Student prizes & third year fellowships in Creative Writing announced

Graduate student prizes in creative writing

First year MFA student, Edgar Kunz has won first prize in the 2013 Academy of American Poets contest.  Miriam Mimms in the MLAS program received Honorable Mention.  Poet Thomas Lux judged.

Second year MFA student Chris Adamson received the 2013 Sedberry Prize for Poetry and first year MFA student Lee Conell received the 2013 Guy Goffe Means Prize for Fiction.

The Writing Studio MFA Graduate Consultant Prize went to first year MFA student in poetry Anne Charlton.

Undergraduate student prizes in creative writing

Graduating senior Elizabeth Furlow received the 2013 Merrill Moore Prize for Fiction and graduating senior Cathy Zhang received the  2013 Merrill Moore Prize for Poetry.

Third year graduate fellowships

Second year MFA student in fiction Claire Jimenez has been appointed Curb Creative Writing Fellow for 2013-14.   Second year MFA student in poetry Cara Dees and and second year MFA student in fiction Marysa LaRowe have received third year fellowships in Creative Writing for the 2013-14 academic year.  And graduating MFA student in fiction, Janet Thielke, received a post-MFA Fellowship at the University of Wisconsin’s Institute for Creative Writing.

Recent MFA graduate Carrie Causey’s chapbook published

Ear to the Wall, by Carrie CauseyRecent MFA graduate Carrie Causey’s chapbook, Ear to the Wall, has just been published by Ampersand Press.  Causey is from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where she now teaches Literature, Composition, and Humanities at Baton Rouge Community College.   Praise for the collection:

“Carrie Causey’s Ear to the Wall introduces us to a refreshingly genuine lyrical intelligence that is sure-footed, sprinter-quick, and ready to bewitch. We are led through the dreamscapes of Causey’s childhood—the bayous and waterways of the Atchafalaya Swamp—and there encounter its many restless spirits, including women ‘spell-locked in walls, still trying to get out.’ The collection’s cumulative power is due in no small part to Causey’s formidable empathic gifts. Even when one speaker becomes ‘bright with the terror of too many gods,’ Causey still manages to take us to a place ‘that makes everything sacred’ where we, her fortunate readers, become ‘the bemused witness[es] to grace/working its cold sacrament.’ This is a stunning collection, immensely powerful, dream-haunted and river-wise.” – Rick Hilles, author of Brother Salvage and Map of the Lost World.

“Open that door just a crack, peek inside: trouble and enchantment await. You will find, I believe, Ms. Causey’s work is at once precise and expansive, meticulous and loose in the best possible way. The plain-spoken surrealism of her images strikes the balance one hopes for and so rarely finds. She’s one to be reckoned with.” — Daniel Lawless, editor of Plume Poetry.

Fiction writer Lorrie Moore to join Vanderbilt’s Creative Writing faculty

Lorrie Moore, photo by Zane Williams

Lorrie Moore, whose much praised    short-story collections include Birds of America and Like Life, will join Vanderbilt’s Creative Writing Program faculty as the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of English in fall 2013  (appointment pending approval by the Vanderbilt Board of Trust).

“Lorrie is the essence of original expression and commentary. Her unique voice illuminates her poignant and brilliant writing, and she represents a terrific addition to our world-class English faculty,” said Vanderbilt Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos. “She is the latest example of the university’s strong commitment to investing in exceptional faculty who provide transformative learning opportunities for our students.”

“We are thrilled to welcome Lorrie to Vanderbilt, with its storied history in creative writing, where she will have the opportunity to work with some of the nation’s most promising young writers,” said Carolyn Dever, dean of the College of Arts and Science and professor of English.

Moore’s most recent novel, A Gate at the Stairs (Random House), was described in a New York Times book review as “…her most powerful book yet, a book that gives us an indelible portrait of a young woman coming of age in the Midwest in the year after 9/11 and her initiation into the adult world of loss and grief.” Honors for the book include finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, Orange Prize: Shortlist, and Midwest Booksellers Choice Award for Fiction. Her books also include Anagrams and Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?

“Lorrie is an extraordinary writer,” said Kate Daniels, professor of English and director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Vanderbilt. “Not only one of the most celebrated and widely respected of contemporary American authors, she is esteemed as well for her teaching and mentoring of young writers. Her presence among us will be a great addition to the Nashville literary community and a boon for our growing master of fine arts program in creative writing. We look forward with great happiness to having her join us.”

In 1985 Moore’s career took off with the publication of Self-Help, a collection of short stories that was also her master’s thesis at Cornell University. Earlier, she had graduated summa cum laude from St. Lawrence University.

“Lorrie’s the most influential short story writer working in America, and has been been for the last 20 years,” said Tony Earley, the Samuel Milton Fleming Professor of English at Vanderbilt. “Ordinarily I would say that our MFA students have no idea how lucky they are, but they know exactly how lucky they are. They actually shouted with joy when they heard. I did, too, but first I made sure nobody could hear me.”

Moore is currently the Delmore Schwartz Professor in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her many honors have included fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Lannan Foundation.

Moore has written for The New York Review of Books, The New York Times, The New Yorker,The Atlantic Monthly and elsewhere. Other previous honors include the Rea Award for the Short Story, the PEN/Malamud Award for excellence in the art of the short story, and The Irish Times International Fiction Prize. Moore, who is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, spoke at Vanderbilt in January 2012 as part of the Chancellor’s Lecture Series. Her talk was titled “Creative Writing and the Customer Survey.”

Kate Daniels, Guest Blogger for The Best American Poetry website:

http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/

Tony Earley interviewed

“This Week in Fiction,” a blog on The New Yorker website, on September 24, 2012 featured an interview with Vanderbilt faculty member and fiction writer Tony Earley about his story, “Jack and the Mad Dog,” which appeared in that week’s issue of the magazine.

Earley has also recently been interviewed by Chapter 16, an online publication of Humanities Tennessee, which promotes education in the humanities for people in Tennessee.

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