Stuff You Oughta Know – Page 16 – Graduate Writing Studies

2016 Villanova University Literary Festival

By Heather Foster In Stuff You Oughta Know January 14, 2016

Here is the line-up for the 2016 Villanova University Literary Festival. All readings are at 7pm and are followed by a reception and book signing. The festival is free and open to the public.

January 28: Gregory Pardlo

Cinema, Connelly Center

Gregory Pardlo’s collection Digest (Four Way Books) won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Digest was also shortlisted for the 2015 NAACP Image Award and is a current finalist for the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. His other honors include fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts; his first collection Totem was selected by Brenda Hillman for the APR/Honickman Prize in 2007. Pardlo’s poems appear in The Nation, Ploughshares, Tin House, The Norton Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry, Best American Poetry, and elsewhere. Pardlo lives with his family in Brooklyn.

February 11: Daniel Torday

Speaker’s Corner, Falvey Library

Daniel Torday is the author of the novel The Last Flight of Poxl West. His novella, The Sensualist, won the 2012 National Jewish Book Award for debut fiction. Torday’s stories and essays have appeared in Esquire Magazine, n+1, The New York Times, The Paris Review Daily and Tin House. A former editor at Esquire, Torday serves as an editor at The Kenyon Review. He is Director of Creative Writing at Bryn Mawr College.

February 23: Jean Valentine

Radnor/St. David’s Room, Connelly Center

A longtime resident of New York City, Jean Valentine was named the State Poet of New York in 2008. Her first book of poems, Dream Barker and Other Poems, won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award in 1965. Subsequent collections of poems include The River at Wolf (1992), Little Boat(2007), and Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965–2003, which won the National Book Award in 2004.

March 17: Glenn Patterson

President’s Lounge, Connelly Center

* In conjunction with the Heimbold Professorship in Irish Studies

Glenn Patterson was born in Belfast and educated there and at the University of East Anglia where he studied for an MA in Creative Writing under Malcolm Bradbury and Angela Carter. He is the author of eight novels and two works of non-fiction. His plays and stories have been broadcast on Radio 3 and Radio 4 and articles and essays have appeared in the Guardian, Observer, Sunday Times, Independent, Irish Times, and Dublin Review. Before coming to Queen’s University Belfast as writer-in-residence (1994) he was Creative Writing Fellow at the University of East Anglia and writer-in-residence at University College Cork. He has also presented numerous television documentaries and an arts review series for RTE. A film, Good Vibrations, co-written with Colin Carberry, was due for cinema release in 2013. In 2008 he was awarded a Lannan Literary Fellowship. He is a member of Aosdana.

April 14: Asali Solomon

Speaker’s Corner, Falvey Library

* In conjunction with the Ida B. Wells lecture in Africana Studies

Asali Solomon is the author of the novel Disgruntled. She received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award for her stories collected in Get Down, her first book; the volume was also a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. In 2007 she was named one of the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35. Solomon teaches English at Haverford College. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and two sons.

Four Questions for Dr. Aisha D. Lockridge

By Heather Foster In Faculty Contributions & News, In the Spotlight, Stuff You Oughta Know December 15, 2015

Dr. Aisha D. Lockridge

We have absolutely the best professors in the Writing Studies program! Read on for Dr. Lockridge’s take on our four questions:

What is your current writing project? (Or do you have a link to a recent publication you’d like to share with our grad students?)

Much of what I write springs from common practices: teaching, participating in Black popular culture, and reading widely. Currently I am working on a manuscript chapter which examines the limits of racial passing set against the potential relief available in the vexed relationship between strategic essentialism and Afro-Pessimism in Matt Johnson’s Loving Day and will debut part of it at the 2016 College Language Association (CLA) Annual Conference. Initially inspired by Love and Hip Hop Atlanta, I am also completing a Revise and Resubmit article for Palimpsest on the performative possibilities of ignorance and ratchetedness as strategic tools for survival. And finally, I am providing a link to an article, “Practice and Performance: Teaching Urban Literature at the Less than Liberal Arts,” published in Hybrid Pedagogy on my experience discovering the real value of, and methods for, teaching difficult texts in inhospitable environments for the good of students, teachers and institutions of higher learning: http://www.hybridpedagogy.com/journal/practice-performance-teaching-urban-literature-less-liberal-arts/

What are you reading, for work or pleasure?

I just finished Lev Grossman’s The Magicians and am making my way through Margo Jefferson’s Negroland, Claudia Rankine’s Citizen: An American Lyric, and a stack of undergraduate essays examining the gendered and technological connections between Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein and Alex Garland’s film, Ex-Machina.

What are you listening to (music/podcast/radio program)?

Last download: Erykah Badu’s But You Caint Use My Phone. In current heavy rotation: Adele’s 25, Sza’s Z, Alice Smith’s She, B.O.B’s Strange Clouds, Bryson Tiller’s Trapsoul. I regularly listen to, and liberally quote from, the weekly podcast “The Read”.

When you’re not on campus, where’s your happy place?

Today, it’s reading a good book, completely undisturbed, in bright, natural light.

Website: aishalockridge.com Twitter: @AishaDamali_PhD

Thanks for participating, Dr. Lockridge! Think I’ll check out those books you mentioned.

Four Questions for Dr. Jo Alyson Parker

By Heather Foster In Faculty Contributions & News, Stuff You Oughta Know December 1, 2015

Dr. Parker was good enough to answer our four questions. Check out her musical interests!

Dr. Parker in
Cape Breton

What is your current writing project? (Or do you have a link to a recent publication you’d like to share with our grad students?)

I’m currently working on a paper for the International Society for the Study of Time conference at the University of Edinburgh. It’s tentatively titled “Eternal Recursion, the Emergence/y of Metaconsciousness,and the Imperative for Closure,”and it deals with a genre of modern fiction and film that my co-author and I are calling time-loop narratives (such as Kate Atkinson’s novel Life after Life or the film Edge of Tomorrow). My most recent publication is “From Time’s Boomerang to Pointillist Mosaic: Translating Cloud Atlas into Film.” A brief excerpt from it can be accessed at the following link:

https://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/substance/v044/44.1.parker.pdf

I’m also the Managing Editor for KronoScope: Journal for the Study of Time. We have an online subscription in our library, so you can check it out there.

What are you reading, for work or pleasure?

I just finished Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend, the first of her deservedly acclaimed Neapolitan novels, and Laura Lippman’s mystery Hush. I’ve begun reading Elvis Costello’s Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink.

What are you listening to (music/podcast/radio program)?

My Pandora stations are probably a good indicator of my, well, eclectic musical interests: Elvis Costello Radio, Bobby Short Radio, Stephen Sondheim Radio, Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong Radio, Talking Heads Radio. And the Beatles, of course.

When you’re not on campus, where’s your happy place?

My happy place is the covered swing in my backyard on a not-too-hot day in summer. Sometimes I’m out there by myself with a book. Sometimes I’m with friends and family, ideally sipping Campari spritzes and nibbling on cherry peppers stuffed with prosciutto and cheese.

Thanks, Dr. Parker. I plan to investigate those Pandora stations!

Parting Words by Don Corcoran

By Heather Foster In Student & Alumni Contributions, Stuff You Oughta Know November 11, 2015

Don Corcoran

Parting Words about Writing Studies from Don Corcoran

1. Do you have any parting words or shout-outs to share with current students and faculty?

Embrace the practicality of the program and if you are getting a Master’s degree to further your career goals, constantly be working toward publishing. Use the expertise of your peers to broaden your writing horizons. There is a lot of talent and passion here. Don’t waste the opportunity.

2. Which Writing Studies course or course reading was most interesting or useful to you? Why?

I am a huge fan of the group workshops. When you have 10 other people reading your writing you get a great deal of valuable feedback. Whether it be poetry, fiction, or literature, revision is the life of writing. This is where we hone our craft. If there is a significant workshopping element, you can be certain you will walk away with something you are proud of.

3. How do you plan to use your Master’s Degree in your career?

This is the bridge to my doctorate degree. I wanted to take something that allowed me to write and develop my platform. I don’t think there is a single class that didn’t inform my thesis. Plus, I can supplement my income with part-time teaching.

4. Do you have any tips for future students about choosing classes, juggling the workload, or writing a thesis?

The first draft is a small part of the final thesis. Don’t sweat the initial writing. Just write it. Sit down. Come to it with a plan. Bang it out. Revise. Use the information you’ve gathered from your classwork. Ask others to help read it. But get it done to leave time to have a polished product.

Great advice. Thanks, Don!

SJU Writers – Check out this Post-Graduate Writing Fellowship Opportunity!

By Heather Foster In Stuff You Oughta Know November 10, 2015

AMERICA LAUNCHES FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM

Fr. Joseph A. O’Hare, S.J., with Edward I. Koch, Mayor of the City of New York.

America Media announces the establishment of the Joseph A. O’Hare, S.J., Post Graduate Writing Fellowship

America Media is pleased to announce the creation of the Joseph A. O’Hare, S.J., Post Graduate Writing Fellowship. The newly created fellowship offers the opportunity for three recently graduated students from Jesuit colleges and universities in the United States and Canada to work at the offices of America Media in New York City for one year.

“Through the O’Hare Fellowship, we are looking to support a new era of young and gifted writers, providing them with challenges and opportunities to grow both personally and professionally,” said Father Matt Malone, S.J., Editor in Chief and President of America Media. “It’s a chance to live in New York City, the media center of the world, and to work at a dynamic and growing organization such as America Media.”

O’Hare fellows spend one full year working at the offices of America Media, where they will generate content for America’s multiple platforms: print, web, digital, social media and events. O’Hare fellows enjoy a rich personal and professional experience through ongoing mentoring and other opportunities. Fellows meet regularly with America’s editorial staff, including James Martin, S.J., editor at large of America and a New York Times best-selling author, in order to cultivate their skills and professional networks. At the conclusion of the program, O’Hare fellows are uniquely suited to pursue successful careers in the Catholic media or other forms of professional journalism.

O’Hare fellows receive housing at Fordham University’s Lincoln Center Campus, health care coverage and a monthly stipend for living expenses during the 12 months of the program. Applications open December 1, 2015 and close January 31, 2016.

The Joseph A. O’Hare, S.J., Post Graduate Writing Fellowship is made possible through the generosity of William J. Loschert, Fordham University College of Business Administration, Class of 1961, and a member of America Media’s board of directors.

For more information regarding the O’Hare fellowship and how to apply, please visit oharefellows.org

About America Media: America Media, publisher of America magazine, is the leading producer of multimedia content for thinking Catholics and those who want to know what Catholics are thinking. It provides a smart Catholic take on religion, politics and culture. Founded in 1909 by the Jesuit order as America magazine, it now offers content on multiple print and digital platforms including –America Digital, America Radio, America Films and America P2P (events). http://www.americamedia.org.