Greetings from the Co-directors
Michael writes:
We have June 2020. The Gainesville diaspora continues vigorous and prolific. It now extends to Gainesville itself, in lockdown since March. (This year’s Editors’ Visits were an early casualty, and had to go virtual.) My deepest sympathies—and desire, somehow, to make it up—to the class of 2020, graduating, as we say in German, sang und klanglos, without a song or a sound.
We have one faculty departure to announce – though, in keeping with the situation, she too is still here: Jill Ciment leaves us after 15 years. We will miss her warm and sardonic manner, and her unique blend of Canada, California, Brooklyn, the Caribbean, and the South Seas. The rest of us are here, or away, or both at the same time.
Stay safe, be well.
David writes:
Rather than even begin to try to guess what next year will be like when I cannot guess what tomorrow will be like, let me join Michael in congratulating the class of 2020. Since they were not able to hold the usual farewell reading and prom, let us at least commit their names to print. In fiction: John Bolen, Earnest Buck, Gardner Mounce, Michelle Neuffer, Timothy Schirmer, Dan Shurley, and Elizabeth Yerkes; in poetry Stephen De Burca, Audrey Hall, Stephanie Maniaci, Kayla Beth Moore, and Allen Thomas. And while we’re at it, let’s also congratulate Kayla Beth and Forester McClatchey (class of 2019) on their imminent nuptials.
Our faculty, alumni, and students continue to publish apace, with work in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The London Review of Books, Harper’s, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Review of Books, Agni, and BOMB, to name but a few venues. Recent and forthcoming books include Kevin Wilson’s Nothing to See Here, a pick of the Today Show Book Club, Diane Zinna’s The All-Night Sun, due out in August, James Davis’s Club Q (winner of the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize), and my own Shelter in Place, due out in October.
Although the Editors Weekend had to be turned into a virtual event, it was as big a success as a virtual event can be, and we are grateful to Alexandra Christie of the Wylie Agency, George David Clark of 32 Poems, Emily Nemens of The Paris Review, and Jeffrey Yang of New Directions for participating. We are also grateful to Donald Antrim, Devin Johnston, Yiyun Li, and Ada Limón, the estimable guests at our annual Writers Festival.
As for the future, one thing we do know is that we have twelve fantastic new MFAs joining the program: in fiction Jake Bartman, Avery diUbaldo, Vix Gutierrez, Ara Hagopian, Payal Nagpal, and Janice Whang and in poetry William Brown, Will Carpenter, Lupita Eyde-Tucker, Edward Sambrano, Peter Vertacnik, and Jason Walker.
By way of an envoi, let me quote the words most commonly written in my Class of 1979 high-school yearbook: “Have a bitchin’ summer.”
Testimonials
Liz Bevilacqua (MFA, 2013)
My essay “Cycles” was published in Prairie Schooner (Winter 2019 issue) and won a Glenna Luschei Award. My novella was a top ten finalist in the ScreenCraft Cinematic Book competition this year. I’m looking for an agent! Living with husband Nathan in the Berkshires in Western Mass and working as a nonfiction book editor at Storey. Fixing up an old house and old garden. It is nice to tend things.
Stephen de Búrca (MFA, 2020)
Stephen de Búrca’s poem “Scoping” won poetry category of the 2019 Over The Edge New Writer of the Year contest. His poem “Lenition” received an notable mention for the 2020 Cúirt New Writing Prize. Over the past year, his poems have appeared in Abridged, The Honest Ulsterman, Boyne Berries, and Skylight 47.
David Caplan (MFA, 1991)
This year I published a poetry collection, Into My Garden, with Ben Yehuda Press, as part of their Jewish Poetry Project Series. Poems from the book had appeared in Poetry, the Virginia Quarterly Review, and elsewhere, and VQR had previously awarded a portfolio of the poems the Emily Clark Balch Prize.
Jill Ciment (faculty)
After fifteen rewarding years teaching at MFA@FLA, to celebrate my retirement this April, I had planned to go to Borneo to work with orphaned orangutans. Now, quarantined in my house, the only orphaned ape I see is myself.
James Davis (MFA, 2011)
My first book of poems, Club Q, won the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize, chosen this year by Ed Hirsch, and will be published by The Waywiser Press in the fall. My poem “In Houston” was selected for Best New Poets 2019 by Cate Marvin; other poems have appeared recently in The Gay & Lesbian Review, Cream City Review, Harpur Palate, Cartridge Lit, Hobart, Nimrod, and elsewhere. I launched a cute little website, jamesdavispoet.com, which collects all my online publications in one place. Tested positive for coronavirus in March but experienced blessedly mild symptoms. Still playing Scrabble. No longer working for Chipotle.
Geri Doran (MFA, 1995)
Epistle, Osprey—my third collection of poems—was published in summer 2019 by Tupelo Press. More recently, new poems have appeared in Ninth Letter and The Arkansas International. Still living a very quiet life in Eugene, Oregon, where I teach at the university.
Audrey Hall (MFA, 2020)
This year Crab Creek Review and Alaska Quarterly Review accepted poems of mine for publication. I was also accepted into the 2020 NYS Summer Writers Institute Workshop, where, if not for COVID-19, I would have studied with the likes of Henri Cole and Peg Boyers. Crossing my fingers for next year! Other highlights include exchanging pug pictures with Ada Limón, running publicity for the 2019 Writers Festival, tackling one more round of William Logan prompts, successfully submitting and defending my thesis, riding the new Harry Potter ride at Universal repeatedly, spotting baby manatees with fellow poet Steph Maniaci, and, unbeknownst to the Santa Fe Teaching Zoo administration, continuing to serve as unofficial docent of alligators Brutus and Rainbow.
Michael Hofmann (faculty)
It feels like forever ago, but my book of poems called One Lark, One Horse appeared from FSG. The paperback is due out soon. Less translating – Kleist’s novella, Michael Kohlhaas and a ghostly Peter Stamm title, called The Sweet Indifference of the World, that’s about the size of it – and more reviewing. Pieces on Les Murray and Musil and Lawrence Joseph and Lowell and Hardwick’s Letters. A piece to write now on “old style” – my own fault. Is there such a thing?
Chris Jones, MFA 2003
I’ve just started my 10th year working for The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. In response to the global pandemic, we shifted our 10,000-person, 100-author festival into a five-week virtual festival. I couldn’t be prouder of the effort, lineup, and results from all of our staff and partners. If you want to see an archive of all the conversations, readings, house concerts, and other assorted goodness, you can find it here: https://loft.org/festival/wordplay-schedule
Ashley Kim (MFA, 2021)
I have two poems, “Parable of the Fig Tree” and “The Son,” in the 2020 issue of Faultline. This is my first publication. I was very excited to receive the news in the basement of a London hostel, which is where I happened to be at the time. It wasn’t as sketchy as it sounds.
Rachel Khong (MFA, 2011)
Still living in San Francisco; still working on novel #2, no end in sight. Things I’ve written are being adapted for TV and film. Will anything be made? We shall see!
David Leavitt (faculty)
After many years of postponement, my new novel is finished and will be published on October 13th. The title—get ready—is Shelter in Place. My editor came up with it back in November. It’s set in early 2017, right after the election of he-whose-name-shall-not-be-spoken.
Harry Leeds (MFA, 2012)
It seems pretty insane that I started the program over 10 years ago, but much has happened. Having nothing to write about, I lived in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Albania, and finally perfected my Russian. I moved to Minneapolis where I worked for two years as a nurse’s aide in a facility with lots of Russian speakers, and now am almost done with nursing school just in time for the pandemic. I created the online lit mag MumberMag (https://www.mumbermag.me/) with DA Powell (send us your stuff), and finished a novel in there somewhere. I’m getting married to the best person I know. I have had great times when fate has brought me together with other MFA@FLAers.
Oh, and if you want to know what I’ve published there is https://www.harryleeds.com/
William Logan (faculty)
In the last year, I’ve published poems in American Poetry Review, Arts & Letters, Bridge, Gulf Coast, Hudson Review, Literary Matters, the New York Review of Books, Parnassus, Salmagundi, and the Walrus. In addition to the usual spring and fall verse chronicles in the New Criterion, I’ve published long essays on a new edition of Ezra Pound’s Cathay; on Robert Lowell’s The Dolphin Letters, 1970-1979 and The Dolphin: Two Versions, 1972-1973; and on the letters between Anthony Hecht and William L. MacDonald. I also reviewed a new book of poetry by Rowan Ricardo Phillips for the New York Times Book Review. I have a book of poems and a new book of criticism finished and am awaiting publications dates. New poems will appear here and there, as well as a few shorter essays and a longer one on some uncollected poems by Robert Lowell. I’m at work on the fiftieth verse chronicle, which reached its twenty-fifth anniversary in December.
Randall Mann (MFA, 1997)
My fifth collection of poems, A Better Life, is forthcoming from Persea Books in April 2021. This year I’m judging the Lighthouse Poetry Series book prize for the Cleveland State University Poetry Center. New writing appears in Gulf Coast, Copper Nickel, and Quarterly West. @randallmannpoet
Ange Mlinko (Faculty, Poetry)
2019 was a quiet year of writing essay reviews for The New York Review of Books. I also had poems in the London Review of Books, Sewannee Review, and Best American Poetry 2019. I contemplated Robert Graves’s ominous remark, “Tranquility is of no poetic use.”
Gardner Mounce (Fiction, 2020) gmounce@ufl.edu
I attended Clarion West Writers Workshop in Seattle this past summer, where I met Ted Chiang and attempted to steal an inflatable swan (unsuccessfully). I submitted my thesis in February and am now working on edits. Favorite quarantine show so far is 90 Day Fiancé: Before the 90 Days.
Christian Nagle (MFA, 1995)
My collection Flightbook is forthcoming from Salmon Poetry (Ireland), and my translations of the Japanese early modernist Chūya Nakahara will be published by Copper Canyon in 2021. Moved back to Tokyo in 2016 and took the job of Communications Wizard at Zensho Agency (www.zenshoagency.com), Asia’s hottest recruitment firm. Also English language editor for Dojo Art Books. Our most recent publication is Dojo Giga Volume I: Heaven (https://dojoartbooks.com/heaven/), a gorgeous triple-award-winning exploration into the paintings of ninja grandmaster and living national treasure Masaaki Hatsumi. Work from home on a 55-wide smart TV monitor. Still a health freak, I follow the keto diet and have been practicing the martial arts of Yiquan and Bagua for many years.
John Poch (MFA, 1997) john.poch@ttu.edu
My fifth collection of poems, Texases, was published by WordFarm Press last year and is currently a Foreword Indie Finalist in the category of Poetry (which they deem a sub-category of non-fiction, which is true, in several ways, and also false). Gracious: An Anthology of Contemporary Southern Poetry (Texas Tech University Press), a book I have curated, is forthcoming this summer. It features 84 contemporary poets, several of them Florida Gators.
Ralph James Savarese (MFA, 1994)
I had a book of prose out in 2018 from Duke University Press called See It Feelingly, and I have a book of poems coming out in late 2020 from Nine Mile Books called Republican Fathers.
Meg Shevenock (MFA, 2006)
My poetry collection, The Miraculous, Sometimes, was selected by Bob Hicok as winner of the Marystina Santiestevan First Book Prize from Conduit Books. Miraculous was published in March and has received favorable reviews in Publisher’s Weekly and Kenyon Review, in addition to being featured in SPD’s “Recommends.” In the midst of the virus, I can only hope to make up some of my cancelled readings in a not-too-distant future. I received a 2020 Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council and have been working as the reader and researcher for the artist Ann Hamilton. Last fall, I curated a series of literary and theoretical texts related to the lives of objects for Hamilton’s exhibition, when an object reaches for your hand, which premiered at the Wexner Center for the Arts. And otherwise, these indoor days, I am thinking a lot about the lilac.
Eric Smith (MFA, 2009) ericsmith23@gmail.com
I’ve been the managing editor of the Sewanee Review since late 2018, and I was recently promoted to poetry editor of the magazine. My wife and I are expecting our first child in May.
Cheyenne Taylor (MFA, 2021)
Big news first: I finally saw my first gator after 18 months in Gainesville. I also had poems published in storySouth and Appalachian Heritage this year, two lovely journals that both took more than one poem from me—an exciting first. I have a review forthcoming in Birmingham Poetry Review, and, perhaps a sign of onset pandemic lunacy, I’ve joined in Tupelo Press’ 30/30 Project for the month of May (30 poems, 30 days!). Wish me luck as I try not to write 30 “looking out my window” poems—I’ll take requests!
Alexandra Teague (MFA, 1998) ateague@uidaho.edu
I spent last year on sabbatical in Cardiff, Wales (where my husband was completing a Master’s in Music Composition), primarily working on a collection of essays about my family, and finishing edits on my third book of poetry, Or What We’ll Call Desire, which came out from Persea in August 2019 and received my dream short review from Stephanie Burt in The New York Times. I also got to spend part of last summer as a fellow at Civitella Ranieri, as well as reading at the Unamuno Festival in Madrid, and doing some traveling with friends. Since returning to University of Idaho, I’ve been teaching, suddenly learning to teach online (like most of us), and instead of Spring readings and literary festivals, am currently sheltering in place while repainting most of the rooms of my house.
Troy Teegarden (MFA, 2006)
A farm is a great place to park it during a pandemic. Alison and I have live chickens-dogs-turkey-fainting goats-yard rabbit TV outside the windows all day long, and at night the call of the male coturnix quail from our hayloft covey is pleasant. Roosters crow off and on, and our herd of 30 cows—and one miniature horse named Lil’ Bit—can be seen cruising by twice a day in our lower field. Bossman, an American Guinea Hog, and his posse snort around and never fail to entertain. The fact that both of us have the ability to work from home can’t be beat though I miss face-to-face classes and discussing writing and literature in person.
In August 2019 I was hired as an English Instructor for Maysville Community and Technical College at the Licking Valley Campus in Cynthiana, Kentucky. I am my own English Department on campus so it seems I may have hit the jackpot. I primarily teach ENG 101 and ENG 102 but have open season on designing new courses. So far I’ve offered a course titled Grit Lit: Reading the Rough South (Harry Crews! Barry Hannah!), and summer 2020 I will test a course on The Beat Generation. (Jack Kerouac was huge for me as an undergrad.) I’m also working on a Greek and Roman Mythology in Translation course as well as a reading/writing course revolving around Cormac McCarthy’s The Border Trilogy. I have yet to get a creative writing course to make with enough students, but I’m sure one will make the cut in the near future.
Erick Verran (MFA, 2021)
I have a short poem forthcoming in the Massachusetts Review. My first book, Obiter Dicta, a collection of writing about aesthetics and modernity (sort of), is due out with Punctum Books later this year, unless of course the world ends.
Richard Weems (MFA, 1993) weems@weemsnet.net
My short film, Goodnight Death, starring Callum Blue and Danielle Kotch, has played at the LA Shorts International Film Festival, the Big Apple Film Festival, the Golden State Film Festival and the 39th Annual Cambridge Film Festival. It also won several Platinum and Gold awards from the Independent Short Awards. We’re currently shopping around the feature script. Latest fiction publications include North American Review, Flash Fiction Magazine, Aquifer, Black Works and the anthology What We Talk About When We Talk About It.