A story by alum Amy Minton (fiction, ’09) appears in the fall issue of Phoebe and you can read an excerpt online:

This rickety fishing-boat-turned-dive-charter stinks of fish guts and flowery aerosol. Planks around the wheelhouse are freshly painted—maybe yesterday, maybe last week. Nothing ever dries in this humidity. A glob of grey paint on the baseboard tells me there is a serious lack of attention to detail on this boat. I needle the paint glob with the tip of my nail until the outer skin bursts and hot grey paint oozes out. Underneath, stuck to the weathered baseboard, a dried fish eye stares at me.

Continue reading online…

We are pleased to announce that the 2015 Goddard/Warren Wilson MFA Alumni Conference will be held in Portland, Oregon at Lewis and Clark College, from July 26 to August 1. Watch this space for more information about the conference, scholarship opportunities, and registration forms.

Alum Robin Black (fiction, ’05) is serving as the February Guest Blogger at Gulf Coast:

Agoraphobia, Writing, and Me: Fear and Laughing at Canyon Ranch

I would pay a lot of money to have the emails I wrote my family and friends in January, 2003, from Canyon Ranch. I suspect they are some of the best writing I’ve ever done.

A little background: In January, 2003 I was nearly forty-one years old, the mother of three children, the wife of one (very patient and understanding) man. And I was a recovering – I hoped – agoraphobic.

Continue reading this piece (along with several others) online…

A story by alum Dale Neal (fiction, ’89) appears at Change Seven:

He’d waited in the holding cell most of the morning for his ride home. Dressed in his courtroom clothes, not the usual inmate coveralls, hair wetted and combed, a man calmly biding the last of his time claimed by the state, waiting to get on with a life outside this cage. But right away, I saw him worrying that stick match between his teeth. Not a good sign the past five years had rehabilitated Randy Sprinkle.

Continue reading online…

An essay by alum Leslie Contreras Schwartz (poetry, ’11) appears at Dame Magazine:

While sitting in the waiting room of my doctor’s office recently, I found myself picking up an academic journal, when something caught my eye: an article called “The Starvation Experiment.” The article I read was about the Minnesota Starvation Experiment, a research project between 1944–1945 in which volunteers underwent starvation for the purpose of studying the psychological effects on its subjects.

Continue reading online…