June 7, 2011 at 4:36 PM
Jhumpa Lahiri, a 1993 graduate of our Fiction program in Creative Writing and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for her debut collection Interpreter of Maladies, has an article in The New Yorker about her literary childhood, “Trading Stories: Notes from a Literary Apprenticeship” :
What I really sought was a better-marked trail of my parents’ intellectual lives: bound and printed evidence of what they’d read, what had inspired and shaped their minds. A connection, via books, between them and me. But my parents did not read to me or tell me stories; my father did not read any fiction, and the stories my mother may have loved as a young girl in Calcutta were not passed down. My first experience of hearing stories aloud occurred the only time I met my maternal grandfather, when I was two, during my first visit to India. He would lie back on a bed and prop me up on his chest and invent things to tell me. I am told that the two of us stayed up long after everyone else had gone to sleep, and that my grandfather kept extending these stories, because I insisted that they not end. [June 13 & 20, 2011, pp. 78-9]
By Coordinator
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Posted in Uncategorized
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Tagged Alumni Publications, excerpts, Jhumpa Lahiri, memories, The New Yorker
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May 5, 2011 at 11:02 AM
What can we say about Maya Sloan? She's talented, funny, unstoppable. She was our featured alumna reader at this year's Annual Faculty Reading -- and had what could have been the intimidating privilege of reading LAST in alphabetical order -- and she pulled it off beautifully and brought our evening to an exciting close.
Maya is the author of the awesome debut novel High Before Homeroom, but she also writes a blog, and here is her sweet and hilarious take on the night's events:
http://www.mayasloan.com/i-slept-with-all-of-them/
Thanks for everything, Maya! We were so thrilled to have you.
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April 21, 2011 at 5:55 PM
The Stormchasers (Dutton, 2010), by 1998 BU fiction graduate Jenna Blum, will be available on paperback on April 26 
wherever books are sold. The story is about twins who have been separated by tragedy, who are reunited through storms. An excerpt and synopsis are available here: http://www.jennablum.com/blum-stormchasers-synopsis.htm
Kirkus Reviews describes the book as "a somber, effective portrait of twins—of the strength they gain and the harm they do to one another… Charles' storminess (he imagines his illness like a storm, a natural, neutral phenomenon) is beautifully rendered—Blum offers a meticulous portrait of bipolar disorder."
Jenna is also the author of the New York Times bestseller Those Who Save Us (Harcourt, 2004). She was named one of Oprah's Top Thirty Women Writers (Oprah's Top Thirty). Jenna taught writing at BU for five years and was the fiction editor for AGNI.
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April 11, 2011 at 11:20 AM
Join us tomorrow night for our Annual Faculty Reading, as mentioned in Sunday's Boston Globe!
http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2011/04/10/bu_faculty_readings/
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April 8, 2011 at 10:42 AM
This is a reminder that our Annual Faculty Reading, which has become one of the premier literary events in the city, has been rescheduled for Tuesday, April 12, at 6:00PM in the BU School of Management Auditorium.
The reading will feature Leslie Epstein, David Ferry, Allegra Goodman, Louise Gluck, Ha Jin, Ronan Noone, Sigrid Nunez, Robert Pinsky, and alumna Maya Sloan, author of the novel High Before Homeroom.
Call 617-353-2510 with questions. We recommend arriving early to park because of that night's scheduled Red Sox game. If you choose to use public transportation, take the Green Line (B) to Blandford Street.
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March 30, 2011 at 10:57 PM
Robert Pinsky, faculty member in BU's Creative Writing program and this year's winner of the John Holmes Memorial Poetry Award, will be reading from his own work next Thursday, April 7th, from 3:30 - 5 PM in the Hirsh Reading Room at Tufts University's Tisch Library. An exhibit celebrating his literary accomplishments will be on display in the lobby through May 24th. This event is free and open to the general public. Address: 35 Professors Row, Medford, 02155.
Among other work, he will be reading from his forthcoming book, Selected Poems (FSG, April 2011).
Visit BU Today to read an interview of Pinsky by John O'Rourke, on the question of why poetry should be spoken.
By zakbos
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Posted in Readings
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Tagged award, faculty, Pinsky, reading, Tufts
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March 28, 2011 at 5:47 PM
Meridian, the Semi-Annual from the University of Virginia, has awarded J. Kevin Shushtari the 2011 Editors' Prize for his story "Illegal Dreams." Kevin is a 2010 graduate of the MFA in Fiction program here at Boston University.
He was also the winner of the July 2010 Glimmer Train Very Short Fiction Award for his story, “The Vast Garden of Strangers" and is a recipient of the Forugh Farrokhzad Fellowship Award: http://www.vermontstudiocenter.org/vsc-announces-new-forugh-farrokhzad-fellowship/
"Illegal Dreams" will appear in the May 2011 issue of Meridian.
Photo credit: Howard Romero, The Vermont Studio Center
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March 21, 2011 at 4:51 PM
Jennifer Cacicio, 2008 graduate of our MFA in Creative Writing program in Fiction, has had a candid and thoughtful piece on modern dating published by Salon. 
Jennifer details her recent breakup, and how her life suddenly began to resemble the HBO series "Big Love" (which had its finale last night) here.
Jennifer's writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Bust Magazine, and elsewhere. She is at work on her first novel, TREE LISTENER. She writes the blog piano & scene and is the creator and maker of the fabulous author buttons you may have seen in independent bookstores in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Portland, and Canton, Ohio.
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March 10, 2011 at 6:20 PM
Rachel Dewoskin's newest novel, Big Girl Small (FSG 2011), comes out on March 29. A 2000 graduate of BU's poetry MFA program, Rachel is the author of the novels Repeat After Me and Foreign Babes in Beijing. Here's a sample of some of the praise she's been getting:
“DeWoskin's daring third book takes on sexual politics, physical beauty, pity, and violence, and succeeds in giving readers a nuanced and provocative treatment without descending into pedantics or hysteria." --Publisher's Weekly, starred review
“Hiding out in a seedy motel room on the outskirts of Ypsilanti, Michigan, 3-foot-9-inch Judy Lohden narrates, in an “epic dwarf download,” what transpired when she transferred to a performing-arts high school her junior year. DeWoskin deftly captures the often vicious dynamics of adolescents, which mask their fragility, and creates in Judy an unforgettable character, one who is, by turns, sardonic and heartbreakingly vulnerable." – Booklist, starred review
Rachel is also an actress, and has a beautiful website, which you can visit to learn more about her work at www.racheldewoskin.com
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February 23, 2011 at 6:33 PM
William Oppenheimer (Class of 1991) has a new book of stories out, Goody Tw0-Shoes, which is now available as a Kindle e-book. The collection looks back on the tensions between a pair of twins growing up in New Jersey during the 1970s. It features the title story, described by Esquire as "a pleasure to read" and the short story "Lucky," praised by The Missouri Review and Zoetrope.
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