Student, Alumni, & Faculty Accomplishments
The following are recent accomplishments by Creative Writing Program students, alumni, and faculty.
SUMMER/FALL 2020:
TYLER BARTON'S book of short stories has just been accepted by Sarabande.
CANDACE BLACK had two poems appear in the inaugural issue of Salt.
ROB LUKE has poems recently in the Pennsylvania Literary Journal.
THOMAS MALTMAN'S third novel, The Land, launches on October 13. Booklist writes that: "Maltman’s very dark novel deals dramatically with considerations of good and evil, of angels and demons, creating a visceral sense of danger…Metaphysics and mystery merge in this haunting, thought-provoking story.”
RICHARD ROBBINS has a poem in the current issue of Salt.
PETE STEVENS has a new story forthcoming in AGNI issue #92. His chapbook won the 2020 Map Literary Rachel Wetzsteon Chapbook Award.
MICHAEL TORRES'S book of poems An Incomplete List of Names launched in October.
WINTER/SPRING 2020:
TYLER BARTON has just accepted a position as Continuing Education Program Coordinator at the Pennsylvania College of Art & Design.
TIANA EBNET'S short story "To Invoke the Muse" is set to be published by Prismatica Magazine for their Pride issue in June.
ROB LUKE has a poem forthcoming in The Tenth Muse, Windward Review and Anaphora.
NATALIE MARTELL has been awarded a Prairie Lakes Regional Arts Council Artist Grant. She will use the grant to complete the manuscript of her young adult novel “Stay Wrecked” and attend a novel writing class at the Loft in Minneapolis.
MICHAEL TORRES is a 2020 Loft McKnight Award winner.
SUMMER/FALL 2019:
MFA in Creative Writing alum LESLEY NNEKA ARIMAH won the 2019 Caine Prize for African Writing for her short story "Skinned," which appeared in McSweeney's magazine.
KRYSTAL GARNER'S has a poem appearing at Button Poetry.
JESSICA STARICKA's story "Welcome Back" appears in the recent issue of Ninth Letter.
MICHAEL TORRES received a scholarship to attend the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference to work with Mary Szybist; he has two poems forthcoming in Poetry magazine; his first collection of poems, An Incomplete List of Names, was selected by Raquel Salas Rivera for the National Poetry Series and will be published by Beacon Press in Fall 2020.
WINTER/SPRING 2019:
LESLEY ARIMAH was recently awarded a 2019 USA Fellowship.
MELISSA HALL is now Grants Manager for Special Olympics Texas.
BRYNN HERNDON'S short story "Heartsick" was published in IO Literary Magazine's first issue in Fall 2018.
ROB LUKE had a poem awarded honorable mention from the Carver County Arts Consortium. He has also published recently in Tenth Muse.
DANIEL PORTER'S "Gingerbread House" has won the Tulip Tree Review New Writers Contest and will be published in their next issue.
MICHAEL TORRES will spend May 2019 at the Camargo Foundation retreat center in Cassis, France. He was recently awarded a 2019 Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
THOMAS WARMBRODT has two poems forthcoming in the online journal Ink and Voices and had another accepted for the online journal The Winnow Magazine.
SUMMER/FALL 2018:
LEAH ALSAKER has a poem forthcoming in The Examined Life Journal.
BRIAN BAUMGART recently had poems published in The Perch, The Good Men Project, The Journal of Wild Culture, Noctua Review, and Beech Street Review. Also, he has poems forthcoming in Shantih Journal, Big Muddy, Construction, Whale Road Review, Parentheses Journal, and South Dakota Review.
In October, TYLER BARTON did a two-week residency in the Adirondacks through the Adirondack Center for Writing's Anne LaBastille Residency, where he finished his full-length story collection manuscript. He has stories forthcoming in Meridian, Subtropics, The Collagist, The Iowa Review, and Kenyon Review. His chapbook of flash fiction The Quiet Part Loud will be published by Split Lip Press in December. His flash story, "Come Live With me on This Shitty Island," won the Press 53 Flash Fiction Contest and will be published in January.
CANDACE BLACK has recent poems in Two Hawks Review, Prairie Schooner, and Miramar.
EMILY BUEHLER has accepted a full-time position teaching a writing-intensive Justice and Peace Studies course with the University of St. Thomas' new 2-year college in Minneapolis.
LUKE DALY has accepted a full-time faculty position in the University Writing Program at Rochester Institute of Technology.
CLINT EDWARDS' collection of humorous essays on the toddler years will be published by Page Street (distributed by Macmillan) in November 2019.
CARSON FAUST had three poems appear in Issue #18 of Black Fox Literary Magazine back in August. He was recently awarded a Minnesota State Arts Board grant for 2019.
TINA GROSS has a poem in the November issue (#44) of Rogue Agent.
CHRISTOPHER DAVID HOPKINS has three poems in Beloit Poetry Journal's Summer/Fall 2018 Issue.
LISSA HORNEBER was recently awarded a Minnesota State Arts Board grant for 2019.
EMILY JOHNSON accepted a full-time associate lecturer position at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. She will be teaching two Academic Reading/Writing, one Intro to Lit, and one Creative Nonfiction Workshop.
ROB LUKE had a poem published in Poetry Overload.
AMANDA MALONE has recently joined the editorial staff at The Rumpus, and also just had a story accepted for publication in an upcoming issue of Stirring: A Literary Collection, due out early 2019.
MFA students HANNAH SCHULTZ, NATALIE MARTELL, and ASHLEY RICHARDSON, with TESOL grad student Leena Litula, reported recently about their funded summer research.
ANDREW NYE has a poem in the Drunk Monkeys' December 2018 Issue.
DANIEL PORTER has a piece in McSweeney's Internet Tendency.
RICHARD ROBBINS has given over a dozen readings this fall in Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. His work has appeared in the Bennington Review.
HANNAH SCHULTZ had short stories published in KAIROS Literary Magazine and The Gordian Review, with fiction forthcoming in Barely South Review. She will also be presenting a creative reading at the 2018 John R. Milton Writers’ Conference at the University of South Dakota.
PETE STEVENS has stories forthcoming at Little Fiction and Whiskey Island. He was featured on the Author Talk series put out by the Superstition Review, where he discussed his story "Smoked Fish" that was published in the journal.
JAMES SULLIVAN has work soon to appear in Inscape Journaland Fourteen Hills.
TESSA TORGESON had an essay published in The Rumpus and an op-ed in The Star Tribune.
MICHAEL TORRES has poetry recently published or forthcoming in Poetry Northwest, Sixth Finch, Fifth Wednesday Journal, The Sycamore Review, Water~Stone Review, Southern Indiana Review, and The Missouri Review's Poem of the Week. He was recently awarded a Minnesota State Arts Board grant for 2019.
WINTER/SPRING 2018:
LEAH ALSAKER had flash nonfiction published recently on Pulse's More Voices and has a poem accepted for a future issue of Rock and Sling. Four poems are forthcoming on Oakwood.
KIT ARBUCKLE'S paper has been accepted for the South-Central Renaissance Conference to be held in Atlanta in April.
LESLEY NNEKA ARIMAH'S story collection has been shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Award for first books. She was named the Minneapolis Star Tribune's 2017 Artist of the Year.
TYLER BARTON'S story, "The Orbit of Us," was selected as the winner of the Chicago Review of Books 2017 Fall Fiction Prize, judged by Kathleen Rooney and was published in their literary magazine, Arcturus. He has stories forthcoming in the Iowa Review, Gulf Coast, Bat City Review, and Hobart. Along with Andrew Nye, he'll be teaching a one-day creative writing workshop for teens at the Loft in April.
SARA BIREN'S second young adult novel, Cold Day in the Sun, will be published by Amulet Books in spring 2019.
CANDACE BLACK has a poem anthologized in the current Poetry City, USA.
KRISTYN BLESSING has had poems recently in Atlas Poetica, Failed Haiku, American Tanka, and One Man’s Maple Moon: Neverending Story Blog.
EMILY BUEHLER'S poem, "From the Back Patio of a New Orleans Shotgun Tenement," was selected for the Crossings at Carnegie 2018 Poet-Artist Collaboration Chapbook.
ALEC CICAK'S short story "Nasty Habits" will appear in the journal Switchblade; his short story "Useless Things" will appear in the journal EconoClash Review; his short story "Broke" will appear in the journal Horror Bites; his short story "Las Vegas Foot Massage" will appear in the anthology Deadline: A Tribute to William E. Wallace; and his first novel, Breaking Glass, will be published by ABC Group Documentation in July; he will be reading live in Missoula on April 5 and in Seattle on July 12.
GUSTAVO CRUZ'S "Visiting My Mother While My Father Dies, 1996" and "After the Divorce: Living with Grandmother" were featured in The Flat Water Stirs: An Anthology of Emerging Nebraska Poets.
LUKE DALY has a poem in the upcoming volume Poetry City USA.
CLINT EDWARDS' collection of humorous essays “I’m Sorry, Love...Your Husband” will be published by Page Street (distributed by Macmillan) on May 1st 2018.
JAMES FIGY'S stories "End over End" and "For the People in the Back" are forthcoming from Cheap Pop and Hobart, respectively.
TINA GROSS has a poem in Poetry City, USA, and two others in Third Point Press.
GWEN HART studied with Garrett Hongo at the 2017 Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. Her poem "Everything Is Corn" is forthcoming in the Winter 2018 issue of Midwestern Gothic. Her brief essay "Disappearing Dave" appeared in the Chicken Soup for the Soul collection I Can't Believe the Dog Did That! and was reprinted in their 2017 Christmas Miracles anthology.
GEOFF HERBACH'S YA novel, Hooper, comes out from HarperCollins/Katherine Tegen on February 20th.
DENNIS HERBERT has published pieces recently in Barrelhouse, Flash Frontier, Moon Park Review, and Former Cactus.
CHRISTOPHER DAVID HOPKINS has or will have poems appearing in Drunk Monkeys, Bayou Magazine and Copper Nickel.
ELIZABETH HORNEBER had essays appear in Split Lip Magazine and The Tusculum Review.
JILL KALZ'S first book for adults, The Winter Bees, fiction, will be published by Minneopa Valley Press in October 2018.
ALEXIS KRUCKEBERG has published two poems recently, in Qu Literary Magazine and CALYX: A Journal of Art and Literature by Women.
CHRIS McCORMICK'S debut book of fiction, Desert Boys, was reissued by Picador in paperback.
ANDREW NYE has a poem forthcoming in Clockwise Cat and four poems forthcoming in Five:2: One Magazine's #slideshow
RICHARD ROBBINS has a poem in the current A Public Space. During fall semester, he gave readings from his new book in California, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Utah, and the United Kingdom. He was awarded a Prairie Lakes Regional Arts Council Mid-Career Artist Grant to support the promotion of his new book and to work on the next.
ASHLEY RICHARDSON and NATALIE MARTELL had their proposal accepted at The Loft for a summer fiction writing workshop, titled "Creating Complex Villains: Getting The Bad Guy Right," for 13-17 year olds.
JESS SMITH'S story "Iffy" was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Natural Bridge.
SARAH SNOOK has been promoted to executive writer at Savannah College of Art and Design.
TESSA TORGESON'S creative nonfiction essay "Reverse Bartender and Wilted Wings," was nominated for a Pushcart Prize from bioStories magazine. She also has creative nonfiction pieces published in Los Lit UK and forthcoming in Doll Hospital Literary Journal. She was recently accepted to The Normal School's Creative Nonfiction and Publishing Institute in Fresno.
MICHAEL TORRES' poem, "From My Classroom Window at the Prison, Before Students Arrive," was accepted for publication by Ploughshares, and his essay "As If To Say" was nominated for a Pushcart prize.
ELIZABETH TRUEBLOOD'S "Killing Games" is going to be published in Blackberry Winter's spring 2018 issue.
MARIANNE MURPHY ZARZANA had two poems, "Saying Our Names" and "Savasana: Corpse Pose," selected for Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems.
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