Creative Writing — Kudos

"Abstract Wall"
Copyright © 2005 by James Daigh

The following are recent accomplishments by MFA program students, alumni, and faculty.

WINTER/SPRING 2013

CANDACE BLACK has poems published recently in West Trade Review and Tenth Muse, as well as an essay in Superstition Review (http://superstitionreview.asu.edu/issue11).

ERIC BRAUN received an Artist Initiative grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board for creative projects that will lead to new publications. He also recetly won a Loft McKnight Award in creative prose.

LUKE DALY has poems forthcoming in Comstock Review.

TOM FLYNN recently published an article in The Peoria Journal Star about minor league baseball player Tom Sheehan, a piece now made part of the permanent record for Sheehan in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He also has a short baseball memory piece called "Predictions" scheduled to be published as part of Hobart's month-long, online baseball issue (http://www.hobartpulp.com/). 

HEIDI FUHR has had a piece accepted by Revolution House.

RHONDA GIBSON will have her essay "Maiko" published in The Places We’ve Been, an anthology of travel writing, to be released in April.

DIANA JOSEPH received an Artist Initiative grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board for creative projects that will lead to new publicatios.

ARUNI KASHYAP recently published a short story in Warscapes and another in Per Contra. One more is forthcoming in Cerebration. 

CHRISTINA OLSON has new work in Flyway, Hobart, The Southern Review, and the forthcoming anthology Writing That Risks (Red Bridge Press). She recently accepted the position of poetry editor for the journal Midwestern Gothic.

NICK RELLER'S story "Lovebirds" appears in a recent Mankato Magazine.

RICHARD ROBBINS gave readings recently in Lawrence, KS, and at The Writers Place in Kansas City. He has recent work in Field, Rufous City Review, Hotel Amerika, and Sugar House Review.

JESSICA SMITH'S story "Useful Things to Lose" was shortlisted for the 2013 Arcadia Short Story Prize, and will be published in Arcadia #6, which will be out shortly.

ROBIN THRONE recently was named fourth recipient of the Midwest Writing Center's David R. Collins Literary Achievement Award. She lives in the Quad Cities.

SUMMER/FALL 2012

LESLEY ARIMAH has been awarded a Jerome Travel and Study grant for work on her novel.

CANDACE BLACK has two poems in the Summer 2012 issue of New Madrid and three poems in the current issue of Hubbub. She was featured in a May 22, 2012 interview on North Country Public Radio (Plattsburgh, NY) http://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/19859/20120522/saranac-review-poems-nominated-for-pushcart-prize

MELISSA BRANDT has been named a 2012 McKnight Screenwriting Fellow. Her feature-length screenplay, Dog Year, was a semi-finalist in both the American Zoetrope and Slamdance screenwriting competitions. Her screenplay Cordelia was optioned for production in 2009. Most recently, Melissa wrote and directed the short film "Motherhood."

NICOLE HELGET sold a young adult novel, The Great Responsibility of Hallelujah Wonder, and another unnamed book to Andrea Spooner at Little, Brown and Company. The books will be released in 2014 and 2015.

ARUNI KASHYAP has recently published a poem in Postcolonial Text http://postcolonial.org/index.php/pct/article/view/1444/1318 and has two poems forthcoming in The Sunday Guardian. A short story appears in Pyrta Journal http://www.pyrtajournal.com/#!prose/vstc32=aruni

KYLE JAEGER had an article and photos published in the September issue of a local community magazine in Edina called Parkwood Knolls Life. The article is called "A Rug for all Occasions."

NATE LeBOUTILLIER presented prose workshops/panels at the Emerald Isle Writers' Conference from August 6-12 in Kodiak, Alaska. MSU MFA alum MELISSA BRANDT also presented screenwriting workshops/panels. MERISSA KOLLER, who earned a B.A. in Creative Writing at MSU, organized the conference as part of her work with the Kodiak Arts Council and affiliation with KMXT public radio in Kodiak.

LINTON LEWIS' poem, "Peter Parker, once bitten," will be featured in the upcoming issue of Rascal Magazine.

CAITLIN O'SULLIVAN has had flash fiction published in Consequence Magazine's Spring 2012 issue (www.consequencemagazine.org) and Crack The Spine's 25th issue (www.crackthespine.com). She will also have a flash piece forthcoming in Midnight Screaming. An excerpt from her novel, The Kiss-Off, won the Luminis Books writing contest at the 39th Midwest Writers' Workshop on July 28, 2012.  The winning entry will appear at  http://luminisbooks.com/luminis-prize.html through August. And she's been accepted for a three-month residency in Jack Kerouac's old house in Orlando, Florida.

ASHLEY PORTRA published Our Chapters: Celebrating 50 Years of Leadership, Scholarship, Service and Friendship, an historical narrative celebrating Greek life at MSU.

RICHARD ROBBINS has recent work in Cave Wall, Permafrost, Rattle, Natural Bridge, South Dakota Review, RACA Online, and New Walk.

COLIN SCHARF published an essay about his band's tour to SXSW 2012 entitled "Deep in the Heart of Texas" in the May 2012 issue of Landlocked Magazine. Another piece entitled "Pretty Boy" is featured in October's issue. His "Glamorous"  is featured in the October edition of The Postcard Press. 

SARAH SNOOK has a poem scheduled for publication in The Broken Plate.

WINTER/SPRING 2012

LESLEY ARIMAH was awarded a grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation for work on her novel. She was also a recent recipient of a Jerome/SASE grant.

BRIAN BAUMGART has had micro-fiction published in both Nail Polish Stories (online) and Blink Ink. He teaches at North Hennepin Community College, where he coordinates the AFA in Creative Writing program and curates the Meet the Authors Reading Series.

JESSICA BENJAMIN works at IBM and, among other things, writes for their blog:  http://www.smartercomputingblog.com/contributorsprofile/?user_id=28 She's now the Digital Media Chair for Girls Write Now, helping design a the Digital Remix Pilot featuring dorkShops that incorporate digital tools with creative writing. It's run in collaboration with Parsons The Newschool of Design, and Figment.com.

KRIS BIGALK, MELISSA BRANDT, MATT MAUCH, and TRISHA SPEED SHASKAN were all awarded Artist Initiative grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board.

KRIS BIGALK'S poetry collection, Repeat the Flesh in Numbers, was published by NYQ Books in February of 2012.  Two of her poems, "Miscarriage" and "A Dissection of Faith" appear in Open to Interpretation: Water's Edge, a juried anthology of poetry and photography.  She was one of four Normandale faculty awarded a 2012 MnSCU Board of Trustees Excellence in Teaching Award.  She will serve as Keynote Speaker at the 2012 League of Minnesota Poets Conference in April, 2012.

CANDACE BLACK'S "Blue and White" is included in the anthology Collecting Life:  Poets on Objects Known and Unknown. She recently had a poem featured in "American Life in Poetry," a nationally distributed newspaper project led by former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser. Other new poems are included in Burnt District.

KRISTYN BLESSING had a poem published in American Tanka this winter, and will be teaching English Language and Culture at Shandong University of Science and Technology this spring semester.

SARAH ZENK BLOSSOM'S short story, "Goodbye Green and White," is to be published in Blue Lake Review's May 2012 issue:  http://bluelakereview.weebly.com/

ROY BUCK has poems forthcoming in Espresso Fiction: A Collection of Flash Fiction for the Average Joe.

ALI CATT'S flash nonfiction piece "Going to See a Man About a Dog" is featured in Airplane Reading (http://airplanereading.org/) She has essays and poetry forthcoming in The Dirty Napkin, decomP, and Used Furniture Review.

JENNIFER DAHLEN is going on sabbatical for spring 2012 from her position at Northland Community College in Grand Forks.

TERRY DAVIS and REBECCA FJELLAND DAVIS both have stories included in Girl Meets Boy: Because There are Two Sides to Every Story, a newly released YA anthology (January 2012) by Chronicle. Twelve YA authors  team up for this collection of “he said/she said” stories—he tells it from the guy’s point of view; she tells it from the girl’s.

NICOLE HELGET will receive MSU Mankato's 2012 Alumni Achievement Award in this spring's ceremonies.

GEOFF HERBACH'S young adult novel, Nothing Special, comes out in May. It is a 2012 Junior Library Guild selection.  Herbach's Stupid Fast has been named a YALSA Best YA Fiction Selection for 2012, won a Cybil Award for Best YA Fiction of 2011, and has made several best-of-2011 lists.

ARUNI KASHYAP has a story in Evergreen Review and another accepted for publication in Kartika Review, an Asian-American literary journal. He has also recently given a presentation and reading in New York.

DEANNA LARSEN'S poem "Translations" was nominated by the magazine Mixed Fruit for a Pushcart Prize. Her poem "What Rape is Like" has been nominated by Blood Orange Review for the same prize.

BRONSON LEMER'S memoir The Last Deployment: How a Gay, Hammer-Swinging Twentysomething Survived a Year in Iraq is a finalist for a Minnesota Book Award.

NANCY LOEWEN'S The Last Day of Kindergarten is a finalist for a Minnesota Book Award.

THOMAS MALTMAN'S second novel, Little Wolves, will be published by Soho Press in Fall 2012.

ANGELA MULLEN'S poems "Father," "Box and Blade," and "Because I am not able to include everything in a poem" are forthcoming in the publication Northwind. And my poem "Mars" is forthcoming in The Fiddleback. She will be the Andreas Graduate Assistant for 2012-2013.

LINDSY O'BRIEN received third place in the 2012 B.J. Rolfzen Memorial Creative Writing Contest for her short story "In the Black," which will be published in the associated journal Talkin' Blues.  She also has new poetry appearing in Talking Stick.

CHRISTINA OLSON has new poetry and nonfiction in Passages North, Midwestern Gothic, Gargoyle, Willow Springs, and Rhino. Her poem, "Blue Teeth," will appear in the forthcoming anthology American Creative Writers on Class.

RICHARD ROBBINS spent the month of January in Scotland at the Hawthornden Castle International Retreat for Writers, and the month of March as visiting writer at Randolph College in Lynchburg, VA. He has recent work in Burnt District, The Cincinnati Review, Poet Lore, and Field.

LUKE ROLFES has stories appearing in Georgetown Review, Permafrost, and Blue Mesa Review. His collection of stories was a semifinalist for the 2011 New American Fiction Contest by New American Press.

ROGER SHEFFER won the 2011 Crab Creek Fiction Prize, judged by Kim Barnes. He has a story forthcoming in BlueLine.

JESS SMITH'S story "Something Quick and Bright" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. It was published in Ruminate Magazine, where it was runner-up in the William Van Dyke Short Story prize.

CHRISTINE STARK'S Nickels: A Tale of Dissociation is a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. The winners will be announced in NYC on June 4th.

SCOTT WROBEL'S Cul de Sac, stories about a group of suburban guys who all live on the same dead-end street, will be released on April 20, which will also be the launch party reading at Magers & Quinn Bookstore in Minneapolis. See the trailer at http://scottwrobel.com/Culdetrailer.htm

SUMMER/FALL 2011

JESSICA BENJAMIN has accepted a corporate communications position at IBM, writing for internal and external global audiences. Her memoir "Lullaby" was published in The Laurel Review's fall issue and another memoir, "Half Staff," will be published in the 2011 Girls Write Now Anthology, Opening Lines.

KRIS BIGALK'S book of poems Repeat the Flesh in Numbers has been accepted by New York Quarterly Press and will be published in 2012.

CANDACE BLACK had poems appear in the anthology Poetry City, USA, Cape Rock, and The Saranac Review. In June, she enjoyed a week-long CENTRUM Artist Residency in Port Townsend, WA.

ROY BUCK has had pieces accepted for Inopinata, Juxtaposed, Fiction Parade, and the inaugural issue of Gambling the Aisle.

THOM CHESNEY is now President of Brookhaven Community College in Texas.

ANDE DAVIS has accepted an instructorship at Eastern Oklahoma State College. He has a story in the current South Dakota Review and has had work accepted recently by Hawai'i Review.

REBECCA FJELLAND DAVIS' Chasing AllieCat was published in February by Flux, and became a Junior Library Guild Selection in April.

RHEA DAVISON-EDWARDS has been awarded an artist residency at Devil's Tower National Monument. She will be in residence sometime in September or October.

KRISTIN DODGE-NARJES' first book, Power Plays, is going to be re-released as an e-book.

CLINT EDWARDS has essays in Yemassee and Post Road and one recently accepted by North Dakota Quarterly.

JENNIFER FANDEL'S poems have been recently published or forthcoming in Gulf Stream, Calyx Journal and A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry (University of Akron Press). She is a contributing editor for River Styx, a board member at the St. Louis Poetry Center, and presently works as a program manager for StudioSTL, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering youth through writing.

ROGER HART'S short story, "Like Flying," is forthcoming in The Tampa Review. His essay "Runners" has been included in the anthology Runners on Running.

NICK HEALY was a resident fellow at the Anderson Center in July 2011.

NICOLE HELGET and NATE LeBOUTILLIER sold their co-authored Horse Camp, a middle-grade novel, to Egmont USA. It comes out next summer.

GEOFF HERBACH'S young-adult novel Stupid Fast had various book launches in New York and Minneapolis in recent weeks. The book has been nominated for an ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults Award.

AMI IRMEN just accepted a full time instructor position at Kishwaukee College, where she will be acting as the Developmental Writing Specialist.

ARUNI KASHYAP has published a story in Himal Southasian and has had a story taken by Evergreen Review.

JOSH OLSEN'S chapbook Six Months is due out soon. Information at http://zygoteinmycoffee.com/taintedcoffeepress/sixmonths.html

RICHARD ROBBINS has poems in Sierra Nevada Review, Hubbub, the Occupy Writers web site, and several other journals. A poem and essay appear in Poetry City USA, stories in Green Mountains Review and Permafrost, and an article in The Emily Dickinson Bulletin. A profile and sample poems are featured at the Oregon Poetic Voices website: http://www.oregonpoeticvoices.org/poet/212/

RICHARD TERRILL had new poems appear in Poetry City USA, Nimrod, South Dakota Review, Poetry Daily, and Great River Review. An essay appeared in Brevity. Reviews and criticism appeared in New Letters, Poetry City USA, and Triquarterly.

SETH WELLS has a poem forthcoming in Mason's Road.

SCOTT WROBEL'S book of stories Cul de Sac will be published by Sententia Books in 2012.

WINTER/SPRING 2011

LESLEY ARIMAH, NICOLE HELGET, LISA MB SIMONS, and RICHARD TERRILL were all awarded 2011 Artist Initiative Grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board.

KARA GARBE BALCERZAK has had a piece accepted by Brevity.

BRIAN BAUMGART was named director of creative writing at North Hennepin Community College. He has poems forthcoming in Ruminate and Blood Honey Review, and fiction forthcoming in Infinity's Kitchen. He will present with other MSU alumni at the AWP meeting in Washington, DC.

KRIS BIGALK now curates the Banfill-Locke Reading Series in Fridley, Minnesota. She has recently published poems in The Cream City Review and Mead, and has poems forthcoming in Rougarou. In May, she will be the keynote speaker at the SCCC Creative Writing Festival in Selden, New York.

CANDACE BLACK'S poem "Blue and White" has been published in Blood Orange Review http://www.bloodorangereview.com/v5-3/v5-3.htm and the poem "Confession" has been published in Pearl.

ROY BUCK has had work taken by Hot Metal Bridge.

RHEA DAVISON-EDWARDS placed first in the Robert Wright Award competition. Second, third, and honorable mention went to LOGAN GARRELS, CLINT EDWARDS, and ANGELA MULLEN, respectively. The judge was Debra Monroe.

BEN DREVLOW will teach next year at Georgia Southern University.

MELISSA GISH is an assistant professor of English at Glenville State University. Prior to her position there, she was a tenured instructor at New Mexico State University—Carlsbad.

NICK HEALY'S It Takes You Over won the Many Voices Project Prize, sponsored by New Rivers Press. His book will be published next year.

LINTON LEWIS was awarded the Toy Wilson Blethen Fine Arts Award by the MSU College of Arts and Humanities.

DODIE MILLER'S poem, "Moms of Drug Addicts, 1970s" is forthcoming in the literary journal, Tenth Muse. Her essays "Experimental Fiction" and "Trainspotting" are forthcoming from Salem Press.

ANGIE MULLEN has poems forthcoming in Ghost Town and Welter.

JULIE NELSON is a full-time faculty member at Midlands Technical College in South Carolina.

CHRISTINA OLSON has new poetry and nonfiction forthcoming in Gastronomica, H-ngm-n, The Nervous Breakdown, and The Normal School. She was recently awarded a full fellowship to the Vermont Studio Center, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She will teach next year at Georgia Southern University.

CAITLIN O'SULLIVAN will be the 2011-2012 Nadine B. Andreas Graduate Assistant.

RICHARD ROBBINS' poem "Right" was featured at The Write Question blog, the internet arm of the radio program broadcast from KUFM in Missoula: http://thewritequestion.blogspot.com/2010/12/monday-poem-right.html He has given readings recently in Oregon,Montana, and Wisconsin.

JESSICA SMITH'S story "Something Quick and Bright" was runner-up for the Ruminate Magazine William Van Dyke Short Story Prize.

DARREN WIELAND has accepted a full-time position at Minneapolis Community and Technical College.

SUMMER/FALL 2010

BRIAN BAUMGART has poems forthcoming in Orange Coast Review and Tipton Poetry Journal.

JESSICA BENJAMIN will be a writing mentor for Girls Write Now http://www.girlswritenow.org/gwn/, a nonprofit that provides guidance, support, and opportunities for New York City's high school girls to develop their creative, independent voices, explore careers in professional writing, and learn how to make healthy choices in school, career, and life.

KRIS BIGALK'S poems appear in recent issues of The New York Quarterly and Water~Stone Review. She will attend the 2010 Bread Loaf Writer's Conference in Middlebury, Vermont in August.

CANDACE BLACK has two poems in the spring 2010 issue of Southern Indiana Review and a poem in the 2010 issue of Memoir (and). Three poems appeared recently in the Autumn 2010 issue of The Fourth River, and Garrison Keillor read a poem of hers on "The Writer's Almanac" for October 24: writersalmanac.publicradio.org/

TIFFANY BRENNEMAN has work forthcoming in Sugar House Review.

Having finished a MA degree at St. Thomas, SARA (HASLADALEN) DAILEY (BA, 2001) is working towards her MFA at Hamline University and teaching classes at the Minnesota School of Business, University of Phoenix online, and Hamline. Her manuscript, The Science of Want, won the Shadow Poetry chapbook competition in 2009.

RHEA DAVISON-EDWARDS received one of the inaugural Coughlan Companies college scholarships.

JW DUNNAN has accepted a full-time teaching position at Georgia Southern University.

CLINT EDWARDS received one of the inaugural Coughlan Companies college scholarships. He has an essay in the summer issue of The Baltimore Review.

KARA GARBE has had a piece accepted for publication in the Tusculum Review.

LOGAN GARRELS' story "Floaters" was accepted for publication in Big Muddy: A Journal of the Mississippi River Valley out of Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau

RYAN HAVELY has been offered a full-time position teaching at West Virginia University.

JUDITH JOHNSON received one of the inaugural Coughlan Companies college scholarships.

BRONSON LEMER'S memoir The Last Rodeo: How a Hammer-Swinging Twentysomething Survived a Year in Iraq has been approved for publication by the University of Wisconsin Press. He has also accepted an English instructor position at Turtle Mountain Community College in North Dakota.

LINTON LEWIS' short plays "Waiting On Godot" and "Bill Watterson's Graphic Novel" have been selected for performance by the Minnesota Shorts Festival of Plays and The Lost Flamingo Company, respectively.

PATRICIA LINEHAN published Win Them Over: Techniques for College Adjuncts and New Faculty (Atwood Publishing).

CHRISTINA OLSON has new poetry and nonfiction in Barn Owl Review, Passages North, Water~Stone Review, The Ledge, Anti-, and Wake. A collaborative broadside of her poem "At the Christmas Party for the Infectious Diseases" appears at BroadsidedPress.org.

ALEX PHILLIPS has a poem coming in the next issue of the Southeast Review.

RICHARD ROBBINS was interviewed for the "Irving Toast, Poetry Ghost" program on KRUU-FM. The interview is archived at http://english2.mnsu.edu/robbins/sounds/robbinsirvingtoastinterview.mp3 He has new poems in Ellipsis and Hawai'i Pacific Review.

LUKE ROLFES has had these short stories accepted recently: "Horse" by The MacGuffin; "Fish on the Lake's Floor" by Bat City Review; "Honeybears" by Connecticut Review; and "Palestine Boy" by Water-stone Review.

SARAH SNOOK has accepted a full-time teaching position at Georgia Southern University.

CHRISTINE STARK'S first novel, Nickels, will be published in 2011 with Modern History Press. Her poem, "Momma's Song", is being released as a cd compilation project and manga book with musician/author Fred Ho. She was nominated for a 2009 Pushcart Prize and she also won a 2010 creative non-fiction mentorship at the Loft. She teaches writing at Inver Hills Community College and Metropolitan State University.

RICHARD TERRILL served as writer-in-residence for the Writers’ Center at the Chautauqua Institution, Chautauqua, NY, in July, and taught this summer at the Rhinelander School of the Arts, University of Wisconsin Extension. He has poems appearing in Black Clock, New Letters, Connecticut Review, and the anthology Reeds and Rushes—Pitch, Buzz, and Hum. An essay, “Dasn’t,” appears in the anthology One Word from Sarabande Books.

KUDOS ARCHIVES here.

 

Got kudos? Send us an e-mail, or write to:

Kudos Page
Creative Writing Program
Department of English
230 Armstrong Hall
Mankato, MN 56001