Announcements

RWW faculty highlighted in Los Angeles Times review! New faculty work showers glory on the Rainier Writing Workshop Low Residency MFA Program! Judith Kitchen’s new book, Half in Shade and Lia Purpura’s book of essays, Rough Likeness were both included in David Ulin’s “Five Books That Grab Attention,” a review of noteworthy essay collections, in the Los Angeles Times entertainment section, June 10, 2012!

PARTICIPANTS

Sidney Brammer (2013) will read from her novel-in-progress on Wednesday, July 25, 5:30 at the Shelton branch of Timberland Regional Library while she is in residence at Hypatia-in-the-Woods, a writing retreat for women artists in Shelton, WA.

Marj Hahne (2015) will be the Summer Conference Program Director for the International Women’s Writing Guild’s annual summer conference at Yale University, June 22-26

ALUMNI

Cathy (James) Adams (2010) is moving to Xincheng, China, where she will teach English at Sias International University.

Barrie Jean Borich (2009) has accepted a job as a tenure-track assistant professor at DePaul University in Chicago, in the MA in Writing and Publishing Program, beginning Fall 2012, where she will create a new journal and teach classes in creative writing and publishing to graduate and undergraduate students. She is leaving her position in The Creative Writing Programs at Hamline University this summer and passing on the CNF editorship of Water~Stone Review to her colleague Patricia Weaver Francisco.

Andrea Henchey (2010) is the new Assistant Poetry Editor of Drunken Boat, an online journal of art and literature.

Holly Hughes (2006) has been awarded a Washington State Artist Trust Fellowship to complete a series of essays about working on the water in Alaska.

Jill McCabe Johnson (2008) is pleased to announce publication of the anthology she edited, Becoming: What Makes a Woman (University of Nebraska Gender Program, 2012), available on Amazon.

Jill invites you to join her and the following contributors and editorial assistants for a reading and celebration at Hugo House on June 26 at 7pm. RWW contributors include RWW Alumni Lisa Ohlen Harris (2011), Holly Hughes (2006), Adrian Gibbons Koesters (2007), Lita Kurth (2009), Margie Lukas (2007), Kay Mullen (2007), Marjorie Rommel (2007), and RWW Faculty Dinah Lenney, Lia Purpura, and Peggy Shumaker. Editorial Assistants on the project include RWW Alumni Noah Ashenhurst (2009), Nancy Canyon (2007), Erin Coughlin Hollowell (2009), Julie Johnson Riddle (2009), Michael Schmeltzer (2007), Tina Schumann (2009), Natalie Tilghman (2011), Juniper White (2011), and Tarn Wilson (2008).

Lita Kurth (2009): Her short story, “Lifetime TV Movie,” was a finalist for a Writers@Work Conference 2012 fellowship.

Anne McDuffie (2007) is the recipient of a 2012 Individual Artist grant from 4Culture for her poetry project, “Deep Geography,” a collaboration with abstract painter Ann Vandervelde.

Julie Riddle (2009) was interviewed for a series about literary editing featured on the Pressgang blog (a small press affiliated with Butler University’s MFA program). Julie has also just launched a website.

Gretchen Stahlman (2011) was awarded Best Reflections Writer in the WEGO Health Advocate Writer blog challenge.

Natalie Haney Tilghman (2011) won second place for her Young Adult story, “Whale Boy” (published in CICADA magazine), in the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators’ Magazine Merit Awards.

Tandy Tillinghast (2010) is Recipient of a Sally Bowerman/Bob Hall Memorial Scholarship to Fishtrap, 2012. Also, her story, “Hotline,” was a Finalist in the Glimmer Train’s 2012 Very Short Fiction Award.

Cameron Walker (2008) has become a writer for The Last Word On Nothing, a blog about science with literary leanings.

FACULTY

Stephen Corey, editor of The Georgia Review (and RWW faculty member and editor-in-residence), is pleased to announce that The Georgia Review earned ten citations in the 2012 GAMMA Awards competition sponsored by the Magazine Association of the Southeast. One of the three gold awards in the Best Series category went to poetry essay-reviews by RWW faculty member Judith Kitchen (see below). The other gold awards were for Best Feature (work by and about poet Stephen Dunn) and Best Essay (by Albert Goldbarth), with silvers awarded for General Excellence and for an essay by Martha G. Wiseman. Three bronzes and two honorable mentions rounded out the haul, with one going to “The Makings,” an essay by RWW faculty member Kent Meyers.

Holly Hughes’ (2006) and Brenda Miller’s collaborative book The Pen and the Bell: Mindful Writing in a Busy World is now available from Skinner House Books. Also, check out Holly’s and Brenda’s new website and sign up to receive weekly writing prompts. (Note: Their collaboration began during a RWW residency four years ago).

Judith Kitchen’s two essay-reviews, “Walking the Line” and “Tradecraft,” in The Georgia Review have won Gold GAMMA awards for Best Series category from the Magazine Association of the Southeast, May, 2012. Judith also won a Pushcart Prize for her essay, “Certainty,” published in Great River Review and reprinted in her new book, Half in Shade (which was mentioned in David Ulin’s “Five Books That Grab Attention,” a review of noteworthy essay collections, Los Angeles Times entertainment section, June 10, 2012). And on May 24, Judith was named a 2012 winner of a Washington State Artist Trust Fellowship in Literature.

Dinah Lenney appeared at the TEDxUSC 2012 Conference; a video of her talk will be released soon.

Rebecca McClanahan will be teaching nonfiction workshops and classes at The Gettysburg Review Conference for Writers (June 6-11) and The Kenyon Review Writers Workshop (June 16-23). Go to Rebecca’s website for more information.

Lia Purpura has been awarded a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in support of a new collection of essays. Also, her book of essays, Rough Likeness, was mentioned in David Ulin’s “Five Books That Grab Attention,” a review of noteworthy essay collections, Los Angeles Times entertainment section, June 10, 2012.