amaranth | fall 2014

Fall 2014www.hiram.edu/lindsaycrane

www.facebook.com/lindsaycranecenter

WESTERN RESERVE BOOK FESTIVAL

VISITING PROFESSORDANIEL RIORDAN

amaranth

the writing houserenovation

News and Stories from the Lindsay-Crane Center for Writing and Literature at Hiram College

am a ranth

On the cover: the Brainerd Stranahan bench in the gardens behind Bonney Castle

amaranth is a bi-annual publication of The Lindsay-Crane Center for Writing and Literature

1. a Vachel Lindsay poem published in The Congo and Other Poems in 19142. an imaginary flower that never fades

3. a highly nutritious golden seed4. any of various annuals of the genus Amaranthus having dense green or reddish clusters of tiny flowers

noun

Kirsten ParkinsonSarah Bianchi

Volume 3, Issue 2, Fall 2014

Editor-in-Chief Graphic Design

contributing writers

staff

Kirsten ParkinsonFrancis Sugita

Maya Watkins ’17

Lindsay-CraneCENTERfor W r i t i n g

Literature&

© The Lindsay-Crane Center for Writing and Literature, Hiram College

The Lindsay-Crane Center for Writing and Literature would like to thank the Hiram College Office of Institutional Advancement

and the Office of Special Events for their ongoing support.

mailing addressHiram College

P.O. Box 67Hiram, OH 44234

contributing photographers Edith Antl

Karen Donley-HayesKirsten Parkinson

amaranthNews and Stories from the Lindsay-Crane Center for Writing and Literature

fall 2014

STUDENT PROFILESMeet the Lindsay-Crane interns for the fall semester

A NEW LOOKThe Stephen and Jacquelyn Love Writing House gets an attractive update

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8

10

12 3 WESTERN RESERVEBOOK FESTIVALMore than 40 writers come to the Hiram campus

DANIEL RIORDANIntern Maya Watkinstalks with our fall visitingfaculty member

DETECTING WITHROGER ROSENBLATTA look back at RogerRosenblatt’s spring visit

BACK COVERWhat’s happening thisyear at the Lindsay-CraneCenter

2 amaranth | fall 2014

From DirectorKirsten Parkinson

In addition to expanding opportunitiesin writing and literature for members of the Hiram College community, an element of the Lindsay-Crane Center’s mission is outreach to the world beyond Hiram Hill. Call us word evangelists, if you must, but we believe passionately in the power of books and writing to change lives.

This year the Lindsay-Crane Center is especially reaching out to high-school students in the immediate area and around the country with two pilot programs:

We are partnering with the Cleveland-based Anisfield-Wolf Awards to lead book discussions in two localschools. Four members of Hiram’s Eclectic Scholars Honors Program will be working with teachers at Crestwood and Streetsboro High Schools to teach two of this year’s Anisfield-Wolf winners: the poetry collection The Big Smoke by Adrian Matejka and the novel A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra. The Hiram College students will read the books and then work with Hiram faculty members to develop presentations and discussion questions before visiting the schools later this fall to work with senior honors and AP students.

Our writing contests are expanding to include a nonfiction writing competition for high-school students. Nonfiction is a fast-growing genre, yet few colleges offer contests in this area for high-school students. Furthermore, Hiram College is particularly distinctive in this area with many of its English faculty members actively publishing in the genre. Some details of the contest are still being finalized, but it will be open to high-school students regardless of geographical location. Keep an eye on the Lindsay-Crane Facebook page (www.facebook.com/lindsaycranecenter) and website (www.hiram.edu/lindsaycrane) this fall for further announcements about this contest.

These projects provide new opportunities for our current Hiram students, who are actively involved in planning and implementing both the Anisfield-Wolf discussion project and the writing contest, and help us spread the love of literature to the next generation of readers and writers. We’ll admit—we also hope they’ll come to Hiram College to nurture that love. We use every opportunity to tell them about the distinctive opportunities available here, from our small classes, to the unusual 12-3 schedule, to the supportive faculty and staff, to internship opportunities at a national poetry journal, and so on.

We hope you’ll share the word about the great work that the Lindsay-Crane Center for Writing and Literature and Hiram College are doing. And if you’d like to get involved, drop me a note at [email protected].

Meet The Lindsay-Crane Fall Interns

Major and minor: I am an English major and Gender Studies minor.

Favorite Hiram class (so far): Advanced American Literature: Regionalism with Jeff Swenson and Misfits, Freaks, and Derelicts with Michael Blackie.

Memorable Hiram experience: So far, my favorite experience at Hiram has been starting a club—the Gender Equality Student Alliance (GESA). Last year we organized a campus-wide art exhibit and auction titled “The Way She Moves,” and it was just great to see the whole campus involved in celebrating the diversity of women through art.

Favorite books: God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut and A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess.

What I want to gain from the Lindsay-Crane internship: I hope to better my editing skills and gain experience in writing in ways that I’m not used to.

Kristie Schroll ’16

Major: Creative Writing major (thinking about a History double major)

Favorite Hiram class (so far): Europe 500-1450 with Janet Pope

Memorable Hiram experience: I’ve only been here a year, but so far my favorite experience has been working on the student literary magazine and getting our publication together last year. It was pretty hectic for a while, but I met some great people and I had a lot of fun. However, I think my upcoming study-abroad trip to the Galapagos Islands may become number one!

Favorite books: This is a cruel question! I don’t think I’m physically capable of picking just one, but here are some of my favorite titles/authors, in no particular order: Robin McKinley, Harry Potter series, Edgar Allan Poe, Diana Wynne Jones, Library of Apollodorus, Life of Pi, Homer, Lemony Snicket, His Dark Materials series, Erik Larson, Cassandra Clare, The Book Thief, Maximum Ride series, Peter Pan, Lewis Carroll, Cornelia Funke, Neil Gaiman, John Green, To Kill A Mockingbird, Rick Riordan, Shakespeare, The Hobbit, Bartimaeus trilogy.

I love works of monumental imagination that spark my own imagination in return. For me, that exchange is what reading is all about.

What I want to gain from the Lindsay-Crane internship: I hope to gain experience working on a publication and other challenging projects. I think this is a great opportunity to meet interesting people and to share my love of reading and writing.

Maya Watkins ’17

www.hiram.edu/lindsaycrane 3

If you’re a Hiram student looking for more information about internship opportunities with the Lindsay-Crane Center for Writing and Literature,

contact Kirsten Parkinson at [email protected].

4 amaranth fall 2014


The Stephen and Jacquelyn Love

WRITINGHOUSE

gets a new look

By Kirsten Parkinson


This summer the Stephen and Jacquelyn Love Writing House received a stunning facelift, thanks to a generous donation from the Loves. The worn wood siding was torn off and replaced with durable and environmentally friendly fiber

cement siding that nevertheless retains the historical feel of the 1890s Queen Anne style house.

Updated storm windows and doors to be installed this fall will match the new look but also provide better insulation. The previously muted colors have been exchanged for brighter greens, sharp white trim, and a purple door.

The renovations have been popular with students returning to campus. Creative Writing major Paul Dickerson ’16 says his favorite improvement is the disappearance of the “annoying screen door” on the front of the building. According to Creative Writing

major Sara Shearer ’17, the Love Writing House now “looks more clean-cut and inviting to all the new (and old) students looking for help with their writing.”

Photos

Opposite page, top to bottom: The Writing House before construction.

Siding removal. Repair of the attic wall. The porch waiting for final touches

of paint. Previous page: The new door of the Writing House, painted a

vibrant purple. Below: The almost finished Writing House.


WESTERN RESERVE BOOK FESTIVAL CELEBRATES OHIO’S LITERARY WEALTH


By Kirsten Parkinson


Co-sponsored by the Lindsay-Crane Center for Writing

and Literature and the Friends of the Hiram College Library to

commemorate the Friends of the Library’s thirtieth anniversary, the

festival celebrated the wealth of literature generated by authors

around Northeast Ohio. The participating authors included

Hiram faculty and staff members Jeanne Dutton, Joyce Dyer, Jennifer

Morrow, and Mary Quade as well as alumni James Bradley Clarke

’91, Jen Hirt ’97, and Scott Lax ’76.

“There was simply no better way for this literature junkie to spend a June afternoon!” says Devlin Geroski ’14, a recent

graduate in Creative Writing and Philosophy. “My favorite part of the festival was the sheer representation of genres and

styles. The festival appealed to a diverse audience of readers, celebrating why and how people are connected to writing in

the first place.”

David Giffels, author of The Hard Way on Purpose and All the Way Home, presented the festival’s keynote. He discussed

how his own career path has been intricately connected to his identity as a resident of Akron and Northeast Ohio, “a place,”

as he writes in The Hard Way on Purpose, “that always almost wins.” Giffels spoke of discovering books as a child through

adventure series for boys and a dusty old bookstore in downtown Akron. From his extensive childhood reading, he

recognized that he wanted to become a writer.

“These writers all offered the same advice: keep reading even if you aren’t writing,” says Creative Writing major Jess

Baker ’15. “The best way to learn how to write a good story is to read a good story.”

Photos

Opposite page: The book festival

program and schedule of readings. Below

left: Author and keynote speaker David

Giffels. Below right: Author Les Roberts.

Above: The main author room.

On a cloudy day in June, book lovers gathered in Hiram College’s

Kennedy Center to celebrate the written word. The Western Reserve

Book Festival brought together more than 40 authors and journals

in the genres of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, young adult and children’s

literature, comics, and playwriting for readings and book signings.

Featured Event on CampusA Reading by Daniel Riordan | Oct. 23, 2014

Writing House, 4:15 p.m.

VISITING FACULTY MEMBER DANIEL RIORDAN

EMBRACES STRANGE THE

By Maya Watkins ’17


The Stephen and Jacquelyn Love Writing House stands at the edge of campus with an expectant air, always waiting for imaginative minds to find their way inside. Every day students settle into creaky wooden chairs, the blackboard behind them already full of scribbles, the eclectic set of books in glass cabinets standing at attention. The eagerly creative atmosphere is a change from the orderly rows of Cleveland State University, where Hiram’s visiting creative writing faculty member has worked since 2012. Daniel Riordan recognized the creative potential of the Writing House the moment he saw it. “When I arrived on

campus for a visit and discovered that workshops would be held in an old house at what amounts to a dining room table,

I was over the moon with excitement,” he says. “As much as I love teaching at CSU, the classrooms can be a bit sterile.” He

hopes his classes here will inspire students with “a continued passion to write,” and the classroom environment will play

an important role, as it has for many students before.

Riordan is fairly eclectic himself. Although many people change their minds about their majors, Riordan made a

remarkable switch on his journey from law school student to writing professor. “I had this realization that, oh, gosh,

that’s not what I want at all. So I got an MFA because I knew writing is what I truly love, but I never thought I’d teach,”

he says. “The thought of being in front of a classroom instilled only thoughts of terror in me. But I forced myself

to teach when I was a grad student and then agreed to teach my own class when the opportunity arose just after I

graduated, even though as I was agreeing there was a voice in my head screaming, ‘No! Don’t! We don’t know how to

do this and it will be terrifying!’ And it was at first, but now teaching is one of my favorite things in the world to do.

So I guess the lesson is, do stuff you’re scared of.”

At Cleveland State, Riordan helps students and faculty with all aspects of the MFA program and arranges guest

readings and visits. He also teaches fiction workshops, and his short stories have been published in several journals and

literary magazines, including SmokeLong Quarterly, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and Indiana Review.

Riordan is teaching for the fall semester at Hiram College while Associate Professor of English Mary Quade is on

a year-long sabbatical. He is teaching an advanced fiction workshop and a seminar called “Writing Strange: Fabulism,

Surrealism, and the Weird Tale” in the 12-week term; he will

teach Basics of Creative Writing during the 3-week session.

He is also arranging for author Alissa Nutting, whose work he

teaches, to visit campus in October. When asked about why

he writes and teaches strange stories, Riordan replies that they

get readers’ attention and help them to connect when dealing

with complex topics. “For me, I think my best way of pulling

a reader in is through humor and strange circumstance and

then dropping the heavy-duty stuff on them after I already

have them in my clutches,” he says. “Also, I’m just a weirdo.

Always have been, always will be.”

Photo: Visiting fall faculty member Daniel Riordan.



DETECTING WITH ROGER ROSENBLATT By Francis Sugita

A Look Back on Author Roger Rosenblatt’s Visit

I often daydream in class or when I take a walk, reminiscing about my younger days—running among friends, animatedly climbing

the monkey dome, as we pretended to be Pokèmon or another creature created in our (still) imaginative minds. I always wonder where my imagination ran off to or if I will ever have the same extension of ideas as when I was young. As I sat with my peers listening to Roger Rosenblatt, the author of The Boy Detective, during his visit in February, I was mesmerized by the fact that he talked about his childhood so ar-ticulately, and furthermore, about his diligence as a “detective” at such a young age.

Before I gathered with Rosenblatt and my peers

for lunch, I naively expected lunch with the author

to be a useless activity—I am never going to be a

memoir or nonfiction writer like he is. How could

this help my poetry? I thought. However, the room

began to transition from the awkward silence of

nervous young writers, their forks clinking against

plastic plates, to a sense of comfort nourished by

Rosenblatt’s satirical humor and pseudo egoism:

“I haven’t read your book yet, but—” someone

began.

“Well, then, get out!” Rosenblatt quickly

responded—jokingly, of course.

The room then came to life with a barrage of

questions asked by eager writers. One question

was particularly important to me: “How do you

write about something that’s bothering you?”

Rosenblatt answered by engaging with the

student, asking if the incident was too painful to

write about now or not, ultimately suggesting that the student

try to write and share. Although I was timid, only nodding along

throughout the discussion, at that moment, where he expressed

the importance of knowing yourself and whether your experiences

are too painful to write about, was a helpful turning point in my


Top: Roger Rosenblatt, Bottom: The Boy Detective

naïve understanding of writing. I had never grasped the idea

that there’s a time and place where writing about the agonizing

struggles could be too painful or else emotionally relieving.

Rosenblatt had a similar experience in writing The Boy

Detective, he said. Another student asked whether writing

about his childhood profession of being the neighborhood

detective was always on his mind. Rosenblatt said he

unexpectedly found himself walking down the same streets

where he had practiced his adolescent detective work and that

inspired his book—it was finally the perfect time to trace his

steps back and write the memoir.

Later that evening, I walked into the Kennedy Center half

an hour early for Rosenblatt’s reading and was fortunate enough

to see him sitting alone—I was able to ask him about MFA

programs and talk to him about childhood, and

I found myself immersed within his positivity

and love of writing. I left the conversation with

a sense of comfort in my own poetry and fiction

that deals with fragments of adolescence. I think

that’s what makes a good writer: Rosenblatt’s

ability to leave other writers with hope by

working with them instead of giving off an aura

of unattainability. I left wanting to polish my

own skills.

After reading an excerpt from The Boy

Detective, Rosenblatt wrapped up his reading

by giving encouragement to the young writers

of Hiram College. He traced his steps back to

when he was writing for The New York Times

and other publications, but he came back to the

idea of pursuing your passion. “You could write

business proposals or write articles for journals,

but don’t limit yourself to that if creative writing

is what you want to do,” he said earlier during

lunch. I wholeheartedly believed him and

continue to trace my own steps back like a detective, hoping

that one day I can share my experiences with others.

About the Lindsay-CraneThe Lindsay-Crane Center for Writing and Literature is named for two poets who had close ties to Northeast Ohio. NicholasVachel Lindsay attended Hiram College from 1897 to 1900, and Harold Hart Crane was born in nearby Garrettsville. The Lindsay-Crane Center offers special opportunities for Hiram College writers and readers in every discipline. The Center implements the College’s Writing Across the Curriculum program (one of the oldest in the nation), brings professional writers to campus for intimate interactions with students and the public, mounts on-campus and regional writing contests, and vigorously supports the importance of a liberal-arts education in the 21st century. In addition, it offers students, community members, and other friends of the College rich experiences outside the classroom that contribute to intellectual and artistic pleasure and growth and maintains a deep commitment to interdisciplinary ventures with other departments and Centers.

Lindsay-CraneCENTERfor W r i t i n g

Literature&

To contact or support the Center:

Kirsten Parkinson, Director of the Center, [email protected] 330.569.5323

Upcoming Events

Tuesday, October 7, 2014Pritchard Room, College Library, 12 p.m.A Convocation with Alissa NuttingFiction Writer

Tuesday, April 7, 2015Pritchard Room, College Library, 7 p.m.An Evening of Hiram WritersSelected Readings by Contest Winners

June 2015Hiram College Campus Emerging Writers Workshopwww.hiram.edu/summerathiram

june 2015

Hiram College’s 8th Annual

Emerging Writers Workshop

Save the Date

www.hiram.edu/summerathiram

Tuesday, February 24, 2015Pritchard Room, College Library, 12 p.m.A Convocation with Karen Salyer McElmurrayFiction and Nonfiction Author

Thursday, October 23, 2014Writing House, 4:15 p.m.A Reading by Daniel RiordanVisiting Faculty Member

amaranth | fall 2014

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