Sign Up!

For those of you already registered to attend the Clockhouse Writers’ Conference & Retreat, here’s what awaits!  And if you’re not signed up but would like to make a last-minute reservation to join us, there are still spaces available–please see the CWC website for information and registration materials.   Monday, July 2   11:00 –… Continue reading What’s Happening at the CWC&R and One More Chance to Sign Up!

In the Contemplative Realms

Here in the contemplative realms of the Mathematisch-Physikalischer Salon, I’ve lost track of time. I wander among timepieces and pendulums, spheres that chart the stars, and Earth globes with halos of hours at their poles, each artifact a survivor from its Renaissance birth through the firebombing of Dresden in World War II. Having lain undisturbed during the Iron Curtain years, these relics have arrived intact at the Age of Digitalia…

Electric Literature Posts Essay by MFAW Faculty Member Reiko Rizzuto

MFAW-VT faculty member ​Rahna Reiko Rizzuto’s essay on the shape of trauma in our writing is featured on Electric Literature from the essay: “I started writing my second novel in the aftermath of violence. In a more-common-than-you-think incident — one that is often used for titillation or as the opening scene of some revenge movie involving… Continue reading Electric Literature Posts Essay by MFAW Faculty Member Reiko Rizzuto

Sneak Preview: CLOCKHOUSE Volume Six!

Clockhouse‘s sixth volume is still in its final production stages, but we’re able to give you an idea of what to expect with Sarah Cedeño’s “Note from the Editorial Director.”  As always, there will be a special Preview Reading of the new Clockhouse volume during the Clockhouse Writers’ Conference & Retreat, and every CWC&R participant… Continue reading Sneak Preview: CLOCKHOUSE Volume Six!

Julia Bouwsma Wins Maine Literary Award in Poetry

MFAW-VT alum and former Visiting Alumni Writer Julia Bouwsma’s Work by Bloodlight won the Maine Literary Award for poetry.  Work by Bloodlight, which began as Julia’s MFA creative thesis, was chosen by Linda Pastan for the Cider Press Review Prize and published by Cider Press Review.  And, if that weren’t enough excitement, Midden, Julia’s second  book of poems, was… Continue reading Julia Bouwsma Wins Maine Literary Award in Poetry

On Mastery

2018 marks two milestones in my life.

This past March, I turned 40, which everyone assures me is the new 30.  (It’s also, unsurprisingly, the old 60, but no one wants to talk about that.)  To celebrate my fortieth birthday, my husband attempted to coerce me into having a celebration worthy of the occasion, a lavish gathering of family and friends and colleagues, crammed into a modestly priced rental hall to eat finger foods we didn’t cook set to music we only vaguely remembered selecting.  I refused.  Does anybody really need to see me drunk and dancing awkwardly to another Macklemore song about inclusion?  I don’t think so.