English

English Professor’s Witch Piece Accepted–Story or Fable?

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Gail Griffin, English, writes, “I guess I’m a fiction writer now.” Her piece, “Four or Five Witches,” will be published in the October 1 issue of Phantom Drift: A Journal of New Fabulism. The October issue will be the second for the new journal and is “dedicated to developing an understanding of and appreciation for fabulist literature.” When she wrote the piece, Griffin was thinking more in terms of fable or myth and less so in terms of fiction per se. The four movements in the piece seem to belie the “or Five” in the title, but Griffin explains that those two words are “meant to be just flamingly ambiguous. The witch in the ’Red’ piece is mostly the Snow White witch but has a little of the Wicked Witch of the West about her. And in number 4, she’s both the Hansel-and-Gretel witch and the Blair Witch. I just thought I’d let the title reflect how the witch figures morph into each other.” Check out the entire story (or fable) come October!

 

Smokin’ Poets

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Thanks, in part, to Kim Grabowski ’12, the Spring issue of the on-line magazine, The Smoking Poet, features a strong K connection. Grabowski was an intern at the magazine and helped compile an issue that features the work of Writer-in-Residence Diane Seuss ’78 as well as current students and alumni.

The alums include Kit Almy ’89, Lauren Moran ’11, Katie Prout ’09, and John Craig ’11. Current students with poems published in the issue are Nick Canu ’12, Cam Stewart ’12, Rebecca Staudemaier ’12, Kate Belew ’15, and Jasmine An ’15. Maggie Jackson ’11 and Amy Newday had nonfiction published in the magazine.  Newday coordinates the College’s Writing Center. And Grabowski’s interview with Michigan poet Laura Kasischke appears as well. Kasischke recently won the Rilke Prize, and she will read works from her new collection, Space, In Chains, on campus this April 16. Chief Editor for The Smoking Poet is Zinta Aistars, who worked for Kalamazoo College for many years.

“The Cauldron” Unveiled

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Cauldron program previewBy Elaine Ezekiel ’13

“Sight and Voice Revealed: Unveiling the Cauldron,” was the theme of the Week 6 (May 4) Community Reflection in Stetson Chapel. With support from the Student Activities Fee, each member of the audience received a free copy of the 32nd edition of the literary magazine, which features art, photography, and writing created by K students.

Editors Cam Stewart ’12 and Rebecca Staudenmaier ’12 discussed the Cauldron’s ability to unite students across interests and talents:

“We are the community bound at the book’s spine,” said Staudenmaier.

Writer-in-Residence Diane “Di” Seuss presented the Stephanie Vibbert Award to Erin Donevan ’12. This accolade memorializes the English/psychology double-major from Class of 2003 who died during her senior year at K. The award honors a current student whose writing exemplifies the intersection between creative writing and community engagement. Seuss said that Vibbert would have endorsed Donevan’s work promoting creative writing in Botswana and Kalamazoo.

The College’s Writing Center Director Amy Newday announced the three winners of the Divine Crow Award, which is bestowed on writers of outstanding Cauldron entries. Newday said the winners “wove connections for me through time, space and experience.” They were Paul Lovaas ’13 (for his nonfiction short story “Darkrooms”), Fran Hoepfner ’13 (for her poem “to shatter when dropped”), and Kelly Bush ’12 (for her fantasy short story “Ariadne”). Each student read excerpts from their winning work.

Divine Crow Award runners-up were Umang Varma ’14, Carolyn Stordeur ’12 and Nicholas Canu ’12.

Community Reflection offers a unique forum for discussion, worship, performance, and community expression each Friday at 10:50 AM (refreshments at 10:30) in Stetson Chapel. The entire campus community and general public are invited. Week 7 (May 11) Reflection will be “Perspectives from a Global K,” in which members of the International Student Organization share their experiences and reflections about current global issues

Writer-in-Residence Diane Seuss Receives Accolades for Outstanding Poetry

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Kalamazoo College’s Writer-in-Residence Diane Seuss ’78 continues to receive accolades for her outstanding work in the world of poetry. A sample of a few recent honors follow–honors that help put Kalamazoo College, on Di’s coattails, on the literary map!

First, she will be teaching the “Advanced Seminar,” with poets Patrick Donnelly and Reginald Dwayne Betts, at the Frost Place this summer, located at Robert Frost’s homestead in Franconia, New Hampshire. In the fall, she has been invited to be the McLean Distinguished Visiting Writer at Colorado College.  That position has been held by many distinguished writers, including Ghanaian poet and cultural activist Kofi Anyidoho, feminist film theorist Tania Modelski, Canadian novelist Nino Ricci, and Irish poet Eamon Grennan.

At Colorado College, Di will be teaching the Advanced Seminar in Poetry. In addition, Di was named the winner of the Summer Literary Seminars contest in poetry because of three of her poems, which will appear in Black Warrior Review later in the year.  The contest winner also receives airfare, tuition, and housing for one of the Summer Literary Seminars in Lithuania or Kenya.  Di will go to Kenya. And, most recently, Di learned that her poem “Either everything is sexual, or nothing is. Take this flock of poppies,” has been selected for reprint in Pushcart Prize XXXVII: Best of the Small Presses. The Pushcart Prize honors the best poetry, short fiction, and short nonfiction published in literary magazines in the previous year.

Congratulations, Di!

Student and Mentor Receive Pierce Cedar Creek Institute for Environmental Education’s Nature in Words Fellowship

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Kate Belew ’15 and Di Seuss, English, have received the Pierce Cedar Creek Institute for Environmental Education’s Nature in Words Fellowship for the summer of 2012.

Following Fellowship guidelines, students apply with a mentor from one of the consortium institutions.  Kate proposed that she will write a collection of poems inspired by Professor Emeritus of English Conrad Hilberry’s object poems in his chapbook The Fingernail of Luck. (Hilberry was a formative influence on the poetic career of Seuss, whom he first encountered as a high schooler in Niles, Michigan, and who graduated from “K” in 1978.)  In Kate’s poems, she will observe objects in the natural world, do research on their origins and characteristics, and then write in their voices, finding the intersection between the natural world and her own emotional and spiritual evolution.

She will be provided with housing at the Institute and will be given a stipend to support her work.  Di will meet with Kate throughout the summer to mentor her through the experience, and Di also have the opportunity to work on my own writing project at Pierce Cedar Creek. Said Di, “Many students from the region apply for this fellowship.  It is a significant achievement that Kate has been selected.”

“K” Student and Alumni Earn Alpha Lamda Delta Honor Society Fellowships

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Two Kalamazoo College alumni and one current student have combined to earn three of the 23 national fellowships awarded this year by Alpha Lambda Delta honor society for outstanding students who are working towards a graduate or professional degree.

Emma Perry ’08, pursing a graduate degree in English at Boston University, received a $5,000 award. Amel Omari ’09, in the master’s of public health program at the University of Michigan, received a $3,000 award. Matthew DuWaldt ’12 earned a $3,000 award and will attend law school at a yet to be determined institution in the fall. Founded in 1924, Alpha Lambda Delta recognizes students who have succeeded in maintaining a 3.5 or higher GPA and are in the top 20 percent of their class.

Teju Cole Wins 2012 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award

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Teju Cole
Author Teju Cole. Photo Credit: AP

Obayemi Onafuwa ’96, who writes under the pen name Teju Cole, has won the 2012 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for a distinguished first book of fiction for Open City. Cole will receive a $10,000 prize from the Hemingway Foundation and PEN New England, as well as a residency in The Distinguished Visiting Writers Series at the University of Idaho’s MFA Program in Creative Writing.

The Hemingway award was founded in 1976 by Mary Hemingway, widow of Nobel Prize-winning writer Ernest Hemingway. Patrick Hemingway, the writer’s son, will present the prestigious literary award to Cole on April 1 at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston.

Past recipients of the award include Edward P. Jones, who received an honorary degree from Kalamazoo College in 2011.

Cole is a writer, art historian, and street photographer. Born in the United States to Nigerian parents, he was raised in Nigeria and currently lives in Brooklyn. He received his B.A. in studio art and art history from Kalamazoo College; his M.A. in African art history from the University of London; and his M.Phil. in 16th-century northern European visual culture from Columbia University, where he is working on his Ph.D.

Alum Takes Appellate Judge Seat for the District of Columbia Court of Appeals

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Corinne Beckwith ’85 was sworn in as an appellate judge for the District of Columbia Court of Appeals during ceremonies in Washington, D.C. She was nominated last spring by President Obama, earned Senate confirmation in November, and has been serving in the post since December.

Cori earned a B.A. degree in English from Kalamazoo and while here served a student internship at the Holland (Mich.) Sentinel newspaper. She earned a master’s degree in journalism from University of Illinois and later worked as a reporter at the Midland Daily News.

She earned her law degree in 1992 from the University of Michigan Law School. Since 1999, she’s worked as an attorney representing the rights of indigent criminal defendants on appeal in the Appellate Division of the Public Defender Service in Washington, D.C., and was appointed a supervisor in that office in 2009.

English Alum Receives “Outstanding Faculty” Award

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Amelia Katanski ’92, English, received the Outstanding Faculty award from Michigan Campus Compact (www.micampuscompact.org) at the Service-Learning and Civic Engagement Conference on January 30 in East Lansing.

Nominated by President Eileen B. Wilson-Oyelaran and the College’s Mary Jane Underwood Stryker Institute for Service-Learning, Katanski was honored for her commitments to local food, food justice, and sustainability and her dedication to engaged, student-centered learning.

She has been teaching a first-year seminar, “Cultivating Community” as a service-learning course since 2006. She is also faculty advisor to “Farms to K,” which she co-founded with students, staff, and community partners.

“Farms to K” advocates for a local purchasing policy at Kalamazoo College and works closely with other student-led Service-Learning programs, including community gardening initiatives and Migrant Rights Action.