By Rebecca Schwab

WVU is priviledged to have Katie Fallon as part of its faculty. Katie has published numerous essays in magazines such as River Teeth, Fourth Genre, Ecotone, Isotope, Appalachian Heritage, Fourth River, Now & Then, Rivendell, and Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel. She has two essays in the anthology Appalachia’s Last Stand (Wind, 2009), which is a collection of anti-mountaintop removal writing by writers connected to West Virginia.

Katie has an essay in the April/May 2011 issue of Bark Magazine, which should be out any day now. Bark is Katie’s favorite dog magazine—you can get a copy at Barnes & Noble or Books-A-Million here in Morgantown. Bark is a widely-circulated magazine with a readership of over 250,000.

Her book, Cerulean Blues: A Personal Search for a Vanishing Songbird, is due out in the fall from Ruka Press.

Katie was kind enough to tell us about her writing career and her inspirations, and to share her experiences as a graduate of WVU’s MFA program.

1.) You’ve just written Cerulean Blues, a book about the Cerulean Warbler, right? How long has this project been in the works?

I began working on Cerulean Blues in early 2007, but I first heard about the plight of the cerulean warbler in 2000 or 2001 as a grad student at WVU. I attended a presentation given by Petra Wood, a faculty member in the WVU’s Wildlife Department. I learned that the cerulean is the fastest declining songbird in the United States, and that its preferred breeding habitat is mature and old-growth forests on ridges in Central Appalachia – from southwest Pennsylvania to eastern Tennessee. This region is being dramatically altered by mountaintop removal coal mining, which may permanently destroy preferred cerulean habitat. MTR is also bad for the people leaving near it; in addition to destabilizing the land, MTR pollutes the air, the drinking water, and can contribute to flooding.

But the trouble doesn’t stop there for cerulean warblers. Ceruleans spend the winter in the Andes Mountains of Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, and Ecuador, where primary forest is being cleared for full-sun coffee plantations. The traditional way to grow coffee is in the shade of canopy trees, which is good for birds and good for the coffee—shade-grown coffee beans stay on the plants longer, giving them a richer flavor. Shade-grown coffee is also good for the folks who work the coffee farms; because the birds that live in the canopy trees eat insects, the farmers don’t need to handle dangerous chemical pesticides. Unfortunately, coffee grows faster in the full sun, and unless consumer demand for shade-grown coffee increases, primary Andean forests will continue to be razed. (Buy shade-grown coffee!)

In late 2006 I read that the cerulean warbler had been denied “threatened” status by the federal government, even though its total population had declined by 3% a year since 1966 (which means that today there are approximately 80% fewer ceruleans than there were forty years ago). I couldn’t understand why this species didn’t qualify for additional protection under the Endangered Species Act, so I began investigating. Soon, an idea for a book began to form. I spent two or three years researching, interviewing experts, traveling, and of course writing. In addition to various cerulean hotspots in West Virginia and Tennessee, I traveled to Colombia to see ceruleans on their wintering grounds in the Northern Andes.

In early 2009, I began working with an agent who helped me write a proposal and improve the manuscript, and in late 2010 I signed a book contract. A new publisher of nonfiction, Ruka Press, will publish Cerulean Blues: A Personal Search for a Vanishing Songbird in the fall of 2011.

By Rachel King

Rachel King recently conducted a short interview with Glenn Taylor, the author of The Battle of Trenchmouch Taggart and The Marrowbone Marble Company. WVU students are excited that such an accomplished novelist will be joining our MFA faculty in the fall.

1.) What were some of your favorite books as a kid?

I must have been about ten years old when I pulled a particular book out of a dime bin at a rummage sale. It was Somebody Up There Likes Me by Rocky Graziano. I still have it, though it’s in a rotten state—unglued spine, the whole thing held together by rubber band. But I loved it as a boy, and in some ways, I still love it. It even inspired a story I published years ago in The Chattahoochee Review. The story’s title? “Somebody Up There Hates Isaac Blizzard.”

2.) Tell us a bit about your family.

My father hails from Matewan, Mingo County, and my mother is from just down the road in Fairmont. I grew up in Huntington along with my two older sisters. My wife Margaret is also from Huntington, and we have three boys: Reece is seven, Thomas is five, and Eli is one. They were born in Chicago, but they have spent a good bit of time in West Virginia already, as their grandparents are all there. Reece is on the sixth Harry Potter book, Thomas (T-Bird to most) is closing in on his yellow belt in Tae Kwon Do, and Eli enjoys obsessively kissing his family members as well as pointing at round objects and loudly proclaiming “Bah.”

3.) Is there a writer you’ve particularly enjoyed studying with/under? Why?

While at Texas State, I had the privilege of enrolling in a few classes taught by Dagoberto Gilb. He is a hell of a writer, and he taught me the most about writing, in essence, by not teaching me. Instead, he instilled in me the idea that if a writer possesses an abundance of patience and a propensity to consistently put in hard work, good things may come.

4.) Is there a particular piece of writing advice that frequently comes to your mind?

There are many pieces of writing advice that come to mind. Advice comes from the blues, always the blues. Jerome Washington wrote, “The blues is our antidote,” and this is true for the writer if we can only learn to listen. Advice comes from poetry. Louise McNeill wrote, “I have gulled the pith from a sumac limb/ to play a tune that my blood remembers.” Indeed, as humans, we share blood that remembers, and it is the writer’s duty to recall the stories and remind everyone who we truly are.

5.) Tell us about how you conduct a workshop and/or your goals/expectations in leading a workshop.

I suppose I’m somewhat traditional in terms of workshop format. My goals include the attempt to instill a consistent work ethic. My expectations include the attempt (on the part of the student) to truly understand what is meant by “storytelling.”

6.) What are you most looking forward to about moving back to West Virginia?

I look forward to the terrain (I’m no flatlander). I look forward to the closeness of extended family. And I look forward to becoming a full-fledged Tenant of Colson Hall.

By Micah Holmes

Charity Gingerich, a soon to be graduate of the MFA program here at WVU, grew up Mennonite in Hartville, Ohio. She has become quite a prolific poet and nonfiction writer during her time in the program. Five of her poems have been published online in the November 2010 issue of The Center for Mennonite Writing Journal, the essay “Of the Meadow” appeared in the December 2010 issue of Ruminate and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize that same month, and the poem “Walking, with Blackberries” can be found in the March 2011 issue of Ruminate. She has also been nominated for inclusion in the 2011 volume of Best New Poets, and two of her poems were nominated for the AWP Intro Awards. Charity earned her Bachelor’s from Kent State University in 2006 where she majored in English with minors in Writing and History. Quite the impressive pedigree indeed.

When I asked Charity what inspires her, she replied “Spring, lilacs, tulips, and daffodils.” After having the opportunity to participate in workshop with Charity for two years now, this statement is no surprise. Charity has an incredible eye for the natural world. She always knows which bird goes where in a poem, and what flower or European cityscape goes on the other side of the scale. Add to that a complex investigation into personal identity and interpersonal relationships, and Charity’s poems transcend the pastoral to reach out to touch the modern heart.

Charity’s work leaves the reader with a new understanding of the view from the window and the quality of the earth underfoot. Her short terms goals are “to plant at least 100 bulbs,” and “defy the deer and the neighborhood dog, which is really a groundhog.” I’m sure we’ll be seeing those bulbs and that “dog” show up in a poem or two in the future. I am also confident that Charity’s work will continue to reach audiences in journals and in book form in the coming years.

by Heather Frese, COW president

The COW kids have been busy as, well, let’s not mix too many animals into this article and just say that the COW kids have been busy this year. The Council of Writers is the official MFA student organization, and this year we continued to provide opportunities for MFAs to share their work, engage in social occasions, and generally revel in creative writing awesomeness.

COW kicked off fall semester by sending out welcome packets to the incoming MFAs. Led by Publications Coordinator Christina Rothenbeck, the welcome packets contained information about WVU and Morgantown (PRT! Rail Trail! Nonexistent parking!), as well as profiles of current MFAs. The packets were successful endeavor despite the fact that an erroneous “L” was inserted into Shane Stricker’s name. We were all surprised to find out that Shane was not Mr. “Strickler,” as we’d been led to believe.
The MFA meet-and-greet, a festive potluck occurrence, was held at COW secretary Kelly Sundberg’s house in late August. The meet-and-greet was well-attended by faculty, new and returning students, and families, including several small children. Delicious food was consumed, wine drunk, and race cars shared. I’ll leave it to you to decide who did which activity.

COW and EGO, the English Graduate Organization, teamed up in October to rock out the annual book sale/bake sale fundraiser. Thanks to their donations of books, sumptuous baked goods, and time manning check-out tables, COW raised over $500, which we put towards our visiting writer in April, and EGO was able to fund the keynote speaker for the graduate colloquium in March.

The fall reading took place in November and was emceed by COW treasurer Alex Berge. Featured readers and Joinery (the biannual MFA publication) participants were Rebecca Schwab in fiction, Christina Wulf in non-fiction, and Charity Gingerich in poetry. Despite a slippery Zenclay driveway, MFAs and faculty turned out to hear one another read.

In February, many members of COW attended the AWP conference in Washington, D.C. Panels, bookfairs, and readings by Jhumpa Lahiri and Junot Diaz were attended, elbows rubbed with editors and agents, and WVU’s tenth anniversary party was hosted by Mark Brazaitis’ mother. I’m still bitter that D.C.’s subway, bus system, and freezing rain foiled my attempts to attend.

The month of March saw several harbingers of spring—daffodils, robins, and the MFA spring reading at Zenclay. This semester’s reading featured fictioneer Aaron Hoover, poet Christina Rothenbeck, and Elissa Hoffman in non-fiction. The event was once again hosted by Alex Berge and co-ghost-hosted by alum Aaron Rote, who, perhaps in an altered state, helped Alex write introductions to all of the readers. The event saw record attendance, a result I’d like to attribute to the addition of the RAFFLEMANIA! fundraiser. COW raffled off books donated by faculty and alumni, gift certificates procured by first-year Connie Pan, and various exotic items that Rebecca Schwab and I found at Goodwill, including, but not limited to, a one-antlered deer made of twigs, a sparkly monarch butterfly wall-hanging, and mysterious crocheted chicken.

In April we welcomed COW’s spring reader, Mike Czyzniejewski (several seminars were held on the pronunciation of his last name). The editor-in-chief of Mid-American Review and author of the book of short stories Elephants in Our Bedroom, Mike traveled from the flatlands of Bowling Green, Ohio, to the hills of Morgantown. Mike didn’t appear to suffer from altitude sickness, and held a mini-workshop for MFA students and gave a stellar reading.

The month of May promises the election of new COW officers and a belated Cinco de Mayo party (Siete de Mayo? Why not?) that will serve as a post-thesis defense and pre-graduation celebration for Third Years. It’s been an amazing year, and I’d like to thank everyone who worked so hard to make these events possible, including COW officers Rachel King (vice-president), Alex Berge (treasurer), Kelly Sundberg (secretary), and Christina Rothenbeck (publications coordinator), and all those MFAs who read, baked, donated, set up, took down, procured, raffled, attended, and were, quite simply, fantastic. It’s been a wonderful ride, and in the end, I kind of wish we could do it all over again.

By Connie Pan and Rebecca Thomas

It wasn’t too long ago when we drove across the state line that boasted a “Wild and Wonderful” West Virginia. We were frightened, uprooted from California and Michigan, and had left everything we knew: family, friends, food. The separation pains were enough to send us spiraling into sweatpants, reruns of Friends, and bags of fun size candy bars, which at that volume aren’t very fun. But we found a reason to shed the sweats, power off the TV, put down the candy bars, and write. Our reason: the Third Years. For new First Years that are frightened to their cells, perspiring not just because of the broiling August heat, and choking back vomit, the Third Year MFA candidates can be the best prescription for all of your jitters. They are reservoirs of knowledge; they’ve been on that couch, maybe even with king sized candy bars, and they know how to get through it. Best of all, they were so ready to help all of us. Their advice made us survive our first year, and their writing inspired us to push on, type away, and know that theses can be written and written well.

POETRY

Tori Moore

Tori plans on going through all of this craziness again and is getting her Master’s in Elementary Education. Although she is excited about the next venture, she will miss, above all, the amazing friends she’s made here, ice skating rinks, and movie nights. She enjoyed working with Heather Frese at the Bolton Creative Writing Workshops. Tori’s biggest piece of advice for incoming MFAs is, “Don’t wish your time away. You’ll be done soon enough, and then it’s the real world. Which is highly overrated.”

Christina Rothenbeck

Christina loved the “positive, nurturing atmosphere of the program, and the close-knit community.” She enjoyed the MFA experience so much that she decided to get her PhD in poetry at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg. While we’re excited for her to move on to Mississippi, we wonder if the Magnolia State has sparklers, a place like the deck of the Brew Pub, and the possibility of almost getting thrown out for being a fire hazard. She advises the first years to “take deep breaths and remind yourself you can do this.”

Danielle Ryle

No matter what, Danielle will keep on writing and this is “uplifting since [she has] no idea? where [she] will be next year.” She can handle it; after all, she’s learned how to balance writing and work through the “real world bootcamp” that is getting an MFA. Danielle will miss “having so many great writers right around the corner.” She encourages the first year to remember, “You’re here; you’re alive; write about it.”

CREATIVE NON-FICTION

Sarah Einstein

After graduation, Sarah will be relocating to one of our neighboring states to get a Ph.D. in Creative Nonfiction at Ohio University. While she’s excited about her next degree, she will miss the end-of-the-semester readings at Kevin Oderman and Sara Pritchard’s house and “the camaraderie and support. This is a very comfortable department, where we celebrate one another’s successes and, when a door opens for one of us, we work to hold it open for the rest. The community of writers is what makes this place so special.” Sarah advises new MFA candidates to “focus on your writing. The teaching, while important, can eat up every second of every day if you let it. Remember that you’re here to write, and that teaching is just your day job.”

FICTION

Alex Berge is heading east. Potential destinations: Boston, Philadelphia, or Bangor, ME. He wants to experience places other than Ohio, where he was born, and West Virginia. While he doesn’t know where he will end up, he knows he is going to write and write in a new place. Wherever he lands, he is certain that he will keep in contact with the invaluable friends that he made, the people who read his stories before and after workshop, “draft after draft.” Alex insists, “You’ll never please everyone, so don’t try. As you write, ask yourself, ‘Would I want to read this?’ As long as your answer is always yes, then you’re doing what you need to be doing. You’re here to be a writer, not a crowd pleaser.”

Heather Frese

Heather is going to stick around Morgantown for a year, potentially teaching part-time and working on sending her book out to the scary world of publishing. “After that, who knows? [She’s] open to suggestions.” It seems as if Heather is good at following her own advice. While here, she “listen[ed] to [her] intuition and start[ed] (and complet[ed]!) a project that was not at all what [she’d] planned on or imagined, getting bits of it published along the way, and also experimenting with form, structure, and point of view.” However, she’s good at giving advice, too. She recommends incoming MFAs to “leave yourself some room to play with whatever you’re working on, because the results can be surprising.”

Aaron Hoover

Aaron’s returning to his hometown, West Lafayette, Indiana. While his wife goes to school, he will work, send his novel out, and teach his children. He will miss the West Virginia scenery and wildlife that he observed on family walks along the rail trail as well as the writing community. Aaron urges first years to “be vigilant, even paranoid, about getting registered for 790, making sure you’re getting all the credits you need, getting paperwork filed on time and the rest of that bureaucratic crap. However distracting it is to make sure you get it right, it can be devastating if you don’t.”

Rebecca Schwab

Rebecca’s future holds novels, diner ownership, a small plot of grapes, and motherhood for rescued dogs. While she won’t miss the parking, the hills, and the traffic, she will miss the people. Rebecca recommends first years to “spend more time on your writing. For three years I have tried so hard to be a good comp teacher. But guess what? I don’t want to be a comp teacher when I grow up. I want to be a writer. So I wish I would have focused more energy on what I came here for. Also, take as many extra workshops as you can, like the Sturm and the WVWW and mini-workshops with visiting writers. Every comment helps. And, the sooner you revise and the more time you spend doing it, the easier it becomes. It’s a skill that takes practice.”

The thought of saying goodbye to the Third Years is enough to put us back in our sweats. Shoot, we’re in our sweats now, and there’s a bag of fun sized candy downstairs. But we will remember these wonderful Third Years, put on some pants, put down the candy, and be ready to attempt to be the pillar of strength and writing gurus that these third years have been for the incoming First Years. It won’t be easy. In fact, we think it might just be impossible, but we will try. Good luck, outgoing MFAs! Your writing is inspiring and your friendship has been priceless.

By Aaron Hoover

Sandy Florian is here, and she wants to see your work.

Florian joins the WVU Creative Writing department this fall as a visiting associate professor. She brings with her an MFA in fiction from Brown University and a PhD in English and Creative Writing from the University of Denver, as well as an amazingly cosmopolitan background. Of Puerto Rican and Colombian descent, Florian has lived in Mexico, Panama, Venezuela, France and England.

One might expect a writer to make a lot of hay out of a background like that, but Florian has an unusual perspective. “I’m not interested in myself,” she says. “My environment doesn’t influence my work, per se.” Rather, it informs the focus on language that dominates much of her work. “It does trigger culture clash, misunderstandings, communication problems,” she says, “and those things make me think about the problem of language.”

As a writer, Florian finds writing “gruelingly laborious.” She tries to set her goals just out of reach, so that she needs to struggle to meet them. When the work gets to be too much, she takes a break. “I have a hula hoop in my studio,” she says. “I hula while I listen to Indian pop rock, which makes me very happy, or I go running or practice yoga.” If physical relaxation techniques fail, she may look for inspiration in others’ writing. In a particularly tough spot on her most recent work, Boxing the Compass, “I threw up my arms in surrender and read parts of Blanchot’s The Essential Solitude. It was this pretty little thing about the shadow of the hand that writes. Blanchot spoke directly to the questions I was asking about my work, and I was able to resume with some confidence.”

The product of all this labor is a style of work Florian describes as “neither fiction nor poetry,” but “philosophical prose, prose that forces people to think about reading, to think about knowledge about the act of entering the complicated process of interpretation and engaging with the exchange of ideas. All my work,” she says, “questions the problem of what is. What is language. What is time. What is God. What do I believe and why.”

We all fantasize about the books we’d like to read when we’re free from professional obligations. Florian’s dream list includes Gravity’s Rainbow and Roberto Bolano’s 2666. For workshop in the spring, she’s chosen Sons and Lovers, Berg, and The Dead Father (with reference to Oedipus Rex for background).

She also loves to read student work. “You’ll get excellent critiques of your work,” she promises. “It’s my forte. I have a knack for understanding what writers are trying to do, and a productive way of helping them actualize their goals. I’m very excited,” she says, “to see what you all are doing.”

By Rebecca Schwab

Erin Tocknell, graduate of the WVU MFA program, was kind enough to answer our questions about her recently published collection of essays titled Confederate Streets from Benu Press. She will be sharing the bill with our beloved Kevin Oderman on February 10th at 7:30 pm for a reading from her new book in the Robinson Reading Room of the Wise Library.

What would you say is the most helpful thing you walked away from the WVU MFA program with?

How to make a piece of writing happen, beginning to end. Before I came to WVU, I was living in Kalispell, Montana and trying to lead the idyllic writer’s life – a non-taxing 9-5 job with my mornings devoted to reading and writing, but I could never get more than 500 words into a good idea before it fizzled out. Through my lit and writing classes at WVU, I learned all sorts of different ways to structure an essay, and I found that thinking about framework immediately after getting an idea was a great entry for me.
I also learned how to stare out my window and think meaningful thoughts while listening to Performance Today. Very useful.

What is your fondest memory from WVU?

I loved writing on winter mornings. I had this tiny attic apartment with sub-functional baseboard heaters and an incredible view of Morgantown. I loved getting up in the dark, shuffling around on those cold floors, making a pot of coffee, turning on some classical music or bluegrass, and writing. I had a nice little perch at my kitchen table where I could write and watch the city coming to life. I still write in the mornings, but I have to leave for work by about 7:45, so I can’t settle in the way I could in grad school.
Being around the friends I made is also a wonderful memory, and good classes, and football games, and the way you could walk into the Blue Moose and find an English grad student at every table – really, the entire environment at WVU is so dynamic and lovely. But my fondest memory would have to be those dark, cold mornings when the writing really clicked.

Your collection of essays, Confederate Streets, just came out. What were some of your biggest motivations and inspirations for this collection?

By Rebecca Schwab

Justin Anderson, a second-year fiction MFA student here at WVU, claims to have gotten “lucky” when he was recently published in three separate literary journals. Well, once is lucky, three times is talented. Anderson, who lives with his wife Mary and young son Henry in Morgantown, writes concise fiction filled with subtle but effective emotion and dialogue-based plot shifts. Trained as a journalist with a history of newspaper reporting, he feels that writing in this way steers his readers toward understanding his characters without having to rely on interiority or first-person narration. Anderson finds himself most often writing from a distance in third person, and he also involves depictions of nature to reflect his characters’ situations and feelings.

Having graduated from WVU with a BA in English in 2000, Anderson worked as a newspaper reporter and went on to start the Journalism program at Point Park University in Pittsburgh. That didn’t last long, but he kept working as a reporter for the Wheeling News-Register, sharpening his talent for concise, to-the-point writing. In fact, newspaper reporting is still a plan B for him, though I don’t think he will fall short of his goal to be a professor of Creative Writing at a university and to be the published author of a collection of short stories. Oh, and he’ll do all of this while owning and living on a small farm. But, he also says, there’s always factory work if plans A and B don’t work out.

Influenced and inspired by “writers who use extremely simple language and straightforward structures to tell quiet stories,” Anderson published his first story, “White Balloon Seen Over East Hills” in “the now defunct, but wonderfully simple journal Bathtub Gin” in Issue 20 (Spring/Summer 2007). That was followed by “Brushfire” in Volume 4, Issue 1 of Whitefish Review (June 2010) and “Intruders” in the June 2010 online issue of Connotaion Press and “This Pivot” in the June 2010 Word Riot, also online. These last two stories can be found at http://connotationpress.com/fiction/477-justin-d-anderson-fiction and http://www.wordriot.org/archives/1401.

Lately, Anderson has been trying to find more time for writing, working on disciplining himself to make it part of his routine, and not just writing when the mood strikes him. He explains: “I figure if I’m really going to make a go at this writing stuff, I need to buckle down and work on stories in some way whenever I can; whether I feel like writing or not. That’s what I’ve been trying to do; make it a priority, because it is.” And if writing continues to be a priority for him, literary journals and their readers will see a lot more from Justin Anderson—quiet characters whose gestures speak volumes, plots that unfold through conversation, and stories with moods set by the weather. In other words, good fiction that we’ll want to read and that will make us scan the back covers of journals in search of Anderson’s name.

By Heather Frese, COW President

This year WVU welcomed an even dozen writers to the MFA program in fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. I asked this diverse and talented group of new MFAs to answer some questions about themselves. When threatened with imminent cyber-stalking, eight of them answered. They get to go first.

Ben Bishop: Ben is a poet with an eye for the middle of the road between lyric and narrative, where fact and fiction blend together to form a bitingly poignant emotionally introspective piece. Ben is from Burlington, Kentucky. When he’s not grading or reading for classes, he’s playing bass or guitar, browsing the depths of the web for funny pictures or epic music videos, or fixing computers.

Rebecca Childers: A fiction writer currently inspired by the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books—colors, colors, colors, upside-down houses, and growing vegetables in your skin, Rebecca hails from Huntington, West Virginia. Three years ago, Rebecca inherited about two thousand romance novels from her granny. Rebecca reports that Baby Cop is a must read.

Sara Kearns: Sara’s hometown is Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Sara is a poet whose short-term goals include getting back to writing as much poetry as she was before grad school and teaching began, as well as to resume submitting her work for publication. Her longer-term plan is to have a manuscript for a full length collection complete and ready to be submitted by the end of her second year here. Some favorite poets include Anne Sexton, Theodore Roethke, Lucille Clifton, Sylvia Plath, Olena Kalytiak Davis, Carolyn Creedon, Larissa Szporluk, Frank O’Hara, Etheridge Knight, Bob Hicok, and Sharon Olds. Prior to Morgantown, Sara lived in Hong Kong for two months and in Nanjing, China for almost a year. If you want to cyber-stalk her, you can find her blog at http://revolutionarysweetheart.blogspot.com.

Jamie Kegg: Jamie’s official genre is fiction, though she writes in all three genres. Jamie has a strong interest in lyricism and place-based writing, especially works set in rural areas of the United States. Much of her work addresses the influence and consequences of sex and drug culture on young adults growing up in tired, empty, dead-end worlds—where the nearest town is thirty miles away, and nobody has the gas money to get there (or any real reason to try). Jamie is from a small town in south-central PA called Pleasantville. Her (very) ambitious goal is to write theses in at least two of the three genres; in a perfect world, she’d get to write all three theses! Jamie has two bachelor’s degrees from WVU, one in English (creative writing) and one in music (vocal performance).

Connie Pan: Connie is bi-hometown-al, hailing from both Lahaina, Maui and Grand Rapids, Michigan. She is a fiction writer who has never done a cartwheel.

Shane Stricker: A fiction writer from Sikeston, Missouri, Shane completed three years in the University of Missouri-Kansas City Pharmacy Program. He also holds a minor in chemistry. Shane came to WVU under the alias of Shane Strickler, as a misbegotten “l” was added to all of his welcome materials.

Rebecca Thomas: Rebecca is from Orange County, California (the land of Disney, The OC, and Arrested Development). She is a fictioneer who just likes to write and possibly dabble with how setting influences story. She was married in Yosemite National Park and she and her husband’s first place as newlyweds was a repurposed old church for migrant workers.

Christina Wulf: Our only non-fiction writer, Christina comes from Staunton, Virginia. She googled herself to be reminded of her own interesting facts.

Non-responders who risk having hometowns, genres, and interesting facts about themselves invented include Melissa Atkinson, Anthony Fabbricatore, Jeremiah Shelor, and Andi Stout. I’ll refrain, though, because who knows—maybe MIX ate my e-mails queries to them, as MIX is wont to do.

At any rate, here’s a hearty welcome to the class of 2013. Write on.

As a GTA at the West Virginia University Press, I had the privilege of proofreading Marie Manilla’s short story collection, Still Life With Plums. This hit the bookstores on October 1st, and her first novel Shrapnel is forthcoming from River City Publishing. Marie Manilla will be in Morgantown on October 29th, when she will conduct a reading for the MFA students at 1:00 p.m. and a community reading at Arts Monongahela at 6:30 p.m.

In Still Life with Plums, Marie Manilla portrays diverse characters and their unique experiences. She writes from the perspectives of a psychologically imbalanced former ambulance driver, a Guatemalan widow, an about-to-be-divorced man, a humorous dog-groomer, and a Japanese Latino American poster child. In this way, her writing continually experiments—with character, if not usually with form. She also writes precise and graceful sentences. I teach my 418 mentees that the most beautiful and effective sentences are often short. “Red and purple swelled around gaze and tape,” Manilla writes in “Counting Backwards.” “I saw my squat-kitchened, chain-linked future unfurl in your eyes,” she writes in “The Wife You Wanted.” “A truck rattled down their street, shaking windows, vibrating the [Christmas] tree,” she writes in my favorite story, “Get Ready,” in which a young girl becomes the victim of her mother’s vagrant and thieving lifestyle. My mentees, as well as we MFAers, would do well to study Marie Manilla’s expertly-crafted sentences and the way in which she strings those sentences together into cohesive paragraphs.

I’ve shared a few of my favorite sentences and stories with you; now go buy a book—either from the WVU Press, from your local bookstore, or from Marie when she’s in town—and share with me some of your own favorites. If you haven’t met me, I’m a second-year fiction MFA student—tall, blond and currently limping. See you around!

-Rachel King