Residency & Registration Guidelines

TO: All Intersession / Spring 2011 Students

I have sent an email to each of you (via your WestConn id, or your personal email if a new student) with Residency and Registration information.

Registration will begin on Wednesday, December 1st, and must be completed by Wednesday, December 8th. 

Please let me know if you have questions after reading the email.

Holly

SENSATION announced

PM Press has announced its 2011 list and I'm happy to say that my novel Sensation is a part of it. PM is an independent press that has been around since only 2007, but they've already made great inroads in publishing radical political non-fiction and cutting edge commercial fiction in the noir and science fiction genres. In PM's SF program, my book joins releases by legends such as Ursula K. Le Guin and Michael Moorcock.

I'm also pretty happy because Sensation was my WestConn thesis novel. Thanks to Paola Corso and Shouhua Qi for being my faculty advisors on it. See, it can happen!

Dancing With Archie: Why Women Swoon

My essay, "Dancing With Archie: Why Women Swoon," which is about a character in Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe stories, has been posted on Barnes & Noble's online book club  site: They're calling it a "Thanksgiving Treat"!

http://bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com/t5/Mystery/Jane-Cleland-on-NERO-WOLFE/m-p/726955#U726955

If you scroll down, you'll come to a YouTube video where I am interviewed as Lily Rowan (wig and all). I can't believe I actually did this thing. I also can't believe I'm sending you all the link.

Fifteen Years of Rejection Letters

This is actually many fewer rejections than Kameron Hurley received over his fifteen years of trying. She also sold a trilogy of novels to a major publisher, had the books killed after a restructuring, and then resold them to a strong independent publisher. This is the sort of pile ones ends up, or that one used to end up with in the days before magazines started moving to electronic submissions. Check out the video.

January 2011 Residency - RSVP

The January residency will be here soon.  The workshop schedule is in progress and descriptions and registration information will be posted as soon as possible after the Thanksgiving holiday.

At this time, we need to know if you plan to attend the January 2011 residency (December 27th through January 2nd)?

Please click here to respond via email (do not leave comments on the blog). 

Thanks,

Holly

Enrichment Presentations at January Residency

Please let me know by Tuesday, November 23rd, at the latest if you intend to present your enrichment project at the January residency, even if you already informed me of your intent to do so.

The role of MFA programs in teaching students about business?

Traditionally, MFA programs have taken a nod from the fine arts—to speak of the "business" of writing was seen as distasteful at best, and something to be utterly forbidden at worst. The issue is in the news after New York's exposé of James Frey's book-packaging sweatshop—he pays $500 for novels and trawls Manhattan's MFA programs for willing suckers ready to sign this horrific contract. (The second half of clause 4.2 is a real doozy!)

In response, author John Scalzi* has published an open letter to MFA programs and their students which I think is well worth reading. Here at WestConn we do talk about business at least occasionally, and certainly in the "practical" genres, but many programs are still run by the clueless, for the clueless.

This might be something worth discussing at the residency next month.




*Scalzi's an especially interesting figure as his career is basically what WestConn teaches: yes, he writes popular novels and works in television, but he also writes corporate copy as a significant part of his living.

Interview With Best Selling author Lorenzo Carcaterra

I'll be interviewing thriller writer, Lorenzo Carcaterra, tomorrow at a library in Queens if anyone wants to attend. The mystery event is from 2:30 to 4:30 in the afternoon; he and I go on around 3:00. We got a nice shout-out in the New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/12/arts/12miser.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion 

Here's the details:

Queens Public Library
108-19 71 Avenue
Forest Hills, NY 11375
(718) 268-7934

Train: E, F, R or M to 71st / Continental Ave.
Car: Grand Central Parkway to Exit 15, Queens Blvd. Continue north, then turn right onto 71st Ave.

New Book

Hello all,

My new book of prose poems, Jargon, though not officially released until Dec. is now available at SPD.

Hope you're all having a great semester!

bc

Jan11 Residency Hotel Reservations

The customary hotel for the January residencies has been the Maron Hotel for the past 3 years, but you are more than welcome to stay in any one of the many, many hotels in the Danbury/Bethel/Brookfield area. If you are flying to Connecticut and will not be renting a car, you may want to stay at the Maron simply because it is within easy walking distance of the Westside Campus (where most of the programming takes place.) The Maron has again extended to our students the $89/per night rate. This rate will only be available until midnight December 12th, so be sure to call and make your reservations ASAP. Don't forget to ask for the WestConn MFA student rate when you call. The number is (203) 791-2200. http://www.maronhotel.com/hotel-overview.html After December 12th, neither the availability nor the rate is guaranteed. Many of the rooms are suites, with a sofa-sleeper in a separate sitting room, and students will sometimes get together and double up in a room, cutting their hotel costs by half. Of course, you would want to specifically request a suite if you plan to do that. Let me know if you are interested and I will be happy to forward to you the student email list.

January 2011 Residency Information

As posted on our MFA website, the January 2011 Residency will run from Monday, December 27th to Sunday, January 2nd.

December 27th is the arrival date, with New Student Orientation and the Welcome Dinner the only events scheduled.

January 2nd is a travel day only.

We will take off between dinner on New Year's Eve and lunch on New Year's Day.

Hotel reservation details will be posted soon.

The residency schedule and workshop information will be posted in the near future.

Staged Reading

Hi Gang,

My new play "Crashing" will have a staged reading on Monday, 11/15 in NYC.

Location: HBO, 1100 Avenue of the Americas near 42nd St.

It's free, and open to the public, after required phone registration (212-459-3630, ext. 204), no later than 11/12.

Light refreshments at 5:30, opening play by Carol Dorn (WCSU adjunct), followed by Crashing.

More information:
http://nynatas.org/en/cev/432

My Play

Hey all;
The play I was contracted to write for the Sherman School, "Sherman Grows Together" opens tomorrow at the New Milford High School auditorium. It's a one-hour musical for which I penned an 11-character script to accompany Eliot Bailen's gorgeous score. Members of the New York Philharmonic perform in the orchestra. (Children act my scenes ... oh well.) Anyhooo, it's high-jinx-a-plenty in this romp about a cardboard box company buying the last working farm in town.
Best wishes,
Don Lowe

A Reading, the story

Hey WestConn gang,

I have a new story at Barrelhouse, which came out today. Some of you might remember this piece from my reading at the August residency. All but subtle references to Mark Sundeen have been taken out.

http://www.barrelhousemag.com/word/?p=3161

AWP Intro Journals Project - Competition

The AWP Intro Journals Project is a literary competition for the discovery & publication of the best new works by students currently enrolled in the programs of AWP (our MFA program is an AWP member).  Both graduate and undergraduate students are eligible. Winners will receive publication in a participating journal and a $100 cash honorarium.
 
Contact Holly Azevedo at  azevedoh@wcsu.edu to submit your work. Each member program is free to devise its own method for nominating student works. Only students currently enrolled in AWP member programs may enter the competition.

Judges for the 2010 contest were:

• Poetry - Lynn Powell
• Fiction - Crystal Wilkinson
• Creative Nonfiction - Sonya Huber

Guidelines for the 2011 Intro Journals Project

Please follow the guidelines below for submitting nominations:

 

Nominations must be postmarked from the MFA office no later than Dec. 3, 2010, so submit your work to me no later than Friday, November 19th. 

Nominations must be accompanied by a cover letter from the program director, which verifies that the enclosed nominations are by students currently enrolled in the university's creative writing program. In the letter, the program must provide a permanent address for each nominated student.

Translations are acceptable, but it is the translator's responsibility to secure publication rights.

Nominated works must be unpublished and may not be under consideration elsewhere for the duration of the contest.

Each program may nominate no more than one work of nonfiction, one work of short fiction, and three poems (poems do not have to be all by the same author). Excerpts from novels are acceptable but must not exceed 25 pages.

Each nomination should have two title pages as follows: the first should include the title, author's name, permanent address, phone number, and name and address of the member writing program; the second should include the title only.

The author's name should not appear on the manuscript except on the first title page.

Prose must be double-spaced and typed or printed on a letter-quality printer. Dot matrix is not acceptable. Poetry only may be single-spaced.

Winners will be contacted in the spring of 2011. Each will receive an award letter, publication in a participating journal, and a $100 cash honorarium. Winning works will appear in the fall or winter issues of Hayden's Ferry Review, Mid-American Review, Colorado Review, Puerto del Sol, Controlled Burn, Quarterly West, Tampa Review, and Artful Dodge.

Click on the title of this blog entry for more info at the AWP Intro Journals webpage. 

Roger Boylan's Review of Mark Twain's Autobiography

Click on the title to read Roger Boylan's review of  The Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume I  published in the November/December 2010 issue of the Boston Review.

Creative Nonfiction Essays NEEDED, NOW!

Elizabeth Cohen is requesting submissions of creative nonfiction pieces, up to 2,500 words, for the Saranac Review.

Send them directly to:

Elizabeth Cohen
17 Grace Avenue
Plattsburgh, NY 12901

For info on the Saranac Review, see http://research.plattsburgh.edu/saranacreview/mainpage.html

Push Cart Nomination

Good News! I received notice that the journal, Poems & Plays, nominated my poem, Memorial Day (I & II) for a Push Cart prize.

Hint Fiction

Hi all. I have a story in a fun new anthology, Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer, as do such luminaries as Joyce Carol Oates, Ha Jin, and Peter Straub. Hint fiction is the brainchild of editor Robert Swartwood and basically refers to stories of twenty-five words or fewer that hint at a larger story that remains untold. (In many cases, the relationship between title and text is very important. Some of the pieces veer toward prose poetry.)

The New Yorker liked it too. So if you need to buy a holiday gift for some bookish person you may not know very well and don't want to spend a lot of money on...