News of Note Week of November 17th

Migrating geese take a break on Ingersoll Hall’s front lawn

• Last week, TEFL/TESL faculty and students attended the Annual Co-TESOL Convention in Denver (November 14-15, 2014). Three student-led presentations were delivered at the convention: Angela Sharpe, Moriah Kent and Tatiana Nekrasova-Beker discussed the benefits of Using Corpora in the L2 Classroom; Kenshin Huang and Tatiana Nekrasova-Beker shared their insights on Engaging Asian Students in Classroom Interactions, and Reyila Hadeer and Victor Kuan presented a session on Teacher’s Support during Project-based Learning. Due to the generous support of INTO-CSU, 16 graduate students attended the convention this year.
• Sarah Sloane gave two presentations, one at a roundtable and another on a featured panel at Writing on the Range, a conference held at University of Denver for college and university faculty from Colorado (and a couple from New Mexico) who do scholarship in the field of writing studies.Her roundtable participation included a discussion of state guidelines for advanced composition classes and a proposal for an advanced writing course that starts by reading Colorado prepper literature. Looking historically at the various permutations of prepper responses to a culture of fear as it has informed 1980s survivalist literature, 1990s prepper handbooks, and contemporary descriptions of potential disasters and 72-hour bug-out bags, students will examine the shaky evidence and rhetorical appeals embedded in YouTube videos, podcasts, social media, listserves like “Vegas Preppers,” and blogs about prepping. Students will then move from reading these flawed rhetorical constructions to composing their own well-supported arguments on a wide range of topics. Students will develop the rhetorical sensitivity and critical acumen necessary to compose within more typical rhetorical situations and Colorado contexts.

  Her featured panel presentation discussed the Colorado State University Composition Program, its location within local, regional, and state contexts, and our program’s collaborative efforts to bring state-of-the-art facilities to support critical analyses of websites, blogs, podcasts, prezis, and new notions of intellectual property, copyright, credibility, the material and the virtual, credibility, representation, and all the many forms, genres, and questions that digital systems, digital publics, and online social networks allow.

• Leif Sorensen’s essay “Against the Post-Apocalyptic: Narrative Closure in Colson Whitehead’s Zone One,” on the most recent novel by MacArthur genius grant recipient Colson Whitehead is now available in the current issue of Contemporary Literature.

  Professor Sorensen also attended the annual meeting of the Modernist Studies Association in Pittsburgh in early November and presented a paper, “Fragmented Ancestors,” on the literary recoveries of Américo Paredes and D’Arcy McNickle.

• Graduating English Education student Clint Pendley has accepted a position teaching seventh grade Literacy and English Language Development at Columbia Middle School in Aurora, CO.  Congratulations, Clint!
• Greyrock Review is now accepting submissions! Greyrock Review is an undergraduate anthology at Colorado State University. Submissions are open from October 6, 2014 to December 1, 2014 for original work in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and visual arts. Any undergraduate at CSU may submit their work at https://greyrockreview.submittable.com/submit for free and will be notified by December 15, 2014. Any questions may be sent to editor.csu@gmail.com

News of Note Week of October 27th

Blue sky over Ingersoll Hall in Fall, image by Jill Salahub

• Gerry Delahunty presented his paper on “Lexical semantics: How much English teachers need to know?” at the 7th International Conference on English Language Teaching (ELT) in China, in Nanjing, China.
• Lisa Langstraat and Sue Doe are delighted to announce that their book-length collection, Generation Vet: Student-Veterans, Composition, and the Post-9/11 University, has been released by Utah State Press and the University Press of Colorado.  Sue and Lisa celebrated by giving a presentation at CSU’s first-ever national veteran symposium on Thursday, October 30. Their presentation focused on “Pathologization and Sanitization: Two Problematic Extremes of University Relationships with Military and Veteran Populations” which is based on their ongoing longitudinal study of over two dozen student-veterans and their transitional literacies.
• Jonathan Starke (MFA Fiction/Nonfiction 2011) has essays in the current issues of North American Review and River Teeth and an essay in the annual Baltimore Review print issue. He also has a short story in the summer issue of Shenandoah. He’s spending the winter vagabonding through France, Croatia, Germany, and anywhere one can find authentic handmade soaps and local beers.
• Upcoming 4×4 Reading, November 4th – Reading will be Hannah Kezema from Naropa University, Aditi Machado from Denver University, Caroline Rothnie from CU–Boulder, and CSU’s own Melissa Hohl. University Center for the Arts , 7:30pm.
• Greyrock Review is now accepting submissions! Greyrock Review is an undergraduate anthology at Colorado State University. Submissions are open from October 6, 2014 to December 1, 2014 for original work in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and visual arts. Any undergraduate at CSU may submit their work at https://greyrockreview.submittable.com/submit for free and will be notified by December 15, 2014. Any questions may be sent to editor.csu@gmail.com

News of Note Week of October 20th

Ingersoll Hall in Fall, image by Jill Salahub

• SueEllen Campbell and John Calderazzo recently gave a talk at Northern Arizona University, “The Real Work: Facing Climate Change.” They were also interviewed on the local NPR station. John also spoke to an environmental communications class.
• A portfolio of essays on “The Work of Poetry” has just been released by Free Verse, including, among various riches, work by Matthew Cooperman and Dan Beachy-Quick. The special feature marks the 25th edition of Free Verse, and can be found at http://english.chass.ncsu.edu/freeverse/Archives/2014/prose/WorkOfPoetry.html
• The most recent issue of Shakespeare Studies, vol. 42, is now available. This issue includes Barbara Sebek’s contribution to a forum on “Diet and Identity in Shakespeare’s England,” edited by Kim Coles and Gitanjali Shahani Chopra.
• Todd Mitchell ran two writing and craft sessions at ReadCon — a High Plains Library District Event in Greeley to celebrate texts and the creation of texts. Here’s an article from Thursday’s Greeley Tribune with more information on the event: http://www.greeleytribune.com/entertainment/13486821-113/readcon-greeley-downtown-event Lit Pick recently did an author interview with Todd Mitchell. If you’re curious to learn how love letters, DFW, and snakes have influenced Todd, you can find the interview here: http://www.litpick.com/author/todd-mitchell
• Daniel Owen, INTO adjunct, has accepted an appointment as an English Language Fellow from the Department of State.  He will have a 10-month Fellowship in Yamousoukro, Cote d’Ivoire.  He will be teaching at National Polytechnic Institute Felix Houphouet Boigny (INPHB). INPHB is a prestigious public university with undergraduate and graduate degree programs in sciences, engineering, and business.  He will be teaching general English courses and business English at both the undergraduate and graduate level.
• Sue Ring deRosset, (MA, Creative Nonfiction, Summer 2013), teaches creative writing workshops at Front Range Community College, recently taught a workshop through Northern Colorado Writers, and is a freelance editorial consultant for memoirists and novelists. Chapter 1 of her thesis, a memoir, appeared in the Spring 2013 Front Range Review as a stand-alone essay titled “The Chambered Nautilus.” Since graduation, she’s had poems published in the Rocky Mountain NP Poetic Inventory and online, and an essay published in the Fort Collins Courier. A book on vultures, the first in a series of limited-edition, hand-bound, letterpress books, is forthcoming from Wolverine Farm Publishing.
• Greyrock Review Fundraiser Reading at Cranknstein Tuesday, October 28, 2014 at 7 pm to raise money for publication. Camille Dungy, Matthew Cooperman and others will read, and there will be many fabulous prizes!
• Greyrock Review is now accepting submissions! Greyrock Review is an undergraduate anthology at Colorado State University. Submissions are open from October 6, 2014 to December 1, 2014 for original work in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and visual arts. Any undergraduate at CSU may submit their work at https://greyrockreview.submittable.com/submit for free and will be notified by December 15, 2014. Any questions may be sent to editor.csu@gmail.com

News of Note Week of October 13th

image by Jill Salahub

• Dan Beachy-Quick is writer-in-residence at Susquehanna University this week. He is visiting Susquehanna as part of the Raji-Syman Visiting Writers Series, and will be giving a reading while there.
• Tobi Jacobi and Dr. Laura Rogers (Albany College of Health Science and Pharmacy) will deliver a talk entitled “Becoming Incorrigible: The Girls of the Hudson Training School, 1921-32” at the Hudson Area Library in upstate, NY on Oct. 29th.
• Derek Askey (MFA fiction, 2013) has accepted the position of Editorial Assistant with The Sun in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
• Ben Findlay (MFA Spring 2014) started work in Minneapolis as the Development & Publicity assistant at Coffee House Press.
• Greyrock Review is now accepting submissions! Greyrock Review is an undergraduate anthology at Colorado State University. Submissions are open from October 6, 2014 to December 1, 2014 for original work in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and visual arts. Any undergraduate at CSU may submit their work at https://greyrockreview.submittable.com/submit for free and will be notified by December 15, 2014. Any questions may be sent to editor.csu@gmail.com
• The first fundraising event for the 2015 Greyrock Review is coming up fast! On October 28th, please join them at CRANKNSTEIN (located in Old Town Fort Collins) for a spectacular reading featuring CSU professors such as Matthew Cooperman and Camille Dungy, as well as graduate and undergraduate CSU writers! During this event there will also be a raffle featuring prizes from local businesses such as Mugs, Bean Cycle, Momo Lolo, and more! Raffle tickets are only $3 each! Other raffle prizes include various novels donated by Old Firehouse Books. Pre-sales for raffle tickets will be held in the Clark C building on October 27 and 28. On these two days only you can get a tasty doughnut AND a raffle ticket for only $3! “Hope to see you all there and thank you for your support!”

News of Note Week of October 6th

The leaves turn color as renovations on Eddy Hall continue

• Samantha Iocovetto (MA in Creative Nonfiction, 2014) has a craft essay, “Defining the Ideal Essay,” on the Brevity blog. You can read it here: http://brevity.wordpress.com/2014/10/01/defining-the-ideal-essay/
• Dan Beachy-Quick gave a talk and a reading at University of Northern Texas.
• Tobi Jacobi has been selected to deliver the 14th annual Women’s Studies Boyer Lecture on Thursday, Oct. 23.  The Harriet Patsy Boyer Memorial lecture and reception will begin at 4pm in the Grey Rock Room in Lory Student Center.  Tobi’s talk is titled “Seeing Beyond Our Feet: Understanding the Possibilities and Limits of Feminist Writing Workshops Behind Bars.”
• Sasha Steensen recently read at the University of Nevada Las Vegas as part of the Black Mountain Institute’s alumni series.  She was interviewed by KNPR, Nevada’s National Public Radio.  You can listen to that interview here: http://knprnews.org/post/black-mountain-institute-hosts-poet-sasha-steensen
• Six sections of Felicia Zamora’s (MFA 2012) long poem “Quotient” were accepted for publication in the Spring 2015 issue of Crazyhorse, and her poem “{Honest} Random {Caused by Desire to De-Categorize} Self” has been selected for publication in the next issue of the Carolina Quarterly. Her manuscript Quotient was selected as a finalist for the 2014 Sawtooth Poetry Prize and a semifinalist in the 2014 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Prize. Her set of poems was chosen as a finalist in The Iowa Review Awards in poetry 2014, and her chapbook Imbibe {et alia} here was selected as a semifinalist in the 2014 New Michigan Press/DIAGRAM Chapbook Contest.
• Greyrock Review is now accepting submissions for fiction, non-fiction, poetry, visual art, and cover art. Students can go to greyockreview.submittable.com/submit to submit and read the guidelines. Submissions are open through December 1st.

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Fall Advising for Spring 2015 Registration

English department advising has changed over the last year or so. Basically, Academic Support Coordinators (ASCs) (Mandy Billings and Joanna Doxey) advise English majors who have completed up to 60 credits, and regular faculty advise students who have completed more than 60 credits and mentor students regardless of the number of credits they have completed. Mandy and Joanna’s office is Clark C-140.

English freshmen and sophomores should meet with an ASC for pre-registration advising for spring semester 2015. If you are uncertain who your ASC is, you can check your assignment on your RAMweb account.  Please contact Sheila Dargon to schedule your advising appointment with either Mandy or Joanna.

Juniors, seniors, and transfer students with 60 or more credits will be advised and given their advising codes by their English department faculty advisor/mentor. They have also been assigned an ASC and can schedule an appointment with Mandy or Joanna through Sheila Dargon.

Please schedule your appointment in advance of your RAMWeb Registration date.

News of Note from the Week of April 28th

The Eddy Redbud tree is in bloom.

• There’s a podcast interview with Dan Beachy-Quick at Poetry Northwest.
• Leslee Becker won First Prize in the Boston Review’s 2014 Fiction Contest for her story, “Severance.”
• Basic Veterinary Immunology co-authored by Gerry Callahan and Robin Yates was published this month by University Press of Colorado, Boulder, Co.
• Antero Garcia is the featured guest on the Connect Learning Alliance Podcast today. I talk about “Making Learning Relevant.” The program can be streamed or downloaded here: http://clalliance.org/whatsnew-main/antero-garcia-podcast-making-learning-relevant/
• Tobi Jacobi gave a presentation on developing self-care strategies for volunteers working in jail/prison writing programs at recent workshop on “Innovations in Prison” sponsored by UCLA and the UK Economic and Social Research Council.
• Elise Yenne (CLC intern) won 1st place for her service-learning poster presentation for the 2014 CSU CURC competition.  She highlighted her work as an intern and writing workshop facilitator with the Larimer County Detention Center men’s writing group.
• Rachel Linnea Brown’s poem “Memento” has been selected for publication by Gulf Coast.  She has also accepted a position at University of Kansas as a PhD student of Nineteenth-Century American Literature.  Rachel will be attending KU with a research fellowship, a department fellowship, and a $5,000 Mary Elizabeth and Andrew P. Debicki Scholarship for graduate studies.  She is excited to begin her KU studies in the fall.
• Kristin George Bagdanov’s poems “Damage Body” and “Commodity Body” were accepted for publication in Word Riot.
• This year’s issue of the Greyrock Review is now available for purchase! Please stop by the English Department office, Eddy Building, Room 359. The Journal is $12 and T-Shirts, white with this year’s cover and green with the Greyrock logo are $20.00. Stickers are available in black & white and green & gold for $2 each.

Alumni News: Kayann Short, PhD, (CSU, Alumna 1988) has received the following awards: for A Bushel’s Worth: An Ecobiography:

• Sarton Memoir Award Finalist from Story Circle Network
• Nautilus Silver Award in Green Living & Sustainability

The Sarton Memoir Award is presented annually by Story Circle Network, an international network of women lifewriters. The award is named in honor of May Sarton (1912-1995), distinguished American poet, novelist, and author of twelve memoirs and journals.

Nautilus “Better Books for a Better World” Awards recognize exceptional literary contributions to spiritual growth, conscious living, high-level wellness, green values, responsible leadership and positive social change.

Published by Torrey House Press, A Bushel’s Worth: An Ecobiography is a memoir of reunion with a family’s farming past and a call to action for farmland preservation through community supported agriculture today. These awards exemplify the way A Bushel’s Worth engages readers across generations and diverse backgrounds through stories that portray the relationship between food, farming, and the environment.

A retired award-winning teacher from the University of Colorado-Boulder, Short farms and teaches writing at Stonebridge Farm, the first community-supported agricultural farm (CSA) in Boulder County. Established in 1992, Stonebridge is committed to small-scale, organic farming and agricultural land preservation on the Front Range. Short offers writing workshops to community groups, libraries, and book clubs. She also teaches at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology on the Oregon coast. She will offer a “food preservation stories” workshop September 18-19 at her farm outside Lyons, CO.

A Bushel’s Worth is a books-in-a-bag selection of the Longmont Public Library. More about A Bushel’s Worth, including a virtual book tour, press kit, links to reading videos and digital excerpts, and book group suggestions and discussion questions are available at http://abushelsworth.com