Thursday, May 19

6:15-7:30 p.m. Celebration of Recently Published Book by MFA Faculty (Brown Hotel, Gallery, 16th floor)

        Molly Peacock (creative nonfiction) The Paper Garden: Mrs. Delany Begins Her Life's Work at 72

Daly Walker (Fleur-de-Lis author) Surgeon Stories

Maureen Morehead (poetry) The Melancholy Teacher

Roy Hoffman (creative nonfiction) Alabama Afternoons: Profiles and Conversations

Friday, May 20

Noon-1:15 p.m. Faculty Presentation for alumni and Spring 2011 graduates

Things I Wished I’d Known

Kenny Cook

Location:  ELC Lectorium

My graduate education, especially my MFA, was wonderful and saved me years in terms of my apprenticeship as a writer.  But there are many things that took me another decade or so to learn.  We'll discuss some of these issues: Being a Creative Polygamist, Becoming a Professional Misbehaver, Altering Your Writing Process, Finding Good Homes for Your Children, Getting on the Gravy Train, Discovering Your Inner Salesman/Saleswoman, and Building Stamina for the Long Haul. 

1:30-2:30 p.m. Publishing Talk

Lisa Gallagher, NY agent

Location: ELC Lectorium

Having spent nearly 20 years in the publishing industry, as a book marketer, a publisher, and now an agent, Lisa Gallagher will demystify the publishing process with specific focus on the agent’s role. She welcomes your questions on any aspect of the publishing industry after her talk.

2:45-3:30 p.m. A variety of genre lectures

The Poetics of Threshold

Claudia Emerson, guest lecturer

Location: ELC Lectorium

I have for a long time been obsessed with the multifaceted concept of the threshold. In my lecture, “The Poetics of Threshold,” I will continue the ongoing conversation I’ve had with myself and with my students for a long time—about space as a “room of one’s own,” but also space as time to write, space as form, whether sonnet, play, or short story. As part of this reflection on the porous, interdependent natures of space, time, and form in our writing lives, we will also look closely at examples of poems where the writers disrupt the conventional understanding of stanza as room. We will read poems by Emily Dickinson, Betty Adcock, B. H. Fairchild, and Ellen Bryant Voigt. I will also reference Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space.

All of Claudia Emerson’s books, Pharaoh, Pharaoh (1997), Pinion, An Elegy (2002), Late Wife (2005), and Figure Studies (2008), were published as part of Louisiana State University Press’s signature series, Southern Messenger Poets, edited by Dave Smith, and Secure the Shadow is forthcoming. Late Wife won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for poetry. An advisory and contributing editor for Shenandoah, Emerson has been awarded individual artist’s fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Virginia Commission for the Arts, and was also a Witter Bynner fellow through the Library of Congress.  She served as Poet Laureate of Virginia (2008-2010). She is Professor of English and Arrington Distinguished Chair in Poetry at the University Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

Wandering and Wondering:

A Path to Understanding the Literary Connection Between Walking and Writing
Dianne Aprile, faculty

Location: College of Health and Natural Sciences Building,

southeast corner of Third and Breckinridge, room 144

In her book Wanderlust: A History of Walking, Rebecca Solnit writes: “Walking, ideally, is a state in which the mind, the body, and the world are aligned, as though they were three characters finally in conversation together, three notes suddenly making a chord.” What better recipe for writing? In this lecture, I will address the symbiotic relationship between walking and writing with an in-class exercise, as well as with examples from literature. There is ample evidence of the profound role—both inspirational and thematic—of walking in literature: from the Peripatetics and Sophists to Dante, Rousseau, Wordsworth, Hazlitt and Austen; from Thoreau, Woolf, Hurston and Pablo Neruda to Gretel Ehrlich, Wendell Berry, Bill Bryson, Umberto Eco and many, many others. Literary works from various genres will be discussed, including but not limited to works by the writers above, as well as Mindwalk (a 1991 film by Fritjof Capra) and Lee Blessing’s play, A Walk in the Woods.

Seventeen Revision Techniques to Make Your Stories Livelier

Luke Wallin, faculty

Location: College of Health and Natural Sciences Building,

southeast corner of Third and Breckinridge, room 108

Subtle techniques make all the difference in whether readers become co-creators of our stories. I will discuss 17 of these; some are subtraction edits, which tighten and add mystery; others are addition strategies, which refresh and lift a story. We’ll examine three kinds of destructive echoes, two abuses of tense, a power of negative phrasing, a three-step technique for enhancing dialogue, a way of using questions to blend narrator and character, the compressed power in representing physical communication, and infusing a thread of triumph into a dreadful tale of woe, among others. A handout will provide examples of the techniques, suggestions as to why they are so affecting, and keys to customizing one’s own list of editing passes. Writers are invited to bring an example of a favorite revision technique.

4:15-5:30 p.m. Celebration of Recently Published by Alumni (Brown Hotel, Citation, 1st floor)

            Kelly Creagh (w4c/young adult)  Nevermore

            Sonja de Vries (poetry)  Planting a Garden in Baghdad

            Stacia Fleegal (poetry)  Versus

            J J Gumbs (fiction)  The Jamerican

            Cyn Kitchen (fiction)  Ten Tongues

            Loreen Niewenhuis (fiction/cnf)  A 1,000-Mile Walk on the Beach

            Barbara Sabol (poetry)  Original Ruse

            Vickie Weaver (fiction)  Billie Girl

            Charles Dodd White (fiction)  Lambs of Men

5:30-6:30 p.m. Book signing and SPLovefest book fair (Brown Hotel, Winners Circle, 1st floor)

9:00 p.m. til ?  The After Party Literary Reading hosted by Teneice Delgado and Stacia Fleegal at Theatre Square Marketplace 651 S. 4th Street. (Just down from The Brown) featuring Alums Sheldon Compton, Jessica Hume, Lucrecia Guerrero, and Dan Nowak and others.  There will be an open mic for alumni afterwards.

Saturday, May 21

9:15-10:30 a.m. Breakfast Mixer for alumni, new graduates, faculty and staff (Mansion Drawing Room)

(Faculty and students will need to leave at 10:15 to attend workshops)  No charge to registered alumni, compliments of the MFA Program.

10:45 a.m. til ?  Vickie Weaver to work with alumni on agent pitches (by appointment only)

2:15-3:15 p.m. PGRA reading (ELC Lectorium)

6-7 p.m. Graduation (Brown Hotel, Gallery, 16th floor)

7:30 p.m. Farewell Dinner (Brown Hotel, Bluegrass Room, 2nd floor)

9 p.m. Farewell Dance (Brown Hotel, Citation, 1st floor)

The 2011 Homecoming is filled with all sorts of things to do and be a part of.  Thanks to the generous support of the MFA program the event activities below are completely underwritten.  We only ask that you register so we can plan accordingly.  Please complete the registration form by clicking on this link - Registration.doc- and returning to Katy Yocom.  FOR A DOWNLOADABLE HOMECOMING SCHEDULE, CLICK HERE - Homecoming 2011 Schedule.docx.  Check back often for updated information.  See you in Louisville in May!

COUNTDOWN TO HOMECOMING