Author: MFA Writing

Fellowship for MFAW-WA Faculty Member Beatrix Gates

MFAW-WA faculty member Beatrix Gates has received an appointment as an Alan Jutzi Fellow for Non-traditional Scholars at the Huntington Library next year. The fellowship is for the poetry project, “Good Seeing: Poem of the Full Sky,” which highlights 20th c. astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt who discovered the means for Hubble’s measuring the universe and… Continue reading Fellowship for MFAW-WA Faculty Member Beatrix Gates

CWC&R Visiting Professional & Visiting Writer Sessions

As always, the Clockhouse Writers’ Conference & Retreat will offer engaging and inspirational writing workshops, time for solitary writing, readings of participants’ work, and much more, including the annual Visiting Professional and Visiting Writer sessions, hosted by Goddard’s MFAW program and open to CWC&R participants. This year’s  Visiting Writer will be Nick Flynn. Flynn has… Continue reading CWC&R Visiting Professional & Visiting Writer Sessions

MFAW Faculty Member Rahna Reiko Rizzuto’s Book Launch!!

Rahna Reiko Rizzuto’s novel Shadow Child will be published on May 8th, and her book launch is May 10th in Brooklyn.  All are invited!  There will be light refreshments, celebration, and a special bonus: a chance to meet Hannah Tinti, bestselling author of The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley and founder of One Story magazine, who will be in conversation… Continue reading MFAW Faculty Member Rahna Reiko Rizzuto’s Book Launch!!

MFAW-VT faculty member Kenny Fries Named 2019 Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Literary Arts Fellow

A Bellagio Center residency is considered one of the world’s most prestigious. The Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, through a combination of conferences and residency programs, supports the work of scholars, artists, thought leaders, policymakers, and practitioners who share in the Foundation’s pioneering mission to “promote the well-being of humanity around the world.” The Center supports individuals… Continue reading MFAW-VT faculty member Kenny Fries Named 2019 Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Literary Arts Fellow

MFAW-VT Faculty Member Douglas A. Martin’s Book “Acker” and The Glowing Review!!

MFAW-VT faculty member Douglas A. Martin’s book, Acker, is reviewed in this week’s New York Times Book Review. “Whether the reader is an Acker novice or an aficionado, seeing that insistently transgressive artist through Martin’s eyes offers new insights into her brilliance and bombast….She wanted, Martin writes, “to dispense with bindings, their conventions, of gender, of genre,… Continue reading MFAW-VT Faculty Member Douglas A. Martin’s Book “Acker” and The Glowing Review!!

Doing Laundry with Hannibal Lecter

Do you suppose Hannibal Lecter does his own laundry?  It’s easy to see a white collar criminal doctor sending his whites out to be dry cleaned and pressed by an efficiently outsourced place with pink boxes.  But I imagine, what with the blood stains and all, doing it himself is a better plan.  So there he is in the basement—or, I guess he has one of those fancy laundry rooms on an upper floor with sunny yellow walls and a sign that says “Wash. Dry. Fold. Repeat.”— sorting whites and red and pulling out the bleach and hoping it doesn’t ruin his favorite sweater… 

Kenny Fries and Douglas A. Martin’s Firecracker Nods!!

  The Firecracker Awards are given each year to celebrate the best of independent and self-published literature.  This year, faculty members Kenny Fries and Douglas A. Martin are both nominated in the non-fiction category for their books, Acker a critical study of writer Kathy Acker by Douglas and In the Province of the Gods, a journey through Japan, by Kenny.  

Deborah Brevoort is Going to Kenya

MFAW-VT faculty member Deborah Brevoort has been invited to serve as a mentor to the Rainmaker musical theatre initiative in Kenya, a new program that is being led by Kenyan pop composer Eric Wainaina. The first workshop will be held in June in Naro Moru, Kenya.  She will be joined by American composer Fred Carl… Continue reading Deborah Brevoort is Going to Kenya

Disability Representation in Literature:  Beyond “The Fries Test”

As a disabled writer, for over two decades I’ve looked at how disability is represented in our literature. This interest has taken me across the globe, with a special focus in disability representation in Japan, and more recently in Germany. I’ve taught classes and given talks on disability representation at many universities and conferences in North America, Japan, and Europe.

Jan Clausen’s Summer Publication

MFAW-VT faculty member Jan Clausen’s essay “By the Light of Distant Fires,” derived from her keynote on the theme “origins” from last January’s residency, will be published in the summer issue of Camas: The Nature of the West, a literary journal run by graduate students in the Environmental Studies Program at the University of Montana.

Kenny Fries Visiting Writer

MFAW-VT faculty member Kenny Fries will be Visiting Writer at King’s College in Wilkes-Barre, PA next week. During his time at King’s, Kenny will meet with faculty and students, visit two writing classes, and give a public reading on April 17, 7:30pm, Burke Auditorium, McGowan School of Business. Previous visiting writers at King’s have included Michael… Continue reading Kenny Fries Visiting Writer

News from MFAW-WA Student Lydia Valentine

MFAW-WA student Lydia Valentine is  the Assistant Director for a production of Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris.  She is also ​the dramaturg for a staged reading that is pairing The Art of Remembering by Adina L. Ruskin and Mountain Language by Harold Pinter. Family, immigration, memory, and language are shared themes in both plays that seek to confront the past while also raising… Continue reading News from MFAW-WA Student Lydia Valentine

My Mom Died and All I Got Was a Wet T-Shirt

My mom died three years ago and long before then, I knew I’d be writing about how it would all go down. Somehow, so did she. I was barely a teen, when after a particularly disturbing episode in our family’s constant chaos, my mother jerked my elbow towards her oversized chest and through her teeth spat, “Don’t you EVER write about this!!”

MFAW-WA Faculty Member Rebecca Brown Reads TONIGHT in SEATTLE!!

MFAW-WA ​faculty member Rebecca Brown will read in Seattle this Saturday, March 31 at The Factory.   Hot off the heels of THE YEAR, The Factory is back with its next night of performances with COUCH! 11 artists, 1 night, 1 couch. Take a look at this stellar lineup: Betty Wetter, Charles Mudede, Christi Cruz, Christopher Frizzelle,… Continue reading MFAW-WA Faculty Member Rebecca Brown Reads TONIGHT in SEATTLE!!

Alchemy of the Word

You asked for them: Those moving, inspiring, thought-provoking keynote and graduation lectures that you couldn’t stop thinking about.  At the residencies for the Goddard MFA in Creative Writing program, “Can I get a copy of that?” is an even more common refrain than “Trust the process!” And now, they can be yours. Goddard College is… Continue reading Alchemy of the Word