EXCITING NEWS & UPDATES FROM SPALDING'S NASLUND-MANN SCHOOL OF WRITING STUDENTS, ALUMNI, FACULTY & STAFF
ALUMNI
Alicia Clinton’s (CNF ’23) essay “The Smell of Peaches” is published in the Fall Issue of Peatsmoke Journal.
Chere Coen’s (F ’23) latest book, Ghost Lights, part of her Viola Valentine mystery series, was published in September under her pen name of Cherie Claire. She will be doing a writing workshop with author Christee Gabour Atwood on October 27 at the East Baton Rouge Parish Library and speaking about the book on October 28 at the Louisiana Book Festival. As part of her annual trip home to Louisiana, she’ll also be doing a genealogy writing workshop in Opelousas, a life-writing workshop at Nunu’s Art Collective in Arnaudville, and speaking to a writing club in Alexandria.
Elizabeth Felicetti (CNF ’20) just signed a two-book deal with Eerdmans for a revision of her book-length thesis, Saints of Mothers and Lost Things: Redeeming the Warrior Narrative, as well as a devotional about John the Baptist. Her first book, Unexpected Abundance, launched in August, and her second book, Irreverent Prayers: On Talking to God When You’re Seriously Sick, is due out summer of 2024.
Kathryn Jones’ (CNF ’19) essay "Conveying the Grief Experience” appears in the Fall 2023 online issue of Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies. The essay explores Joan Didion’s use of lists in The Year of Magical Thinking and Blue Nights.
Mark Madigan (P’17) has had four poems accepted recently. "The Boxer at Rest” was published in Issue 25 of Panoply, and three poems—"Flashback,” “Snapshots,” and “When Dad Went to War”—were accepted for G.I. Days: An Anthology of Military Life, to be published later this fall by Milltown Press.
Mervyn Seivwright (P ’19) feels blessed to have recently been included/accepted in several publications, including Pembroke Magazine, Zimetra International Magazine, Sr Lanka, Stone Poetry Quarterly, The Writer’s Block Magazine, Netherlands, The Hellebore Press, The Ocotillo Review, Kallisto Gaia Press, and Tab: The Journal of Poetry & Poetics. Mervyn’s biggest celebration is for the release of his creative thesis poetry collection from Spalding, called Stick, Hook, and a Pile of Yarn, published by Broken Sleep Books out of Wales, United Kingdom. It is available for purchase online at Broken Sleep Books.
STUDENTS
Elaine Alexander’s (PW) new full-length dramatic comedy, Thanksgiving: 2016—which incidentally was workshopped at Spalding—will be presented by Charlotte’s Off Broadway and enjoy a three-weekend, nine-performance full production November 3-19 at the Visual Arts and Performing Arts Center in Charlotte, N.C.
Faith Miller’s (F) short story, “The Banyan Tree,” is forthcoming in the Spring 2024 issue of A Door is a Jar. The magazine is for sale at Barnes and Noble, among other brick-and-mortar stores.
Lindsey Pharr’s (CNF) flash nonfiction piece, “A Fistful of Blue,” won the CNF competition of A SmokeLong Summer 23. Find it and the author interview in the latest issue of SmokeLong Quarterly. Lindsey is on Instagram and Twitter @lindsey_a_pharr.
Dr. Charles Rix (PW) recently had two of his short plays, “Midnight Roundup” and “Saving Funny Girl,” performed as part of the New York Short Play Festivals in Fall 2022 and Summer 2023 by Be Bold Productions at the Players Theater in New York City. In addition to his MFA thesis play, he is working on a new short play, “Ghost Hoarders,” for an upcoming festival. He is a professor at New Brunswick Theological Seminary in New Brunswick, N.J.
Salon.com recently published an essay by Amy Speace (P), “Becoming a mother at 50, after a lifetime of saying I didn’t want kids.” The piece, published on Mother’s Day, is the first chapter of her memoir Menopausal Mommy: Having a Baby at 50 and Other Impossibilities. From Nashville, Amy is an award-winning singer/songwriter. Her essays have been published by The New York Times, Working Woman, The Guardian, American Songwriter, No Depression, and The Blue Rock Review, and her poetry has been published by 2River Review and Euonia. Her website for music is www.amyspeace.com.
FACULTY & STAFF
Larry Brenner (PW/SW) was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor at Bronx Community College. His play First Blood was produced this past March as part of Theatre Three’s Festival of One Act Plays. Another play, Periphery; or the Plagiarist, is the winner of the Nantucket Short Play Festival and will be produced at the Nantucket Theatre this November. Once Upon a Disney, the podcast he cohosts with alum Andie Redwine (SW ’20), will air its hundredth episode by the end of October.
Kathleen Driskell's (chair) poem "Collapse" has been published in the latest issue of Water-Stone Review. In August, she read in the series Voices and Vision at 21c Museum Hotel in Louisville. In September, she visited Professor Jill Christman's publishing and editing seminar in the MFA program at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. (Christman is the editor of River Teeth magazine.) Kathleen recently served as a script consultant for the play Who Killed Sylvia Plath to be presented by the Eve Theater Company at the MeX Theatre, Kentucky Center for the Arts, October 20-29. She was also final judge for the annual Grand Prix in Poetry award from the Kentucky State Poetry Society. On October 21, she visits the Kentucky Book Festival in Lexington with her chapbook The Vine Temple (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2023) and with Jason Howard presents the 11 a.m. session "Is an MFA Right for You?" in the Writer's Room at the festival.
Faculty members Lynnell Edwards (P) and Jeremy Paden (P) joined alumni Katerina Stoykova (P/CNF ’09) and Lennie Hay (P ’19) and a host of other regional and Kentucky writers for an afternoon of readings and conversation at Broadstone Books’ twentieth anniversary celebration on September 30 at the Paul Sawyier Library in Frankfort, Kentucky.
Earlier this summer, Jason Kyle Howard’s (CNF) essay “The War on LGBTQ People Being Waged in Rural America” was published in The New Republic. His political commentary “Just lean in, Joe: Biden needs to embrace his old age” recently appeared in Salon. Along with Silas House (F), he wrote the story for the music video of “In Your Love” by Grammy nominee Tyler Childers. The video, which debuted in July, was the first country music video with a gay storyline to be released by a major record label. Howard has work forthcoming in Town & Country, Salon, and Oxford American.
Angela Jackson Brown's (F) newest novel, Homeward, was released on October 10 with Harper Muse. Recently, she signed a book deal with the University of Kentucky Press to co-author a book with Dr. Kiesha Warren-Gorden (Professor, Ball State University) entitled Fix Your Face: The Policing of Black Women’s Minds, Bodies, and Souls, forthcoming 2026. In June, Angela’s poem, “When a Mother Leaves Her Child” was published in the anthology All Night, All Day: Life, Death and Angels published by Madville Publishing LLC. In July, Angela taught a week’s workshop at the Appalachian Writers Workshop in Hindman, KY. She was a panelist in July at the Indiana Writers Workshop. In July, she was also a workshop leader at the One Day Writer’s Retreat at the Indiana Writer’s Center in Indianapolis. This fall, she was invited to be a fiction referee for Callaloo: A Journal of African Diaspora Arts and Letters.
Erin Keane (CNF/P) was featured on a panel, “Taking Back the Narrative,” at this year’s Printers Row Lit Fest in Chicago and as a guest on “Accents,” the literary podcast hosted by Spalding alum Katerina Stoykova (P ’09). Later in September, she completed the Leadership Academy for Women in Media at the Poynter Institute on the campus of the University of South Florida-St. Petersburg. In October, she made campus visits as a guest of the creative writing programs at the University of Pittsburgh-Bradford and Berea College, where she visited Nancy McCabe’s (CNF/F) and Jason Howard’s (CNF) creative writing classes and gave campus-wide talks about her memoir Runaway: Notes on the Myths That Made Me. You can read her interview with former Spalding BFA director Minda Honey about Honey’s debut memoir, The Heartbreak Years, at Salon.
Nancy McCabe’s (CNF/F) new book, the YA novel Vaulting through Time, was launched at the Bradford (Pennsylvania) Public Library in late July. It was featured at Tor.com, Book Club Babble, Story Time Teen, Littsburgh, Big Blend Radio, Girl Talk HQ, and Women Writers Women’s Books. She wrote about time travel literature for Salon.com and about writing time travel for Writer’s Digest. Her piece on therapeutic writing from Creativity and Compassion: Spalding Writers Celebrate 20 Years was reprinted at the Brevity Blog, and she also published a piece there about story structure.
In September, Nancy presented at the Kansas Book Festival in Topeka, Watermark Books in Wichita, and Kansas Book Fest West in Hays, Victoria, and Abilene. She also received her tenth recognition from a Best American Notable List in Best American Essays 2023 for her essay “Playing by the Rules” at Manifest Station.
Lesléa Newman (W4CYA) appeared on the MSNBC show “The Eleventh Hour,” hosted by Stephanie Ruhl, to talk about banned books and her newest book, Always Matt: A Tribute to Matthew Shepard.
Jeremy Paden (Translation) has published a prose poem, “Aphasia: A Noun,” in the most recent edition of Border Crossing. At the end of October, The Ilanot Review will publish two of his translations of poems by the Chilean/Spanish poet Alexandra Domínguez. And Horizon Carré, a joint effort by RIL Editors from Chile, the Fundación Huidobro, and the University of Washington, published Unbounded Flight, a bilingual anthology of poems he selected and translated from the Argentine poet Oliverio Girondo.
Charlie Schulman (PW/SW) received a commission from Philanthropist/Consumer Safety Advocate Jordan Skopp to co-write The Baseball Rule (a play written to abolish or amend the 100-year law passed by Congress to protect Major League Baseball and individual team owners against liability from fans injured by foul balls.) The one-person show will playuniversities and fringe festivals throughout the country. Charlie’s The Relationship Play (Married Life and Sibling Rivalry) completed a successful run at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August with Cincinnati LAB Theater. Charlie is now partnering with commercial producers and individual investors to bring a new production of the show to Off-Broadway. He recently received an Adjunct Faculty Development grant to pay for investor readings this fall.
Katy Yocom (Associate Director, F ’03) recently appeared in conversation with faculty member Angela Jackson-Brown (F) at Carmichael’s Bookstore in Louisville to celebrate the launch of Angela’s newest novel, Homeward.