for writers at Boston University and beyond
June 3, 2009 at 4:38 PM
More good news: I’ve just learned that Stephen Barkhimer (GRS ’07) has won the National John Cauble Short Play Award, from the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, for his play Hard Rain. Just so there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind, this is a huge deal.
In addition to being an excellent playwright, Stephen is also a working actor, and a very talented one. Congratulations, Mr. Barkhimer.
June 3, 2009 at 3:41 PM
Here's a link to the Charles Simic reading at the Robert Lowell Memorial Lecture back in February. Video of the Faculty Reading should be available shortly. [View video]
June 3, 2009 at 2:55 PM
Our intrepid Playwrights' Theatre Artistic Director, and Professor, Kate Snodgrass just returned from Italy, and forwarded me these pictures. It's okay if you're jealous, or if you cried out "I want to go to there!" Italy will do that to a person.
June 3, 2009 at 11:43 AM
We're happy to announce the winners of several awards:
Nikki Bazar is this year's winner of the Florence Engel Randall Prize in Fiction.
Caroline Sterne is the recipient of the Paul T. Hurley Prize in poetry for 2009.
Shilpi Suneja is the recipient of the Saul Bellow Award for fiction for 2009.
And Renee Emerson's poem "Brownie" was selected by Lloyd Schwartz as BU's winning entry for the Academy of American Poets Prize.
Congratulations, everyone.
June 3, 2009 at 11:32 AM
As some of you may know Rachel DeWoskin (GRS '00 and mentioned in the previous post) spent a large part of her life living in China. She's just written a piece for NPR, looking back on the Tiananmen Square massacre, and its historical significance. You can read the full text of her article on the NPR website. (Photo by Jeff Widener)
May 27, 2009 at 11:30 AM
Creative Writing alumna, Rachel DeWoskin (GRS '00), will be reading from her new novel Repeat After Me, her fiction debut (her wonderful memoir Foreign Babes in Beijing first appeared in 2005), on June 9th at the BU Barnes & Noble, starting at 7:00 pm, in their 5th floor reading room.
Congratulations, Rachel, and here's hoping everyone can make the event.
May 22, 2009 at 5:03 PM
I've just found out that several of our students have been published, or will be shortly. Maya Sloan, GRS 2007, has published "Christian Living" in Passages North, and a quick Google search tells me she's got stories forthcoming in Boulevard and Driftwood. (There may be a book on the horizon as well, but let's hold off on that for the moment.)
Caroline Woods, GRS 2008, has just published a story, "The Little Blessing," in Slice.
Kathleen Foster recently placed a story, "Admissions," in the forthcoming issue of Slice as well.
Daphne Kalotay's new novel, Russian Winter, is forthcoming this year.
And, finally, J.M. Buddie (Jackie to those who know her), Thomas McCafferty, and Kaelan James (Kaelan Smith), all classmates of Maya's, from GRS 2007, have stories forthcoming in flatmanCrooked; one of my pieces is in there, too.
Congratulations to all, and let this be a reminder to keep us posted on what you've been doing. Good luck to you all, and happy Memorial Day weekend. Go forth and grill something.
May 18, 2009 at 3:52 PM
Just in case no one noticed: for a very brief moment this afternoon, we were listed at #10 on the top-ten most active blogs on the BU server. Thanks visitors!
May 18, 2009 at 1:32 PM
Christopher Martin, Michael Towers, and Alexis Kozak, moments before the commencement ceremony began.
After commencement, our three students celebrate with William Fancher.
May 15, 2009 at 12:00 PM
Teaching your own undergraduate course at BU is a great learning experience. You make your own syllabus i.e. make students read whatever you want, whatever you think is good literature and worth learning from. Hearing their thoughts on the assigned reading is also rewarding. But first you have to make sure that they are actually doing the assigned reading. What works best is to have weekly or surprise quizzes. It is a bit difficult to get the students talking, so what I found most helpful was coming up with lots of questions on the reading assignment and the workshop stories. Another thing I found was you have to be strict about attendance and about turning in stories in time. Don't let them turn things in via email--otherwise they will all turn in stories the day before, which means that many of them won't even read their peers' work. Also, they prefer more in-class writing exercises. Opening the class with a writing exercise, followed by a discussion on the work can be a good ice-breaker. This also makes the 3 hours go by more quickly. Also, we are asked to introduce our students to the 3 different genres--fiction, poetry, and playwriting. For those of us unfortunate enough to be experts in only one genre, one way to work with this requirement is to bribe one of your classmates. I asked a poet and a playwrite to guest-teach in my class and this was a big hit with my students as well as the guest lecturers. Other than that, I think this is a wholly rewarding learning opportunity, not to mention how good it looks on your CV.
Shilpi Suneja is a graduating MFA candidate in fiction [and a very fine writer—ed.].
