Recommended Reading for April 2017

Our Ashland MFA faculty were asked to recommend books for developing writers. We're including instructional guides, anthologies, and classics of the craft, all meant to be helpful tools for your writing. Listed below are this month’s recommendations.

Creative Nonfiction

Walden and Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau

Recommended by Steve Harvey

Walden is the finest and most influential collection of essays by an American writer. It created an American voice for the personal essay and took on issues such as nature and personal responsibility that continue to be explored by American essayists who have followed such as Annie Dillard in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and Edward Abbey in Desert Solitaire. Norton has a fine critical edition which combines Walden with another extremely influential essay, “Civil Disobedience.”

Poetry

The Resistance to Poetry by James Longenbach

Recommended by Angela Estes

This book is one of the best I know of about what poems are, why we write them, and why people read them. It also includes most of Longenbach's very useful THE ART OF THE POETIC LINE.

Fiction

Let the Bead Bury their Dead by Randall Kenan

Recommended by our fiction instructors, Erika Krouse, E.J. Levy, and William Haywood Henderson

This is a good example of the linked-story cycle, illustrating a range of literary modes from magical realism to meta-narration, as it builds across races and centuries.

* Photo at top of page is "Book and Glass" by Pasi Mämmelä, used courtesy of Creative Commons license via Flickr

Interview with Kyle Winkler

After talking to Lisa Nik, it only seemed right to keep the good juju going and interview one of our newest fiction faculty members, Kyle Winkler. You can learn everything you ever wanted to know about Kyle from this interview and from his website . Thanks to our lovely and talented intern, Angela Manasieva for preparing this interview. 1. Where are you from and how do you use your surroundings to write? I'm from southwest Indiana originally. Rolling hills, farmland, corn, wheat. LOTS of corn and wheat. My landscapes have affected me heavily in my writing. All that tall crop and the sometimes isolating farmland in the autumn during sunset can do a lot to make one feel...creeped out? Hah. I've tried to use my small town upbringing to good effect, as well. I grew up most of life in a working class to middle-class home in the rust belt. So I'm often trying to evoke the experiences and attitudes of the sorts of folks I grew up around and with. And those experiences were, to so

Meet the Team

We're very pleased to introduce our spring 2018 Ashland MFA Faculty. We hope you're as excited about these names as we are. Included are a few links to help you get acquainted with these writers and their work: interviews, book reviews, short publications, excerpts. For a full listing of faculty including their bios and additional information, visit our website's Faculty Page . Poetry Dexter Booth Author of Scratching the Ghost , winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize. Booth’s poems have appeared in Best American Poetry, Blackbird, VQR, and elsewhere. Grist Journal review of Scratching the Ghost “Love in the Time of Revolution” ( Blackbird ) “Queen Elizabeth” ( VQR ) “Insomnia Poem” ( Waxwing ) Gaylord Brewer Author of nine collections of poetry including Country of Ghost and Give Over, Graymalkin. Brewer has published over nine hundred poems in journals and anthologies including Best American Poetry and The Bedford Introduction to L

2020 Virtual Summer Residency

Get excited! The Ashland University 2020 MFA Summer Residency is going virtual this year. From July 13 - 31st , we’re hosting workshops, readings, panels, craft classes, open mics, and more--all from the safety and comfort of your home. Stay tuned for schedule updates and registration links! Students and faculty share a laugh at last year's residency Visiting Writers Jericho Brown , Visiting Writer in Poetry Poetry Reading: Tuesday, July 21, 7:30pm EST Craft Class: Wednesday, July 22, 5pm EST Jericho Brown is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award and fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Brown’s first book, Please (2008), won the American Book Award. His second book, The New Testament (2014), won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and was named one of the best of the year by Library Journal, Coldfront, and the Academy of American Poets. He i

Ashland University MFA Program

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