SewaneeLetters.com

Mary Priestly wrote a children’s book! You can get your copy signed at the Spring Wildflower Festival and Native Plant Sale, April 8-10th. Congratulations Mary!

Here’s the latest from Christine Doza – proof that thoughtful dialogue with readers is an important part of the story:

I have written a short piece in response to Sara Marcus’ recent book Girls to the Front: the True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution. It is published on her blog, What Goes Here.

I’m delighted to share that Cheryl Whitehead has a poem called “Backwater Blues” included in the current issue of Callaloo from John Hopkins University Press. Congratulations Cheryl!

And… if any of you have publication news, literary inspiration, or any other updates you’d like to share on this blog while we’re back at our “real” lives, please email me: hello (at) sewaneeletters.com.

Congratulation to Lindsey Harding, whose short story Beyond the Field of Vision appears in the summer issue of the Wilderness House Literary Review summer issue. So inspiring to see her hard work getting recognized… Let’s toast her at Shenanigans!

Congrats to Lindsey Harding! Her story “A 21st Century Kind of Destiny” was published in Xenith, an online literary magazine. A TV figures in the plot… Coincidence?

Congratulations are due to Kirsten, who has been invited to read from her fiction at a Manhattan bookstore. The time is Wednesday, March 24, at 7 p.m.; the store is Bluestockings, “a bookstore, fair-trade cafe, and activist center in the Lower East Side” according to its web site (http://bluestockings.com/).  The reading is sponsored by the journal Calyx (http://www.proaxis.com/~calyx/journal.html) and features three writers who have appeared in its pages.  Kirsten will be reading from her story “What to Do When Your Best Friend Commits Suicide.”

Kirsten informs me that though she owns some actual blue stockings, she will not be wearing them for this occasion (”that would be pandering”), and adds that “although as you know I am more comfortable than most with humiliating myself publicly,” she’s a little nervous about it.  What we actually know is that she’ll be great; we’re right proud of her, as my grandmother would have said.

Wow! Exciting news from Brendan Minihan…

I will be immodest for a moment and share some exciting news on my end: my non-fiction story, “The Will to Prepare,” which I work-shopped in John Sullivan’s class this past summer, was recently published in the April issue of Running Times Magazine, out on shelves now. A longer version of the story will be posted on their website, under the High school link, soon. I would love for my non-fiction classmates to hear that their collaborative work paid off.

Brendan’s finishing his thesis and planning to graduate in May. Let’s hope he brings the family to visit this summer so we can congratulate him in person!

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.”