Carmen Gimenez Smith News

Poet and professor Carmen Giménez Smith will have her third book of poetry, TREES OUTSIDE THE ACADEMY, published by The Center for Literary Publishing's new Mountain West Poetry Series in 2011. Read a new essay by Carmen in Shadowbox, a review of her book BRING DOWN THE LITTLE BIRDS in the latest issue of The Collagist, or her thoughts about the future of American poetry at The Huffington Post. 

2010 Frank Waters and Wilson/Somoza Awards

Congratulations to the winners of this year's Frank Waters and Wilson/Somoza awards, given annually to the best graduate work in creative writing as submitted by students. This year, the winners were:


Frank Waters Fiction Award in Fiction judged by Ellen Litman

1. “Another to the Multitude” by Chris Rosenbluth

2. “Conscience Round” by Melanie Sweeney Bowen

3. “Man of the Family” by Tracy Bowling


Keith Wilson / Joe Somoza / Ruth Scott Academy of American Poetry Prizes judged by Dorine Jennette

#1 –Robbie Wendeborn

#2—Carrie Murphy

#3—Adam Crittenden

Ruth Scott Academy of American Poets Prize—Elizabeth Brasher

Honorable Mention: Jeff Pickell
Honorable Mention: Nate Taylor
Honorable Mention: Robert Houghton

Congratulations to Jeff Frawley

Congratulations to Jeff Frawley MFA Fiction '09, a 2010-2011 Fulbright scholar in Creative Writing. He will be heading to Hungary in January to work on his novel.

Recent Student Publications

Adam Crittenden has a piece of flash fiction in the latest issue of the Dead Mule School of Southern Literature.

Tracy Bowling, Mike Meginnis and Carrie Murphy all have work in the inaugural issue of Bluestem magazine (formerly Karamu).

Mike also has poems in the new issue of  >kill author.

3rd Year Student Profile: Tracy Bowling

Tracy Bowling

Tracy Bowling is completing her MFA in Fiction at New Mexico State University, where she teaches courses in composition and creative writing and serves as a managing editor of Puerto del Sol. Tracy also works as an associate editor for Noemi Press. Tracy comes to Las Cruces from Indianapolis, Indiana, where she met her husband and fellow MFA candidate Mike Meginnis. Together they edit Uncanny Valley, a literature/entertainment blog and literary magazine focusing on innovative and cross-genre work. They are working on putting out the first print issue in 2011. 

Tracy spends her free time reading and playing video games, and has particular obsessions with The Simpsons, robots, anime, and craft projects involving beading. She loves teaching at all levels, from kindergarten to undergrad, and hopes to eventually earn a position as a graduate creative writing instructor in a university. She has also worked as a copyeditor and a coordinator of content for textbooks, and harbors nerdy dreams of writing pedagogical standards and course objectives for creative writing curricula.

Tracy has had work published online at PANK and Storyglossia. She writes frequently about outlandish ambitions and gender issues and has approached these ideas through such protagonists as obese rock stars, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and the elusive Yeti. Her thesis-in-progress is a novel about a man with psychic powers sailing to Alaska in order to inherit the greatest known psychic shop in the world. 

Tracy will have her public reading this coming Friday, December 3rd, with NMSU MFA alum Dorine Jennette.

2010 Hunger Benefit Photos!

Check out some photographs from our 2010 Hunger Benefit, which took place on November 12th. We raised over $3,000 for Casa De Peregrinos, Las Cruces' food bank.  This was the first year for the chili-cook off competition between graduate students and faculty; graduate students took home the cumulative prize, while MFA faculty member Richard Greenfield won the overall competition with his "Tequila Chipotle Chicken Chili."

Charles Bowden was our featured reader this year. He read from his recent book about Cuidad Juarez, Murder City, as well as from his other work pertaining to the US-Mexico border. The benefit also featured live music, a mini-carnival, and a silent auction. Thanks to everyone who helped with the Hunger Benefit this year, including creative writing students, faculty members, volunteers and attendees.

All photos courtesy of fiction student Josh Bowen.

Crockpots full of chili waiting to be tasted

Students socializing before the reading

MFA students Peter Brooks and Megan Wong hard at work on the Minute Made Poetry booth, while Rob Houghton takes charge of the Trivia booth

Bobby Byrd introduces Charles Bowden

Charles Bowden, our featured reader

If you'd like to see more photographs or get more information about La Sociedad Para Las Artes and the Nelson/Boswell reading series at NMSU, visit our Facebook page.

Upcoming Reading: Dorine Jennette and Tracy Bowling on December 3rd

The next reading in the La Sociedad Para Las Artes Nelson/Boswell Reading Series will feature NMSU MFA alum Dorine Jennette, reading with graduating MFA Fiction student Tracy Bowling. The reading will take place on Friday, December 3rd, at 7:30 pm in Hardman Hall 106, NMSU campus, with a reception to follow. If you live in or around Southern NM, we hope to see you there! The reading series will begin again in January 2011.

You can purchase Dorine's first book of poetry, Urchin To Follow, here.

3rd Year Student Profile: Erin Reardon

Erin Reardon

Erin really thinks she's more Southern than not, but is met with "But you don't have an accent....?" comments often enough that she'll lay claim to both her Midwestern- and Southern-ness depending on the convenience of the situation.  Born in Ohio and raised in Georgia, Erin, when she stops to think about it, never really imagined that someday she would be in grad school, in the desert--New Mexico!--of all places.

In fact, most of her fiction writing 'career' has come about by happenstance--she liked to read, so why not be an English major in college?  She liked to write too, so let's make that a concentration in creative writing.  Wait, there's another whole degree out there where I can keep learning to be a writer?  Sign me up, she thought. 

Erin did not know what she was getting into.

The MFA has been hard, but Erin is grateful for the writers--both her instructors and fellow students--she's been privileged to work with here.  She has spent the last two and a half years teaching freshman composition and developmental English classes at Dona Ana Community College and has discovered, much to her surprise, that she is rather fond of teaching.

Erin hasn't yet been published--she keeps putting submitting off until her stories are "good enough," whatever that is (Erin is astoundingly good at procrastinating).  And she is not nervous AT ALL about her reading on February 11 with Rosa Alcala.

HUNGER BENEFIT

Friday, November 12th at 6 pm.

Charles Bowden reads

from his new book, Murder City: Ciudad Juárez and the Global Economy's New Killing Fields

Tickets: $10 (all proceeds go to the Casa de Peregrinos, the food bank for Las Cruces, NM)

Beverly Hills Hall, 150 N. Hermosa, Las Cruces

Food, Cash Bar, Silent Auction, Games, Books for sale and signing

3rd Year Student Profile: Mike Meginnis

Mike Meginnis

Mike Meginnis was born. Don't ask him where -- he consistently forgets. In Iowa if his mother was born in Illinois, in Illinois if his mother was born in Iowa. His family moved soon thereafter to Indianapolis, where they lived in his grandparents' basement, stacking laundry on filing cabinets and so on in what would later be an office. In Indiana it is legal to home-school one's children without notifying the state, satisfying any curricular requirements, or in fact schooling one's children. It is not legal, however, for a boy not to register for the draft. Mike learned the fundamentals from his mother, but quickly moved on to largely guiding his own studies, which is a good way to become strange and maladjusted. He did register for the draft. When he applied to undergraduate institutions, he worked with his mother to construct a plausible and honest transcript, though he had never received a grade in his entire life. Butler University took him anyway. Statistically speaking, this was a good bet. He eventually majored in English.

New Mexico State University has been kind enough to let him teach freshman composition and creative writing for these past 2.5 years, and he is told that next semester they will return to that well. He is in his final year as an MFA candidate in fiction. The highlight of his time here has been working on Puerto del Sol, first as a prose editor and then as a managing editor. He has learned so much there. His thesis, Fat Man and Little Boy, is a novel about the atom bombs reincarnated as people. When he is not writing, he is probably playing a video game or looking at a cat.

He has work published or forthcoming in Hobart, elimae, The Lifted Brow, A cappella Zoo, The Sycamore Review, Dark Sky Magazine, PANK Magazine, Mud Luscious, and others. He has also written reviews for The Collagist, The Review of Contemporary Fiction, and Puerto del Sol. He co-edits the forthcoming magazine Uncanny Valley with his wife, Tracy Bowling.

Nelson/Boswell Reading Series: Daniel Black with MFA candidate Daniel Cameron

Daniel Black, author of Perfect Peace as well as two other novels, will be reading here at NMSU on Friday as part of the La Sociedad Para Las Artes Nelson/Boswell Reading Series. 

He will read with MFA fiction candidate Daniel Cameron.

Friday, November 5th, 7:30 pm, Hardman Hall 106, New Mexico State University Campus. Reception to follow.

3rd Year Student Profile: Peter Brooks

Originally from Wauwatosa, a suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Peter is a 3rd MFA student studying poetry and aiming to enter into a Rhetoric/Professional Communication and/or Cultural Studies PhD program post-NMSU.  Peter appreciates the three year MFA program because it has allowed him concentrate on his craft while also exploring other disciplines in his coursework.  His current thesis about his hometown has drawn on other classes as much as it has his time growing up in Wisconsin.  Surveys on William Blake and Walt Whitman along with a Practicum in Grammar expanded his writing repertoire and inspired his interest toward identity theory in and out of creative writing.

During his time, Peter has been a part of the Borderlands Writing Project and NMSU Teaching Academy.  Both experiences have helped him on his career to be a college instructor and provided ideas for the courses he’s taught.  Along with two of his colleagues, Daniel (MFA Fiction) and Meg (PhD RPC), Peter is tri-editor of The FUN Journal, an online journal dedicated to the fun of craft and writing.  Many contributors to The FUN Journal have also been Las Cruces community members he’s read with at Open Mics and Poetry Events.  In his last year Peter continues to host POPS/MOPS with another colleague, Melanie (MFA Fiction), works with Puerto del Sol as an associate editor, and serves as the Online Writing Center Coordinator.

Before all this writing craziness Peter was a full-time RHD at Arizona State, University of Missouri-Columbia, and University of Wisconsin Oshkosh.  The past year Peter has still been involved in housing speaking at the Wisconsin United Residence Hall Association 2010 Conference and the University of Wisconsin Community Colleges Leadership Conference.  While he does not miss 3am phone calls about students vomiting all over themselves, he does appreciate the value of cultivating living learning communities.

Peter draws his influence from poets interested in city writing and the social/cultural life within those places.  Langston Hughes, Martin Espada, Walt Whitman, Mina Loy, and Pablo Neruda have been some of his influences.  Peter has been a three year contributor to the Wisconsin Poet’s Calendar published by the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets and recently received 3rd place in OnMilwaukee.com’s poetry contest.  During the few free minutes he has, he enjoys Scrabble, long walks around Las Cruces, and team trivia.

Peter will have his public reading on April 15th with Rachel Levitsky.

Joshua Marie Wilkinson Reading Photographs

Check out a few photographs from Joshua Marie Wilkinson's reading here at New Mexico State last Tuesday night, October 19th. He was accompanied by banjo player Solan Jensen.

Photos courtesy of Josh Bowen.

Borderlands Writing Project

Borderlands Writing Project
by Peter Brooks, 3rd year Poetry MFA

The NMSU Borderlands Writing Project (BWP) is a part of the National Writing Project.  Meant to provide a communal forum to discuss, research, present, write, and share with teachers and students alike, BWP is a great experience for an MFA student.  Last summer I was fortunate enough to have taken the 6 credit summer session and found the benefits bountiful as a writer and student. BWP’s curriculum covers all aspects of English; Rhetoric, Literature, and Creative Writing.

We started out each day by having a free writing session, followed by voluntary sharing.  Those morning warm-ups were a great way to get your brain working and allowed some opportunity to either reflect or write creatively.  The daily reading and research not only provided me with a broad basis of cultural literacy and pedagogical techniques, but I was able to understand my own MFA thesis’ direction better.  I am now able to articulate the approaches I’m using on a rhetorical and academic level, in addition to craft.  Most importantly, BWP is a great way to build community.  The different perspectives from teachers, instructors, and even non-academic professionals truly helps expand our MFA world.  Even if you do not have the intention toward a teaching career, BWP creates relationships that allow you to share your future writing.

Summer 2010 BWP participants

In a summer when I was worried I would be “freaking out” over my thesis, I found the Borderlands Writing Project a great communal space to write and reflect.  I encourage any current or future MFA student to make the most of this unique opportunity.

For more information about BWP, visit this site.

3rd Year Student Profile: Robert Alan Wendeborn

Robert Alan Wendeborn is a third year MFA poetry student from Aztec, a small town in Northern New Mexico.  He was awarded a fellowship from the Las Cruces Organization of the Literary Arts last November to write in Tuscany over the summer in 2010.  It was an amazing opportunity for him and he’s very grateful.  He feels like his thesis is a million times better for it.  

Robert at his public reading, 9/10/10

Robert is currently an intern for Professor Richard Greenfield's small press, Apostrophe Books.  He finds working with a small press incredibly helpful as a writer.  Robert says of the experience, “every time I work on something for the press I feel like I'm doing something to make me a better writer and poet.”  He is working on typesetting the new book and getting ready to help promote it as well.  He is also currently a poetry editor for Puerto del Sol.  He loves his co-workers at PDS and thinks they are the reason PDS is so cool.

His thesis, tentatively titled I Versus You (There Is No ‘I’ In Mouth, s-k-I-n, and Skin & Mouth Disease are also being considered (he needs help)), is a series of poems that explore gender and identity through the deconstruction of relationships.  Some of his older poems can be found online, though most of those won't be in his thesis.  Works from I Versus You can be found at Strange-Machine.com and others are forthcoming in the October issue of PANK, and the next issue of M Review, both online literary journals.

His interests outside of poetry include food, cooking, biking, traveling, commercials, body art/modification and fashion.  After he graduates, he hopes to attend a Phd program in creative writing or move to Detroit to teach high school/plant a garden.

On Gender and Publishing: A Panel Moderated by Carmen Giménez Smith

Poet and NMSU professor Carmen Giménez Smith, who edits both Puerto del Sol and Noemi Press, moderated a panel about gender and publishing for VIDA, the new women-in-the-literary arts organization. Tracy Bowling, a 3rd year MFA Fiction student who edits Uncanny Valley with her husband Mike, participated in the panel along with several other writers, editors, publishers and teachers. 


Carmen is also on the Outreach Committee for VIDA, a great new organization. Head on over to their site and check out the panel, as well as the other important work VIDA is doing in the literary world.


On a related note, MFA Poetry 09' grad Kara Dorris has just started a new poetry journal, Lingerpost. Submissions are open until November, so read the submission guidelines and send your poems!

Joshua Marie Wilkinson Reading Tues Oct 19

Joshua Marie Wilkinson will be reading on Tuesday, October 19, 7:30 PM in the Health and Social Sciences Annex Auditorium (lower level)--the new building adjacent to the English Building.

Poet Joshua Marie Wilkinson, winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize, will be accompanied by Solan Jensen playing banjo. He is the author of five books, most recently Selenography. He has also edited two anthologies for University of Iowa Press, including Poets on Teaching. A tour documentary about the band Califone, entitled Made a Machine by Describing the Landscape, is also forthcoming. He teaches at Loyola University in Chicago.

3rd Year Student Profile: Elizabeth Brasher

Note: This is the first in a series profiling New Mexico State University MFA students in their 3rd and last year of the program. Check back weekly or so to learn about the intellectually and creatively diverse graduate students studying writing here at NMSU.

Elizabeth Brasher

Originally from the three-stoplight town of Bloomfield, New Mexico, Elizabeth Brasher is currently completing her MFA in creative writing with an emphasis in poetry at NMSU, where she teaches composition and creative writing and works as an associate editor for the literary journal, Puerto del Sol. Elizabeth is an assistant editor for Bone Bouquet, an online journal of women’s poetry, and she writes for Feminist Review. She is also a volunteer with Women for Afghan Women. She holds an MA in literature and a BA in English, and lives in Las Cruces with her husband and daughter.

Her work, mostly poetry and essay, focuses on the intersections between Women as a construct and women in the everyday domestic and work environments. Her work has not made an appearance in any literary journals, but she remains slightly optimistic about the possibility. She would like to teach creative writing at a college or university after she graduates.

Elizabeth will have her public reading on October 22nd with poet Cynthia Hogue, as part of the La Sociedad Para Las Artes Nelson/Boswell Reading Series

Winter 2010 Puerto Del Sol

Pre-order the Winter 2010 issue of Puerto Del Sol here.  Puerto is edited by Carmen Gimenez Smith and Evan Lavender-Smith, and has several NMSU creative writing students on staff.

If you'd like to read some excerpts from past issues of the journal, check out the archive.

La Sociedad Para Las Artes

La Sociedad Para Las Artes is the creative writing graduate student organization here at NMSU. We coordinate WITS (Writers In The Schools), the Nelson/Boswell reading series (visiting writers reading on campus, for free) and the annual Hunger Benefit, a reading event that raises money for Casa de Los Peregrinos, a food bank here in Las Cruces.

We're currently gearing up for this year's Hunger Benefit, scheduled for November 12th. The featured reader will be nonfiction writer Charles Bowden, who most recently published a book about Cuidad Juarez, Murder City. NMSU librarian Molly Molloy was instrumental in the research for the book, which details the growing crisis in Juarez, which borders El Paso (about 50 minutes away from Las Cruces). Both Bowden and Molloy visited Rus Bradburd's Monday night nonfiction workshop this semester to discuss the book. The Hunger Benefit should be a great event: a great reader and a good cause. We'll also have carnival games, a chili cook-off, live music, and a silent auction.

If you'd like more information (not to mention pictures!) about the Hunger Benefit or La Sociedad, please visit our Facebook page.

NMSU MFA Alumni Projects

Check out just a few of the fascinating creative projects spearheaded by NMSU MFA program alumni:


MFA Fiction 04' Albert Martinez has an awesome website, Lively Words, where he features video footage of writers reading their work. Several people associated with the MFA program at New Mexico State have participated in his project, including former professors Antonya Nelson and Robert Boswell, current professor Connie Voisine and graduates Tim Staley and Dorine Jennette.


MFA Fiction 05' graduate Jacquie Fuller also has a website project, How I Found You. How I Found You "wants to know how you found someone, or something, significant in your life. How you found them for the first time, how you found them again. How they changed you forever." (from the website) Like Lively Words, you can find several submissions from people associated with the program, including former professors Kevin McIlvoy and Sheila Black. 


Voices Behind Walls is a creative writing workshop program started by MFA Poetry 08' alum Lee Rhyanes.  The program takes place in juvenile detention centers in the Southwest and encourages juvenile offenders to express themselves through poetry.  Read the interesting story of how the workshop developed on the website and sign up for the newsletter. Lee, along with NMSU Literature graduate Justin DeSenso, was also instrumental in helping to create "Hip-Hop Stacks," a catalog of hip-hop literature, music, art and scholarship now located at the Branson Library on the New Mexico State University campus. 

Alumnus Kevin Honold's Book, Men As Trees Walking

Click on over to Amazon.com and pre-order MFA Fiction 10' alumni Kevin Honold's first book!  Kevin's book of poems, Men As Trees Walking, won the 2010 Ohio State University Press/The Journal Prize Award. He also holds an MFA in Poetry from Purdue.

“In Men as Trees Walking Kevin Honold takes a hard look at cityscapes, work, and the lives of soldiers from ancient Greece to the contemporary Persian Gulf. Few poets are as comfortable dealing with history or as clear-eyed about the present. This is work of precision, maturity, and insight. Kevin Honold takes on things that matter, and what he has to say is articulate and compelling.”  

                                                                        —Don Bogen

Student & Alumni Publications!

Third-year poet Robert Alan Wendeborn has five poems coming out in this month's M Review. Check out his poem "I Would Hang A Spider From Your Bones" in the latest issue of Strange Machine.


Josh Wheeler, MFA Poetry '10, has a piece, Diagnosable, in the Fall 2010 issue of Brevity Magazine.


Krystal Languell, MFA Poetry '10, has poems forthcoming at La Petite Zine and horse less review.  She was also a semifinalist for the 2010 Akron Poetry Prize. Her chapbook, The Mean Particle, is in production at Tilt Press.


Mike Meginnis, third-year fiction writer, has a story in the Australian magazine The Lifted Brow.


Carrie Murphy's (third year poet) poem "The Seven Strongest Men In Town" was nominated by PANK magazine for Sundress' Publications Best of the Net 2010.

Fall Readings

Check out some pictures from the La Sociedad Para Las Artes Nelson/Boswell Reading Series. All photos courtesy of Josh Bowen.

Our first reading of the year was on August 27th at the Black Box Theatre in downtown Las Cruces. First and second year MFA students read their work.

Lisa Nohner, fiction

Floydd Elliot, poetry

Chris Schacht, fiction

Jeanine Deibel, poetry

On September 10th, Carmen Gimenez Smith read with graduating poet Robert Alan Wendeborn. Doesn't he look happy?

The reading was featured in an article by NMSU's campus newspaper, The Round-Up. Read it here.

Our next reading is this coming Friday, September 24th. We're hosting poet Rodrigo Toscano, who will read with our own Robert Rome.

Faculty News

Carmen Gimenez Smith's new memoir, Bring Down The Little Birds, has just come out from the University of Arizona Press.

Connie Voisine will be a visiting writer at the University of Connecticut in October. She will also be visiting writer at California State University Long Beach in April. She'll be faculty at Arizona State University's Desert Nights, Rising Stars Writing Conference in March 2011. Check out an interview and reading with Connie on poetry MFA alumni Tim Staley's Lively Words.


Rus Bradburd's book, Forty Minutes Of Hell, is now out in paperback. Read an interview with Rus here. 

Podcast!

Professor Connie Voisine's poem "Testament" is discussed by Don Share and Christian Wiman in Poetry Magazine's monthly Podcast:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/audio.html?show=The%20Poetry%20Magazine%20Podcast

Din Magazine Launch Party

May 6th, 2010 5-7pm in the NMSU Reader's Theater (adjacent to Clarabelle Williams Hall)

Our new undergraduate magazine will have its launch. Finally the Din is yours!

All are welcome and there will be snacks.

Come see our new, fabulously designed and edited journal featuring poems, stories, artwork and video by NMSU undergraduates and Las Cruces artists.

Thanks to the Apostrophe Books Interns

This is a special thanks to Robbie Wendenborn (MFA Poetry 2011) and Anna Pattison (MFA Fiction 2012), interns for Apostrophe Books, an associated (though not affiliated) press (along with Noemi Books) of the NMSU creative writing program.

This semester Apostrophe Books has made several important strides forward that would not have happened if not for the help we received from Robbie and Anna. Five months ago, Apostrophe Books did not have a Facebook page, had not yet incorporated as a Limited Partnership in the state of New Mexico, did not have an Employer Identification Number, did not have a business license, did not have a checking account, and had not yet implemented a new submission policy (starting this week!). Now we have all of this set up. Anna and Robbie each played contributing roles in making these improvements possible. In addition, both contributed to the reading and editing of our next title, and Robbie worked at the AWP bookfair table selling books and took promotional pictures of our massively successful reading event at the Plus Gallery in Denver, Colorado.

Thanks again Robbie and Anna!

And during the summer, Apostrophe Books is looking for a temporary intern to replace Anna until she returns in the fall. If you are interested, write to Richard Greenfield at rgreenfi@nmsu.edu. Noemi Books is also looking for an intern for the summer. If you are interested, contact Carmen Smith at carmens@nmsu.edu.

New issue of PUERTO DEL SOL

http://www.puertodelsol.org/current.html

17th Annual Marathon Reading

Today's 12 hour marathon reading was impressive. Amazing work. Here was the reading list:

12:00 Ashly Bender

12:15 Scott Anderson

12:30 Patti Wojahn

12:45 Carrie Murphy

1:00 Ryan Orr

2:00 Rebecca Powell

2:15 Carl Wilhoyte

2:30 Austin Tremblay

3:00 Nancy Hastings Critique Group

4:00 Ashly Bender

4:15 Abbie McCracken

4:30 Mike Meginnis

4:45 Tracy Meginnis

5:00 Floydd Elliott

5:30 Peter Brooks

6:00 Patrick Lee Clark

6:15 Elizabeth Brasher

6:30 Erin Reardon

6:45 Neal Adelman

7:00 Allison Layfield

7:30 Marc Scott

8:00 Jen Bracken Scott

8:30 Robbie Wendeborn

8:45 Richard Greenfield

9:00 Josh Young

9:15 Melanie Bowen

9:30 Josh Bowen

9:45 Ramona Reeves

10:00 Gina Colantino

10:15 Seth Wells

10:30 Debbi LaPorte’s Engl 308

11:30 Adam Crittenden

11:45 Erin Reardon

NMSU at AWP

Our students and faculty are madbusy at AWP. Check it out!



Krystal Languell is reading in the Dusie/Pussipo/Stonecoast off-site reading.

Many folks, I imagine, will be working the Puerto table.

Megan Wong and Carrie Murphy will be working at the Omnidawn Press
table. Robbie Wendeborn will be working at the Apostrophe books table.

Graduate students will also be presenting pedagogy papers at the AWP
conference in Denver: Tracy Meginnis, Mike Meginnis, Erin Reardon,
David Roe, Krystal Languell, Robbie Wendeborn, Patrick
Clark, and Jeff Pickell. Tracy and Mike also had their papers included
in the Best 20 collection for the year and will help facilitate the
pedagogy forum.

Richard Greenfield's Apostrophe Books will be hosting an offsite
reading at AWP. He also will be giving an offsite reading with
Omnidawn and Ahsahta Press.

Robin Romm will be on two panels: "Chaos vs. Conflict: Workshopping
the Violent Story" and another pedagogy panel, "Streetsmarts."

Connie Voisine will be reading from her new work at the conference.

Don Waters is reading his story that's included in the most recent
'Best of the West' anthology.

Recent MFA grad Stephen Webber will have a booth at the bookfair for
his new online journal Di Mezzo Il Mare.

bone bouquet

check out the new online journal Bone Bouquet started by our graduate student Krystal Languel http://bonebouquet.wordpress.com/ featuring poetry by women...

Grad Student News du Jour

3rd year MFA student in poetry, Krystal Languell has a poem "Wife to Magritte" (which originally appeared in DIAGRAM) which is going to be featured in the anthology, "Dzanc Books' Best of the Web 2010." Congrats to Krystal!

Allison Layfield (3rd year Poetry) and two recent grads in fiction, Dana Kroos and Jeff Frawley have all made it through the US's portion of the Fullbright Fellowship Competition. Their applications will next be screened in Germany, Canada, and Hungary. We wish them more luck!

Puerto del Sol and now, Din!

as many know, NMSU has had a literary magazine for more than 30 years, Puerto del Sol, now under the editorship of Carmen Smith. These days we have a new undergraduate, online literary magazine called Din, edited by our undergrads in our online publishing class.

Din:

n. The new undergraduate online literary magazine at NMSU
n. A loud noise, a commotion
n. Confused clamor or uproar
v. To assail with loud, continued noise; to impress by persistent repetition

Din, NMSU’s new online literary magazine, is now accepting submissions.

We will accept multiple submissions from authors, but only one submission per author per mode. Modes included are visual art, poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, podcast, and video. Maximum submission length is 5 pages/5 poems, 4,000-5,000 words for prose and links to multimedia works (preferably 10 min. or less).

Submissions will be accepted Feb. 1 through March 31, 2010. Submissions should be sent to dinmagazine@gmail.com.