Summer Residency Recap

In case you missed out on this year's MFA residency at Ashland University, several of the readings and craft seminars were recorded. Visit the links below to hear presentations by MFA faculty and visiting writers.

Visiting Writer Presentations, including readings and craft seminars by Thomas French, Kathleen Norris, David Wojahn, Todd Boss, Thomas Larson, and Michael Steinberg

Faculty Presentations, including readings and craft seminars by Peter Campion, Jill Christman, Bob Cowser, Angie Estes, Deborah Fleming, Carmen Gimenez Smith, Steven Harvey, Stephen Haven, Mark Irwin, Joe Mackall, Leila Philip, Robert Root, Ruth L. Schwartz, Peter Trachtenberg, and Kathryn Winograd

Congratulations are due to the nineteen graduating students of the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program at Ashland University! The following students defended thesis manuscripts at the summer residency July 24-August 5.

Amelia Berg, Creative Nonfiction - "Para los Niños"
Marilyn Bousquin, Creative Nonfiction - "Searching for Salt: A Memoir"
Varale Goodman, Creative Nonfiction - "Death and Other Transformations"
Joan Hanna, Poetry - "Phoenix"
Detrick Hughes, Poetry - "Sugar-Tooth Confession"
Kimberlee Jackson, Poetry - "Walking Fire"
Erin Joyce, Creative Nonfiction - "The Song of Eirinn"
Jon Kerstetter, Creative Nonfiction - "I Am Soldier, I Am Doctor"
Emily Lees, Creative Nonfiction - "My Hands Are Your Hands"
Nancy Leinbach, Creative Nonfiction - "GETTING TWO YEARS TWICE: Circa La Mia Vita"
Dave MacWilliams, Creative Nonfiction - "Acts of Grace: A Memoir"
Erica Meuser, Poetry - "In America's Wake: Mother and Sons"
Kerry Noble, Poetry - "Stages"
Rachel Peterson, Poetry - "Burn"
Nicole Robinson, Poetry - "Wingspan"
Ginny Taylor, Creative Nonfiction - "The Undrowning"
Laurel Thome, Poetry - "FORCE = MASS X ACCELERATION"
Marci Vogel, Poetry - "Millennial Triptych"
David Wright, Poetry - "Several Heads: A Triptych"

Alum Publishes Chapbook with Finishing Line Press

Jen Kindbom, Ashland University MFA class of 2009, has had her chapbook, A Note on the Door , accepted for publication by Finishing Line Press. It will be published in the spring of 2011. Advance sale copies may be purchased on Finishing Line Press's website. About A Note on the Door , Kathryn Winograd has the following to say: " A Note on the Door sparkles in the best tradition of American poetry: the ordinary world made new through the simple vernacular and cadences of American speech. Jen Kindbom is the fay spirit sprinkling our dirty porches, crying babies, and noxious beetles with her magic dust. These are the poems I'll pin to my neighbors' doors."

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...

AU Ranked in Poets & Writers MFA Index

The annual MFA issue of Poets & Writers is out, and Ashland University's MFA program is listed among the 26 low-residency programs featured. Of the 47 low-residency MFA programs currently available in the United States (Association of Writers and Writing Programs), AU ranks second in job placement, fourth in fellowship placement, and 11th in selectivity. While the program did not place in a six-year popularity survey, it placed 19th in the popularity survey for 2011. We'll take post-graduate successes over applicant popularity any day. The 26 programs that Poets & Writers chose to feature "are those that either placed in the first 25 in a popularity survey taken over six years by a total of 302 applicants to low-residency programs or appear in the first 25 in at least two of the following three categories: selectivity (how selective they are in accepting applicants), fellowship placement (which had the most graduates receive any of forty-two creative wr...

Ashland University MFA Program

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