The English Majors’ Weblog
Always connect.

This from Dale Rigby, proud as if he had won himself,

John Owen won the Undergrad Prize for the 10th Annual Women’s Writing Contest.
Michael Sobiech won the Graduate Prize for the same contest (each get, I believe, $100.00).
And Kristen Fisher was one of only two or three Undergrads who got an award in this
year’s AWP Intro Journals Project–oddly, the contest has undergrads compete with graduates
in MFA Programs from across the country.

Here are their poems. Take a look and send them some praise for work well done that makes us all proud and makes the English Department look very good indeed.

“Three Bird Elegies” by John Owen
“VD” by Michael Sobiech
“The Last Living Castrato Speaks” by Kristen Fisher

This from Dale Rigby

Dear mourners…I’m forwarding the thoughts of distinquished WKU alum Aubrey Videtto, meditating on the recent death of Kurt Vonnegut.

The first Vonnegut book I read was in a 20th C. Lit class at the University of Louisville. We read Slaughterhouse-Five along with other incredible works - some were The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Handmaid’s Tale, Steppenwolf, and The Trial. The company of writers in that course would have made for an interesting dinner party, to say the least. And when the significance of the title of Vonnegut’s work dawned on me, while I savored the book jacket one afternoon prior to diving into its body, I had a shocking realization about words and literature.

(more…)

This notice from Dr. Schneider about more kudos to WKU English grads.

Some of you will remember Nora Handy, who is now teaching English in Louisville. She has been accepted to a prestigious postgraduate summer program (6 weeks), the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury in Vermont, w/ full fellowship. Another success story.

Dear WKU Writers…My name is Jeffrey Bean, and I am the 2006-2008 Axton Fellow in Poetry at the University of Louisville.
I’m writing to you in the hope that you will spread the word about
Split the Lark: The Border of Poetry and Music, a two-day interdisciplinary conference that I’m organizing here at U of L. The link is below:

Split the Lark

Please announce this festival, which examines the connection between
poetry and music, in your classes, and forward this link to colleagues and students (or listservs) who might share this interest.Many thanks,

Jeffrey Bean
Axton Fellow

Another alum does good by doing well.

Dear Professor Schneider,

… I received my MA in English from WKU back in 1990. I then moved back to Calgary, Alberta with my wife, LuAnne (who completed her Master’s in Folklore at WKU in the same year). We then moved down to Carbondale (SIU, obviously), where I began work on my Ph.D. We moved back to Calgary, Alberta in 1998, and we have been living here since.

I (finally) completed my Ph.D. in May of 2004. I revised my dissertation for publication, and in fact my monograph (Dorothy Wordsworth’s Ecology) was published just last month by Routledge. I will be joining the faculty at Austin Peay State University (and I’ll bet you know where it is!) this fall as an Assistant Professor in the Languages and Literature department.

In any event, I ,obviously, don’t expect all of the above information to be included on the Alumni page, but I wanted to let someone know that we will be back in the area. We very much enjoyed our time in Bowling Green, and we are looking forward to living in the area again!

I am proud to have received my MA from WKU!

Take care!

Sincerely,

Ken Cervelli

Full Effect is a new, web-centered magazine that’s a bit hard to pin down. It is part multimedia, part flash-based animation mixed with blogs and feature essays. They seem to want to create a big wind and are looking for staff and contributors.

Dear all on the English Majors’ Blog:

Hi – I hoped to make the meeting last night, but I needed to grade some papers. Darn. I hope the meeting went well.

I want to join this blog for sure. What a great idea this is!

I was an English major, and worked as a typesetter and graphic artist for many years. Now I am in the process of obtaining my teaching certification for English and Allied Arts, 8-12. My dream is to become a published writer.

This Yahoo group for Writers and Readers (the link is below) has three members so far.

Everyone is invited to share their writing, make writing folders for themselves, and critique each other’s works by posting comments in other writer’s folders. Members are encouraged to put helpful links and files there, too.

I think this group will help writers stay motivated and get published.

The site is moderated (by me) but open to all aspiring writers. (And published ones, too!)

This site is here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AAA_Writers_and_Readers/
Everyone is invited to join. All you need is a Yahoo name and password first.

Sincerely,
Elizabeth (Betsy) Sheppard

Elizabeth.Sheppard@wku.edu
lizann447@yahoo.com
betsy@betsyanne.com
270-779-4152

PS I am going to let others know about this great English Majors Blog site. I can’t wait to explore all the other posts.