Cyrus Cassells’s ninth book of poems, Is There Room for Another Horse On Your Horse Ranch?, was published on March 15, 2024: https://fourwaybooks.com/site/is-there-room-for-another-horse-on-your-horse-ranch/. Additionally, Cyrus has won the Soeurette Diehl Fraser Award for Best Translation of a Book published in 2022 and 2023 from the Texas Institute of Letters. Cyrus won for his translation of To the Cypress Again and Again: Tribute to Salvador Espriu (Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2023). This is Cyrus’s second Soeurette Diehl Fraser Award for translation in four years. Finally, Cyrus’s new website, designed by MFA alum Aaron Hand, is now live: https://cyruscassells.com/.
More good news: Cyrus serves as the April 2024 Guest Editor for the Academy of American Poets’ international Poem-a-Day: https://poets.org/poem-day-guest-editors-2024. In that capacity, he has chosen 22 new poems by some of America’s most revered poets to celebrate National Poetry Month. Starting April 1, the site will feature a recorded interview with Cyrus and director Mary Sutton about his process in selecting the poems. Also, a special issue of the University of Gottingen’s New American Studies Journal focusing on brand-new work by contemporary African American poets, curated and introduced by Cyrus, will be published this Spring, taught as a university class, and then be expanded to become a published anthology from University of Gottingen Press.
MFA Poetry candidate Sara Bawany is a recipient of a Summer 2024 Residency Fellowship from The Sundress Academy for the Arts (SAFTA): http://www.sundresspublications.com/news/2024/03/sundress-academy-for-the-arts-announces-winners-of-summer-2024-residency-fellowships/.
MFA alumna and genocide studies scholar Dr. Sabah Carrim has organized the Genocide Awareness Symposium at Texas State, which takes place in the Department of Philosophy, Comal Hall, April 1–12, 2024. Marking the 30th anniversary of the genocide against the Tutsi, this event will see some of the most distinguished professors in Genocide Studies and Prevention from across the US and Canada addressing a range of pertinent issues. More information, including the complete schedule, is available here: https://www.txst.edu/philosophy/dialogue-series/genocide-awareness-symposium.html.
Also, Sabah’s short story “Fading Mehndi” has just been shortlisted in the Afritondo Short Story Prize 2024: https://www.afritondo.com/shortlist-2024.
On March 27, Leah Schwebel presented a talk, “Palm Sunday, Roman Triumphs: A Crossover,” at the New Directions in Medieval Literary Studies conference, sponsored by the Institute for Arts and Humanities and the Program in Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.
On March 29, Robert Tally presented remotely an invited talk, “Spatial Criticism, Worldly and Otherworldly,” at the İzmir Democracy University in Turkey. The session was moderated by Dr. Selin Şencan, a former visiting scholar in our department.
Cathlin Noonan’s poem, “Do You Have to Pee Before We Go?” came out in the Spring issue of West Trade Review. Her poem “In Which I Imagine Myself as my Great Aunt Helen” is forthcoming in Lumina.
The Department of English was represented at the 45th International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts in Orlando, Florida, by Graeme Wend-Walker (“New Audiences for Old Ghosts: Tradition and Terror in Horror Stories for Young Thais,” and Andrew Barton (“‘I’m a messed up person’: Painting, Whimsy, and Depression in Chicory: A Colorful Tale”). On a writers panel, Graeme also read his short story, “The Narrator.”
Note: Please email your news to miscellany@txstate.edu or to Robert Tally at robert.tally@txstate.edu. You can also submit to the Miscellany Form here: https://www.english.txst.edu/news/Miscellany-Submission.html