It’s Considered Good Luck When it Rains on Your Big Day, so Our Future Looks Bright:
Meet the MFA Class of 2015
by Connie Pan

On the day of the Second Annual MFA Rooftop Reading, I anxiously counted down the seconds of my last summer shift at the Morgantown Brew Pub, excited for our night at the Montmartre. Everything was planned perfectly: clock out time was four and the reading was at seven; after the reading, I would pack my bags and be off to the Mitten (aka Michigan) early the next morning to kiss the rest of summer goodbye with weddings, family, and friends. During my shift, I was so excited I started my sidework as soon as I clocked in. During lunch I married ketchups. No, there were no brides and grooms, or grooms and grooms, or brides and brides. I consolidated the condiment, washing the squeeze bottles, only to refill them again with my second favorite condiment. (My favorite, you wonder? Soy sauce, duh!)

Fists through the double doors and the squeak of sneakers on kitchen tile broke my meditation. “Hurry, come outside. You’ll never believe this,” the kitchen manager said.

I followed, almost wiping out in my nonslip shoes. We busted through the doors to join the other three Brew Pub workers under the awning for a surreal sight. Hail, an inch in diameter, pinged the roof, pelted the wood, covered the six tables vulnerable to the weather, and plunked into the Mon. It fell for three minutes, but the storm clouds remained with its rain and lightning, cracking the sky and drenching everything without an umbrella or an overhang.

I wish I could pretend COW played it James Dean-cool, but we didn’t. Over the following several hours, the COW officers checked the hourly weather reports, arranged alternative plans (inside), and exchanged texts like, All this lightning doesn’t mean good things for our party in the sky. And, Man, roofs and lightning make me noivous.

Trying to trust that the evil-looking cartoon of 40-60% showers lurking over our night wouldn’t come true, we dressed up. We toted umbrellas and kept our weather apps warm, heading eight stories into the sky to the roof of Hotel Morgan.

It was nothing short of miraculous. As MFAs, one by one, walked themselves to the middle of the roof like an offering to the vast sky, there was not so much as a grumble of thunder, let alone a crash of lightning. The only bangs were the bangs our writing made in the picturesque Montemarte, with its white tablecloths, its crystal glasses, and its great view. The way I look at it, the newbies must be good luck. Their presence and words held the storm at bay. Meet our lucky charms, the Class of 2015!

FICTION

John Bryant says, “Hey, it’s John! What are you doing? That sounds cool. I’m one of the new MFA fiction people here. I’m tall and pale and often confused. My students call me the ‘awkward tree’ or the ‘giant 12 year old.’ I like to watch Plan Nine from Outer Space, because it’s one of the few bad movies that believes in itself. And I think there’s something sweet about that. My biggest influence is Jack Handey (SNL’s “Deep Thoughts”) because there is no one who could ever sound as naive and dangerous as him. I like meeting new people. But pretty soon I want them to leave. Just joking. Good luck with the next bio!”

Mari Casey is from Point Pleasant, West Virginia. She is best friends with the Mothman. Her likes include dogs, Aimee Bender, Junot Diaz, baking, social justice, Italy, David Bowie, and her boyfriend. Her dislikes include mayonnaise, the GOP, cats, Emily Dickinson, and oppression. She once beached a houseboat on Stonewall Jackson Lake. Mari got her BA in Creative Writing at Ohio University. She has a dog named Barbarella, in honor of the Jane Fonda sci-fi classic. She is a fiction writer, but this is all fact.

JoAnna St.Germain grew up in Oakland, Maine, and never strayed too far from home before settling in Morgantown a couple months back. She’s been writing since the age of six. At first, she wrote because her oldest sister was a literary fiend, and JoAnna wanted to be just like her. At some point, however, probably almost exactly around week ten of her junior year of high school, she realized she couldn’t live without writing and that she’d better just go ahead and devote her life to it. These days, she mostly keeps her teaching materials obsessively ordered for fear of losing anything, resists the urge to fill her apartment with cats, and writes, and writes, and writes.

POETRY

Jessica Guzman was born and raised in Southwest Florida. She received her bachelor’s degree in English from the University of South Florida in Tampa, where she wrote poems about porches, fortune-tellers, and being a walking stereotype. During the summer of 2006, she took a road trip to the Grand Canyon where she learned that everything—from a city in Texas to the vein behind her left knee—is yellow. Her writing has been obsessed with the synchronicities of the world ever since. Before moving to Morgantown, she spent her free time disguising herself as a tourist and eating Chipotle (not always at the same time). Now, she forms her schedule around visiting Pittsburgh to eat Chipotle.

Koh Xin Tian is from Singapore, where she worked as a research assistant, translator, and transcriber. She graduated from the National University of Singapore, where she majored in English Literature. In her new American life, Xin Tian enjoys yard sales, exploring the wonders of Morgantown and being the self-appointed publicist of Park Jae-sang.

Patric Nuttall is from Kalamazoo, Michigan, where he studied Poetry at Western Michigan University. Some things he likes other than poetry and poets: Star Wars, Flogging Molly, and Game of Thrones.

Morgan O’Grady is originally from Southern California, but she loves the East Coast in a biased way. Since moving here, she has lost her freckles but found a love of poetry. This is why she is now pursuing her MFA in poetry at WVU. She often knits, stares up at the sky, or bakes cookies; it is difficult for her to accomplish all three at once. She likes to clap, hop around in circles, and read new authors. She is extremely pleased to spend the next three years working and thinking about poetry.

Jacqulyn Wilson lives in Morgantown with her son, Quentin. Her poem, “Morning After a Snow Storm,” appeared in The Orange Room Review.

CREATIVE NONFICTION

Troy Copeland grew up in Manchester, a middle-Georgia mill town. However, he hails from Athens, Georgia, one of the best college towns in the nation. There, he spent, what he considers, some of the most remarkable years of his life as a high school literature and composition teacher. Winning “Teacher of the Year” twice—once from the student body in 02-03 and again from the faculty in 05-06—he also spent a great deal of his “free” time reading, writing, and acting. His pursuit of the MFA in creative non-fiction is none other than a labor of love for the idea of the human as a condition and expression of what he considers to be an essentially psychological, self-critiquing experience of existence.

Hannah McPherson is from West Virginia and got her undergraduate degree in English and Creative Writing here at WVU. She writes creative nonfiction with a focus on travel writing and religious study as a means to understand the world around her. She spent two weeks in Turkey in the summer of 2011 that influenced her focus and identity as a writer. Her favorite style of nonfiction is a short essay; her favorite online journal is Brevity. She is most influenced by nonfiction writers such as Abigail Thomas, Dinty Moore, and Jo Ann Beard, fiction writers such as Kazuo Ishiguro and Alice Munro, and the poet/nonfiction writer, John Haines. Hannah enjoys the WOW! Factory in Morgantown and would, for the record, paint anyone a plate, pitcher, or piggy bank any time they want. She is accepting donations to feed this pottery-painting obsession. She lives in South Park with her Yorkie, Samoa, who was named not after the Native American tribe, but rather, the Girl Scout cookie.

Sadie Shorr-Parks is from Philadelphia. She studied Writing and Art Theory at Syracuse University. She writes Creative Non-Fiction, mostly lyric essays with experimental form but some funny ones, too. In the past four years, she has lived and worked in India, England, and France. But the year before she joined us in Morgantown, she lived in a small town at the foot of the Appalachian Mountains. In her spare time she enjoys going on rain-walks, playing piano, eating copious amounts of Thai food, and napping.

The rooftop reading was only three months ago, but it seems like just yesterday. If you haven’t gotten the chance to meet our first years yet, meet them now. And if you have had the pleasure of already meeting them, meet them again. Sure, three years seems like a long time, but—believe me—it’s over before you know it, so cozy up to this batch of talented and charming MFAs. They don’t fear danger. They met us on a roof in a lightning storm and read.