If you find yourself in the Boston Area...

On November 6th, I'll be part of a reading for the anthology hell strung and crooked.

The reading will be at:

OUTPOST 186
182½ Hampshire St
Inman Sq
Cambridge, MA
8pm
Free


If you're in (that) town, stop by. Great poets, great readers, GREAT anthology...

Calling all (prose) Poets!

Hey all you (prose) poets:

I recently had a couple of prose poems accepted for a new anthology forthcoming in 2011 published by Equinox Publishing. This is called,

CLASSIFIEDS: AN ANTHOLOGY OF PROSE POEMS
[ISBN 978-0-9845659-1-7; $19.95; PUBLICATION DATE: 2011]

They are STILL looking for submissions so this is your chance to find yourself in an anthology! Submit now. They are accepting until the end of December. While they appear to be looking for a particular type of prose poem--see the link in the title of this post--I think they are fairly open to whatever you produce...

Give it a shot. What's the worst that can happen?

Good luck!

Registration Heads Up & Mentor Assignments

FYI, registration will be conducted online this year beginning Wednesday, December 1st, 2010. (If you’re seeing an October 29th date, that is for undergraduate, not graduate, students.)

NOTE:

     -- If you have not sent me a mentor request form, I will assign your mentors.

     -- If you have an outstanding balance and have not arranged for a payment plan with the Cashier's office, the Registrar will not allow you to register online during the registration period.

I will provide you with specific, individualized instructions for registration as we get closer to December 1st.

If you have questions about next semester or registration, contact me -- the sooner, the better.

Holly

Blogging for BAP

Greetings, everyone! I hope you're all having a good semester. Here's one of my projects this semester: I'm the Sunday blogger for Best Americn Poetry through the end of the year. You can click the title bar above for a link. I'll be posting a poem each Sunday with a brief comment. Most of the poems will be from Sentence. So enjoy a poem while you have your Sunday coffee...

MFA Student Discount for CNF Subscriptions

Creative Nonfiction magazine is offering a discount subscription for MFA students.  I have 20 coupons available for you to request 4 issues for $12 (a $20 savings off the normal 4-issue subscription rate). 

Send me a note and we'll put a coupon in the mail to you.

Holly

Red Room Scandalously Short Story Contest

I don't even know if this is a big deal or not, but I am a semi-finalist for the Red Room Scandalously Short Story Contest. Out of "hundreds" of entries, I made the top 10. I guess time will tell if I win anything, but I'm excited nonetheless. This is for my flash fiction piece "Love Letters" that some of you read at the last residency. Check it out here: Red Room Scandalously Short Story Contest

Frisk

MFA Mentor wins Essay Prize

Dick Cass, a mentor in the MFA program, recently won the Community Division of the essay contest associated with Danbury's One Book, One Community program, which is reading Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried. Cass's essay My Father's Grin will be posted on the One Book, One Community Web site along with those of the other winners.

The prompt for the essay was this:

It's no stretch to say that each of us engages in numerous and diverse conflicts throughout our lives. Write an essay in which you discuss your greatest life challenge or conflict and the literal and spiritual "things" you "carry" to remind you of, and help you cope with, that challenge. How does Tim O'Brien's The Things They carried help you put your own challeneg or conflict into perspective?

Winners of the contest and their guests will have dinner with Tim O'Brien on October 26, 2010.

One Book, One Community is a partnership of the Danbury Library, Danbury Public Schools, and Western Connecticut State University. This is the third year of the program.

Reach Dick at dick@casscomminc.com.

My 2010 Action on Film Interview

Hello my fellow MFAers,

Here is my interview from the 2010 Action on Film International Film Festival. Just wanted to share.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am7yXS0UOGk&feature=sub

Thanks for viewing.

Aaliyah

It's Raining Pennies from Heaven!

Just a big thank you to all of you brave souls who added their names to my list of 200. I'm getting there! Forever grateful :)

We've Moved Again! (Temporarily)

If you're on campus looking for the MFA office, you'll find us temporarily located in the Student Center #207, effective today. We're here while they work on the Higgins building roof, and our offices were in the path of progress.  We hope to return to Higgins in a couple of weeks -- we'll keep you posted.  We have the same phone and fax numbers, and of course we're reachable by email.

Have a good Columbus Day weekend.

Holly

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

Hello All,

Some of you probably know I have been in search of employment for awhile. Because of my teaching and writing background, I have been contacted a few times by recruiters from various financial and insurance businesses looking to train career transition-ers in the fine art of selling and advising clients on available financial and risk services. Having made enough financial mistakes in my life-time to fill a book (hmmm . . ), I am considering becoming a Financial Services Associate for Prudential.

Currently, I am in the process of being considered for its 27 week training program. One of the "skills" I must demonstrate in order to move forward with the training is the ability to create a personal network of 200 names and addresses of people I would be comfortable reaching out to for business or referrals. I have reached 50% of this goal. This network is for my use only, and it is among many other avenues that are available to me to generate business.

May I be so bold as to request that any member of this blog who is willing to help me and wish to consider becoming a part of my network list email me at antonia.schachter@gmail.com? (Again, the list is solely my property and will never be misused.)

Thanks for any support you can provide me in this endeavor.

Tonia

Faculty Requests for Spring ‘11

It may seem like the semester just started, but it’s time to think about next Spring! Unless you will be a first-semester student in Spring '11 (in which case your mentors are assigned) please complete the Mentor Request Form and email it to me at azevedoh@wcsu.edu. The form is on the Student Forms page of the MFA website, linked here: Student Forms
    
I need to know exactly which courses you are going to take in which term (Winter Intersession or Spring). This applies only to students who are taking part-time loads (4-8 hours) and students who are registering for a combination of Winter Intersession and Spring hours. If you plan to register as a full-time student in the spring, there is no need to indicate that. If you do not specify the number of hours in Winter Intersession / Spring, I will assume that you are going full time in the Spring. All sections of the Online Multigenre Workshop are in the Spring.

Please email your request form to me no later than Tuesday, October 19th. If I do not receive your requests by then, your mentors will be assigned.

Also, if you are going to be a 3rd-semester student in the spring, you should begin planning your internship now, if you haven't already started doing so.

First semester students: you will need computer account information mailed to you by Graduate Studies in order to complete your online registration.

Online registration for the Spring semester should take place in early December -- more details to follow.

Holly

Note:  Our students have won in the past. Consider submitting your work to these CT Review contests.

CT REVIEW

CONNECTICUT STATE UNIVERSITY SYSTEM

WRITING CONTESTS

GENRES: POETRY, FICTION, & NONFICTION ESSAY

DEADLINE: Postmarked by December 4, 2010

The CT Review will publish winning work in Spring, 2011. Honorable mentions will be published on the CT Review website.   http://www.ct.edu/ctreview/

To enter the contests, you must be currently enrolled as a graduate or undergraduate student at SCSU, ECSU, WCSU or CCSU. You may enter work in more than one genre.

RULES FOR FICTION AND NONFICTION ESSAY

1. Submit two typed copies of each entry.

2. 2500 words or less per entry.

3. One copy of the entry should have name, address, e-mail, phone number, school and current ACADEMIC STATUS. One copy, which will be sent to the national judge, should have no name.

4. Include a cover letter with a brief biography.

5. Work will not be returned. Include an SASE for results.

RULES FOR POETRY - TWO CONTESTS

Leslie Leeds Poetry Contest
Leo Connellan Poetry Contest

1. Follow the rules for Fiction and Nonfiction Essay, except submit FIVE different poems, which will be judged individually, not as a group. Please submit just ONE set of five; they will be considered for BOTH poetry contests.

2. Each poem can have no more than 34 lines (excluding title and stanza breaks).

Send work to:
Professor Mary Collins
CT Review
English Department
Central Connecticut State University
1615 Stanley St.
New Britain, Ct. 06050-6010

Questions, e-mail Professor Collins at collinsmae@ccsu.edu or call her at 860-832-2770.

Silent Auction Sold to Harlequin Book Club

I wanted to share a bit of good news--the latest Josie Prescott Antiques Mystery has just sold to the Harlequin Book Club... it will be reissued as a "private label" (as it were) paperback.