This summer, the Ashland University MFA Program welcomes four authors to present a panel on the joys and challenges of publishing their first books. Panelists include John Foy, Mark Neely, Bonnie J. Rough, and Jerald Walker. The panelists will present a reading from their work on Friday, August 3 at 7 p.m., and the panel discussion will take place Saturday, August 4 at 10 a.m. Both sessions will take place in the Ronk Lecture Hall, Schar College of Education, at Ashland University in Ashland, Ohio.
John Foy
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| John Foy |
John Foy's first book is
Techne's Clearinghouse (Zoo Press, 2004). His poetry is featured in the Swallow Anthology of New American Poets (Swallow Press/Ohio University Press, 2009) and has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The New Criterion, Parnassus, The Raintown Review, Cimarron Review, Southwest Review and other periodicals. His work has also been selected for the Poetry Daily website and linebreak.org. He has an MFA from Columbia University and works for Itaú BBA Securities in New York, where he is senior editor of Equity Research. He has taught writing at Harvard Business School, Columbia, and Barnard. His essay-reviews have appeared in Parnassus, Contemporary Poetry Review, and other publications.
Mark Neely
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| Mark Neely |
Mark Neely is the author of
Beasts of the Hill (Oberlin College, 2011), winner of the FIELD Poetry Prize, and
Four of a Kind (Concrete Wolf, 2010), winner of the Concrete Wolf chapbook prize. His poems have appeared in
Gulf Coast, Indiana Review, Barrow Street, Salt Hill, and
Boulevard. He directs the Creative Writing Program at Ball State University, where he teaches courses in poetry writing and literary editing.
Bonnie J. Rough
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| Bonnie J. Rough |
Bonnie J. Rough is the author of the memoir
Carrier: Untangling the Danger in My DNA, which won a 2011 Minnesota Book Award. Her writing has appeared in anthologies such as
The Best American Science and Nature Writing and
The Best Creative Nonfiction, and periodicals including
The New York Times, Huffington Post, The Sun, The Iowa Review, Defunct, and
Brevity. Rough, who has her MFA from the University of Iowa, has taught at The Loft Literary Center and is a prose editor for
Versal.
Jerald Walker
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| Jerald Walker |
Jerald Walker is the author of
Street Shadows: A Memoir of Race, Rebellion, and Redemption, recipient of the 2011 PEN New England/L.L. Winship Award for Nonfiction. His essays have appeared in numerous periodicals and anthologies, including three times in
The Best American Essays. Walker is an Associate Professor of creative writing at Emerson College, where he is Chair of the Department of Writing, Literature and Publishing, and Director of the Boston Summer Writers’ Conference.
