Department of English Newsletter Fall 2023
Upcoming Department Events
Publications & Acceptances
Joy Castro's flash essay "Joicing" appeared in The Art of Touch: A Collection of Prose and Poetry from the Pandemic and Beyond (University of Georgia, 2023). Editor S. Tremaine Nelson interviewed her in the new issue of Northwest Review.
Ted Kooser's The Wheeling Year is now available as an audiobook, narrated by Steve Buhler.
Katie Marya's essay "Impression Techniques: Spending Time with the Two Women Behind La Impresora in Puerto Rico" was recently published in Chicago Review's special print issue on small presses and is now featured on their website.
Kevin McMullen and three Whitman Archive–affiliated colleagues (Stephanie Blalock [University of Iowa], Stefan Schöberlein [Texas A&M—Central Texas], and Jason Stacy [Southern Illinois University Edwardsville]) have received a contract from Edinburgh University Press for a multi-authored monograph to be titled "Walt Whitman Between Leaves, Tracing Paths Untrodden, 1856–1860." The book will explore the numerous career paths that Whitman was considering in these years, among them health guru, newspaper editor, local crime reporter, public sanitation expert, textbook author, and public orator. Drawing on recent discoveries of previously unknown Whitman texts, as well as the authors' ongoing investigation of Whitman's newspaper writing, the book will demonstrate that, rather than a time of depression and retreat in the wake of the failure of the first two editions of Leaves of Grass, the late 1850s were in fact Whitman's final period of open-ended, authorial experimentation. The book will appear in EUP's "Interventions in Nineteenth-Century American Literature and Culture" series and is scheduled for publication in May 2026.
Ber Anena had her short essay "Waist Beads" published in Isele Magazine.
Anena also wrote a new introduction to the latest edition of Twelve Years a Slave, the 1853 memoir by Solomon Northup, published by Flame Tree Publishing. The introduction is titled "Twelve Years a Slave and the Still Turning Wheel of Racism in America."
World Literature Today (Varia issue for Nov./Dec. 2023) features the interview between Ph.D. student and literary conversationist Chibueze Darlington Anuonye and two-time Booker shortlisted author Chigozie Obioma. In the interview, Obioma talks about his writings and his nonliterary contributions to literature and art, focusing on his role in founding the Oxbelly Writers Retreat and his experience of serving on the 2021 Booker Prize judging panel.
Jessica Poli's poem, "The Decay of Progress and the Progress of Decay," was recently published in EcoTheo Review.
Conferences, Readings, Workshops & Presentations
Caterina Bernardini presented her paper "'Ese Sol that Shines on Everyone': Teaching and Practicing Literary Multilingualism for a More Equal Future" at UNL's Language, Migration, and Education: Cultivating Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Conference on September 9, 2023.
Joy Castro served as Marshall University's Hispanic Heritage Month visiting writer in Huntington, West Virginia, on November 2. She read from One Brilliant Flame and spoke with novelist Chantel Acevedo as a guest of the Cuban Heritage Collection at the University of Miami on Nov. 16 in Coral Gables, Florida. She read her work in Nebraska Wesleyan University's Kloefkorn Writers Series on November 30.
Timothy J. Cook delivered a paper at the 76th Annual Convention of the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association, which was hosted by the University of Wyoming and held in Golden, CO, on October 12. As co-chair of the panel "English Literature since 1900," Cook shared his work, "A Changing of the Modernist Avant-Garde: Pound and Olson."
Kwakiutl Dreher screened her film The Bell Affair at the Pacific Ancient Modern Language Association conference (PAMLA) held in Portland, OR.
On October 30, Melissa Homestead appeared on C-SPAN's Book TV series "The Books That Shaped America" to talk about Willa Cather's My Ántonia.
Kathleen Dillon presented with Shari Stenberg, UNL English alum Zachary Beare (Ph.D. in English, 2017), and Tina Le on "Reckoning with Burnout: Pedagogies of Care and the Hope for an Imagined Future Academy" at the 2023 Feminisms & Rhetorics Conference in Atlanta, GA.
Kathleen also presented with Keshia Mcclantoc and Serenity Dougherty on "Between Grief, Joy, and Care: The How, Why, and Experience of Writing Marathons" at the 2023 Coalition for Community Writing Conference in Denver, CO.
In addition, Kathleen presented with Rachel Azima and Serenity Dougherty on "When Comfort is Cliché: A Discussion about Productive Discomfort, Access, and Online Appointments" at the 2023 National Conference on Peer Tutoring in Writing in Pittsburgh, PA.
In October, Jessica Poli led a workshop on environmental and place-based writing called "Writing Your Environment" for the Ligonier Valley Library in Ligonier, PA.
Poli also visited Mississippi State University in September as part of the Price Caldwell Visiting Writers Series, reading from her debut poetry collection, Red Ocher.
Activities, Accolades, & Grants
Steve Buhler will direct staged readings of Jillian Blevins's new play, Romeo and Her Sister, about Charlotte Cushman, America's first Shakespearean superstar and an actress who specialized in male roles. The performances, part of Angels Theatre Company's Salon Reading Series, will take place at the Resonator Gallery of Turbine Flats, 2124 Y Street, in Lincoln on Sunday, December 3, at 2 p.m. and at Eastmont Living, 6315 O Street, in Lincoln on Thursday, December 7, at 6:30 p.m. The readings are free and open to the public.
Katie Marya was invited to be an Alumni Fellow at Bennington College's MFA January residency.
Have news or noteworthy happenings to share?
The Department of English encourages our faculty and current students to submit stories about their activities and publications of note by filling out the Department Newsletter Submission Form.