Life of a Writer: April 2026

EXCITING NEWS & UPDATES FROM SPALDING'S NASLUND-MANN SCHOOL OF WRITING STUDENTS, ALUMNI, FACULTY & STAFF

Students

Laura Candler’s (P) poem “Gyrinophilus palleucus (Tennessee Cave Salamander)” is forthcoming in the spring issue of Gulf Coast.

Molly McNamara Carter (W4CYA) just released a picture book that explores the humorous adventures of a clever desert animal with a surprise ending. Roadrunner Fran: A Desert Retelling of The Gingerbread Man, illustrated by Cleriston Ribeiro and published by Lawley Publishing, was recently featured in the Children’s Book Council’s “Hot Off the Press” list, highlighting notable new titles for educators and librarians. Her work is showcased on her website: mollymcnamaracarter.com and on her on Instagram @mollymac_car.

Grace Chapel (P) published a poem titled “Floridian Birds” in Thin Air Magazine.

Victoria Chatfield (F), writing as V.A. Vazquez, will publish her debut novel, The Death Row Club, on July 14 with Scout Press/Simon & Schuster. The novel will also be released in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Russia, and Japan. She had the pleasure of attending the American Booksellers Association’s Winter Institute this year with her publisher and will be presenting on a panel about different paths to publishing at ThrillerFest in NYC. Find her online at vavazquez.com and on Instagram @vavazquezwrites.

Kelly Cooper (P) published her poem “Testimonial” and was the featured writer in Neon & Smoke online mixed lit publication for Issue Two.

Emily Persichetti Schuster’s short story “The Flat Line of the Horizon” is forthcoming in 2026 from Allium, A Journal of Poetry and Prose. Two of her poems, “The Nightmare” and “Cancer,” will appear in the anthology Beautiful and Terrifying: Tales and Visions from the Edge of the Uncanny from Elderfly Press, releasing April 23. Follow Emily on Instagram.

Melissa Shepherd (P) will moderate a discussion between the poets and scholars Dr. Ann E. Wallace and Dr. Catalina Florescu on the evening of May 5 at Little City Books in Hoboken, New Jersey, focused on their latest poetry collections and the intersection between creativity and healing.

Jo Tyler (P) has a new chapbook, Rooms for Love, published by Bottlecap Press. All Jo’s proceeds from the chapbook will be donated to House of Ruth Maryland, a Baltimore women’s shelter that provides spaces and support services for women escaping domestic violence. The chapbook is available for purchase at Bottlecap Press and on Jo’s website: jotylerpoet.com. In addition, Jo’s poem "Ink" took second place in the Helen Conroy Kennedy Poetry Award, sponsored by the Howard County (Maryland) Poetry and Literary Society. You can watch a video of Jo reading the poem and read an author interview here.

Faculty & Staff

Whitney Collins (faculty, F) has stories forthcoming in The Idaho Review, The Laurel Review, Miracle Monocle, and Pembroke Magazine. Her story “Truth or Consequences” was nominated by Hex for a 2026 Pushcart Prize and 2026 Best Small Fictions.

Kathleen Driskell (Chair), Kentucky Poet Laureate 2025-26, speaks on Kentucky Writers’ Day, April 24, at the Kentucky History Museum and Paul Sawyier Public Library with other Kentucky Poets Laureate. Recently, she opened the program at Joe Creason Park in Louisville launching a Poetry Walk, featuring the work of Kentucky Poets Laureate, the first of its kind. She leads a generative writing workshop at Pine Mountain State Resort Park near Pineville, May 8 – 10, and then is in Henderson, Kentucky, to give an opening talk for the Hospitality Summit on May 13. She recently visited Cadiz, Kentucky, where she talked to Trigg County High School students and later gave a literary talk and reading for an audience at the Janice Mason Art Museum. She was keynote speaker for the annual conference of the Bluegrass Writers’ Coalition in Frankfort. She continues her series “Reading Kentucky Poets with Kathleen Driskell” for the Kentucky State Poetry Society, a virtual presentation that next takes place on April 22 at 6:30 p.m. Eastern. In April, she was asked to provide remarks for the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame at the Kentucky Theater in Lexington, and she served as one of the adjudicators for the Kentucky Youth Poet Laureate competition organized by Gateway Regional Arts Center in Mt. Sterling. The Kentucky Arts Council asked Kathleen to facilitate a conversation on their webinar series with poets David Harrity, Leatha Kendrick, and Shauna M. Morgan to discuss their work and to celebrate National Poetry Month. View a recording of that discussion here.

Nathan Gower (faculty, F) delivered a guest lecture, public reading, and book signing on the campus of Western Kentucky University in February. The lecture, delivered to undergraduate students in the WKU English Department, covered strategies for reading fiction with an eye toward craft. The public reading included excerpts from his novel The Act of Disappearing and a work in progress.

Angela Jackson-Brown (faculty, F) is the recipient of the Luetzelschwab-Burkhart Professional Development research grant awarded by Indiana University to aid her in the research of an upcoming novel tentatively titled Underneath the Chinaberry Tree. In March, Angela was on a panel at AWP, “Dorothy Allison: Breaking Down Barriers for Women Writers.” On March 24, she gave the keynote address for Women’s History Month at Hanover College in Hanover, Indiana. On March 29, Angela was on two panels, “Living the Past Through Story” and “Storytellers with a Drawl,” at the Read Freely Fest in Columbia, South Carolina.

Erin Keane (faculty, P, CNF) read at the 13th Rock & Roll Reading, an annual AWP off-site event, in Baltimore. Her essay on Guns N’ Roses and Hamlet, “November Rain in Denmark,” made it to the Final Four in the March Sadness Tournament of Sad ’90s Songs, and she has the T-shirt to prove it. One of her previous March Xness essays, “There Are Many Atlantic Cities and This One Belongs to Levon Helm,” about The Band’s cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “Atlantic City” and her father, is included in Hit Repeat Until I Hate Music: The March Xness Anthology, out now from Split/Lip Press. Also in March, she appeared at Carmichael’s Bookstore in Louisville, in conversation with poet Mitchell L.H. Douglas about Universal Corner, his new collection from Persea Books.

Karen Mann (co-founder and administrative director) was recently invited to read the 1947 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel All the King’s Men by Kentuckian Robert Penn Warren, the first poet laureate of the US. Reluctant at first, she enjoyed the writing, which included fresh and original imagery in very plain, ordinary language. Set in the South, the novel recounts the story of a governor who used shady methods to benefit his constituency. Recommended to prose writers who are interested in language, voice, and setting.

Nancy McCabe (faculty, CNF, F) has recent or forthcoming essays in Every Mother’s Daughter from Woodhall Press, North American Review, Short Reads, and New Ohio Review and poems in Northern Appalachian Review, Calyx, and Nine Mile. She has published three book reviews in The Pittsburgh Post Gazette, one of which was excerpted in Lit Hub. Since retiring from undergraduate teaching, she has been working on her craft book, Creating Some Measure of Beauty: The Healing Power of the Artful Essay, under contract with University of New Mexico Press, and has taught workshops privately and through Craft Talks. She did readings and book signings in Oklahoma and Kansas and organized the Hauntings tour, a Halloween week tour with four other writers from Regal House Press, with six stops throughout northwestern Pennsylvania and western New York. In addition, she gave a reading at the Lit Youngstown Festival and directed a table reading of her play based on her novel The Pamela Papers. Finally, she has started a Substack newsletter, Irons in the Fire, at Mccabe, Nancy Grace | Substack. Please subscribe! It’s free. 

Lesléa Newman (faculty, W4CYA) is thrilled to announce the publication of her newest picture book, Something Sweet: A Sitting Shiva Story, illustrated by Sarita Rich and published by Charlesbridge. “A sensitive introduction to grief and to Jewish mourning rituals.”–Kirkus Reviews.

Kira Obolensky’s (faculty, DW) new play, Willa Cather Is Dying, was featured in Fresh Ink, Illusion Theater. Her short film, The Lion, has been accepted into various festivals including New York Shorts, Nevada Film, Beverly Hills Film Festival, Tokyo Film, Durango, Venice Shorts, Lighthouse Festival, and La Guarimba in Italy.

Katy Yocom (F ’03, associate director) attended the Erma Bombeck Writers Workshop in Dayton, Ohio, in March, along with Lia Eastep (CNF ’08). She was delighted to see (and learn from) Katrina Kittle (F ’08), who was on the workshop’s faculty.

Alumni

Tara Anderson’s (MFA, PW ’21) play “Life of the Party” had its world premiere as part of Actors Theatre of Louisville’s Storytelling Revolution Festival in April. The one-act immersive play about a shopping party gone askew was first drafted as her MFA thesis. A co-production with Untitled Louisville Theatre Company, three additional performances took place at the Conrad-Caldwell House in Old Louisville. Tara will read from her play at the Alumni Celebration of New Works, May 28, on Spalding’s campus at Homecoming.

Verna Austen’s (MFA, F ’05) poem, “How to Clean Out Your Brother’s Car After He Dies,” which she wrote in Leslea Newman’s poetry workshop in SpaldingCon 2025, appeared in the October 2025 issue of Flying Island Journal. She also self-published a collection of her poetry, Sometimes I See the Sun.

Amanda Burr Xido (MFA, F/CNF ’18) is producer of the 2025 documentary Sons of Detroit, which was awarded a prestigious grant from the Ford Foundation’s JustFilms program supporting social justice storytelling. Recently, Sons of Detroit won Director’s Choice Best Documentary Award at the Sedona International Film Festival in March and was written up in Variety. It also received three sold-out screenings at True/False Film Fest.

Cheré Coen (MAW, F ’23) recently moved to Portland, Oregon, and will teach creative writing classes starting this summer at Portland Community College.

Amy Cornell (MFA, F ’25) participated in the National Poetry Writing Month challenge to write a new poem a day for thirty days.  She recently won an award for best CNF at table//FEAST Literary Magazine for her piece titled “What I Need to Tell You.” She has two stories forthcoming in Louisiana Literature and Good River Review. She happily continues to chair the board of the nonprofit arts organization Women Writing for (a) Change-Bloomington and leads writing circles for incarcerated women in Monroe County, Indiana.

Dave DeGolyer (MFA, W4CYA/P ’06) will deliver a special presentation for the MFA Program’s 25th anniversary at Homecoming, May 28, based on his experience writing a historical short story that inspired a nationally recognized community festival.

Daniel DiStasio (MFA, F ’05) has had his short story “Spectacled Bear” accepted for publication in Oyster River Pages in their ninth annual issue, due in September! He will be spending time in August in Alaska hunting more bear stories.

David Dominé’s (MFA, F ’13) 2023 true-crime saga A Dark Room in Glitter Ball City was adapted for television as an HBO Original and appeared as a two-part documentary, Murder in Glitterball City, on HBO Max earlier this year.

Mike Fitzer (SW ’25) was recently interviewed about his Spalding experience on Jared McCormack’s MFA Writers podcast. He also spoke with Kyle Meredith on Louisville’s WFPK 91.9-FM as part of a series on the burgeoning Kentucky film scene.

Carolyn Flynn (MFA, F/CNF ’12) is celebrating the release of the audiobook for Boundless, her tragicomic empty-nest memoir and the upcoming slate of seventeen (and counting!) podcast interviews about themes in the book. Catch them on her Substack or Spotify.

Holly Gleason’s #1 New York Times best-selling book with co-author Kenny Chesney, Heart Life Music (William Morrow), was featured in a curated list of fifty nonfiction titles “that reflect the imprint’s editorial range and contribution to American publishing,” celebrating the 100th anniversary of William Morrow.

Cyn Kitchen’s (MFA, F ’05) first full-length collection of poems, Broken Hallelujah, is due out in June. More information about the book can be found on Cyn’s website: cynkitchen.net or on her Substack: The Kitchen Cynk @cynkitchen1. Cyn is Professor and Chair of English at Knox College in Central Illinois where she is completing her twentieth year teaching creative writing and literature.

Holly Lovejoy (MFA, TVSS ’20) directed the world premiere of Domenick Scudera’s Two People of Verona as part of Power to the People 2.0 staged by Almost Adult productions. Her play “Off the Market” was selected for the inaugural Sin Limites reading series with Duke City Repertory. She is preparing to attend the Stowe Story Labs Remote Writers Retreat in June as a New Voices New Mexico Fellow. 

Roland Mann (MFA, W4CYA ’11) is proud to announce the release of his sophomore novel, The Interns, a young adult superhero comedy about a teen hero finding his place in the world. “My time at Spalding is instrumental to the writer I am today,” Mann said. “The Interns is the final result of what I began while a student there.” Seventeen-year-old Caleb Randolph has just graduated from superhero academy, trained for fame and big-city lights. But when internship assignments are announced, Caleb doesn’t get New York or Los Angeles. He gets Oxford, Mississippi. Forced to operate under the identity of a small-town school mascot, Caleb must navigate awkward encounters, suspicious locals, and unexpected danger while discovering what being a hero truly means. Saving the world is easy. Surviving your internship is the hard part. The Interns is a 249-page YA novel available in paperback, hardback, and eBook through Amazon and select retailers.

Katie Massa Kennedy (MFA, P ’24) recently celebrated the publication of Abortion Archive, her new poetry chapbook that tells the history of the U.S. abortion movement through poems. The event was held at the iconic Last Bookstore in Los Angeles and featured readings, a collaborative community project, and a wine reception. The collection is now available through Chicago-based imprint Dancing Girl Press.

Amina S. McIntyre’s (PW ’09) play Queen Bess was presented by Théâtre du Rêve March 11 – 29 at 7 Stages Theatre in Atlanta. The play celebrates American legend Bessie Coleman, who lived in the early 1900s as a mixed-race Black and Native American woman. Due to Jim Crow restrictions and gender discrimination in the U.S., she earned her pilot’s license (the first ever earned by a Black woman or a Native American, and the first international license earned by any American) by teaching herself French and then traveling to France to study. More than 100 years later, her resourcefulness and accomplishments tell a story that continues to challenge and inspire. Amina will read from her play at the Alumni Celebration of New Works, May 28, on Spalding’s campus at Homecoming.

Pamela Reese’s (MFA, P ’04) novel In the Fields of Fatherless Children was recently reviewed by the L.A. Times, which said: “Now more than ever, we need books such as In the Fields of Fatherless Children to help us make sense of, and right, our upside-down world.” She will read from her novel on Spalding’s campus at the Alumni Celebration of New Works, May 28, at Homecoming.

Susan P. Ryan (MFA, CNF ’15) will read from her memoir Brainstorm: Navigating Life with Chronic Migraine, at the Alumni Celebration of New Works, May 28, on Spalding’s campus at Homecoming.

Abigail Rudibaugh (MFA, P ’24) and Mervyn Seivwright (MFA, P ’19) collaborated this month to run a writers’ group called Meet-a-Goal-Together in celebration of Poetry Month. The group includes Spalding writers from across the genres, with a poem emailed daily along with prompts based on that day’s poem. The group provides inspiration and support for its members, whatever their writing goal.

Melanie Weldon-Soiset (MFA, P ’24) is hosting Anne Bucey (MFA, P ’22) for “Poetry that Reveals and Conceals” on Saturday, May 16, from 2:00 – 4:00 p.m. in Melanie’s DC home. This interactive gathering will be in conversation with poems that participants submit, as well as Anne's new chapbook A Shade Pulled Just Barely. Check this link for more info, and/or to RSVP.

Katie Williams (MFA, SW ’22) will read from her 2025 film The Christmas Writer on Spalding’s campus at the Alumni Celebration of New Works, May 28, at Homecoming. The Christmas Writer is available now on Apple TV.