Department of English Newsletter October 2022
Upcoming Department Events
Publications & Acceptances
After debuting them online earlier, Interdisciplinary Studies and Literature and Environment (ISLE) has now published the printed versions of six of Steve Behrendt’s poems in its Summer 2022 issue, Volume 29.2. The poems are accessible online (at least for the moment). These poems are part of a larger collection that Steve is developing.
Chris Harding Thornton’s novel Pickard County Atlas will be released in German translation this month by independent press Polar Verlag. The press has published works by such writers as William Gay, Attica Locke, Ken Bruen, David Joy, William Boyle, and David Heska Wanbli Weiden.
Katie Schmid Henson’s poem “Do Not Go In” was published in the Sept/Oct Issue of The Gay & Lesbian Review. Her review of Chloe Honum’s The Lantern Room appeared at Broadsided Press, and features a Q & A with the author.
Caroliena Cabada’s short story, “Swimming Lessons,” was published by Pleiades as an Online Exclusive.
David Winter’s poem “Lucky Jew,” originally published in TriQuarterly, has been selected by Paula Bohince for the 2022 Best New Poets anthology.
Conferences, Readings, Workshops & Presentations
On September 16, Marco Abel presented “Making Films in the ‘Cemetery of Genre Cinema’: Christian Petzold’s Auteurist Inflection of Polizeiruf 110” at the German Studies Association Conference in Houston.
Melissa Homestead traveled to Cape Cod for the Provincetown Book Festival, where she and Scott Bane were featured in conversation on the topic of “It Takes Two: Dual Biographies of Queer and Artistic Partnership.” Melissa’s part of the conversation reflected her work on The Only Wonderful Things: The Creative Partnership of Willa Cather and Edith Lewis, while Bane is the author of A Union Like Ours: The Love Story of F. O. Matthiessen and Russell Cheney.
Caroliena Cabada presented “‘They’re voting on their past’: American Commentary on the 2022 Philippine Elections” via Zoom at See and Be Seen: An Interdisciplinary Conference on Storytelling and Identity in Popular Culture.
Leah Hedrick presented to the Nebraska Writing Center Consortium in Omaha on September 16th. The title of her talk was “Online Writing Centers: Worth Keeping?” She discussed the rhetoric around online access in higher education, and made an argument in favor of online writing centers as a necessary accommodation.
Activities, Accolades, & Grants
Jess Poli, Marco Abel, and Timothy Schaffert are the recipients of the Nebraska Book Awards Special Poetry award for their co-edited volume More in Time: A Tribute to Ted Kooser (University of Nebraska Press, 2021). The editors thank everyone who contributed work to this volume, including many current and former department colleagues and, of course, the man and the myth himself: Ted Kooser.
Rachel Azima was elected to serve as an At-Large Representative to the International Writing Centers Association Executive Board.
Melissa Homestead is co-PI (with library faculty Andrew Jewell and Emily Rau) on a $300,000+ NEH Humanities Collections and Reference Resources grant for “A Digital Library of Willa Cather’s Literary Manuscripts.”
Caterina Bernardini was interviewed by Italian journalist Cesare Martinetti for the podcast “Ricercati. Storie dei cervelli italiani nel mondo” about her work on Walt Whitman and American and transnational literature. The podcast features weekly conversations with expatriate Italian academic researchers that currently work around the world.
Arden Eli Hill’s first poetry chapbook, Bloodwater Parish, an exploration of race, gender, sexuality, and adoption in southern Louisiana, got a shout-out with Seven Kitchen’s Press in Poets and Writers. The collection is described as “deeply rooted in place,” interrogating “a trans poet’s familial and adoptive roots.”
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.