Announcements
Participants
Jessica Barksdale (2015): Her short story collection, The Possibility of Fire, was a finalist in the Tartt First Fiction Contest from Livingston Press, 2014. Her short story, “Monsters in the Agapanthus,” received special mention in the HE Francis Short Story Award/Ruth Hindman Foundation, Spring 2014.
Chelsey Clammer (2016) was awarded the Owl of Minerva Award from the women’s literary journal Minerva Rising. With this scholarship, she took five young people experiencing homelessness and substance abuse issues on a weekend writing retreat to a mountain cabin in Cripple Creek, CO, June 28th-29th. Chelsey’s essay, “A Striking Resemblance” received honorable mention for the Judith Kitchen Creative Nonfiction Prize by Water~Stone Review and will appear in the Fall 2014 issue. Chelsey is also now a reviewer for The Review Review.
Jennie Goode (2014): Her essay “Rainier Valley Notebook” was awarded the Judith Kitchen Creative Nonfiction Prize by Water~Stone Review and will appear in the Fall 2014 issue.
Bernard Grant (2016) was awarded the Bryn Lunde Memorial Scholarship to attend Fishtrap, July 2014.
Ian Ramsey (2015) was awarded the Howard Small Chair for Excellence in Teaching at North Yarmouth Academy in Yarmouth, Maine, where he has taught for fifteen years.
Laurie Mikulasek (2016) received an Honorable Mention in Glimmer Train’s April 2014 Very Short Fiction Award Contest for her short story “The Letter.”
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Alumni
Katie Eberhart (2010) will be leading writing workshops in central Oregon, at the Metolius Preserve, August 9th, and at Indian Ford Meadow Preserve, on August 23rd. The writing workshops, “Field Notes,” will focus on observations that may help inspire or contribute to further writing. The workshops are sponsored by the Deschutes Land Trust and free to the public, but sign-up through the Land Trust‘s web site, or by telephone, is required.
Nancy Geyer (2013): Her essay “Black Plank,” originally published in The Georgia Review, was selected for inclusion in Pushcart Prize XXXIX: Best of the Small Presses (2015), to be released this November.
Lisa Ohlen Harris (2011): Her memoir, The Fifth Season: A Daughter-in-Law’s Memoir of Caregiving, won a Nautilus Prize and an Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY).
Katrina Hays (2010), founding editor of Soundings, and former Soundings webmaster, Steve McBurnett, have been awarded a dual residency for collaborative artists from Oregon State University’s Spring Creek Project (Katrina as poet and Steve as photographer). See examples of their collaboration here.
Ann Hursey (2012) is a semi-finalist in the Finishing Line Press 2014 New Women’s Voices Chapbook competition. Her chapbook, A Certain Hold, will be published by Finishing Line in the coming year.
Jill McCabe Johnson (2008): Her poetry collection, Diary of the One Swelling Sea (MoonPath Press, 2013), received a 2014 Silver Nautilus Book Award in Poetry. Also, Jill received her PhD in English from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with a focus in Ecopoetics and a Specialization in UNL’s Graduate Program in Nineteenth Century Studies.
Jill Kandel (2008, non-matric.) Her creative nonfiction work, “Paying the Piper,” was runner-up for the Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize and will be published in The Missouri Review, Vol. 37.1, Spring 2014.
Lita Kurth (2009): Her creative nonfiction essay, “This is the Way We Wash the Clothes,” won the Diana Woods Memorial Prize sponsored by Lunchticket, Spring 2014.
Carrie Mesrobian (2013): Her debut novel, Sex & Violence, won the 2014 Minnesota Book Award in the Young People’s Literature category. Her second novel, Perfectly Good White Boy, will be released by Carolrhoda Books, October 1, 2014. Preorders available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Julie Riddle (2009) signed a book contract with the University of Nebraska Press for her memoir (developed from her RWW thesis), to be published in spring 2016 as part of the UNP’s American Lives Series, edited by Tobias Wolff.
Tina Schumann (2009): Her poetry manuscript, A Box of Zeroes, was named a finalist in the Four Way Books Intro Prize in Poetry for 2014.
Natalie Tilghman (2011) and Bill Sommer (2012): Carolrhoda Lab bought world rights to their co-written YA epistolary novel, tentatively titled Resource Room. The projected publication date is fall 2015.
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Faculty
Suzanne Berne: Her novel, The Dogs of Littlefield, was nominated for Britain’s 2014 Bailey Prize (formerly the Orange Prize). Simon & Schuster will publish it in the U.S. in 2015.
Barrie Jean Borich (2009): Her memoir, Body Geographic (from University of Nebraska Press/American Lives Series), won the 26th Annual Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir as well as an IPPY Gold Medal in Essay/Creative Nonfiction. Borich becomes a new faculty member of RWW beginning this August! (See her profile in this issue of Soundings.)
Rebecca McClanahan has been appointed as the 2015 Louis D. Rubin Writer-in-Residence at Hollins University. Former appointees include Natasha Threthewey, Kelly Cherry, and Paul Zimmer.
David Huddle: His novel, The Faulkes Chronicle, will appear in September 2014 from Tupelo Press (some copies will be available earlier).
Peggy Shumaker was selected as the Rasmuson Foundation’s Distinguished Artist for 2014. To see a mini documentary about Peggy and the Foundation click here. Peggy was also chosen as the Artsmith Artist of the Year and will spend a week on Orcas Island as part of that award (see more under Opportunities).
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