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First Annual Department of English Newsletter July 2011

Greetings, Welcome to the first annual English Department Newsletter. The Newsletter was born out the desire to keep alumnae/alumni majors up to date about what has happened in the last year within the department. Ultimately, we plan to have features, interesting tidbits about the department, discussions of literature and the like. There’s a bit of this here (see “What We’re Reading” and “From the Archives”), but lest our reach exceed our grasp, we thought we’d start humbly. Think of this inaugural issue as an hors d’oeuvre rather than a full meal. Perhaps the biggest news for most of you will be that Larry Stewart has announced his intention to resign at the end of the 2011-2012 academic year. We will, of course, have much more to say about Larry’s retirement in our next Newsletter, but suffice it to say that his departure from the department after forty-five years will be momentous. The department (much less the College) will not be the same.

Also, our visiting writer, Karin Lin-Greenberg, has finished up her term here and is now returning to full-time writing. We were very fortunate to have her here for three years. I know she’ll be missed. We were lucky enough to hire an accomplished novelist, Katharine Beutner (Ph.D. University of Texas), to replace her. Bill Macauley, the Director of the Program in Writing, will also be leaving us as he has taken a job at University of Nevada-Reno. The department wishes both Karin and Bill the best of luck. Jenna Hayward, Deb Shostak and I will all be on leave next year, and we have hired three new faculty members to replace us: Suzanne Daly who is currently Associate Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Matt Hooley (Ph.D. University of Wisconsin-Madison), and Mary Mullen (Ph.D. University of Wisconsin-Madison). Nancy Grace has agreed to Chair the department during this exciting time. We had a number of writers visit this year, but two events especially stood out. In the fall the noted fantasy writer, Stephen Donaldson (Wooster, ’68), gave a reading of his forthcoming volume from the Thomas Covenant series and directed a fantasy writing workshop for some of our students. And this spring the internationally known Caribbean writer Caryl Phillips read from his works and conducted a discussion/workshop involving his latest novel, In the Falling Snow. One never wants to go on too long, so I’ll just say that I hope you enjoy the Newsletter. We’ve included information about some of our more recent graduates here, but we would love to hear what you’re doing (and, of course, what you’re reading). If you get a chance, drop us a line, or send an email to Kathie Clyde (who deserves kudos for putting this issue together) at kclyde@wooster.edu. All the best, Tom Prendergast, Chair 2010-2011

SIGMA TAU DELTA

Thirty-seven students, who met the requirements for membership in Wooster’s newly formed chapter of

Sigma Tau Delta, the International English Honor Society, were inducted at a luncheon

held on the patio of the Wooster Inn on May 5, 2011.

Seniors – Class of 2011 Elspeth Bloom Michaela Caventer Emily Davis Hannah Diorio-Toth Sarah Gerlach Margaret Goss Joe Jensen Emily Keedy Brittanny Lee Erica Morgan Jennifer Silling Emily Tarr May Tobar Eryn Wells Juniors – Class of 2012 Jadon Baker Senior May Tobar receives her Sigma Tau Delta Emily Bartelheim certificate of membership and pin from Tom Prendergast, Chair Kevin Carpenter

Dan Casto

Emily DeTar Geoffrey Fisher Emily Graham Nell Gram Bridget Hillyer Rachel Kassenbrock Eryn Killian Brandelle Knights Elizabeth Mady Rochelle Marrett Jordy Nelson William O’Connor Hannah Residorff

Sophomores – Class of 2013 Kate Donnelly David Grunfeld Colleen O’Neil Hannah Rothman Alea Safier Ian Schoultz

Rising senior ROCHELLE MARRETT was offered one of twelve competitive spots in the Rutgers University English Diversity Institute this summer. Her schedule will include information on graduate study in a number of different literary fields, such as 18th Century British Lit, 19th and 20th Century American Lit, African American Lit, Drama, and New Media -- as well as an excursion to NYC archives. For more information, see http://redi.rutgers.edu/about/.

Members of the English Department gathered at the home of Tom and Terry Prendergast in May to say good-bye to three-year visiting assistant professor (creative writing) Karin Lin-Greenberg. Seated from left: Terry Prendergast, Nancy Grace, Deb Shostak, Leslie Wingard, Karin Lin-Greenberg, Jenna Hayward. Leaning in: Tom Prendergast. Standing from left: Dan Bourne, Larry Stewart, Mazen Naous, and Kathie Clyde (administrative coordinator). Missing: Travis Foster and Bill Macauley.

The Becky DeWine Prize for a Journalism Internship was awarded to rising senior KEVIN CARPENTER. Kevin received the generous $2,500 stipend to support his living expenses during the period of his internship. This summer Kevin will serve as the office manager for The Chautauqua Daily, a summer newspaper with a circulation of approximately 3,000 readers that is published during the summer season of the Chautauqua Institution, Chautauqua, NY.

2011 COMMENCEMENT PRIZES

St ep h en J. Do n a ld so n Pr ize fo r t h e Ou t st a n d in g Cr ea t ive I.S.

Mallory Duriak — ―No Apologies: A Poetry Collection”

Virginia Henry — ―Sweet Coiling”

Wa ld o H. Du n n Pr ize fo r t h e Ou t st a n d in g Cr it ica l I.S.

Grace Lundergan — ―Reimagining Romantic Relationships: Gender, Class, and Ethnicity

In Isabel Allende’s Novels”

Pa u l Q. Wh it e Pr ize fo r t h e Best Reco r d in t h e Dep a r t m e n t o f En glish

Virginia Henry

Grace Lundergan

Emily Tarr

VISITING WRITERS IN 2010-11

DIANA JOSEPH

Author of the memoir I’m Sorry You Feel That Way: The Astonishing but True Story of a Daughter, Sister, Slut, Wife, Mother, and Friend to Man & Dog, which received the 2010 Great Lakes Colleges

Association New Writers Award for Creative Non-

Fiction.

ALAN DENIRO

Science Fiction novelist and ’95 Wooster alumnus,

DeNiro has published two chapbooks of poetry, The Black Hare and Atari Ecologues, a collection of

short stories, Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the

Dead, and a novel, Total Oblivion, More or Less.

STEPHEN DONALDSON

Fantasy, science fiction, and mystery novelist

Stephen Donaldson is also a 1968 Wooster alum.

Donaldson made his publishing debut to wide

acclaim with the first Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever trilogy in 1977. Currently a

resident of New Mexico, Donaldson recently

published the novel, Against All Things Ending, the

third of four books in the Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant series.

GEORGE BILGERE

Ohio poet George Bilgere is a recipient of the May

Swenson Poetry Prize for his collection titled

Haywire (Utah State University Press), and the

University of Akron Poetry Prize for his collection

The Good Kiss. Bilgere’s most recent collection of

poetry is The White Museum. CARYL PHILLIPS

Presently a professor of English at Yale University,

prominent author, playwright, and screenwriter Caryl

Phillips is best known for his novels, Crossing the River, A Distant Shore, Dancing in the Dark, and In the Falling Snow. Colour Me English: Selected Essays, will be published this July.

2011 Writing Prize Winners The Donaldson Prize for Fiction

1st: Lindsay Neff, "Lobster Boy" 2nd: Grace Lundergan, "Smart Kids" 3rd: Kellen Safreed, "Lunar"

The Donaldson Prize for a Personal Essay

1st: Alison Hornbeck, "Letters" 2nd: Jess Yarmosky, "Here's Your Fucking Lemonade" 3rd: Andrew Tisdel, "Finding Moonwell"

The Donaldson Prize for a Critical Essay

1st: Alea Safier, "Babies and Balance: A Psychoanalytic and Feminist Criticism of Frankenstein"

2nd: Grace Lundergan, "Masculinity in the Middle Ages: The Subtext of Misogynistic Texts" The Vonna Hicks Adrian Prize for Poetry

1st: Holly Kabat, "No one" 2nd: Lee McKinstry, "If Cleopatra Had Lived Today"

The Vonna Hicks Adrian Prize for a Critical Essay on Poetry

1st: Alex Parrott, "Shimmering Blue above the Air: Visions of China in 'Heaven' and 'Persimmons'"

2nd: Maureen Hitch, "Shelley, The Mind, and 'The Everlasting Universe of Things'" The Ralph L. Kinsey Poetry Award

Alison Hornbeck, for body of poetry work submitted The Academy of American Poets Award for Poetry

Lindsay Neff, "Lightning Words" The Donaldson Prize for Translation

Joshua Ware, "Method"

138 Wooster students are registered as English majors. This year the breakdown was:

Seniors – 44

Juniors – 38

Sophomores – 43

First-Years – 13

The English Department has the most majors of any department on campus.

What We’re Reading Dan Bourne Faceless, by Ghana novelist Amma Darko (just finished) A River Running West: The Life of John Wesley Powell, by Donald Worster (just started) Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings, by Walter Benjamin (I'm

reading these essays also while I'm here in the American Southwest, in Arizona and in Utah, interested especially in how Benjamin's writing about wandering connects with my own jumblings and stumblings in the desert, trying to interpret what I'm seeing).

Travis Foster In descending order of brow (high to low): David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas Marlene Van Niekerk's Agaat Iain Pears's An Instance of the Fingerpost Jo Nesbø's The Redbreast

Nancy Grace Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality by Christopher Ryan and

Cacilda Jetha Reading My Father, A Memoir by Alexandra Styron (daughter of William Styron) A Moveable Feast (the unexpurgated version) by Ernest Hemingway The Invention of Solitude by Paul Auster And as many Janet Evanovich cheesy mysteries as I can get my hands on!! Jenna Hayward I’ve just finished Robert Louis Stevenson and his stepson Lloyd Osbourne's The

Wrecker. I’m currently cruising through a classic, and fascinatingly slanted, biography of his wife

Frances Vandegrift: Margaret Mackay's The Violent Friend: The Story of Mrs Robert Louis Stevenson.

I'm also reading about a chapter a day of Isabel Allende's El Zorro. Mazen Naous The Restless Supermarket by Ivan Vladislavic. It takes place during the tumultuous

years of apartheid's demise. A conservative character takes to proofreading telephone directories for mistakes as "standards decline," and embarks on a quest to enlighten his fellow-citizens. The results are disastrous and hilarious.

Tom Prendergast Heartstone by C. J. Sansom—the fourth historical mystery involving Matthew Shardlake,

a lawyer in the Court of Requests during the English Reformation. The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes. Sister of Hilaire Belloc writes a thriller based on

the Jack the Ripper murders some twenty-five years later. The basis of four films including Hitchcock’s 1927 offering, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog.

Terry Prendergast Death of a Dormouse, Reginald Hill ‘70s mystery about a mousy woman who must

change after the mysterious death of her husband. Very British. The Secret History of Paris, Andrew Hussey

Deb Shostak Margaret MacMillan, Dangerous Games: The Uses and Abuses of History Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities James E. Young, The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning Bernhard Schlink, The Reader

Leslie Wingard I'm now reading a collection of thirteen old Ralph Ellison tales, Flying Home: and other

Stories. These were written between 1937 and 1954 and many were unpublished during Ellison's lifetime. The book is now available in paperback for the first time, and it may be of particular interest to those who treasure Invisible Man.

From

the

Archiv

es:

Peter Havholm, Emeritus since 2009, appears as the Chaplain de Stogumber, in the College’s town-gown production of George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan, the first production to be staged in the new Freedlander Theatre in 1975. From left: Donald Curie (community member from Orrville), Niall Slater ’76 and currently Professor of Classics at Emory University, and Peter Havholm.

Award for Outstanding Research on an ACM Program

A highlight of the 2011 Student Symposium will be the presentation of the inaugural Award for Outstanding Research on an Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM) Program, which annually honors students for independent research projects they conduct while participating on ACM off-campus study programs. The 2011 award will be presented to Virginia Henry, a 2011 graduate of the College of Wooster, who participated in the ACM Newberry Seminar: Research in the Humanities in fall 2009, for her paper titled "Reading the Faces: Portraiture as a Means to Investigate Representational Containment of Native Americans."

Alu m n i Ne ws: Brendan Park 2001 has accepted an offer to attend the MFA program at UC Irvine this fall. It's a small, selective, fully funded program (with tuition and fees paid for by fellowship and a living stipend paid through teaching assistantships) with a strong record of publications and a high rate of post-graduate placement in fellowships and tenure-track teaching positions. The degree is awarded after two years of workshops, literature classes, and teaching assistantships, and they offer a third year of funding if I stay on to teach an undergraduate, intermediate fiction class. This was apparently a particularly competitive year for fiction at Irvine, with six acceptances out of close to 500 applications. Molly Lehman 2009 will be entering the Ph.D. program in English at Pennsylvania State University. Lee Stablein 2009 will begin his M.A. in English at Georgetown University. Chalkey Horenstein 2010 currently works as an Editorial Assistant for Spare Change News, a street newspaper founded and sold by the homeless of Boston, Massachusetts. His primary duties involve writing and copy editing, as well as the usual office absurdities one might find reminiscent of the Voice office. At times, his job also involves tutoring aspiring homeless writers in basic journalism techniques. In addition to Spare Change, Chalkey also works for Heading Home, a scattered-site homeless shelter, as a Case Manager.

If you would like to submit some news for the Summer 2012 issue of the Annual English Newsletter, please email the department’s administrative coordinator Kathie Clyde: kclyde@wooster.edu.