MFA@FLA: Creative Writing

News

• Ange Mlinko has published two new books: Foxglovewise, a collection of poems co-published by Farrar, Straus (U.S.) and Giroux and Faber (U.K.), as well as a book of nonfiction, Difficult Ornaments: Florida and the Poets, published with Oxford University Press. In the last year, she has given the Turnbull Lecture at Johns Hopkins University, read at Duke University and St. Edmund’s Hall, Oxford University, and taught in the Key West Literary Seminars. Recent poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The American Scholar, Yale Review, Literary Imagination, The Southern Review, London Review of Books, and Best American Poetry 2025. Work is forthcoming in Best American Poetry 2026. She has recently taken over as Director of MFA@FLA.
• William Logan had a group of ten poems in the Birmingham Review, where he was the Featured Poet.  He introduced in Raritan a previously uncollected poetry chronicle by John Berryman, as well as publishing, in the New Criterion, two verse chronicles and long essays on Black Poetry in America, Delmore Schwartz’s Collected Poems, and Emily Dickinson’s letters.  His review of Anthony Hecht’s Collected Poems appeared in the London Review of Books.  He read at the University of Birmingham last spring, and this February at Harding College and Johns Hopkins University, where he gave the Turnbull Lecture.
• Jason Walker has poems forthcoming in Nimrod, Louisiana Literature, The Inflectionist Review, and Poetry South. Reviews are forthcoming in Birmingham Poetry Review and Asymptote, where he is a reviewer. Reviews and interviews of poets are also forthcoming at Alabama Writers’ Forum. He has recently been an artist-in-residence at Newnan ArtRez in Georgia, performed at Carnegie Library, and judged a Poetry Out Loud regional event.
• Lupita Eyde-Tucker’s English translation of Venezuelan poet Oriette D’Angelo’s collection, Homeland of Swarms, was awarded the Florida Book Awards Bronze Medal in Poetry.
• Cleveland State University Press is publishing Michael Loughran’s book of essays, Windower, in October 2025.
• Lupita Eyde-Tucker (Poetry ’23) has published the poem “Without Reperations” on Poets.org.
• Uwem Akpan (faculty) “pens a message of liberation,” as covered by U.S. Catholic Arts and Culture
• The Dream Builders, by Oindrila Mukherjee (Fiction ’04), will be published internationally by Tin House, Scribe, and Harper Collins.
• “The Marvelous Boys of Palo Alto,” an essay by David Leavitt (faculty), has been published by The New Yorker.
• Saara Myrene Raappana (Poetry ’07) has won the the University of Massachusetts Press Juniper Prize for Poetry for her book of Chamber After Chamber, her debut book of poems.
• Now Is Not the Time to Panic, the latest novel by Kevin Wilson (Fiction ’04), was listed as a Most Anticipated Book of Fall by Esquire, Entertainment Weekly, Time, and others.
• Uwem Akpan (Faculty)’s novel New York, My Village was shortlisted for the Chinua Achebe Prize in Literature.
• “Beachcomber Nocturne,” a poem by Lupita Eyde-Tucker (Poetry ’23) was selected by Kwame Davis to be featured in his column in American Life in Poetry, and her translations from the collection Cardiopatías were published by the Los Angeles Review.
• The 2022 Writers Festival—featuring Geoff Dyer, Dana Spiotta, Ishion Hutchinson, Jennifer Moxley, and Andrew Holleran—took place between November 3rd and 5th at Ustler Hall on the UF campus.
• “Until It Doesn’t,” a story by Roy Udeh-Ubaka (Fiction ’24), was named the winner of the 2022 Gerald Kraak Award for writing and photography of African perspectives on gender, social justice, and sexuality.
• Groundcover, a book of poems by Molly Kugel (Poetry ’01), was published by Tolson Books in August 2022
• “Eucalyptus,” a new poem by Lupita Eyde-Tucker (Poetry ’23), was selected to appear in the Best New Poets 2022 Anthology.
• In August 2022, Cassie Fancher (Fiction ’22)’s “By the Way, This Isn’t What I Look Like” was published in the Nashville Review.
• “The Youngest Son,” a story by Janice Whang (Fiction ’23), was published in the Temz Review.
• Roy Udeh-Ubaka (Fiction ’24) was selected by Peter Ho Davies as one of ten winners to be published in the Masters Review Anthology XI in Spring 2023.
• Venice, the latest collection of poetry by Ange Mlinko (faculty), was published by Macmillan in April of 2022 and reviewed in The New York Times.
• David Leavitt (faculty) spent the summer of 2022 in Italy, where he was awarded the Orbetello Book Prize “as a tribute to the author’s career” and the Premio Nino Gennaro, sponsored by the Sicilia Queer 2022 International New Visions Film Fest, in Palermo. He also took part in literary festivals in Rome and Gavoi, Sardinia and reviewed Niven Govinden’s Diary of a Film for The New York Times Book Review and Andrew Holleran’s The Kingdom of Sand for Book Post.
• Lupita Eyde-Tucker (Poetry ’23) was named as a finalist in the Andres Montoya Poetry Prize by Letras Latinas and awarded a Residency Fellowship by the Vermont Studio Center.
• “Dog-Cat,” a short story by Payal Nagpal (Fiction ’23), was published by Simon and Schuster in Cat People, a collection of stories. She was also longlisted for the yet-to-be-announced Bombay Review‘s 30 Under 30 Best South Asian Writer prize.
• The Great River Review listed Matt Vekakis (Poetry ’24) as one of eleven finalists for the 2022 Pink Poetry Prize.
• Jason Walker (Poetry ’23)’s interview with Deborah Diement regarding The Charmed House, her latest book of poems, was published by Dos Madres.
• “Texting,” a short story by Alex Pickett (Fiction ’16), has been published in the Winter 2022 edition of The Southern Review.
• Lures, a collection of poems by Adam Vines (Poetry ’06), has been published by LSU Press.
• Matt Vekakis (Poetry ’24)’s poem “Combine” has been published in the most recent Fall/Winter issue of the Atlanta Review.
• “Flip Turn,” by Michelle Neuffer (Fiction ’20) has been published in Miracle Monocle‘s online issue.
• BOOTH (Butler University) has published “Big Guy,” by Jake Bartman (Fiction ’23).
• “Syncope,” a short story by August Lah (Fiction ’21), has been listed as a finalist for the New Letters Robert Day Award for Fiction.
• On a recent episode of NPR’s All Things Considered, host Michel Martin spoke with Uwem Akpan (faculty) about his new book, New York, My Village.
• Jake Bartman (Fiction ’23)’s “Night Swim,” originally published in the Spring/Summer 2020 issue of Ninth Letter, has received an honorable mention in the 2021 Pushcart Prize anthology.
• On November 5th, 2021, MFA@FLA welcomed authors Adam Ehrlich Sachs (Organs of Sense, Inherited Disorders) and Paisley Rekdal (Appropriate: A Provocation, Nightingale)—to deliver a reading at Ulster Hall.
• New York, My Village, by Uwem Akpan (faculty), has been named Fiction Pick of the Month by the Strand, a December selection for Greenlight Bookstore’s First Editions Club, and an Amazon Editor’s Pick.
• A note to applicants: our application process has been updated. Please refer anew to the Apply page for more information.
• A review by Chris Bachelder (Fiction ’02), of The Lincoln Highway, was published in the New York Times in October 2021.