SewaneeLetters.com

April Alvarez just alerted me to the sad news that Barry Hannah has passed away at the age of 67. This photo comes from a great recent profile of Mr. Hannah in Garden & Gun magazine. Here’s a quote:

His departure from Dixie’s literary main is not accidental, Hannah said, but grows from a violent allergy to the antebellum banalities that can plague the Southern mode.

I have been working through the stories in “Airships” since I visited Oxford last fall. Reading them before bed stirs up the weirdest dreams. I’m sad that I didn’t have the chance to pay him that compliment in person.

Megan Roberts emailed me with some inspiration for our summer session:

Is anyone familiar with The Moth? All stories are TRUE and are told before a live audience using NO NOTES.  You can listen to many of the recorded stories on the website or through the weekly podcast.  Don’t know if we could convince people to participate (writers don’t always make the best performers), but I would love to attempt our own mini-Moth night on the Mountain this summer.  We might find there’s less pressure without paper - no option to have done better editing, and listeners don’t get red pens.

Sounds like a great way to organize our late-night sessions at Shenanigan’s. What do you think?

Good news from Donna Brewer. Though she won’t be joining us in Sewanee this summer, she’ll be busy in London, brushing up her Shakespeare…

Thanks to a grant from the Nashville branch of the English-Speaking Union of the United States, Donna Brewer will participate in Teaching Shakespeare Through Performance, an intensive program for teachers that provides instructors with practical and play-filled approaches to teaching Shakespeare in the classroom. Presented by Globe Education in association with The English-Speaking Union of the United States, participants spend three weeks at The Globe Theatre in London and attend Globe productions while working with theatre artists and Globe Education Practitioners who offer participants insights into the relationship between play and stage. Participants will have their own opportunity to explore that relationship at first hand when they present scenes on the Globe stage at midnight in July, 2010.

Congratulations to Cheryl Whitehead! She was a finalist for the New Letters Literary Award and received Honorable Mentions for two of her poems– Requiem for A Trumpet and Distant Relations. Cheryl is writing and submitting while the rest of us sleep…

If you haven’t noticed yet, the School of Letters website has been updated with some fresh photos and the 2010 courses and faculty. Have a look, but don’t freak out– John Grammer says “more will be added to both lists.” I see that some former profs are back, some awesome profs are not on the list, and the new folks and classes look intriguing. What do y’all think?

Good news from John Grammer:

Congratulations to Kim West, who participated last month in the Fifth Blackfriars Conference at the American Shakespeare Center.  Kim took part in a Roundtable Discussion of “The Politics of Play” in Early Modern Drama,  along with participants from Tufts, Samford, the University of Pittsburg, and elsewhere.  The program named the School of Letters as Kim’s academic home, and we’re proud to claim her.

Nice job Kim!

Graham Osteen was missing from the mountain this summer, but sent me a note about his latest project:

I’m taking this summer off from the School of Letters due to work issues, but thought this project might be of interest to my dysfunctional friends in the Sewanee School of Letters…the column explains it, and I’d love for some of you to contribute.

Julie and I have really missed being there this summer with all of you. All the best to everyone… looking forward to 2010.

Ready or not, here come the end-of-term recaps. Last night at Shenanigans, Christine and Mary Ann started a round of “best of” questions, including “What’s one thing you learned this summer?” to “Tensest moments in the classroom.” I took notes. Here are the gathered participants’ response to “Favorite thing you read this semester:”

Everett: Black Thunder by Arna Bontemps
Jason: The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien
Mary Ann: The Hunters by Claire Messud
Christine: Edisto by Padgett Powell
    (runner up was Tall Tales from The Mekong Delta by Kate Braverman)
Hannah: Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace
Josh and Doug: Twirling at Ole Miss by Terry Southern
Pete: Archibald MacLeish’s Fortune Magazine features from 1938
Rachel: wishes for sons by Lucille Clifton
Fran: poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins
Jimmy: The Table of Contents for Michael Griffith’s forthcoming novel

Any other favorite readings you’d like to share?

(We do our best thinking at Shenanigans. Here’s the Creative Nonfiction class, hard at work.)

Rachel sent in these photos from her April wedding to Phillip Leroy in Statesboro, Georgia. Congratulations to the newlyweds!

At some point while driving between Sewanee and Signal Mountain, you may have witnessed a red and white blur on a bicycle. That would be Nick Nichols, 4th year MA candidate and cycling prodigy. A couple weeks ago he won the Tennessee State Championship in Category 4 Criterium. Congrats Nick!