News
Current students in print
P.J.
Underwood
We're pleased
to report that P.J. Underwood was a finalist (one of about 20) in the recent summer "Family Matters"
contest at Glimmer Train. Check out the
announcement here, er . . .
here.
Richard Boada
Richard Boada’s “Falls of the Ohio,” appeared in the Santa Clara Review and “La Plaza Mayor,” was featured in Limestone: A Journal of Art and Literature. “Hog Killing Weather” and “Us In A Mirror” appeared in Touchstone, “Ode to Grandpa Jones” in Jabberwock Review, and “Mercy” in New Madrid. Northridge Review features “Red River Gorge,” “Strikes,” “Hands-Free Flushing,” and “Iroquois Manor Shopping Center.” In 2009, “The Ovation,” will appear in the Yalobusha Review.
Boada is a third year PhD candidate in the Center for Writers. In addition to all this writing, he’s been busy with a number of presentations. Last winter, he read some fine work at the Mississippi Philological Association’s annual conference and he’s set to present his interesting paper, "Whitman Imagines the American Empire: The Double-vision of Drum-Taps and Nationist Poetics," at the Nineteenth-Century American Literature Conference this fall.
Travis Kurowski
As if being the founder and editor of the fascinating Luna Park Review wasn’t enough, Travis Kurowski has been taking the show on the road. Kurowski, who is a third year PhD candidate in the Center for Writers, co-chaired a panel called "Redlining RAs: Graduate Assistants on Academic Journals" at the 2007 MLA Conference in Chicago. This fall he will be presenting his excellent paper, "In Exile and Against Criticism: The Paris Review and the Branding of Modern Literature," in Philadelphia at the 2008 ALSC Conference. Travis Kurowski recently served as guest editor for the forthcoming issue of our own Mississippi Review. This issue focuses on literary magazines and will be available in the Fall of 2008.
Ann Shivers McNair
Ann Shivers McNair was recently awarded a $5,000 graduate fellowship from Alpha Lambda Delta, an esteemed national academic honor society. McNair is a first year MA student in the Center for Writers.
Miranda Merklein
Miranda Merklein’s poems have been appearing in some wonderful places. “Nola’s Nightcap” is forthcoming in Oxford American, and “Unknown” will appear in The Columbia Review. “Amino” appears in Grasslimb; “Jornada del Muerto” in Epicenter; “Flight,” “Parallels,” and “Samaritan” in Neon. Her short story, “On Moving On,” will soon appear in Big Muddy. Merklein, a second year PhD candidate in the Center for Writers, recently received a Recognition Award from Trellis Magazine for the syllabic form in her poem, “Amethyst.”
Billy Middleton
Billy Middleton’s short story, “Greatest Jazz Hits,” appeared recently in Kennesaw Review. Middleton is a first year PhD candidate in the Center for Writers.
Stacy Pratt
Center for Writer’s PhD candidate Stacy Pratt has been busy presenting her work at conferences far and wide. She presented her excellent paper, "Answering the Arrowmaker: Autobiography as a Model of American Indian Literary Nationalism in The Way to Rainy Mountain" at the University of Central Oklahoma’s Oklahoma Research Day. She also presented this paper at the Southeastern Oklahoma State University Native American Symposium. Pratt went on to present yet another paper, entitled "Hvse, Hvresse, Kolaswv: The Sky in Muscogee Culture and Literature," at the 36th Annual Symposium on the American Indian at NSU in Tahlequah, OK with Sharon Mouss of the College of the Muscogee Nation Board of Regents. Looking farther into the future, Pratt’s review of the new book, Voices from Haskell: Indian Students Between Two Worlds, 1884-1927, written by Miriam Vuckovic, will soon appear in the Southwest Journal of Cultures.
Mary Miller
Mary Miller’s work has been showing up in some amazing places lately. Her short story, “Leak,” will be included in the 2008 edition of New Stories from the South published by Algonquin Books. “Leak” originally appeared in Oxford American. Miller’s stories can also be found in Quick Fiction, Black Clock, and Oxford American’s Best of the South issue. Before Miller became a student at the Center for Writers, her story, “Even the Interstate Is Pretty,” appeared in the Mississippi Review’s 2007 all-fiction issue. Miller is now a first year M.A. student in the Center for Writers.
Tiffany Noonan
The Bone Folders, Tiffany Noonan’s first full-length collection of poetry is on its way. This collection won the 2007 Heartland Prize and is forthcoming from Cracked Slab Books in 2009. If you don’t think you can wait that long, you should check out Noonan’s e-chapbook, Darjeeling, published by Ahadada Books earlier this year. Darjeeling features a selection from The Bone Folders and is not to be missed. Tiffany Noonan is a third year PhD candidate in the Center for Writers. You can find Noonan’s poems in number of very nice journals. Look for her most recent work in specs, Phoebe, and Harpur Palate.
Erin Smith
The Fear of Being Found, Erin Smith’s first full-length book of poems has arrived! This excellent collection was published early in 2008 by Three Candles Press, and we think it’s remarkable. You can also find Smith’s new poems in a number of accomplished and intriguing journals, including No Tell Motel and Anti-Poetry. Later this year look for Smith’s new non-fiction which will appear in The Florida Review. Erin Smith is a third year PhD candidate in the Center for Writers.
Lindsay Walker
These days, Lindsay Walker’s work can be found in some extraordinary places. Her poem, “To the Murderers of Emmett Till,” is forthcoming in a special issue of The Southern Quarterly. “Boy Marries Hill,” Walker’s very funny play, will soon appear in the collection, A More Perfect Ten, from Focus Publishing. Lindsay Walker is a second year PhD candidate in the Center for Writers.
Vallie Lynn Watson
Vallie Lynn Watson, associate editor of Mississippi Review, has an essay, “Hiding Next Door,” forthcoming in Aftermath, a new anthology that explores growing up in the South. Watson’s fiction can be found in Pindeldyboz, Ghoti, 971 Menu, and Journal of Truth and Consequence. Also, check out her recent review of the lit mag, Big Muddy, which appears in Luna Park Review.
Watson has been reading her work at conferences throughout the region, including the 2007 Southern Women Writers Conference, the Mississippi Philological Association Conference, and the Gulf Coast Association of Creative Writing Teachers Conference. Looking into the future, she will participate in a panel called “The Changing Trends of the University Press” at the 2009 AWP Conference in Chicago. Watson, a third year PhD candidate in the Center for Writers, is finishing up her first novel, Late Checkout. She is also a columnist for Hattiesburg American.
Will Wright
William Wright’s marvelous new chapbook, The Ghost Narratives, is set to arrive from Finishing Line Press this December. The Ghost Narratives comes on the heels of his first full-length poetry collection, Dark Orchard, published in 2006 by Texas Review Press. These days you can also read Wright’s poetry in some of the best journals around. His poem, “Hell,” is featured in Indiana Review, and “Blue Pear and Sleep Paralysis” appears in the Colorado Review. “Trumpet Creeper Variations” can be found in the North American Review, “Prescribed Fire” in New Orleans Review, and “Peach Trees Suffused with Pesticides” in the Beloit Poetry Journal. Wright’s poem, “The Escape,” was the finalist for the New South Poetry Prize.
William Wright is a third year PhD candidate at the Center for Writers and an Excellence Teaching Fellow. In addition to making all this poetry, Wright and Stephen Gardner have been editing a new series of poetry anthologies that aim to showcase contemporary poetry in the American South. The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume I: South Carolina, published by Texas Review Press in 2007, collects the work of seventy-six poets who have, at one time or another, called South Carolina home. This collection and the series itself have been turning a lot of heads.
R.H.W. Dillard writes: "For anyone who thinks that poetry stopped in South Carolina after Henry Timrod and Paul Hamilton Hayne or, for that matter, even James Dickey, this generous and well-selected anthology of poems by poets who were born or lived in that state will prove to be a real eye-opener. These pages are full of those quiet recognitions, startling surprises, and sudden revelations of truth that only the best poetry can provide. I read it with the same kind of excitement that a good novel can provide, and I urge it upon all those readers who need to know (or who already know) that poetry is alive and well and flourishing in the Palmetto State.”
The next installment in this series will focus on Mississippi’s best poetry and, in doing so, will include some of the nation’s best poets. The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume II: Mississippi will be available from the Texas Review Press in November of this year. Looking farther into the future, The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume III: Southern Appalachia is forthcoming in 2009 and will spotlight many excellent poets from the region.
Wright has also been busy presenting several fine papers at conferences across the country. His paper, “This Most Unnatural Strife: Wordsworth and the Natures of Maturation,” was presented during the 2008 Intermountain Graduate Studies Conference at Utah State University. “‘A Silence is Living:’ Georg Trakl's Quiet Apocalypse and the Barthesian Ideal” was presented to the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures at the University of Virginia in February of 2008. At the 2007 M/MLA Conference in Cleveland, Ohio, Wright presented “Georg Trakl’s Schweigen: ‘Silence’ as Key to the Narrative Structure.” “Southern Instress: Gerard Manley Hopkins and the Poetic Inheritance of James Dickey” was presented at the Southern Writers, Southern Writing Conference held in 2007 at the University of Mississippi. Last but not least, Wright was invited to speak at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in October of 2007.
Old News (But Still News)
Anthony Neil Smith's debut novel
This debut novel from Center graduate and editor of the late online magazine Plots with Guns is a noir nightmare that asks how much is too much in a relationship, and what is the cost of leaving? Ken Bruen calls it “the darkest song I’ve ever read.”
 “Because Lydia didn’t have arms or legs, she shelled out three thousand bucks to a washed up middleweight named Cap to give her ex-husband the beating of his life.” But the beating turns to murder, and the murder into lust and desperation between Lydia and an underworld clean-up man. Meanwhile, overgrown frat boy car thieves take up cop killing as a side hobby. When these paths cross, a horror show of violence unfolds as they all slide into a hell of their own design, surrounded by the neon and noise of the casino strip on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Anthony Neil Smith's Psychosomatic. Violent, vivid, life at hyper-speed. From Point Blank Books.
Dermansky novel from William Morrow
 Marcy Dermansky's wonderful first novel, Twins, reminiscent of She's Come Undone and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightime, was published in 2005 by William Morrow. The book is available at Amazon, and now in paperback. Told in alternating voices, Twins is the heartfelt and unsettling honest story of identical twin sisters trying to make it to 18. Sue, younger by four long minutes, idolizes and resents the seemingly perfect Chloe for being prettier, smarter, better than she believes she can ever be. On their 13th birthday, the sisters get tattoos to prove their bond is stronger than DNA. Over the course of five years, the girls will survive heartbreak, unhappy vacations, parental neglect, eating disorders, pill abuse, and the first painful explorations of love and sex. As they try to stay sane in the face of turbulent, often confusing change, both Chloe and Sue reach out to new mentors who will help them overcome apathy and despair to redeem each other. Funny, bitter, and affecting, Twins introduces a supremely talented and confident writer to watch.  Marcy Dermansky, a 1998 graduate of the Center for Writers, is the winner of STORY Magazine's Carson McCullers prize for the short story and the Smallmouth Press' Andre Dubus Novella Competition. Her stories have been published in numerous literary journals, including McSweeneys, Alaska Quarterly Review, and The Indiana Review, and included in the anthology Love Stories: A Literary Companion to Tennis. She is a film critic for About.com and belongs to the New York Online Film Critics Society. She lives in Astoria, New York. She is not an identical twin.
Pfefferle's Poets On Place shipping
From the Amazon.com description: Out to see America and satisfy his travel bug, W. T. Pfefferle resigned from his position as director of the writing program at Johns Hopkins University and hit the road to interview sixty-two poets about the significance of place in their work. The lively conversations that resulted may surprise with the potential meanings of a seemingly simple concept. This gathering of voices and ideas is illustrated with photo and word portraits from the road and represented with suitable poems.
The poets are James Harms, David Citino, Martha Collins, Linda Gregerson, Richard Tillinghast, Orlando Ricardo Menes, Mark Strand, Karen Volkman, Lisa Samuels, Marvin Bell, Michael Dennis Browne, David Allan Evans, David Romtvedt, Sandra Alcosser, Robert Wrigley, Nance Van Winckel, Christopher Howell, Mark Halperin, Jana Harris, Sam Hamill, Barbara Drake, Floyd Skloot, Ralph Angel, Carol Muske-Dukes, David St. John, Sharon Bryan, Donald Revell, Claudia Keelan, Alberto Rios, Richard Shelton, Jane Miller, William Wenthe, Naomi Shihab Nye, Peter Cooley, Miller Williams, Beth Ann Fennelly, Natasha Trethewey, Denise Duhamel, Campbell McGrath, Terrance Hayes, Alan Shapiro, Nikki Giovanni, Charles Wright, Rita Dove, Henry Taylor, Dave Smith, Nicole Cooley, David Lehman, Lucie Brock-Broido, Michael S. Harper, C. D. Wright, Mark Wunderlich, James Cummins, Frederick Smock, Mark Jarman, Carl Phillips, Scott Cairns, Elizabeth Dodd, Jonathan Holden, Bin Ramke, Kenneth Brewer, and Paisley Rekdal.
“Poets on Place is an extraordinary and unique collection of interviews with American poets. Collected with intelligence and wit by W. T. Pfefferle on his cross-country travels, these interviews on the importance of place and landscape in poetry—better than any anthology of poetry or prose I can think of—exhibit the profound richness and dazzling diversity of American poetry and its poets.”
-- David St. John
“In Poets on Place, the intrepid and resourceful explorer W. T. Pfefferle journeys deep into the American heartland to stalk, record the sounds and songs of, and photograph poets in their habitat. The result is a fascinating series of portraits by an expert naturalist and observer of a rare and often misunderstood species, the American poet.”
-- David Citino
"Every generation or so we are reminded that thinking about ‘Place’ is enormously significant, especially to us North Americans. Notice the name: who we are is where we are. “Place” is intelligence and emotion as well as geography, but it IS geography, and this amazing collection of interviews reminds us all of that fact and of that glory.”
-- Bin Ramke
Theron Montgomery's novel
Theron Montgomery, a 1982 PhD graduate of the Center for Writers, published his novel, The Procession with UKAPress. Theron teaches English and creative writing at Troy University in Alabama. He is presently fiction Editor for the international e-zine, The Blue Moon Review. Writing about The Procession, Rick Bragg, author of author of All Over But The Shoutin' and Ava's Man, said, "Montgomery just flat-out knows how to tell a rich, full, lovely story. He made me love all over again my American South."
Darlin' Neal's recent stories
 Darlin' Neal, a 2001 PhD graduate of the Center for Writers, now teaching at the University of Central Florida, has been writing and publishing a lot recently, and in good places. At our request she sent a list of selected pieces of interest.
"Stone Rubbing" recently in The Shore
"Stragglers" The Arkansas Review, Volume 35, Number 3 (nominated for the Pushcart Prize)
"Blue Star" Night Train, Issue IV
"Liddy" Thought Magazine, Issue 6
"Things She Can Hear" Puerto del Sol
"Lafayette" The Gingko Tree Review, Volume 1, Number 1
"Open House" The MacGuffin, Volume 20, Issue 1&2
"Honey, Don't" Shenandoah, Volume 52, Number 1
"A Man Wrapped In Gold" The Southern Review, Volume 36, Number 4
"Ghosts" The Oklahoma Review, Volume One, Issue One
"Piercings" Caprice
In addition to these, Darlin' Neal has a chapter on Larry Brown's Facing the Music appearing in Jean Cash's forthcoming book Larry Brown: Voice of the Yeoman South.
10 Excellence Fellowships in creative writing
Each year, in addition to the usual array of $10,000 teaching assistantships, the Center for Writers offers up to ten “Excellence” teaching fellowships with stipends of $15,000 per year. These are based on merit and are used to encourage the very best young writers to consider the Center as the site of their doctoral programs. This is a remarkable investment in the Center for Writers by The University of Southern Mississippi and has been instrumental in bringing additional top quality student writers to the university. The Center for Writers is primarily a graduate program in creative writing, housed in the English Department. At present the graduate enrollment in the program is about 40 students, 20% on the M.A. track, and 80% on the Ph.D. track.
Ball wins Schaible Memorial Cultural Enrichment Award
Angela Ball visited the University of Alaska Fairbanks to pick up the Arthur J. Schaible Memorial Cultural Enrichment Award for literary or artistic presentations on the campus. Voted by the faculty of the University, the Schaible Award notes that "the impact of [Ball's] poetry has been recognized by faculty members across many disciplines." The award carried with it a substantial stipend and the expense-free trip to Alaska.
Ball also won the 2006 AWP Award in Poetry for her book, Night Clerk at the Hotel of Both Worlds.
Reports from Recent Graduates
Publishing is one of the essential elements of being a writer and Center students are encouraged to try to place their work as soon as they are ready. Recent reports: Jay Todd has work forthcoming in the Chicago Quarterly Review; Carrie Hoffman has new stories in Center and in Georgetown Review; Raymond Wachter and Jordan Sanderson have co-authored an essay on Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof published on literaryencyclopedia.com; Shanti Weiland has new poems in an anthology called The Great American Poetry Showand in The Gihon Review; Regina Sakalaryios-Rogers will read her nonfiction at the Writers in the Gallery, University of West Florida, in March; Ted Roggenbuck has an essay on Faulkner's Benji Compson from The Sound and the Fury in Mississippi Quarterly; Bob Bartholomew has an article called "A Return to the Natural Through Wilde Language" out in The Thomas Wolfe Review; Peggy Price has work online in Opium Magazine andPindeldyboz.
Ken Foster's anthology Dog Culture released in paperback
In addition to radio and television interviews throughout Mississippi and Louisiana, Center for Writers doctoral student Ken Foster also did a series of readings and book signings for the paperback release of his anthology Dog Culture, which readings and signings supported animal rescue groups in New York City, New Orleans, Tallahassee, Jackson, and other cities. His work has been published in The Future Dictionary of America (McSweeney's Books), Small Spiral Notebook, The Shore (a new Canadian magazine), Urban Dog, and The Westchester Journal News, where his book column, "Storied Shorts," appears regularly.
Leilani Hall's debut collection available
 Leilani Hall's collection of poems Swimming the Witch made its debut with Cherry Grove Collections. Swimming the Witch moves between 17th century witch-hangings and modern-day confessions as it explores the complexities of the imperiled body. Relying on research from records of executions, the poems speak to women otherwise unknown in history, “two feet above the ground / …dress shoes / laced sharp as lancets” (from “Station of Loss”). Contest judges comment this is a text rich in “pagan ritual . . . imagery and physical transformation. . . . There is intelligence here, and skill.”
Leilani Hall received her Ph.D. from the Center for Writers and is currently Assistant Professor of English at California State University Northridge, where she teaches creative writing and theories of poetry. She currently serves on the AWP Steering Committee for the Creative Writing Pedagogy Forum.
Kimbrell wins National Endowment Award
James Kimbrell, who took his M.A. with us, and whose second major collection of poems was recently published by Sarabande, has been awarded an NEA Individual Writers Grant. Kimbrell has been the recipient of the Whiting Writer's Award, the Ruth Lilly Fellowship, the "Discovery"/ The Nation Award, a Ford Foundation Fellowship, and has twice received the Academy of American Poets Prize. Recent poems, reviews and translations have appeared or are forthcoming in magazines and anthologies such as Poetry, Field, Fence, The Nation, Prairie Schooner, The Boston Book Review, American Poetry: The Next Generation (Carnegie Mellon University Press) and The Bread Loaf Anthology of New American Poets (University Press of New England). He teaches at Florida State.
Victor Gishler's latest from Delacorte
 Victor Gischler's third novel Suicide Squeeze follows a down and out repo man as he chases a collectible baseball card signed by Joe Dimaggio, Marilyn Monroe and Billy Wilder. But an eccentric Japanese billionaire and former Yakuza boss wants the card for his Americana collection. A blood-n-guts crime novel, but also a poke at pop culture and a playful examination of how America constructs a national identity. Released in April, 2005, as a Delacorte hard cover. Publisher's Weekly, reviewing Gischler's last book, Pistol Poets, wrote "With this madcap sophomore outing, after 2001's Edgar-nominated Gun Monkeys, Gischler challenges Kinky Friedman for top slot in the zany noir subgenre of mystery fiction--and for sheer mayhem and body count momentum, Gischler may triumph. . . . a far-fetched but fast and viciously enjoyable read."
James Whorton Jr.'s novel gets terrific press
James Whorton Jr., whose novel Approximately Heaven was very well received, has published a second novel that reviewers raved about it. Publisher's Weekly described Frankland as a novel whose "quiet but exuberantly sly wit and a winning narrator add up to a thoroughly enjoyable escapade." And the Kirkus Review Service, notoriously hard to please, describes the books thus: "A comedy of misunderstandings blooms to perfection in Whorton's enchanting and erudite caper, set in hillbilly eastern Tennessee. . . . A joy."
Advance reviews don't get much better. The book is available for ordering at Amazon and at Barnes & Noble.Frankland was published by the Free Press.
John Holman directs Georgia State creative writing program
John Holman, a 1993 Ph.D. graduate of the Center for Writers, was recently named director of creative writing at Georgia State University, where he teaches along with poets Leon Stokesbury, David Bottoms, and Beth Gylys, and fiction writers Sheri Joseph and Josh Russell. The Georgia State program is a good one and it's been around a while. At present they have about fifty students, about two-thirds in the MFA program, and another fourteen or so in the Ph.D. program. Holman is best known (so far) for his now-hard-to-come-by remarkable debut collection of stories, Squabble, and a particularly odd and marvelous first novel called Luminous Mysteries, also available in hardcover at Barnes & Noble.
 Steven Barthelme wins Pushcart Prize
Professor Steven Barthelme’s recent story published in the prestigious Yale Review was awarded a Pushcart Prize and was included in the Pushcart Prize XXIX: Best of the Small Presses, 2005 Edition.
Kim Chinquee publishes
Kim Chinquee, in addition to appearing in almost every literary magazine you can put your hands on, has published a brilliant collection of shorts called Oh Baby. Check it out at Amazon.
Melanie Hendrix wins Mississippi Arts Grant
Melanie Hendrix, 1996 Ph.D. graduate of the Center for Writers, won a $5000 2004 Mississippi Arts Grant to continue work on her massive novel-in-progress.
David Berry retires
After more years than he cares to remember, David Berry (aka DC Berry) has called it quits and retired from his position at The University of Southern Mississippi's Center for Writers. Berry, a much decorated poet with hundreds of poems published in major national poetry venues, numerous books to his credit, including Saigon Cemetery, Divorce Boxing, and the recently published Zen Cancer Saloon, is a past Charles Moorman Distinguished Professor in the Humanities and winner of three excellence-in-teaching awards. Berry was always a quirky and delightful presence at the Center and he will be sorely missed.
Ball Poem in New Anthology
Angela Ball's poem, "An Attempt," which originally appeared in
 Ploughshares, has been published in the new print anthology Poetry Daily: 366 Poems from the World's Most Popular Poetry Website (Sourcebooks; ISBN: 1-4022-0151-6; December 2003; $14.95), edited by Diane Boller, Don Selby, and Chryss Yost, with advisory editors Rita Dove and Dana Gioia.
Berry Takes Chapbook Contest
Zen Cancer Saloon tells of DC Berry's adventure with cancer of the spine. He tried to get off the couch last September (just another day)--and couldn't; paralysis reached his chest before surgery revealed the problem. Radiation and a sequence of small poems (haikus) followed, written in the back of whatever book he was reading at the time, usually about Buddha or Christ. This collection he sent off to the chapbook contest at Black Warrior Review, published by the University of Alabama; and of the 525 entries, Berry's took first place and a check for $1500. Previous chapbook authors published by BWR include W.S. Merwin and Rita Dove. Zen Cancer Saloon will appear in the Spring/Summer 2004 issue of Black Warrior Review. Berry retired from his long-held post in the Center for Writers in May 2004.
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