Creative Writing News

Summer 2008

[Faculty]

Josh Russell's story "Moscow" appears in Vol. 57, No. 1 of Epoch.

[Students]

"Caladiums," a poem by Austin Segrest (MFA/Poetry), appears in the newest issue of Salamander.

Austin Segrest (MFA/Poetry) has won the Iron Horse Literary Review Discovered Voices Prize for his poems "Anger," "After Pizarro," and "Delirium Tremens."

James Thomas Miller (PhD/Poetry) and Austin Segrest (MFA/Poetry) have been named 2008 Tennessee Williams Poetry Scholars at the Sewanee Writers' Conference.

[Alumni]

Man Martin (PhD/Fiction, 2007) has won the 2008 Georgia Author of the Year Award for First Novel for his book Days of the Endless Corvette.

[Faculty]

Sheri Joseph's novel Stray is a finalist for both the 2008 Lambda Award and the 2008 Townsend Prize. This summer Sheri will again be a fellow at Yaddo.

[Students]

Marc Fitten (PhD/Fiction) has sold his novel Valeria's Last Stand to Bloomsbury USA (where it is scheduled to be the lead title of their Spring 2009 list), Bloosmbury UK, and German publisher DTV. In 2009 he will tour the US, UK, Germany, and France in support of the novel.

Karen Gentry (MFA/Fiction) has won the 2008 World's Best Short Short Story Contest. Robert Olen Butler was the judge. "A Recipe for Ambrosia" will appear early in 2009 in the Southeast Review.

Dionne Irving (PhD/Fiction) was a finalist for the Glimmer Train Family Matters contest and won third place in the College Language Association Creative Writing Contest.

Calaya Reid (PhD/Fiction) has signed a second two-book contract with Kensington Books. The untitled books (her third and fourth novels) are slated for release in 2009 and 2010. Her second book, His First Wife, is due out in October 2008.

"The Fire Extinguisher Grenades," a story by Jody Brooks (MFA/Fiction), appears in the newest issue of Hot Metal Bridge.

Karen Gentry (MFA/Fiction) has published an article on Reynolds Price in The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Literature (University of North Carolina Press, 2008).

"The Lifespan of a Sparrow," a poem by Michele Rozga (PhD/Poetry), appears in the most recent issue of the Southeast Review. (The poem won the 2007 Southeast Review Poetry Contest).

Killer Year: Stories to Die For, an anthology published by St. Martin's, includes a story by Derek Nikitas (PhD/Fiction). That story—"Runaway"—was singled out for praise by Kirkus Reviews.

"Walking on the Moon," a story by Chris Bundy (PhD/Fiction), appears in the Spring 2008 issue of Glimmer Train.

Derek Nikitas' (PhD/Fiction) novel Pyres has been nominated for a 2008 Edgar Award in the category Best First Novel By An American Author.

Chris Bundy (PhD/Fiction) has a story in the Fall 2007 issue of The Dos Passos Review—"Under the Sea."

"Informing my mother of her death," a poem by Corey Green (MFA/Poetry) appears in the Summer/Fall 2007 issue of The Spoon River Poetry Review.

Two stories by Jody Brooks (MFA/Fiction) appear in issue three of SUB-LIT.

Robin Kemp's (PhD/Poetry) poem "New Breast" appears in the anthology Letters to the World: Poems from the Wom-Po Listserv (Red Hen Press). (The poem first appeared in Texas Review.)

Sam Miller (MA/Fiction) has won second place in the 2008 Creative Loafing Fiction Contest. He will read at the Fiction Contest Party to be held on 10 January at Eyedrum.

"Moving," a story by Peter Fontaine (PhD/Fiction), has been published in issue three of SUB-LIT.

[Alumni]

"Crow Beach," a story by Dan Marshall (MFA/Fiction, 2004), appears in the newest issue of Hot Metal Bridge.

Laurah Norton Raines (MFA/Fiction, 2006) has won the 2008 Creative Loafing Fiction Contest. Her story will appear in Creative Loafing on 9 January, and she will read at the Fiction Contest Party to be held on 10 January at Eyedrum.

[Faculty]

John Holman's story "Luau" appears in the 2007 New Fiction Issue of the Mississippi Review (Vol. 35, No. 3).

Josh Russell's story "An Airplane Control" is in Vol. 34, No. 1 of the Black Warrior Review.

[Students]

"By a Lake in Sweetwater, Texas," a poem by Judith Carson (MFA/Poetry), appears in Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review (Issue # 29, Fall/Winter 2007).

Cheryl Stiles' (PhD/Poetry) essay "Hearing Merwin Read 'The Last One'" appears in the fall 2007 issue of Redactions, her poems "Formula" and "Message" appear in the 2007 issue of The Healing Muse, and "Different Planes of Sensuous Form," an essay and annotated bibliography about Elizabeth Barrett Browning, appears in the fall 2007 issue of Victorian Periodicals Review, a journal published by the University of Toronto Press.

"The Present," a poem by Austin Segrest (MFA/Poetry), appears in Vol. 6, No. 2 of Blackbird.

Derek Nikitas' (PhD/Fiction) novel Pyres is out from St. Martin's. He has recently read from the book at UNC-Wilmington and Wordsmith Books, and on November 15th he will read as part of the Georgia State University Visiting Writers series.

Twice this October stories by Lydia Williams (PhD/Fiction) have appeared as Firebox Fiction Weekly Features in Night Train: "Waking Up in Wakefield" on the 7th, and "Bad Secretary" on the 21st.

Mike Dockins (PhD/Poetry) is featured this month on Collin Kelley's radio-podcast The Business of Words. An interview and reading are available for listening at www.leisuretalk.net. Mike's poem "Dead Critics Society" appears in The Best American Poetry 2007 and in his collection Slouching in the Path of a Comet (just out from Sage Hill Press).

Chris Bundy (PhD/Fiction) has published a story in the newest issue of The Pedestal.

[Faculty]

"Vacation," a story by John Holman, appears in the New Fiction Issue of the MississippiReview.com (Vol. 13, No. 3, Summer 2007).

[Students]

Karen Gentry's (MFA/Fiction) story "The Castle Lovely" appears in the Summer 2007 issue of New Delta Review.

Delisa Mulkey (PhD/Poetry) has published the poem "A Microcosm of the Human Condition" in the New England Review (Vol. 28, No. 2, 2007).

Chris Bundy's (PhD/Fiction) "Diary of the Downsized: A Chronicle" appears in the July/August issue of The Rambler.

Calaya Reid (PhD/Fiction), writing as Grace Octavia, has received a glowing review in ESSENCE Magazine for her just-published novel Take Her Man: "A funny and sexy look into the world of Black dating by Octavia that will have you busting out the notepad to jot down tips on settling the score and finding true love." Take Her Man has also been given Four Stars by Romantic Times Magazine, and selected for Overbooked's 2007 Hot List. A second Grace Octavia novel is forthcoming from Kensington Books in May 2008. 

Michele Rozga (PhD/Poetry) has won the 2007 Southeast Review Poetry Contest, judged by Mark Doty. Her poem "The Lifespan of a Sparrow" will appear in the Spring/Summer 2007 issue.

Laurah Norton Raines (MFA/Fiction, 2006) has published stories in the most recent issues of Night Train and Fringe.

Spring 2007

[Faculty]

Sheri Joseph has been awarded a month-long summer residency at the Hawthornden International Retreat for Writers, which is housed in a castle in Scotland.

Sheri Joseph's novel Stray has won the first annual Grub Street Book Prize in fiction. The prize is awarded to a writer outside New England publishing his or her second, third, fourth (or beyond) book. The award includes an honorarium and a Friday night reading/book party at Grub Street’s event space in downtown Boston. Stray has been praised as a "compelling tale of reconciliation and redemption" (Booklist) and "a telling book that reveals how complex the construction of appearance and identity can be in contemporary society" (Lexington Herald-Leader). Sheri Joseph will read from Stray on April 5th as part of the 2006-2007 Georgia State Visiting Writers program. 

[Students]

Derek Nikitas (PhD/Fiction) has received the Walter E. Dakin Fellowship in fiction for the 2007 session of The Sewanee Writers' Conference.

Amber Brooks (MFA/Fiction) has won third place in The Playboy College Fiction Contest for her story "Love Is Like a Rock."

Chris Bundy (PhD/Fiction) has won the 2007 Agnes Scott College Writers' Festival Competition Prize in Fiction.

Delisa Mulkey (PhD/Poetry) has published a poem, "Twilight at the Hummingbird Feeder," in the new issue of BLOOM.

Mike Dockins' (PhD/Poetry) "Dead Critics Society" has been selected by Heather McHugh to appear in The Best American Poetry 2007. The poem first appeared in Atlanta Review, and is included in his collection Slouching in the Path of a Comet, which is forthcoming from Sage Hill Press in February 2007. Other of Mike's poems appear in recent issues of Mid-American Review, Margie, and Meridian. 

Brett Bender (MFA/Fiction) won the 2007 Creative Loafing Fiction Contest. His winning story appeared in the 3 January issue of Creative Loafing, and he was part of a Creative Loafing celebration at Eyedrum that evening.

Fall 2006

[Faculty]

"Second Fire," a story by John Holman, appears in the Fall 2006 volume of Third Coast.

[Students]

Man Martin (PhD/Fiction) has sold his first novel, Days of the Endless Corvette, to Carroll & Graf. The book, "a humorous tall-tale about true love and car repair set in Deepstep, Georgia in the '70's," will be released in July of 2007. Visit manmartin.net for more information.

Mike Dockins' (PhD/Poetry) collection of poems Slouching in the Path of a Comet is forthcoming in early 2007 from Sage Hill Press.

Judith Carson (MFA/Poetry) has won first place in poetry in the Porter Fleming Literary Competition. She has also had two poems selected as finalists in the recent Writer's Digest poetry contest.

"The Passion," a poem by Delisa Mulkey (PhD/Poetry), appears in the Summer 2006 issue of The Literary Review.

Cheryl Stiles (PhD/Poetry) has published two poems: "Safety is My G al" in the fall issue of Atlanta Review, and "Frog," in the new issue of Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review.

Katie Fesuk (PhD/Poetry) has a poem, "Guidelines for Submission," in the 2006 issue of Water-Stone Review.

Austin Segrest's (MA/Poetry) poem, "Stemware," appears in the fall issue of Bitter Oleander.

Summer 2006

[Students]

Sam Miller (MA/Fiction) has stories in McSweeney's and AGNI. (Click HERE to read the latter online.)

"Eulogy for a Snake Handler Killed by a Canebrake," a poem by Delisa Mulkey (PhD/Poetry), which originally appeared in the Gettysburg Review, has been reprinted in Poetry Southeast. (Click HERE to read it.)

Spring 2006

[Faculty]

Sheri Joseph has signed a two-book deal with MacAdam/Cage, one of America's premier literary publishers. Her novel Stray—the first of the two books—will appear in February of 2007. She has also been awarded a summer fellowship to Yaddo, where she will begin work on the second book.

"The Naked Eye," a short story by John Holman, appears in the Winter 2006 issue of the Oxford American.

Three poems by Delisa Mulkey (PhD/Poetry) appear in the Spring 2006 issue of BOMB.

Kathy Kincer (MFA/Poetry) has won the 2006 Agnes Scott College Writers' Festival Competition Prize in Poetry.

Michael Cooper (MFA/Fiction) has won the 2006 Agnes Scott College Writers' Festival Competition Prize in Fiction.

Calaya Reid (PhD/Fiction), writing under her commercial fiction pseudonym Grace Octavia, has signed a two-novel contract with Kensington Books.

Six GSU graduate students are finalists for 2006 Agnes Scott College Writers' Festival Competition Prizes. For personal essay, Cheryl Stiles (PhD/Poetry), for poetry Kathy Kincer (MFA/Poetry) and Delisa Mulkey (PhD/Poetry), and for fiction, Chris Bundy (PhD/Fiction), Michael Cooper (MFA/Fiction), and Laurah Norton Raines (MFA/Fiction).

Chris Bundy's (PhD/Fiction) short story "Morning Prayers" appears in the new anthology Where Love is Found: 24 Tales of Connection. The story was singled out for praise in a February 12 Washington Post review of the collection.

Laurah Norton Raines (MFA/Fiction) has been named English Department Instructor of the Year for 2005. She has also received an institutional excellence award from the GSU College of Arts & Sciences.

Two stories by Amber Brooks (MFA/Fiction) have been published in Staccato Magazine.

Mike Dockins (PhD/Poetry) has recent work in Crazyhorse and also West Branch whose editors nominated his poem "Letter to Claus from Walnut Creek" for a Pushcart Prize.

Fall 2005

[Faculty]

Josh Russell has been awarded a 2006 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship. His work appears in the "New Fiction from the American South" special issue of Epoch (Vol 54, No 3, 2005 Series), and in the inaugural issue of Red Mountain Review (Vol 1, Fall 2005).

"Sunday," a short story by John Holman, appears in the most recent Tampa Review (Number 29).

Beth Gylys has poems in the current issues of Willow Springs and Terminus, and six more in the anthology Under the Rock Umbrella: Modern American Poets from 1951-1976.

[Students]

Delisa Mulkey (PhD/Poetry) read at Housing Works Used Books Café in New York City on October 24. The reading was part of the package of awards she recived as the winner of the 2005 Poets & Writers Exchange Contest for Poetry.

Liane Lemaster (MFA/Fiction) has won 1st Place in the Porter Fleming Literary Competition and will read from "Dinosaurs in Limbo," her winning story, at the Arts in the Heart of Augusta Festival on September 18.

The GSU Review and the Graduate English Association (GEA) cohosted a graduate student reading on September 9 at the Defoor Centre in northwest Atlanta. A collection taken at the reading for the victims of Hurricane Katrina totaled over $150, and was donated to the American Red Cross.

Summer 2005

[Faculty]

Sheri Joseph will be a fellow this summer at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire.

[Students]

Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. recently awarded their Achiever's Scholarship to Calaya Reid (PhD/Fiction) for her fiction writing. Founded in 1913 by African American women, Delta Sigma Theta is an international public service sorority with over 200,000 members and 900 chapters worldwide. Notable Delta authors include Nikki Giovanni, Gloria Naylor (The Women of Brewster Place), Pearl Cleage (What Looks Like Crazy), and Paula Giddings. Others include Aretha Franklin, Lena Horne, Judith Jamison, Leotyne Price, Cicely Tyson, and Altanta's own, Mayor Shirley Franklin.

Spring 2005

[Faculty]

John Holman and Beth Gylys have been awarded research leave for the Spring 2005 semester in order to work on creative projects. 

In April, John Holman will be a fellow at the Yaddo artists' community in Saratoga Springs, NY.

Sheri Joseph and Beth Gylys have joined Five Points as Associate Editors.

[Students]

Delisa Mulkey (PhD/Poetry) has won the 2005 Writers Exchange Contest for Poetry sponsored by Poets & Writers and chosen by Patricia Smith. Delisa wins:

• An expense-paid trip to NY in October for one week in order to meet members of the New York City literary community
• A $500 honorarium
• A public reading in New York City on October 24
• A one-month residency at the Jentel Artist Residency Program in Wyoming

Click HERE to see the official announcement.

Chris Bundy (PhD/Fiction) was chosen as "First Runner-up" in the 2005 Writers Exchange Contest for Fiction.

Chris Bundy (PhD/Fiction) has won the Agnes Scott College Writer's Festival Competition Fiction Prize for his story "Early One Morning the Sun was Shining."

GSU creative writing students, faculty, and alumni: please send news of prizes, publications, and other accomplishments to Josh Russell (josh@gsu.edu) so that news can be added to this page.