SewaneeLetters.com

I’m thrilled to share Nick Nichols’ review published in the American Songwriter. Those of you in the Creative Nonfiction workshop in 2008 might remember some of his early music writing. We’ll be able to say we knew him when… Congrats Nick!

photo by Stephen Alvarez

Congratulations to Mary Priestley, who has an essay about Lost Cove (the new, 3,000 acre addition to the Sewanee domain) in the current issue of The Tennessee Conservationist magazine.

Great news: Don Parker’s poem, “Blood Chit,” was accepted by the California Quarterly (CQ) for publication in their current issue. Congratulations Don! I couldn’t find it online, so here’s the entire poem:

BLOOD CHIT*

A young marine, his weapon left behind
walks quietly into the night alone . . .
away from comrades, all fatigued, supine.
He’s done. Bonds severed, he feels he can’t atone

for all his killing and the cries of grief:
the sight of body parts— a baby’s arm,
a mother’s breast among the kumquat leaves:
the guilt a sore, a mine he can’t disarm.

More guilt: code requires his unit search for him
and give their lives and limbs because they share
what it is to be Marines in battle trim.
Checks his pocket, feels no blood chit there . . .

The Taliban won’t welcome him as friend;
Afghanistan, no Arkansas, will be his end.

*A patch given to the military when in hostile territory. On one side there’s an American flag and on the other, in several local languages: “Anyone helping this person to safety will receive a reward.”

Rachel Van Horn Leroy emailed to let us know her poem Life Cycle has been published in the online journal “Snow Monkey.” Congratulations Rachel!

Just wanted to share this awesome rejection letter with all you brave writers. I wish I could say I earned it myself, but it was actually forwarded to me by a friend. You can see more fine rejections here.

Check out the “Best Southern Books of All Time” feature in the current Oxford American magazine, for which both Michael Griffith and John Grammer were judges, and see if you agree.

And if you can get your hands on a copy of the magazine, John also recommends:

I think most of us will be able to recognize ourselves in Diane Roberts’ piece on writing and procrastination, entitled “Notwriting.” See also the poem “Itinerant” by our Sewanee neighbor Caki Wilkinson. A rich issue throughout, really.

Up close and personal with Wayne Newton? Not exactly. Check out this lovely new essay by Ellen Slezak, posted on AGNI online.

I found (Fiction professor) Michael Griffith in my mailbox today. His piece Beautiful, Desirable, and Dead: Is Eudora Welty Weirder Than You Think? is in the latest issue of the Oxford American. It’s not online, so you’ll have to go find a copy. Griffith’s punchy reading picks away Welty’s reputation as the “hydrangea-blue” Southern Lady of fiction to locate the acerbic punk of her early and less-anthologized stories.

…let it be this one by John Jeremiah Sullivan. Because it was hatched at Sewanee, somewhere between Sterling’s and Gailor. My nonfiction classmates will recognize the intro from our brainstorming session.  Sullivan makes the case for MJ as a writer above all– which made me relate to the King of Pop in weird new way. What artist has “never known a reality that wasn’t susceptible on some level to his creative powers”?

Kirsten Skrinde’s story “Clown Alley” has been published in the Southeast Review and is now posted online. This is a proud day for the SofL. We are celebrating with you Kirsten!