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An interview with alum Adam Jernigan (fiction, ’15) appears at Quilt:
Where did the idea for ‘Ward’ stem from?
It started with the line “I’m the one killed them kids,” which just came into my mind and stayed there until I wrote the story that went with it. I’ve had other stories begin that way, but this one at least had plenty going on in that one line: the confession to a crime, and, for better or worse, dialect. I wrote the original draft in my first MFA semester. My supervisor, Michael Parker, had pointed out that most of my stories followed a very linear timeline. ‘Ward’ became an exercise in breaking that habit through significant flashbacks that were not introduced with a space break. I forced myself to play with the story’s time and its transitions. Also during that first semester, my mom asked me if I’d ever write a story with a happy ending. ‘Ward’ was my smart-ass answer. Though as I continued to work on the story, I came to feel that it does have a happy ending—at least as happy as I can manage.
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A story by alum Kim Frank (fiction, ’11) appears at Shadowgraph. You can read the piece online…
A poem by alum Annie Kim (poetry, ’09) appears at Shadowgraph. You can read the piece online…
A poem by alum Rachel Brownson (poetry, ’14) appears at Shadowgraph. You can read it online…
A piece by alum Erin Stalcup (fiction, ’04) appears at Stir:
“That girl can’t roll her Rs.”
That’s the first thing a student ever said about me, my first day of teaching, while I called roll and Yahaira Rodríguez, Dulcita Contreras, Yafreisi Ríos, Ydanis Reyes, Guillermo Méndez, Julissa Cruz, Yakimela Betriz Núñez, Vladimir Díaz, Alfonica Ramirez, and Zuleika Ramirez either were or weren’t there.
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A nonfiction piece, “If You’ve Made it this Far, You Might as Well Leave a Message,” by alum Matthew Olzmann (poetry, ’09) appears at Waxwing:
If you’re listening to my voice, it’s too late for me, but there’s still time to save yourself. What you need to know is this: our dead would not stay dead. We fought them off for as long as we could, but soon most of us were infected and joined their ranks. We’ve run out of ammunition and they’re so hungry.
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If you called my house in the middle part of the 1990s, that’s the type of message you’d hear when the answering machine picked up. A fake apocalypse — and in the background some guy trying not to laugh.
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The story “Fatherhood” by alum David Rutschman (fiction, ’02) appears at Waxwing:
I was teaching my son to throw stones into the water when he became a stone and I threw him in the water.
“My boy, my darling boy,” I called and I hurled myself after him and I became a stone and we tumbled down to the silent muddy bottom.
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Two poems by alum Gary Copeland Lilley (poetry, ’02), “I Told You” and “The Bushman’s Medicine Show,” appear at Waxwing:
I Told You
Her voice was an earworm in my head
over and over a constant cerebral crawl
I-told-you-you-can-not-trust-Jake who I lent
the 100 bucks that I could be
taking her out to dinner with
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