Heidy Steidlmayer (poetry ’00): Fowling Piece, Heidy’s new book of poems, was just released from TRiQuarterly Books, Northwestern University Press. Linda Gregerson said of the poems: “Half anchorite, half archaeologist, she excavates the word-hoard in poems as brilliantly crafted and intensely felt as any I know…Steidlmayer has a mind like surgical steel and a spirit all radiance. Fowling Piece is a stunning debut.”
Jacquelyn Malone (poetry ’82): Jacquelyn’s chapbook All Waters Run to Lethe
Sally Molini (poetry ’04): Sally has published poems in American Letters & Commentary, Asheville Poetry Review, Poet Lore, Atlanta Review, Everyday Genius, and Cimarron Review.
Elizabeth (Libby) Mosier (fiction ’91): Elizabeth’s novella, The Playgroup
Lauren Yaffe (fiction ’92): Lauren has two poems, “Change in Light” and “Tears” forthcoming in Willow Review, spring 2012. In July 2011 she received the Writers’ Relief’s Peter K. Hixson Memorial Award. Her story “A Woman of Letters” appears in the Altered States Anthology (2011, Main Street Rag).
Matthew Olzmann (poetry ’09): Matthew’s first book of poems, Mezzanines, was selected for the 2011 Kundiman Prize and will be published by Alice James Books in April, 2013. This fall, his poems appeared in The Southern Review and Gulf Coast, and he has fiction forthcoming in Twelve Stories and Necessary Fiction.
Sue Oringel (poetry ’98): Sue’s book of Latin American poetry Messengers of Rain
Marcia Pelletiere (poetry ’93): Marcia’s book, Miracle with Roasted Hens was recently published through Spit Bite Press.
Edward Porter (fiction ’07): Edward has a story currently appearing in Printer’s Devil Review and another forthcoming in Barrelhouse. He teaches creative writing and literature at the University of Houston, where he is a fourth year PhD candidate.
Faith S. Holsaert (fiction ’82): Faith’s story “Appalachian Mitzvah” will appear in the winter 2012 edition of Spittoon.
Jenny Johnson (poetry ’11): Jenny is the 2011 winner of the Beloit Poetry Journal’s annual Chad Walsh Poetry Prize for her poem “Aria.” This year, the prize carries an award of $5000. To read the poem and Jenny’s reflections on the crafting of “Aria”, check out the BPJ Poet’s Forum blog
Margaret Kaufman (poetry ’92): Margaret’s latest book of poetry is Inheritance (2010, Sixteen Rivers Press). She is ever grateful for what she learned at Warren Wilson and the for the friends she made there. This winter she’ll teach a course on American Poets of Note at the Fromm Institute for Lifelong Learning (USF).
Krys Lee (fiction ’08): Krys’ story collection Drifting House
Aneesha Capur (fiction ’10): Aneesha’s novel, Stealing Karma
Martha Carlson-Bradley (poetry ’89): Martha’s fourth collection, If I Take You Here
Patrick Donnelly (poetry ’03): Patrick has directed one iteration of the Advanced Seminar, one of three summer poetry conferences at The Frost Place. He is making plans for Advanced Seminar 2012. He would like to thank Wallies Adrian Blevins (faculty), Maudelle Driskell (Executive Director), and special guest Ellen Bryant Voigt for their contributions to last semester’s Seminar. Patrick has also proofed the final galleys for his second book of poems, Nocturnes of the Brothel of Ruin (Stahlecker Selections)
Michelle Gillett (poetry ’82): Michelle’s book The Green Cottage (2011, The Ledge Press) was selected as winner of The Ledge 2010 Poetry Chapbook Award.
Here is Jane’s brief account of her few days on the WWC campus as the creative nonfiction Writer-in-Residence last fall:
The Warren Wilson I knew as an MFA student during the 1980s was very much its own world. We landed on campus for but a brief time in winter and again in summer, and we filled only a small portion of the place. As well, we were consumed with the intensity of the residency. We knew almost nothing of the undergraduate program, and didn’t much comprehend what it meant to be at an historic work college. When I returned as Writer in Residence this past November – for the first time since my graduation in 1988 — a few things were easily familiar: the farm, the river, the view from the ridge. But they were interwoven with the strange: a walking bridge, so many more buildings. Newest of all to me was what had been there all along — the burgeoning undergraduate life of the place: student work crews everywhere trimming trees, building podiums, renovating buildings; live, impromptu music filling the cool November night…. To see it in all its energy and particularities brought Warren Wilson full circle.
For me, teaching creative writing to undergraduates is also an intersection of the familiar and strange. As an undergraduate during the 1970s I had almost no chance to take a creative writing workshop, so to be invited to participate in such a strong writing program felt quite special. As I sat with a senior at Cowpie to go over her portfolio, or as I visited Catherine Reid’s class in Jensen to discuss not only the craft of writing but also the time and dedication that the writing life takes, I could see what a difference early support was making in the students’ lives. And I couldn’t help but be buoyed by so much hope, enthusiasm, and talent in a place that is intimately tied to my own journey as a writer.
Jane is the author of Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light
Mary Bonina (poetry ’85): Mary is thrilled that her poetry chapbook, “Living Proof” (2010, Cervena Barva Press), is now a part of the WWC library collection, call number and all! It’s available through the Cervena Barva Press website. A review by Jen Garfield, poetry editor at Prick of the Spindle, is also available.
Julie Bruck (poetry ’86): Julie’s third book of poetry, Monkey Ranch, will be published by Brick Books in March, 2012. In other news, Julie Bruck and Lewis Buzbee’s daughter Maddy starts high school next year (Eek!).
Mary Lou Buschi (poetry ’04): Mary Lou has poems forthcoming in Willow Springs, Cream City Review, Rhino, and Gargoyle. She finished her fellowship with the New York City Teaching Fellows and is staying on as a full-time special education teacher working with adolescents diagnosed with autism.
Lewis Buzbee (Fiction ’82): Lewis’ new novel, Bridge of Time
Dilruba Ahmed (poetry ’09): Dilruba’s poetry collection Dhaka Dust: Poems
Lucy Anderton (poetry ’05): In 2011 Lucy published poems in Fence and Drunken Boat. Her chapbook “Lantern” was a semi-finalist for the Tupelo Press Snowbound Chapbook Award. But Lucy says, “This is all frosting on the cake of the biggest news: In October I had the enormous good fortune of safely giving birth to my first child, Ophelia Melody. She sends you all a good and gusty ‘Squawk!!!!’”
Pam Bernard (poetry ’96): Pam began an educational outreach program centered around her book of narratives about the Great War, Blood Garden: An Elegy for Raymond (2010, WordTech Communications). She shares Blood Garden with students in high school and undergraduate history and writing programs, in an effort to engage young people with the personal experience of war. She has found the response staggering.
Phil Boiarski (poetry ’80): Phil’s poems can be found between Maxwell Bodenheim and Sarah Knowles Bolton at the UK’s Black Cat Poems, an online anthology of modern poetry.
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