Faith S. Holsaert (fiction ’82): Faith’s story “September Snow” received an honorable mention in the Doris Betts Fiction Prize at North Carolina Literary Review.

On April 24, Faith and co-editor Martha Noonan read from Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC as part of Appalachian State University’s Diversity Lecture Series.  The two were also featured in March at the Duncan Women’s History Lecture Series, part of UNC Greensboro’s observance of Women’s History Month.  This appearance was especially meaningful, as Greensboro was the site of the February 1, 1960 sit-in that helped usher in the Civil Rights era.

Alumni Patrick Donnelly’s poem “Cradle Song,” featured today on Poetry Daily:

CRADLE-SONG
When I signed for her ashes
I received her, as once
            she received me
into her lyric hold
            and let me ride anchor there,
smaller than the letter alif....[Keep Reading]…
“Cradle Song” is from Patrick’s recently published collection Nocturnes of the Brothel of Ruin (2012, Four Way Books).


Alumna Rose McLarney’s poem “Gather” is up at Poets.org:

Gather

Some springs, apples bloom too soon.
The trees have grown here for a hundred years, and are still       quick
to trust that the frost has finished. Some springs,
pink petals turn black. Those summers, the orchards are empty
and quiet. No reason for the bees to come...[Keep Reading]…

Rose is the author of The Always Broken Plates of Mountains (2012, Four Way Books).

2002 – 2004 Joan Beebe Fellow Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, now director of the Campaign for Southern Equality, speaks with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes about North Carolina’s anti-gay marriage amendment:

Watch the full interview here

Billy Lombardo (fiction, ’09): Billy will be the writer-in-residence at Roosevelt University in Chicago for the 2012-2013 academic year.

Billy is the author of the novel, The Man With Two Arms (2011, Overlook).

Sue Chenette (fiction, ’97):Sue’s poetry collection The Bones of His Being is now available from Guernica Editions.

Bones

(from, The Bones of His Being)

His skin gleams in the watery light, taut
along his chin, the knobbed hinge of jaw.
Cheeks and temples sunk to nothing.
“Doesn’t he have beautiful bones?”
my mother says, quietly, so as not to wake him,
and I think she must mean more than cheekbones
and brow – must mean the bones
of his being, seen clear through the love
and stubborn burrs tangled in their marriage.
I think she is fixing this in memory.
Sun spills reflections on the tiled floor,
a wide lake. She is far from me,
on the distant shore.

2011 poetry graduate RJ Gibson has work currently online at Every Day, a Century:

Early in the Twentieth
RJ Gibson

This happened : twins, conjoined at the pelvis, legless, their body formed a V. In the post-delivery photograph: smeared from being born, foreheads touching, eyes clenched shut until they’re merely seams. Each half screams. Each mouth open: mere inches apart, wide as they might go...[Keep Reading]…

Maya Janson (poetry ‘o6): Maya’s poem “Forged” appears in the current issue of the Massachusetts Review.

Greg Pierce (fiction, 12): Greg will have two plays opening soon in NYC.  Tickets go on sale May 1 for the musical, The Landing, three connected one-acts which he wrote with composer John Kander.  It will run from May 15th to June 3rd at the Vineyard Theatre.  The Landing is directed by Walter Bobbie, and features David Hyde Pierce, Julia Murney, Paul Anthony Stewart, and Jake Bennett Siegfried.  For more information, and to purchase tickets, visit the Vineyard Theatre website.

Greg’s play Slowgirl will open up Lincoln Center’s new theater, The Claire Tow, and will run from June 4 – July 15.  Slowgirl is a two-character play set in Costa Rica. Directed by Anne Kauffman, it features Zeljko Ivanek and Sarah Steele.  Tickets go on sale May 15. More information is available at the Lincoln Center website.

Jamaal May (poetry ’11): Jamaal has won the Beatrice Hawley Award from Alice James Books, for his poetry collection, Hum.  The award includes $2000 and publication in November 2013.  A selection of Jamaal’s published work is available on his personal website.

Jamaal is the third Warren Wilson MFA graduate to win the Beatrice Hawley award.  Reginald Dwayne Betts (poetry, ’10) received it for Shahid Reads His Own Palm (2010, Alice James) and Catherine Barnett (poetry, ’02 ) was awarded it for Into Perfect Spheres Such Holes Are Pierced (2004, Alice James).

Photo from JamaalMay.com