University of Wisconsin-Madison

2012-01-30T11:42:00.003-06:00

In other fellowship news, 2000-2001 Djerassi Fiction Fellow Erica Olsen will publish her first collection of stories, tentatively christened Recapture, with Torrey House Press this coming fall. Congrats, Erica!

2012-01-30T11:33:00.002-06:00

Danielle Deulen, 2007-08 Ruth Halls Poetry Fellow, has won the 2012 GLCA New Writers Award for her memoir, The Riots. Congratulations Danielle!

2012-01-18T09:46:00.007-06:00

In other book/former-fellow news, 2007-2008 Diane Middlebrook Poetry Fellow Shara Lessley's debut collection of poems, Two-Headed Nightingale, will be released by New Issues next month. A good use for that gift card you got in December!

2012-01-18T09:32:00.005-06:00

Great news: Ohio State University Press announced yesterday that 2010-2011 Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellow Rebecca Hazelton won the Charles B. Wheeler Prize! The press will publish Rebecca's first book of poems, Fair Copy, a collection of acrostics that use the first lines of Emily Dickinson's poems as their formal device. Congratulations, Becky!

Please Chip In to Help a Wisconsin Writer in Need

2012-01-11T11:48:00.002-06:00

Amongst the accolades, we've got some less happy news: former UW-Madison creative writer Marc Nesbitt, author of Gigantic, has been diagnosed with a rare but treatable form of brain cancer. His family has asked for assistance to cover Marc's transportation to and from the treatment facility. You can learn how to help at www.marcnesbitt.com.

2012-01-11T11:20:00.004-06:00

Our very own Dean Bakopoulos's My American Unhappiness made the Chicago Tribune's favorite-books-of-2011 list. Congrats Dean!

Attention Wisconsin Writers!

2012-01-11T11:16:00.002-06:00

Don't miss the January 31 postmark deadline for the Council for Wisconsin Writers Awards, for work published in 2011. Submit book-length fiction, nonfiction, and poetry; short fiction and nonfiction; a set of five poems; or children's literature. Authors must be current Wisconsin residents, and the entry fee is $20. $500 and a week-long writing residency at Shake Rag Alley or Maplewood Lodge in Mineral Point are awarded in each category. For more details, check the website.

Yuko Sakata wins the Missouri Review's fiction prize!

2011-12-31T17:30:00.002-06:00

Second-year fiction MFA Yuko Sakata won the Jeffrey E. Smith Editors' Prize from Missouri Review! The story, "Unintended," is also her first published work of fiction. Check out the details of this year's prize on the MR blog.

Check out the new issue of Devil's Lake!!

2011-12-31T17:22:00.002-06:00

The new issue of Devil's Lake is live, with new work from Eduardo C. Corral, Hannah Craig, Weston Cutter, Jaydn DeWald, Corey van Landingham, Julia Madsen, Keith Montesano, Eric Morris, Diana Khoi Nguyen, Venita Blackburn, Emily Karen Jones, Traci O Conner, Daniela Olszewska, Alex Kim, & Lauren Weinstein.

2011-12-19T10:57:00.002-06:00

UW-Madison MFA Samar Fitzgerald just won a Virginia Commission for the Arts Award! The prizes are given to four writers annually in recognition of creative excellence and to support their pursuit of artistic excellence. Congrats, Samar!

Madison Review Staffer Wins a Rhodes!

2011-12-01T10:52:00.002-06:00

Alexis Brown, a staff member for our very own Madison Review, won a 2012 Rhodes Scholarship! It's kind of a big deal. Read all about it here.

New Books from April Wilder and George McCormick

2011-12-01T10:06:00.005-06:00

No surprise!: our alums and former fellows continue to tear it up in the publishing world. Former McCreight Fiction Fellow April Wilder's This Is Not An Accident—a collection of short stories with a novella thrown in for good measure—will appear from Viking/Penguin the winter of 2012-2013. And undergraduate alum George McCormick's story collection, Salton Sea, is forthcoming from Noemi Press. Congrats to both!

2011-11-28T15:57:00.002-06:00

Our very own Lauren Groff has a starred review in Publishers Weekly, for her new novel Arcadia. Congrats again, Lauren!

2011-11-09T09:39:00.003-06:00

Stuart Nadler's The Book of Life has a short-but-sweet review in The New Yorker this week. If you missed him at the Wisconsin Book Fest last month, you can still get the goods by picking up a copy!

2011-11-01T10:56:00.004-05:00

It's just silly how many amazing Madison readings are happening in the next couple weeks. Check them out below; you can RSVP on facebook by clicking the links.

11/2 @ 2:30 at MATC downtown, room D234: Kyle McCord & Kara Candito: A Reading Hosted by MATC & Yahara Journal

11/2 @ 5:30 in Memorial Library: Susan Schultz & Connie Deanovich

11/4 @ 7:30 at the Project Lodge: MONSTERS OF POETRY present a Canarium Books Reading

11/9 @ 7:00 at Avol's Books: Best New Poets Reading 2011, featuring Bri Cavallaro, Rebecca Hazelton, Nancy Reddy, and others!

11/10 @ 7:30 in Helen C. White room 6191: Jonis Agee

11/13 @ 2:00 at Avol's Books: all SIX UW-MFAs in poetry will read, rapid fire, back-to-back! That's Oliver Bendorf, Zac Fulton, Mark Cayanan, Sarah Crossland, Hannah Oberman-Breindel, and Jesse Damiani.

11/17 @ 7:30 at Avol's Books: Lydia Conklin & Marian Palaia

11/19 @ 7:30 at the Project Lodge: YesYes Books presents Matt Hart, Nate Slawson, Kara Candito, Sean Bishop, and Rebecca Hazelton

2011-10-31T09:26:00.004-05:00

Our Spring 2012 Artist/Writer-in-Residence Lynda Barry is featured in the most recent issue of the New York Times Magazine! And it's not her first time being profiled by the Times, either. Barry is a legend of the underground comics scene, and we're absolutely giddy to have her around this spring. Her course, "Manually Shifting the Image," is listed in association with the Arts Institute and the Program in Creative Writing, and promises to be one of the most applied-for and interdisciplinarily fascinating classes of the semester. Start putting that application together!

2011-10-26T11:21:00.002-05:00

Former Fellow Shara Lessley's "Test" is the poem of the week at The Missouri Review online! She is also a featured poet in the most recent print issue. Her debut collection, Two-Headed Nightingale, is forthcoming from New Issues in 2012.

2011-10-20T11:04:00.004-05:00

Former McCreight Fiction Fellow Lysley Tenorio's debut story collection, Monstress, got a starred review in Publisher's Weekly! Are we surprised? Not even a little. Are we thrilled? You betcha.

Are you ready for BookFest??

2011-10-18T15:51:00.002-05:00

Madisonians: your beloved former Blogmother Judy Mitchell has put together a great summary of events at this year's Wisconsin Book Festival that any diehard UW-CWP loyalist must attend. I bestow it, now, upon you:

THURSDAY

7:30—Rotunda Theater at the Overture Center

UW Program in Creative Writing’s Fall 2011 Writer-in-Residence, Maurice Manning

The Pulitzer Prize nominated poet reads from his work.

FRIDAY

5:30–6:45—Wisconsin Studio at the Overture Center

WPR’s WI Life on Stage presents Lynda Barry

A multi-media event hosted by WI Life commentator Lynda Barry, our Spring 2012 Artist-in-Residence. Lynda and friends will share new work and discuss local identity, writing the land, the power of the ordinary, and what it means to call a place home.

7–8:15—Wisconsin Studio at the Overture Center

The Encyclopedia Show, featuring Lynda Barry and others

The Encyclopedia show is “a variety extravaganza that commissions experts from many disciplines to use their individual talents to present a different verbal encyclopedia entry each month.” More at: http://www.encyclopediashow.com/

8–10—Main Stage at the Orpheum

Friday Night Festival of Fiction, featuring MFA graduate Dean Bakopoulos and Myla Goldberg, John Burnham Schwartz, and Bonnie Jo Campbell.

Four great writers, but if you’re coming just for Dean he opens Act Two at 9:30

SATURDAY

9–11—MATC Downtown Educational Center

Writing the Unthinkable, a workshop with Lynda Barry

This workshop is filled. Sign up for the waitlist at: http://www.wisconsinbookfestival.org/lyndabarry

3–4—Wisconsin Studio at the Overture Center

The inaugural Mark Gates Memorial Lecture, featuring Dean Bakopoulos

Dean talks about writing in “a world that often seems antithetical to the literary temperament.”

8–9—Rotunda Studio at the Overture Center

Monsters of Poetry presents Erika Meitner and Stuart Nadler

Monsters of Poetry (founded by UW-Madison and Iowa Writers’ Workshop grads) presents two former Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing fellows reading from their books of poetry (Erika) and stories (Stuart)

SUNDAY

9–11—MATC Downtown Educational Center

Writing the Unthinkable, a workshop with Lynda Barry

Added after the Saturday event filled, this session is now also full. Here’s that waitlist address again: http://www.wisconsinbookfestival.org/lyndabarry

12–1:30—Industry Room at Union South

Women in REDZine Showcase Event

Undergrads Sam Christian, Chloe Clark, Kerriann Ehlen, Kristin Gulotta, Samantha Kohnert, Taylor Neumann, Dan Pankratz, Ean Weslynn, John Zudowicz read from their work in this new undergrad online publication.

12–1:30—Frederic March Play Circle Theater at the Overture Center

Writing Beyond the Sentence: The Wisconsin Prison Project (founded by Laurel Bastian).

MFA graduate and last year’s Halls Emerging Artist Fellow Laurel Bastian, former undergrad Maryssa LaRowe, and The Swank Master present a reading of work by inmates from the Oakhill Correctional Institution.

4–5:30—Wisconsin Studio at the Overture

Hearing Voices: Incantations of the Every Day, featuring Traci Brimhall (and Jean Feraca)

Former Institute fellow Traci reads from her poetry collection. Jean Feraca will read from her memoir.

4–5:30—Varsity 1 at Union South

Devil’s Lake presents “Wild Young Writers”

Former MFA poet Nancy Reddy, one of the founding editors of Devil’s Lake, our graduate student online literary magazine, moderates a reading and conversation with Seth Abramson (PhD with CW minor), Lauren Berry (former Institute poetry fellow), Chris Mohar (undergrad major and only UW undergrad major to be awarded an Institute fellowship), and MATC Professor Matt Guenette.

2011-10-18T15:43:00.004-05:00

Former MFA, former Fellow, and all-around BFF to the UW-CWP, Kevin González, won the Narrative Prize this year! The prize is awarded annually by Narrative magazine for "best work from a promising new writer." And it's no small potatoes, either. Huge congrats to Kevin!

2011-10-17T07:56:00.002-05:00

Chicago's Goodman Theater has selected our very own Carl Djerassi Playwriting Fellow Martín Zimmerman to be a member of this year's Playwrights' Unit. As part of the residency, Martín will write a new play over the next six months, culminating in a staged reading of the work in Spring 2012. Nice work, Martín!

2011-10-12T09:29:00.002-05:00

Former Carl Djerassi Fiction Fellow Erica Olsen just won Gulf Coast's annual Donald Barthelme Prize for Short Prose. Her work of flash fiction, "Grand Canyon II," will appear in the next issue of the journal. Congratulations, Erica!

2011-10-10T08:29:00.002-05:00

U.W. folks are publishing all over the place: Our very own Quan Barry's on Poetry Daily! The poem is "Galilee"; check it out here. And the new issue of Quarterly West might as well be called The Madison Issue. It features former poetry fellows Rebecca Hazelton and Traci Brimhall, plus one of our current MFA candidates: Oliver Bendorf.

2011-10-05T08:19:00.003-05:00

2006-2007 Carol Houck Smith Fiction Fellow Danielle Evans never ceases to amaze: she's one of Publishers Weekly's prestigious "5 Under 35" this year. Congrats, Danielle!

First BLUE OX READING of the season, this Thursday!

2011-09-26T11:49:00.003-05:00

Don't miss the first BLUE OX READING of the season this Thursday, September 29, 7:30 p.m. at Avol's Books. The series features second-year MFA candidates at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Check out this week's reader bios below. For an up-to-date list of upcoming readings in the Madison area, stay tuned to the creativewriting.wisc.edu readings page.

Chloe Krug Benjamin is an MFA candidate in fiction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She was born in San Francisco, CA and studied English at Vassar College. She teaches writing to college students at UW-Madison and is at work on a novel.

Meghan O'Gieblyn is an MFA candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she is the fiction editor at Devil’s Lake Journal. She also teaches writing at Oakhill Correctional Institution. She is currently writing collections of short fiction and creative nonfiction, and her work has recently appeared in Guernica.

2011-09-26T10:44:00.002-05:00

Congrats to former fiction fellow Adam Stumacher and former fiction MFA Alyssa Knickerbocker, who have stories in the most recent issues of Granta and Brooklyn Magazine, respectively! (Bonus: you can read Adam's piece online)

DEVIL'S LAKE is tearing up the internet!

2011-09-19T14:38:00.003-05:00

Devil's Lake, the online literary journal run by UW-Madison MFAs and alums, is swiftly becoming one of the most-read litmags on the web, with a thousand new visitors a month, and 18,000 page-loads since the magazine launched a little more than a year ago! Big kudos to everyone involved.

Speaking of Pushcarts...

2011-09-19T14:28:00.002-05:00

It turns out former fellow John Murillo will join current MFA candidate Lydia Conklin in the upcoming Pushcart Anthology, for his poem "Song" from Up Jump the Boogie. Congrats to both!

2011-09-12T12:49:00.002-05:00

The Kid Thing, by 2010-'11 Djerassi Playwriting Fellow Sarah Gubbins, opened in Chicago last night! That's her, front and center. Check it out while you can, through October 16, at Chicago Dramatists.

2011-09-12T12:32:00.002-05:00

The annual Madison Creative Writing farm party was a big hit again this year! Thanks to first-year MFA Oliver Bendorf for snapping a few photos while the sun was out.

Lydia Conklin's Been Keeping Secrets

2011-09-11T04:14:00.003-05:00

Recently we force-fed current Wisconsin MFA Lydia Conklin several servings of Cuban food until she confessed that her short story "Rockaway"—originally published in New Letters—received a Pushcart Prize this summer! Congratulations, Lydia!

Dean Bakopoulos & the Wisconsin Book Fest

2011-09-11T04:12:00.000-05:00

Former Wisconsin MFA Dean Bakopoulos is coming back to his home court next month: The Wisconsin Book Festival, October 19-23 in Madison. And he's got a busy schedule! Dean will read at the Friday Night Festival of Fiction with Jonathan Burnham Schwartz, Myla Goldberg, and Bonnie Jo Campbell. Then he'll give a sneak peak of his almost-done YA 'crossover' novel, "Evolve," to teens at the Overture. Then he'll introduce Jeffrey Eugenides. And then best of all, he'll give the first ever Mark Gates Memorial Lecture, entitled "Voice Lessons," on Saturday night. Keep your eyes peeled for the full Book Fest schedule soon.

James Crews's first collection is out!

2011-09-07T11:37:00.002-05:00

UW-Madison MFA James Crews's first collection, The Book of What Stays, is now out through the University of Nebraska Press. The book won last year's Prairie Schooner Prize in Poetry. Congratulations, James!

Stuart Nadler's Book Is Out

2011-09-07T08:02:00.003-05:00

Stuart Nadler's The Book of Life hit stores last week! We're thrilled to be co-sponsoring Stuart's reading at the Wisconsin Book Fest on October 22; joining him will be fellow former Fellow Erika Meitner. Check back here for more details as the date approaches.

Monsters of Poetry—Friday the 9th at 7:30

2011-09-06T11:51:00.004-05:00

Attention Madisonians: It's the first Monsters of Poetry reading of the season! Don't miss the infamous Adam Fell and Matt Guennette reading on their home turf, at the Project Lodge (817 E Johnson) this Friday at 7:30. Both have brand-new books! They'll be joined by MC Hyland and Stephanie Anderson.

For more info, including reader bios, check out http://www.monstersofpoetry.org/Upcoming.html.

2011-09-04T11:51:00.004-05:00

MEGHAN O'GIEBLYN, current fiction MFA student, has a remarkable essay up on Guernica. Entitled "Sniffing Glue," the essay is about her personal experiences with Christian rock in the 90s.

2011-08-31T17:10:00.002-05:00

I've always wanted an excuse to post a picture of Joey McIntyre on the blog. Thanks to former HEAF fellow EMMA STRAUB and her article in the current issue of Tin House I've now got one.

2011-08-31T13:34:00.002-05:00

Former HEAF Fellow Nate Brown joined newly-minted MFAs Bri Cavallaro and Josh Kalscheur as Bread Loaf waiters this August. For those not in the know, Bread Loaf waiterships are some of the most coveted positions in an already-competitive applicant pool. Other Wisconsin delegates to this year's Bread Loaf Writers' Conference included former Fellows John Murillo, Adam Stumacher, and Danielle Evans. Congratulations to all!

2011-08-30T22:22:00.005-05:00

The new semester is about to begin, so it seems appropriate to start it out by sharing this How a Poem Happens interview with Professor RON WALLACE, the founder and guiding light of the UW creative writing program.

2011-08-16T18:59:00.002-05:00

Congratulations to our former MFA poet and Institute poetry fellow NICK LANTZ whose book We Don't Know We Don't Know has been awarded the 2011 Larry Levis Prize. The prize is awarded annually to a first or second collection of poetry...

...And to former Institute poetry fellow, SEAN BISHOP, who is interviewed in iO Poetry about his erasure poetry project.

2011-08-14T22:30:00.002-05:00

I am so far behind and there has been so much good news. I'm going to try to get to it all, but if I've left yours out, please write me.

Meanwhile:

LYSLEY TENORIO (former fiction fellow) has a story, L'Amour, CA, in The Atlantic. You can read it online here.

DEAN BAKOPOULOS (former MFA) interviews historian Andrew E. Kersten about the Wisconsin recall elections in Salon.

ANTHONY DOERR (former fiction fellow) gets a top of the list endorsement for the paperback version of Memory Wall in today's Sunday New York Times' Paperback Row.

REBECCA STAFFORD (former poetry fellow), BRI CAVALLARO, and NANCY REDDY (both former MFAs) are not only three of the fifty poets whose work will appear in the Best New Poets 2011 anthology, they are also the first three of ten of those poets to be named Best of the Best by Flavorwire. If that doesn't make perfect sense to you, it's explained better here.

ERIKA MEITNER (former poetry fellow) and her still-happy marriage to Steve Trost are re-visited by The New York Times in its State of the Unions column. The name of the article? "The Poetry of Parenthood." Erika is currently at VCAA.

TRACI BRIMHALL (former poetry fellow) has made the Poetry Foundation bestseller list with her collection Rookery.

I think that's all I know. Please, please, though--write to me and let me know what else is new and exciting in everyone's lives.

Cheers!
Judy

2011-08-11T17:45:00.003-05:00

The 2012 PEN/Bingham Award, presented to "a fiction writer whose debut work...represents distinguished literary achievement and suggests great promise" was split this year between SUSANNA DANIEL and DANIELLE EVANS, two former fiction fellows of the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing.

We are overjoyed at this much deserved recognition.

2011-08-02T17:46:00.002-05:00

Congratulations to BRI CAVALLARO, LAURA EVE ENGEL, and RYAN WALSH, all finalists for the prestigious Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowships.

2011-07-30T12:27:00.004-05:00

Weekend reading:

Former fellow DANIELLE EVANS reviews The Kid, Sapphire's sequel to Push, in tomorrow's New York Times Sunday Book Review.

Professor LORRIE MOORE writes about Friday Night Lights in The New York Review of Books.

2011-07-24T12:51:00.005-05:00

Former fellow ANTHONY DOERR and former MFA student LAUREN GROFF are among the authors Salon asks to weigh in on the demise of Borders Bookstore. Frequent visiting writer Kevin Brockmeier also gives his thoughts, which include his appraisal of the Madison Borders.

If you're looking for other things to read this Sunday, former MFA student DEAN BAKOPOULOS reviews Adam Ross's new story collection in The New York Times Sunday Book Review and the aforementioned ANTHONY DOERR writes about John Audubon's diaries in his Boston Globe column.

2011-07-21T16:07:00.003-05:00

Congratulations to former Institute fellow KAREN KOVACIK, recipient of a National Endowment of the Arts translation fellowship. Karen will be translating In What World: Selected Poems by Agnieszka Kuciak from the original Polish to English.

2011-07-20T15:23:00.002-05:00

The L Magazine's summer 2011 fiction issue features short stories by former fiction MFA student PHIL SANDICK and current fiction MFA student LYDIA CONKLIN.

2011-07-14T22:20:00.003-05:00

I'm involved in two related events on behalf of this year's Wisconsin Book Festival..

First, Allison Jones Chaim and I will be chatting about the Book Fest (and I'll be reading from my novel-in-progress) on WORT (89.9 FM) tomorrow at 8 a.m.

Then, on Thursday. July 21, CJ Hribal, Agate Nesaule, and I will be reading from our works in progress at the aptly named Works-in-Progress Benefi. The reading will be followed by a discussion with the audience moderated by Jean Feraca. The benefit will be held at The Goodman Community Center, 149 Waubasa St., Madison from 7 to 9 pm (no need to get up early for this one). There is a suggested donation of $25.00. All donations go to supporting the Wisconsin Book Festival. And there will be cookies and cupcakes!

Because seating is limited, the organizers are asking folks to RSVP here.

It's a great cause, so I hope to see you there.

--Judy Mitchell

2011-07-14T22:04:00.003-05:00

Some news of recent publications that have come my way:

Professor Emerita KELLY CHERRY has stories out in Commentary, blackbird, and The Idaho Review.

Former Institute poet REBECCA DUNHAM has a poem up on Verse Daily. Rebecca was also recently promoted to the rank of Associate Professor with tenure at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

2011-12 Institute poet LAURA EVE ENGEL's "Known Quantity" is the poem of the week on The The poetry blog.

2011-07-13T00:00:00.003-05:00

On her blog We Are Homer, which is devoted to collaborative efforts of writers, former Institute poetry fellow TRACI BRIMHALL interviews our 2011-12 Halls Poetry Fellow LAURA EVE ENGEL and Adam Peterson about their collaborative chapbook entitled [Spoiler Alert]. I've yet to meet Laura Eve but I'm assuming that's her on the left.

2011-07-11T16:13:00.003-05:00

Congratulations to former MFAer, NATE BROWN, whose story "The Have Nots" is in the summer 2011 issue of The Carolina Quarterly. That's the journal's cover, by the way, not a picture of either Nate or his ride.

2011-07-06T17:32:00.002-05:00

Wednesday Round-up:

Former Institute fiction Fellow ANTHONY DOERR's award-winning Memory Wall is now available in paperback. Last I heard it includes a copy of "The Deep," Tony's 2010 Story Prize winner.

Huffington Post selected the covers of Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self (by former Institute fiction fellow DANIELLE EVANS) and My American Unhappiness (by former MFA fiction student DEAN BAKOPOULOS) as two of the coolest book covers of 2011.

2011-07-05T20:44:00.004-05:00

Former Institute fiction fellow, HOLIDAY REINHORN, is in Haiti working with her "Girls United Team." Read about her work here.

2011-06-29T21:41:00.004-05:00

There's a must-read essay by ROB NIXON on the Harvard Journalism School's Nieman Storyboard site. Entitled "Slow Violence and Environmental Storytelling," the essay asks and answers this question, "How can environmental writers craft emotionally involving stories from disasters that are slow-moving and attritional, rather than explosive and spectacular?"

By the way, Rob says the Nieman Storyboard is probably the best source for tips on writing creative nonfiction, so after you read his essay, you might want to explore the site.

There's also a very nice interview with Rob by Amitava Kumar on the Huff Post.

2011-06-29T21:20:00.003-05:00

Congratulations to BRIAN HALL, former fiction MFA, whose short story "In the Natural History Museum" appears in THIS Literary Magazine and who has several pieces of nonfiction out as well. The nonfiction can be found at the following sites:

“Educating Our Customers” is in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

“Study Bible: The Parable of Natural Law” is in Shadowbox (To find Brian's work, you have to click on the spice bottle on the far right in the top row. Yes, this will make sense when you visit the site.)

“Bearing Down” in r.kv.r.y. (photo above illustrates this essay in r.kv.r.y.)

2011-06-28T14:39:00.004-05:00

For those who read the previous post and are champing at the bit, an excerpt from ROB NIXON's new book Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor is up on The Chronicle of Higher Education's website.

2011-06-25T18:37:00.004-05:00

Congratulations to our colleague, ROB NIXON, on the publication of his latest book, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (Harvard University Press). The Press describes the book as follows:

The violence wrought by climate change, toxic drift, deforestation, oil spills, and the environmental aftermath of war takes place gradually and often invisibly. Using the innovative concept of “slow violence” to describe these threats, Rob Nixon focuses on the inattention we have paid to the attritional lethality of many environmental crises, in contrast with the sensational, spectacle-driven messaging that impels public activism today. Slow violence, because it is so readily ignored by a hard-charging capitalism, exacerbates the vulnerability of ecosystems and of people who are poor, disempowered, and often involuntarily displaced, while fueling social conflicts that arise from desperation as life-sustaining conditions erode.

In a book of extraordinary scope, Nixon examines a cluster of writer-activists affiliated with the environmentalism of the poor in the global South. By approaching environmental justice literature from this transnational perspective, he exposes the limitations of the national and local frames that dominate environmental writing. And by skillfully illuminating the strategies these writer-activists deploy to give dramatic visibility to environmental emergencies, Nixon invites his readers to engage with some of the most pressing challenges of our time.

Rob Nixon is Rachel Carson Professor of English, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Among his many books is Dreambirds: The Natural History of a Fantasy. He is a frequent contributor to the New York Times.

2011-06-24T16:05:00.002-05:00

Just-graduated MFA poet BRITTANY CAVALLARO is one of the featured poets in the current issue of Blackbird. Of her poetry, the editors write, "Brittany Cavallaro’s poetry describes a sensuality that is dangerous and enticing, with speakers who role-shift between victim and black widow." Nice, Bri!

2011-06-23T16:19:00.002-05:00

Congratulations to NICK LANTZ, former poetry MFA and former Institute fellow, whose third collection of poetry, How to Dance When You Do Not Know How to Dance, will be published by Greywolf in 2014.

2011-06-18T20:45:00.004-05:00

Former undergrad creative writing major ANTHONY CARELLI is the recipient of the 2011-2012 Hodder Fellowship. As the Hodder Fellow he will receive a $63,900 grant and spend a year in residency at Princeton University working on an independent project. Congratulations, Anthony.

2011-06-17T16:46:00.003-05:00

Congrats to former Institute fellow ANTOINE WILSON who's second novel, Panorama City, will be released by Grove/Atlantic’s Black Cat Books in 2012.

Here’s what Publisher’s Marketplace has to say:

THE INTERLOPER author Antoine Wilson’s PANORAMA CITY, about a curious, openhearted, bicycle-riding, binocular-wearing man of-the-world, who, believing he is on his deathbed, decides to record everything his unborn son might find useful as he makes his own way in the world,

Here's what Antoine has to say: "In other words, The Jerk meets Gilead."

If that isn't irresistible I don't know what is.

For a sneak preview, you can read part of the book in issue no. 12 of A Public Space.

2011-06-17T12:57:00.007-05:00

Congratulations to former Institute fiction fellow DANIELLE EVANS on her nomination for the tenth annual Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in fiction, which "honors exemplary works of literature before the national community of Black writers." Danielle was nominated, of course, for her story collection Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self. The award shown here, which is presented to the winner along with a cash gift, depicts the Egyptian god of writing.

2011-06-14T01:07:00.001-05:00

Former Institute fiction fellow ERICA OLSON reviews Dry River by Ken Lamberton here.

2011-06-13T18:59:00.003-05:00

On Sunday June 19, at 2pm former UW-Madison English professor Heather Dubrow and former two-time Wisconsin poet laureate Marilyn Taylor will be reading at Avols Books.

Heather Dubrow, who taught at UW-Madison for 19 years,where she was the Tighe-Evans Professor and John Bascom Professor, is currently the John D. Boyd, S.J., Chair in the Poetic Imagination at Fordham University and director of the Poets Out Loud reading series. The author of two chapbooks of poetry, she has just brought out the collection of poetry from which she'll be reading, "Forms and Hollows," published by Cherry Grove Collections. Her poems have appeared in Poetry International, Prairie Schooner, Southwest Review, and the Journal of the American Medical Association. Wearing her other hat, that of literary critic, she is the author of six scholarly books, most recently The Challenges of Orpheus: Lyric Poetry and Early Modern England.

Marilyn Taylor, Poet Laureate of Wisconsin for 2009 and 2010, is the author of six collections of poetry. Her work has also appeared in The American Scholar, Poetry, The Formalist, First Things, Measure, and many other journals and anthologies. She is currently a Contributing Editor for The Writer magazine, where her columns on craft appear bi-monthly. Marilyn teaches regularly for the Honors College at UWM, Redbird Studios in Milwaukee, Lawrence University's Bjorklunden Seminar Center in Baileys Harbor, and Allwriters Studio in Waukesha. Marilyn was also the Poet Laureate of Milwaukee in 2004 and ‘05.

2011-06-12T10:32:00.002-05:00

RYAN WALSH, former MFA in poetry, has been named the grants program manager at the Vermont Studio Center. All the more reason for Wisconsin writers to apply for residencies at VSC.

Congratulations, Ryan.

2011-06-12T10:25:00.004-05:00

News from former MFA in fiction ALYSSA KNICKERBOCKER:

Rowan Wylie Steele was born on May 30th at 5:49 pm in the dining room of our apartment in Louisville, Kentucky. He was 8 lbs, 6 oz and 21 inches long.

Congratulations, Alyssa and Jeff.

2011-06-08T20:01:00.002-05:00

Former Institute poetry fellow SHARA LESSLEY (author of the forthcoming collection Two-Headed Nightingale, mentioned a few posts down) is interviewed at r.kv.r.y by Bruce Snyder.

Also, Shara's fellow poetry fellow, DANIELLE DEULEN, has accepted a position as an assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati.

Congratulations to you both.

2011-06-07T20:57:00.002-05:00

Congratulations to former MFA fiction writer Samar Fitzgerald who's story "Where Do You Go" is in the current issue of the New England Review.

2011-06-06T19:34:00.003-05:00

On Saturday, June 11, at 7:30pm at the Gates of Heaven Synagogue, 302 E. Gorham St., the Monster's of Poetry will present the book launch of former MFA fiction writer's DEAN BAKOPOULOS new novel, My American Happiness. As if that's not enough, former undergrad English major PATRICK SOMMERVILLE will be reading with Dean. And then there's an after-party at Sardine. Because Blogger is refusing to upload pictures or links--clearly jealous of DEAN and PAT--here's the Monster's website: http://www.monstersofpoetry.org/Upcoming.html

2011-06-06T18:48:00.003-05:00

The New Yorker's annual summer fiction issue includes the story "Above and Below" by our former MFA fiction writer LAUREN GROFF. Congrats, Lauren!

2011-06-06T18:42:00.005-05:00

Huge congratulations to former Institute fellow SHARA LESSLEY. Her first poetry collection Two-Headed Nightingale will be coming out from New Issues in 2012!

2011-05-14T17:20:00.004-05:00

Devil's Lake, our grad students' online literary journal, has a must-read piece, "An Interview with Michael Martone" up on its blog site. You should definitely read it.

2011-05-14T11:47:00.003-05:00

After a big party at my house that included the MFAs, the current Fellows, the faculty, and even one of our most beloved friends of the program, the fabulous Lynne McCreight--not to mention friends, partners, and family--the MFA Poets of the Class of 2011 headed off with their faculty escorts to the Kohl Center to receive their diplomas. Congratulaions to:

KAI CARLSON-WEE* BRITTANY CAVALLARO* LOUISA DIODATO *JOSH KALSCHEUR*
NANCY REDDY*JACQUES RANCOURT

Here's one last MFA Poetry fun fact: Soon after coming to Madison the six poets decided that before they left they would all try to publish one poem in the journal Linebreak. Why they chose Linebreak no one can say. But the very last week of their very last semester, five of them already having work appear in the journal, the sixth of them--that would be KAI--had a poem accepted. A nice, happy ending for a great group of writers. Here is a video of Kai reading his just-under-the-wire Linebreak poem "Deer Bones."

2011-05-14T11:42:00.002-05:00

The next reading sponsored by our friends at Monsters of Poetry will be held on Friday March 20 at Project Lodge, 817 E. Johnson Street. Here are the readers' bios:

ANTHONY MARRA's fiction has appeared in The Pushcart Prize Anthology, The Atlantic Monthly, Narrative, and elsewhere. After graduating from the Iowa Writers' Workshop in May, he will attend Stanford University as a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Creative Writing.

MARGARET REGES is a recent graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop. Her recent honors include a fellowship from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA and a work-study scholarship from the Breadloaf Writers' Conference. She's looking forward to a summer residency at the MacDowell Colony, where she hopes to complete her first collection of poems.

MOLLY BOYLE grew up in southern California, graduated from Brown University,and worked as an editor of mystery fiction at New American Library and Bantam Dell before decamping for New Mexico, Texas, and now Iowa, where she is an MFA candidate in the Writers’ Workshop.

JAMES LONGLEY is from Ohio and is an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop.

Avian poster image courtesy of Mike Truppo.

2011-05-14T11:32:00.002-05:00

Former MFA DEAN BAKOPOULOS's new novel My American Unhappiness has been released. Here's what O Magazine has to say about it:

“An academically brilliant but otherwise clueless narrator desperately searches for a wife. So funny you may miss the novel’s slyly profound message.”

For Dean's book tour dates check out his website: www.deanbakopoulos.com

2011-05-06T17:25:00.003-05:00

Congratulations to former Institute poetry fellow AIMEE NEZHUKUMATATHIL whose collection Lucky Fish tied for the Independent Publisher's gold medal in poetry and also received the da Vinci award for best cover design.

2011-05-06T16:36:00.004-05:00

In this week's New York Times Sunday Book Review former MFA and fiction fellow, EMMA STRAUB, is included in an essay about writers who choose to work in bookstores. That's Emma's first book, Other People We Married, along with with the note mentioned in the Times' article.

And in the latest edition of e-Annotations, our English Department's online newsletter, alumni PATRICK SOMMERVILLE, reflects on why it's so important for writers to study literature.

2011-05-04T17:15:00.004-05:00

Huge congratulations to former Institute fellow TRACI BRIMHALL whose second book, Our Lady of the Ruins, has received the 2011 Barnard Women Poets Prize for the best second collection of poems by an American woman poet. The biennial Prize, awarded jointly by Women Poets at Barnard and the publisher W.W. Norton & Company, includes publication of the work and a free public reading at Barnard. Our Lady of the Ruins will be published by W. W. Norton in 2012. For more info, click here.

2011-04-30T13:52:00.002-05:00

Before he was a "rockstar who happens to write books," he was a UW PhD with a Creative Writing Minor. Here's RAY HSU, the featured poet on the World Poetry Cafe Radio Show, being interveiwed and reading his work.

2011-04-30T13:27:00.001-05:00

Former fiction MFA, ALYSSA KNICKERBOCKER, has a story in Best of the West 2011 alongside folks such as TC Boyle, Yiyun Li, and Ron Carlson. Alyssa's story is "Same As It Was When You Left."

2011-04-28T22:08:00.002-05:00

FIRST PRIZE
Kevin A. González Christmas Eve

SECOND PRIZE
Debra Spark Maine Night

Congratulations to our two former fiction fellows KEVIN GONZALEZ and DEBRA SPARK, first and second place winners in Narrative's winter 2011 story contest.

2011-04-27T21:42:00.004-05:00

Former Institute fellow CYNTHIA MARIE HOFFMAN (pictured above) discusses her poem, "A Labor of Moles," on How A Poem Happens.

The Rumpus celebrates day 27 of National Poetry Month with SHARA LESSLEY's poem, "The Accused Terrorists's Wife."

INTRODUCING OUR NEW FELLOWS REDUX

2011-04-27T20:11:00.005-05:00

The Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing is pleased to announce its 2011-12 Fellows. They are:

Pilar Gómez-Ibañez, the Diane Middlebrook Poetry Fellow. MFA: Cornell University

Laura-Eve Engel, the Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellow. MFA: University of Houston

Mehdi Okasi, the Carl Djerassi Fiction Fellow. MFA: Purdue University

Nicole Cullen, the Carol Houck Smith Fiction Fellow. MFA: UT-Austin

Emily Ruskovich, the James C. McCreight Fiction Fellow. MFA: University of Iowa

Martin Zimmerman, the Carl Djerassi Playwriting Fellow. MFA: UT-Austin

Jacques Rancourt, the Halls Emerging Artist Fellow. MFA: University of Wisconsin-Madison (pictured above)

Fellows spend the 2011-12 academic year in Madison. They each receive a stipend of $27,000 and teach one creative writing class in each of their two semesters with us. The Halls Emerging Artist Fellowship is awarded to a graduate of the MFA Program here at UW-Madison and is selected by an outside judge. For more information about these fellowships see our website.

Hazelton & Mortazavi: Final WI Institute fellows read on 5/5!

2011-04-27T13:05:00.003-05:00

REBECCA HAZELTON &

ANDREW MORTAZAVI

Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing

Thursday, 5/5
7:00 PM

#6191 Helen C. White Hall
600 North Park Street

Rebecca Hazelton and Andrew Mortazavi are the final pair in this year's series of readings by Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing Fellows.

ANDREW MORTAZAVI is the Carol Houck Smith Fiction Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing. His MFA is from the University of Arizona, where he held the Beverly Rogers Creative Writing Fellowship in fiction. His stories have received various honors, including an Iowa Review Award and runner-up placement in Playboy Magazine's fiction contest, and have appeared in The Iowa Review, Cream City Review, and Roanoke Review. He is at work on a first novel.

REBECCA HAZELTON has poems forthcoming from The Southern Review, The Gettysburg Review, and CutBank, and has been published in Phoebe, The Journal, Drunken Boat and Conjunctions, among others. She is the Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellow, was recently awarded a Summer Literary Seminars Merit Based Fellowship, and will be attending the Vermont Studio Center's June session on fellowship. She has been a finalist or semi-finalist for several book prizes, including the Walt Whitman and the Dorset. More information at rebeccahazelton.net.

Adam Haslett Reads This Thursday!

2011-04-26T22:31:00.004-05:00

ADAM HASLETT
presented by
The Program in Creative Writing
and The Madison Review

THIS THURSDAY
April 28th, 7:00 PM

The Gates of Heaven
302 East Gorham

Haslett will also give a Q&A for all interested parties from 4-5:00 pm in 6191 Helen C. White Hall.

The reading will be followed by a Madison Review release party at Brocach Irish Pub (7 West Main St.), and all are invited to attend.

ADAM HASLETT is the author of a collection of short stories, You are Not a Stranger Here (a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize) and a novel, Union Atlantic. His book have been translated into eighteen languages, and he has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Fine Arts Work Center. He has been a visiting professor at the Iowa Writers' Workshop and at Columbia University.

2011-04-25T17:31:00.002-05:00

Here's former Institute fellow ERIKA MEITNER reading her poem "Miracle Jacket" on the PBS News Hour's Arts Blog.

2011-04-23T17:27:00.002-05:00

Professor LORRIE MOORE reviews three memoirs (and comments on the memoir itself) in her most recent The New York Review of Books article.

2011-04-16T20:38:00.004-05:00

Here's a poem by our NANCY REDDY, current MFA poet, on Memorious.

2011-04-16T19:39:00.003-05:00

Our former MFA poetry student and current PhD candidate, HEATHER SWAN, is also a visual artist. Come see her work at her solo exhibit of sculpture and poems, Loss, Longing and Belonging: Inhabiting the Human Body in an Endangered World.

The exhibit is at CHE (the Center for Culture, History, and Environment). The opening is on Friday, April 22 at 5:30 in the lobby of Bradley Memorial.

For more information, see CHE's website.

2011-04-16T00:36:00.002-05:00

R-E-M-I-N-D-E-R

On Sunday April 17 at 2pm the UW Creative Writing Program's Professor Emerita KELLY CHERRY will be at the UW Pyle Center, 702 Langdon Street in Madison as part of English Professor Emily Auerbach's Eloquence and Eminence series. Kelly will be speaking on "Making Poetry from Modern History."

2011-04-16T00:31:00.003-05:00

Former Institute fellow SUSANNA DANIEL has an article up on Slate about living in the Midwest--in Madison, to be specific.

2011-04-13T11:01:00.003-05:00

The Monsters of Poetry send word of their next reading, which includes former Institute poet SRIKANTH REDDY and former undergrad DANNY KHALASTCHI.

Click here for more info.

2011-04-12T19:07:00.002-05:00

Congratulations to former Institute fiction fellow ANDREW MALAN MILWARD who has won the 2011 Juniper Prize. Here is the press release:

ANNOUNCING THE WINNERS OF THE 2011 JUNIPER PRIZES

The University of Massachusetts Press is pleased to announce that Andrew Malan Milward has won the 2011 Juniper Prize for Fiction. His story collection, titled The Agriculture Hall of Fame, will be published in 2012. Milward grew up in Lawrence, Kansas, and lives in San Francisco, where he teaches creative writing at an arts-based day program for adults with developmental disabilities. A 2008 graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he was a McCreight Fiction Fellow at the University of Wisconsin in 2009 and a Steinbeck Fellow at San Jose State University in 2010. This winter he was a Writing Fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and currently he is a Resident Artist at the Santa Fe Art Institute. Milward was a finalist for the National Magazine Award, and his fiction has appeared in many places, including Zoetrope, The Southern Review, Columbia, Conjunctions, and Best New American Voices 2010.

Kelly Cherry reads Sunday, 4/17

2011-04-12T17:43:00.003-05:00

This coming Sunday, April 17th, Kelly Cherry will give a reading at 2:00 pm at the Pyle Center, presented by Emily Auerbach.

KELLY CHERRY is the author of nineteen books of fiction (novels and short stories), poetry, and nonfiction (memoir, essay, and criticism), eight chapbooks, and translations of two classical plays. Her most recent titles include The Retreats of Thought: Poems and Girl in a Library: On Women Writers and the Writing Life. Among her many awards are fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rockefeller Foundation, the Bradley Major Achievement (Lifetime) Award, and selection as a Wisconsin Notable Author. She was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and taught at UW-Madison from 1977-1999 as the Eudora Welty Professor Emerita of English.

RESCUE PRESS POETRY BOOK PRIZE

2011-04-11T17:07:00.006-05:00

Rescue Press, which is run by two of our former undergrads DANNY KHALASTCHI and CARYL PAGEL have written to let us know about their first Black Box Poetry Prize competititon:

Rescue Press presents:
THE BLACK BOX POETRY PRIZE
June 2011
Judge: Sabrina Orah Mark
For details: visit rescue-press.org

The Scoop: Rescue Press is pleased to present The Black Box Poetry Prize, a contest for full-length collections of poetry. This year’s submissions will be accepted during the month of June, 2011.

The Guidelines: All participants must submit a $15 (per entry) reading fee via the Paypal link on our website: rescue-press.org. The reading fee must be purchased before you send work, and manuscripts received without corresponding payment will not be eligible for the competition.

You should then attach your manuscript and cover letter to an email (.pdf or .doc only) addressed to: rescuepressprize@gmail.com. The cover letter should briefly introduce yourself and include any biographical details, acknowledgments, contact information, or notes you may wish to send. Manuscript pages must be numbered and include a table of contents. Your name should not appear in the manuscript beyond the title page, and simultaneous submissions are allowed but please notify the editors if your manuscript is accepted elsewhere. Students or close friends of the judge are ineligible.

The Process: The editors of Rescue Press will carefully read all submissions and then send a select number of blind/anonymous manuscripts on to our judge, Sabrina Orah Mark, who will choose The Black Box Poetry Prize winner. The author of the winning manuscript will receive our standard publishing contract and 25 copies of their book as well as some support for readings and publicity. Editors may choose to publish additional manuscripts; results will be announced in Fall 2011 on our website and via email.

The Judge: Sabrina Orah Mark is the author of the book-length poetry collections The Babies (2004), winner of the Saturnalia Book Prize chosen by Jane Miller, and Tsim Tsum (2009), as well as the chapbook Walter B.’s Extraordinary Cousin Arrives for a Visit & Other Tales from Woodland Editions. Mark’s awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a fellowship from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Her poems have been included in Best American Poetry 2007 and the anthology Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century (2006).

2011-04-11T16:36:00.002-05:00

Here's our fiction MFA student, LYDIA CONKLIN, with the story of the week at Narrative.

2011-04-11T00:58:00.003-05:00

Former Institute fiction fellow ANN PACKER's newest book, Swim Back to Me, a collection of two novellas and four short stories, has just been released by Knopf to luminous reviews.

ANTHONY DOERR WINS SUNDAY TIMES SHORT STORY AWARD

2011-04-10T16:05:00.005-05:00

So, today I'm reading the finalists for our Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing fiction fellowships. The manuscripts are uniformly impressive and choosing the fellows is going to be a daunting task. We will be making that very challenging decision in the next few weeks.

My practice when reading the manuscripts is to get up between each one. I walk around or do some housework or go to Facebook or find some other 10 minute task to clear my mind before reading on. And a few minutes ago, while scanning the posts on Facebook, I came across this wonderful news:

Judges AS Byatt and Will Self have awarded our former Halls Fiction Fellow, ANTHONY DOERR, The Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award with its cash prize of £30,000--the largest cash prize there is for a short story competition. His winning piece, "The Deep," is currently available only in The Sunday Times magazine or online if you're a London Times subscriber, but it will soon be available via Kindle and iBooks.

I was immediately brought back to spring of 1999. I was a fiction fellow myself then and my fellow fellow STEPHEN SCHOTTENFELD had asked me to look over a story he'd just read. "I'm not sure," he said, "but I think this writer may be brilliant."

And the writer was/is Tony Doerr and he was/is brilliant and he was/is also the nicest guy ever. (Stephen Schottenfeld is no slouch either when it comes to brilliant short stories and nicest guy ever, by the way.) Anyway, this memory of When Stephen Met Tony will guarantee that I return to this years' reading with renewed energy and with great pride in this program and the fellows who have come--and will come--through it.

So, congratulations to Tony and to us for recognizing his talents years before AS Byatt and Will Self had a chance to. Now back to the pile of manuscripts from which the 2011-12 fiction fellows will emerge.

Cheers,
Judy Mitchell
Director, the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing

Devil's Lake presents its Spring 2011 Issue!

2011-04-07T13:09:00.003-05:00

Devil's Lake, the online literary journal run by UW's MFA students in creative writing, has released its third issue today. You can read it in its entirety, along with past issues, reviews, and interviews, by visiting http://devils-lake.org. The new issue features:

FICTION by Meagan Cass and Josh Parish,

NONFICTION by Emily Conner,

POETRY by Mary Biddinger, Molly Brodak, Brett DeFries, Tim Kahl, Alex Lemon, Adam Tavel, Casey Thayer, and Greg Wrenn, and

COMICS by Minty Lewis and Melissa Mendes.

And don't forget, too, that tonight's the issue's celebratory launch reading, featuring Janice Shapiro and Casey Thayer, in Helen C. White 6191 at 7:30 pm. You can read more and RSVP on Facebook.

Brittingham and Pollak Winners read Thursday, 4/14!

2011-04-07T12:17:00.003-05:00

Jacqueline Jones LaMon & Alison Stine

7:00 pm, Thursday April 14th
Helen C. White #6191

The two winners of this year's Brittingham and Pollak Prizes in Poetry (from the University of Wisconsin Press, selected by Cornelius Eady) will give a reading on Thursday, April 14th at 7:00 pm in Helen C. White 6191. Our two readers for the evening (and their winning books) are Alison Stine (Wait) and Jacqueline Jones LaMon (Last Seen).

Jacqueline Jones LaMon is the author of two books of poetry: Last Seen (winner of the Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry) and Gravity, USA, winner of the Quercus Review Poetry Series Award. She has also written a novel, In the Arms of One Who Loves Me, and was a Cave Canem Fellow. She is currently the director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Adelphi University.

Alison Stine is also the author of two books of poetry: Wait (winner of the Brittingham Prize in Poetry) and Ohio Violence; she has also written musicals and plays. She has received a Ruth Lily Fellowship, a Wallace Stegner Fellowship, and a Breadloaf Writers' Conference scholarship.