Congratulations to John Fletcher

John's "Swift's Rhetorical Misanthropy in Gulliver's Travels" was accepted for the 2010 Rhetoric Society of America. John will be presenting his paper at the conference in late May, 2010, which will be held in Minneapolis.

John is currently a second year MA/MFA student in Fiction.

Congratulations to Lance Xh'unei Twitchell

Lance has received one of the Alaska Native Visionary Awards (the first of its kind) presented by The Alaska Native Heritage Month committee. It aims to recognize and honor Alaskan Natives who are perpetuating and preserving culture through artistic and visionary ventures such as film, photography, music, visual and literary art, performance art and much more.

Lance is currently a third year MFA student in Fiction.

Congratulations to Tom Moran

Third-year MFA student Tom Moran recently had two of his short plays, “Writer’s Block” and “Duo,” accepted for production by the Curan Repertory Theatre in New York City. The plays are slated to go up in January in a small Manhattan theatre – tentatively the Shetler Theatre on 54th Street – as part of an evening of plays entitled “Heroes … and other Odd Jobs.”

Both plays have had staged readings in Fairbanks. “Writer’s Block,” which is about a hack Western author who gets taken hostage by his irate characters, premiered at the Fairbanks Drama Association’s 8x10 Festival in 2006. “Duo,” concerning a superhero’s fed-up sidekick, was read at the UAF Student Drama Association’s Famous for 15 Festival in March 2009.

Moran is the first student in the MFA program to choose Dramatic Writing as his principal genre. He plans to graduate in May 2010.

If you are in New York, be sure to check out Tom's work on the following dates: January 29 & 30 at The Bridge Theatre.  244 W. 54th St. (near 8th Ave.)  Performances start at 8:00 p.m. on both evenings. 

Further information can be obtained at www.curan.org

Associate Professor Gerri Brightwell's The Dark Lantern is now out in paperback (Three Rivers Press). Set in Victorian London, the novel dramatizes how a household's many secrets wreak havoc on the household's master and his study of anthropometry, the science of establishing identity through body measurements. Publishers’ Weekly called the novel “an uncanny thriller” and Jane Gleeson described it as “extremely atmospheric—reminded me of Sarah Water’s Fingersmith.”


 

Associate Professor Derick Burleson's new book, Never Night, was published by Marick Press in 2008. Adam Zagajewski calls Never Night "a hymn to life, a meditation on day and night, on the seasons, on nature and on love. "


 

Associate Professor David Crouse's second collection of short fiction, The Man Back There, was published by Sarabande Books in 2008. The collection, winner of the Mary McCarthy Prize for Short Fiction, consists of 9 stories, all told from the perspective of various male characters.  Judge Mary Gaitskill selected Professor Crouse's manuscript from a pool of more than 400 book-length submissions.

 

Associate Professor Chris Coffman's book, Insane Passions: Lesbianism and Psychosis in Literature and Film, was published by Wesleyan University Press in December 2006.  Insane Passions traces the now-discredited myth of the lesbian-as-madwoman from its introduction in early twentieth-century psychoanalysis and literature through to its startling reappearance in contemporary film.

Former Graduate Student Publishes Collection of Essays. Jennifer Brice, a graduate of the MFA Program, recently published her second collection of Creative Nonfiction. Unlearning to Fly: a Memoir was recently published by the University of Nebraska Press. Another collection of essays, The Last Settlers (Duquesne U), was released in 1998. Her work has appeared in Iron Horse Literary Review, River Teeth, The Gettysburg Review, The Sonora Review, and others. She received her BA from Smith College and her MFA from the University of Alaska-Fairbanks. Jennifer Brice was a visiting writer in the UAF English Department in spring of 2009.