MFA candidate in fiction Aaron Burch has been named winner of PANK magazine's first chapbook competition for his manuscript titled HOW TO TAKE YOURSELF APART, HOW TO MAKE YOURSELF ANEW: notes and instructions from/for a father. The chapbook will be published in January 2010.
Professor Philip Graham's latest book, The Moon, Come Down to Earth has just been released from the University of Chicago Press. Margot Livesey writes of the book, "With his far-reaching intellect Graham is the ideal travelling companion, and The Moon, Come to Earth is a beautiful and surprising book." An interview with Professor Graham can be found on Oronte Churm's blog at InsideHigherEd.com.
The latest novel from Professor Richard Powers, Generosity: An Enhancement, has just been published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, receiving starred reviews from Booklist and Publishers Weekly. An interview with Professor Powers appears in the latest issue of the Wall Street Journal
Alumna Lillian Bertram (MFA,'09) was awarded Honorable Mention for the 2009 Cave Canem Poetry Prize, for her manuscript entitled Inside the Face Inside the Heart Inside. The 2009 winner of the award was Gary Jackson for his manuscript Missing You, Metropolis. Yusef Komunyakaa judged this year's contest. The Cave Canem Poetry Prize is an annual first‐book award "dedicated to the discovery of exceptional manuscripts by African American poets."
Professor Janice N. Harrington has been awarded a 2009 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award, which is given annually to six women writers who demonstrate excellence and promise in the early stages of their careers. The Awards of $25,000 each will be presented to the six recipients on September 24th in New York City.
"Show, Don't Tell," an entry from "The Education of Oronte Churm", was selected to appear in the Best Creative Nonfiction anthology, volume 3. Oronte Churm is the alter ego of CW faculty member John Griswold, who blogs about life in academia for insidehighered.com
Creative Writing faculty member John Griswold was recently awarded the annual Delta Award by the Friends of the Morris Library at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. The Delta Award was established in 1976 to acknowledge "an individual(s) or organization(s) that has written/published about southern Illinois with distinction or added to the cultural life of southern Illinois.
A short story by Creative Writing alum Ted Sanders (BA '04, MFA '07) has been selected for the 2010 Pen/O. Henry Prize anthology, to be published in May 2010 by Anchor Books/Random House. The prize-winning story, "Obit," was originally published in the Fall 2008 issue of Indiana Review.
Creative Writing faculty member John Griswold's debut novel, A Democracy of Ghosts, was recently published by Wordcraft of Oregon.
Professor Brigit Kelly received the Harry E. Preble Professorship from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
M.F.A. candidate in poetry Lillian Bertram has been awarded a 2009 Gaius Charles Bolin Fellowship from Williams College. The Bolin Fellowships are two-year residencies at Williams, and three scholars or artists are appointed each year. Fellows devote the bulk of the first year to the completion of dissertation work or in the case of MFA applicants, building their professional portfolios while also teaching one course as a faculty member in one of the College s academic departments or programs. The second year of residency (ideally with degree in hand) is spent on academic career development while again teaching just one course.