WELCOME TO OUR FALL ’24 ROUNDUP!
To celebrate the achievements of students, alumni, and faculty, TXST English is proud to present our inaugural Fall 2024 Newsletter. From fellowships to prestigious residencies, from keynote speeches to visits from award-winning writers, Fall 2024 was a treasure trove of accomplishments and other exciting news!
For more about the newsletter and ways to stay in touch, please scroll to the bottom of this page.
EVENT RETROSPECTIVE: FALL 2024 VISITING SPEAKERS
TXST English regularly hosts world renowned writers and artists as part of two visiting speaker series: the Katherine Anne Porter Literary Series and Therese Kayser Lindsey Literary Series.
With support from the Therese Kayser Lindsey Endowment, Wittliff Collections, Burdine Johnson Foundation, Katherine Anne Porter Literary Center, and Torch Literary Arts, TXST English hosted the following speakers in Fall 2024:
Wednesday, September 25: Amanda Churchill
Wednesday, October 9: Felispeak & Nithy Kasa
Wednesday, October 23: Cassandra Lane
Tuesday, November 12: Dawn Prestwich & Nicole Yorkin
STUDENT SPOTLIGHTS
UNDERGRAD SPOTLIGHT
Student-now-alum Tiffany Sawruk‘s article, “An Unlikely Gothic Heroine: Catherine Morland in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey” appears in Txstur[e]: a journal of humanistic inquiry, which is published by TXSTUR (The Texas State Undergraduate Research Journal). The essay grew out of a final paper that Tiffany wrote for ENG 3362: The British Romantics, taught by Assistant Professor Dr. Denae Dyck.
GRADUATE SPOTLIGHT
MFA Fiction student Diamond Braxton has been selected as a writer-in-residence at Hedgebrook, a fully funded residency for women-identifying writers on Whidbey Island. More info about the program, which draws writers from around the world, can be found on the website. Diamond is also an accomplished editor, having founded her own independent press, Abode Press, in 2023.
ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT
MFA Poetry alum Cloud Delfina Cardona (’19) has been awarded a 2024–2025 Poetry Coalition Fellowship. Supported by the Mellon Foundation and The Academy of American Poets, Cloud’s 10-month paid fellowship at Letras Latinas takes place on site at the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Latino Studies.
GRADUATE STUDENT NEWS
PUBLICATIONS
- MFA Poetry student Sara Bawany’s co-edited anthology Threads of Palestine Anthology: Weaving Words of Witness was published and is linked here.
- Sara Bawany’s poem “circumambulation” and her essay “The Opposite of Solitude” appear in Sexual Violence in Muslim Communities: Towards Awareness and Accountability (2024) and is linked here.
- MFA Fiction student Burke De Boer’s essay “Live! at Hole in the Wall” was published in Texas Wind: An Anthology Incited by Texas Singers and Songwriters.
- MFA Poetry student Victoria Garcia’s poems “16 de Septiembre,” “God-fearing Mexicans love superstitions and hate brujeria,” and “People, Places and Things on Both Sides of the Progreso International Border” were published recently in the Cuéntame Literary Magazine.
- MFA Poetry student Cathlin Noonan’s poem “On Having Chosen Childlessness,” which was written for Steve Wilson’s workshop, was published in the latest issue of Salamander, and is available here.
FEATURES & APPEARANCES
- Cathlin Noonan moderated a Wittliff Book Series event at which Naomi Shihab Nye and Marion Winik discussed their new book, I Know About a Thousand Things: The Writings of Ann Alejandro of Uvalde, Texas. The event is available to view online here.
- MFA Poetry student Nala Washington competed in the Austin Poetry “Last Chance Slam” and placed second out of the eight competitors.
- MFA Poetry student Nala Washington competed in the Austin Poetry Slam Quarter Finals, was crowned the “Haiku Death Match Champion,” and placed third out of the eight competitors.
CONFERENCES
- Texas State English had a strong presence at the EVENT 2024 conference, sponsored by the North American Victorian Studies Association and held at the Armstrong Browning Library at Baylor University (September 19–21). Jenna Parks (MA Lit candidate) and Olivia Murr (MA Lit graduate 2024) presented their research on panel sessions (Murr’s work was delivered in absentia). Cathlin Noonan (MFA candidate) and Leann Weaver (MA Lit candidate) had their work featured on a roundtable on “Reading Victorian Periodical Poetry Now,” co-organized by Denae Dyck and Linda K. Hughes (Texas Christian University). Denae was also an invited speaker on a roundtable titled “Living the Profession Holistically and Inclusively.”
- MFA student Wisdom Nemi Otikor’s co-authored paper titled “Local realities, global skills: Embracing Indigenous Nigerian Socio-Cultural Contexts in Second Language Pedagogy,” has been accepted for the American Association of Applied Linguistics 2025 Conference to be held in Denver, Colorado.
- Texas State’s Department of English was well represented at the annual conference of the Society for Comparative Literature and the Arts (SCLA) in Austin, Nov. 6–8: M.A. Literature students Jingyi Lyu and Jenna Parks each presented talks, “Beyond the Ring: Decoding Power and Control from Middle-earth to Modern History” and “Political Preservations: Chaucer’s Retraction,” respectively. Ben Reed presented “Justice Revised: The Postcolonial Response Novel and the Problem of Facticity,” and M.A. Lit alumnae Viv Eliot and Thais Rutledge presented, respectively, “‘She’s Asked for Something’: The Liminal Language of Ghosts in Stir of Echoes” and “Justice in Clarice Lispector’s “Love”: The Case for the Modern Woman in Brazilian Society.” Robert Tally, the current SCLA president, also gave a talk, “‘The utopian space still provided by the university’: Edward Said, the Intellectual, and Optative Cosmopolitanism.”
FACULTY NEWS
AWARDS & FINALISTS
- John Blair’s poem “Pink Anemone” was chosen by the poet Kim Addonizio to receive the 2024 Red Wheelbarrow Prize for Poetry.
- Jennifer duBois’s new novel, The Last Language, was a finalist for The Writers’ League of Texas Book Award for Fiction.
- Naomi Shihab Nye is the recipient of the 2024 Wallace Stevens Award for Lifetime Achievement, which is given annually by the Academy of American Poets to recognize outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry.
- Cedric Synnestvedt’s short story collection What the Birds Do was a finalist for the 2024 Hudson Prize sponsored by Black Lawrence Press.
PUBLICATIONS
Books: Creative and Scholarly
- Doug Dorst’s short story collection, The Surf Guru, has been published in a Spanish translation under the title El candidato en flor by Duomo Ediciones (Barcelona).
- Geneva Gano‘s co-edited collection, ¡Ay Tú!: Critical Essays on the Life and Work of Sandra Cisneros (Univ of Texas Press 2024, with Sonia Saldívar-Hull), is available now.
Creative Works: Short Stories, Poems, & Nonfiction Essays
- Steph Grossman’s flash fiction piece “Red on Yellow” (first published in print in Salamander magazine’s issue #57) is now available to read on Salamander’s website: https://salamandermag.org/red-on-yellow.
- MFA alum Kale Hensley has three poems in the latest issue of The Squawk Back. You can read them here.
- Kale Hensley’s nonfiction piece “I Reckon with Feet” is the featured “Meditations” article piece in Issue 75 of the Potomac Review.
- Kale Hensley’s poem “Chigger Chug” appears in Issue 9.2 of The Hopper.
- Kale Hensley‘s poem “I’m Steering the Whelm of this Ship” was nominated for a 2025 Pushcart Prize by Many Nice Donkeys, and their artwork was selected for the cover for Redivider 22.1.
- Kale Hensley has three new poems in the Evergreen Review linked here.
- Jessica Martinez’s short story “Sucia,” was published in the October 2024 issue of The Acentos Review.
- Terrance Wedin’s short story “Advocate,” and subsequent interview was published in the December 3, 2024 issue of Short Story, Long: https://ashortstorylong.substack.com/p/advocate-by-terrance-wedin.
- Steve Wilson‘s poems have been published in the journals Texas Poetry Assignment: Texas Seasons, swifts & slows, the Maier Museum of Art Journal of Ekphrastic Poetry, and The Nature of Our Times (find here & here).
- Steve Wilson’s poem, “The Place Where All Lines Do Converge,” appears in Resonance is Us: Red Door Fifteenth Anniversary.
Scholarly Works: Articles, Chapters, Essays, & Reviews
- Katie Kapurch’s article, “Once Upon a Fishtail in Aquamarine, an Ecofeminist Fairy Tale: Mermaids as Water Girls from the Nineteenth Century to Twenty-First-Century Disney,” appears in the journal Interdisciplinary Literary Studies 26.3 (2024): https://doi.org/10.5325/intelitestud.26.3.0320.
- Scott Mogull’s article “Audience Personas: Audience Analysis Documentation for Rhetorical Technical Communications” appears in Programmatic Perspectives 15.1 (2024).
- Sara A. Ramírez’s chapter “‘Hay Que Inventarnos / We Must Invent Ourselves’: The Impact of Norma Alarcón and Sandra Cisneros’s Friendship on Chicana Feminist Literature” appears in ¡Ay Tú!: Critical Essays on the Life and Work of Sandra Cisneros (Univ of Texas Press 2024), edited by Sonia Saldívar-Hull and Geneva M. Gano.
- Sara A. Ramírez’s article “‘Ser mexicane es magia’: Integrando el trauma y re-ordenando el Yo en Your Healing Is Killing Me” was translated into Spanish and appears Hispanic Issues On Line, Vol. 33 (2024): Humanidades Médicas: debates desde la literatura, el cine y las artes visuales.
- Working along with colleagues from the Department of History and the Center for Texas Music History, Alan Schaefer is writing segments for a weekly feature on KUTX radio in Austin and KUTX.ORG called “This Week in Texas Music History.”
- Robert Tally’s article “Tolkien’s Deplorable Cultus: Right-Wing Hobbit Enthusiasts and the Urgency of Marxist Criticism in Fantasy” appears in Spectre (August 20, 2024).
- Robert Tally’s article “How Fredric Jameson Remade Literary Criticism” appears in Jacobin (September 3, 2024).
- Robert Tally’s brief memorial article, “The Fredric Jameson I Knew,” was published in Jacobin (September 27, 2024). Additionally, Rob’s “Cognitive Mapping Today” appears in the American Book Review 32.2 (Summer 2024).
- Rob Tally’s article, “The Generosity of Fredric Jameson: Reflections by Robert T. Tally Jr.,” was published in Spectre (October 8, 2024).
- Robert Tally‘s essay “Imaginative Geographies” appears in The Encyclopedia of Human Geography (Springer, 2024).
- Robert Tally’s review of Hamish Williams’s J.R.R. Tolkien’s Utopianism and the Classics appears in the latest issue of Mythlore, which also contains a review of Rob’s Representing Middle-earth: Tolkien, Form, and Ideology.
- Robert Tally’s brief essay “Unhappy is the Land that Needs Heroes: Remembering Fredric Jameson” appears on the online journal of the International Brecht Society: https://e-cibs.org/2024/12/16/unhappy-is-the-land-that-needs-heroes-remembering-fredric-jameson-robert-t-tally-jr/.
- Robert Tally’s article “The Logic of the Situation: Space, Mapping, and the Sense of Place” appears in The Journal of East–West Comparative Literature.
- The latest issue of symplokē contains a special “Reformation” section on Fredric Jameson’s The Benjamin Files, organized and edited by Robert Tally. This issue also includes Rob’s article “‘I’m as mad as Hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore’: Anger, Critique, and the Culture Wars 2.0,” plus a review of Rob’s 2023 book, The Critical Situation: Vexed Perspectives in Postmodern Literary Studies.
- Robert Tally’s article “‘Fiery the Angels rose’: The Romantic Prometheanism of Tolkien’s Diabolical Characters” appears in the Journal of Tolkien Research 20.1 (2024) linked here.
FEATURED WORK AND SPECIAL APPEARANCES, INCLUDING INVITED TALKS, KEYNOTES, INTERVIEWS
- Cyrus Cassells was interviewed for a podcast of the My Fourth Act project, in an episode titled “Cyrus Cassells: When Novels Want to Be Written.”
- Doug Dorst was a featured guest on The Failing Writers Podcast (S4 E19), discussing ergodic fiction and his novel S. (2013), which was a collaborative project with filmmaker J. J. Abrams.
- William Jensen was filmed discussing Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian at the Hueco Tanks outside El Paso for the French documentary series Invitation au Voyage as part of their recent episode “Le Texas rouge sang de Cormac McCarthy,” which aired on November 11.
- Katie Kapurch gave an invited talk, “The Most Exciting Organ Ever: Billy Preston, Victory Baptist Church-Los Angeles, and the Beatles,” for a continuing education course sponsored by the University of Michigan.
- Susan Morrison gave two talks (in German) in Berlin entitled: “What is Past is Present: My Stasi-File and the Wall Newspaper” and “What is Past is Present: My Stasi-File and the Three Most Important Words in German.” The talks were held at the art gallery “nogallery” and Schwanenwerder, the site of the artist house where Susan’s three-month residency sponsored by the Cordts Art Foundation is located. She also was interviewed by the professors and students of the class “Wannsee: Laboratory for the Future” from Burg Giebichenstein, University of Art and Design Halle. Here are two links: http://www.women-artists-in-residence.berlin/en/artists/morrison.htm and http://www.women-artists-in-residence.berlin/de/pdfs/news_202407_1_einladung_lesungen_morrison_susan.pdf
- Bianca Alyssa Pérez’s poem “Corona de Cristo” from her chapbook Gemini Gospel was the October 18, 2024 featured poem in Poetry Daily.
- Robert Tally was interviewed by Aswin Prasanth and Krishnaja T. S., which was recently published in the online journal Twelve Winters. Read “An Interview with Robert T. Tally Jr.” here.
- Robert Tally is among the featured speakers in “Always Historicize?”, the latest episode of The American Vandal podcast from The Center for Mark Twain Studies.
- Robert Tally’s book The Fiction of Dread: Dystopia, Monstrosity, and Apocalypse was featured in a Times Literary Supplement review “Modern Monsters: Gothic Goes Mainstream in Contemporary Literature” (November 1, 2024).
- Robert Tally was a keynote speaker (remotely) for Space/Place from the Perspective of the Social Sciences, the Fifth International Humanities Conference, İsmir Demokrasi Üniversity in Turkey, November 15–17.
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
- Andrew Barton presented a paper entitled “What Makes a Game Cozy?: Defining the Genre” at the annual conference for the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts in Dallas.
- Chris Dayley presented at the annual conference of the Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication. His presentation, “Dismantling Whiteness in TPC Academic Programs,” discussed how professional and technical communication academic programs can facilitate better learning outcomes and higher retention rates through more inclusive practices.
- Kathleen McClancy chaired the 2024 meeting of the Comics Arts Conference at the San Diego Comic-Con.
- Kathleen McClancy chaired the panel “The Future of the Past: Nostalgia and Speculative Comics” at the Framing the Unreal conference in Venice, Italy, where she presented “The Nostalgia (Bi)Cycle: From Form to Genre on Two Wheels in Paper Girls.”
- Amanda Mixon presented a paper, “Reflections on Minnie Bruce Pratt & the History of Queer Theory,” on a panel honoring the work and legacy of Minnie Bruce Pratt at the National Women’s Studies Association annual conference in Detroit (November 14–17).
- Susan Morrison gave a talk, “‘The Fate of an Entire Generation’: The Ethical Responsibilities of the Target,” in a session entitled Days of Our Lives in Secret Police Files at the Association for Slavic, East European, & Eurasian Studies annual convention in Boston.
ALUMNI NEWS
PUBLICATIONS
Scholarly & Creative Works
- MFA Fiction alum Sabah Carrim’s article “Neuroscientific Evidence in Trials of Young Perpetrators Involved in Armed Conflict and Mass Atrocity” appears in The Journal of Genocide Research.
- MFA alum Charmaine Denison-George (’24)’s short story “Travelling Men Don’t Die” was published as the title story in Travelling Men Don’t Die: Captivating Stories From Africa (Afritondo Media and Publishing, 2024). This anthology also features a story (“Fading Mehndi”) by MFA alum Sabah Carrim.
- MLA alum Howard Meh-Buh’s micro-essay “My Sister’s Gift” was published in The New York Times.
- MFA alum Evan McMurry’s article, “America’s Battle Over Darwinism Was Personal,” appears in The Atlantic.
- MFA alum Rebecca Danelly Oxley’s poem “The Good Life” was published in the August 2024 issue of Kestrel: A Journal of Literature and Art. Rebecca is a Lecturer at the University of Houston–Downtown.
ANNOUNCEMENTS: MAJOR CAREER NEWS
- Eric Blankenburg (MFA in Fiction, ’16) has been appointed as the Interim Dean of Academic Affairs at Anoka Technical College in Anoka, Minnesota.
- Texas State English alum Christian Wallace has co-created (with Taylor Sheridan) a Paramount+ series called Landman, which debuted on November 17, 2024.
EVENT PREVIEW: SPRING 2025 VISITING SPEAKERS
As we close out 2024, we’re gearing up for another exciting semester in Spring 2025! Peruse our schedule below to learn more about upcoming visiting writers, as well as other events to look forward to.
Mark your calendars—we hope to see you soon!
Wednesday, February 5, 7 PM @ Katherine Anne Porter House: Justin Torres
JUSTIN TORRES is the author of Blackouts, which won the 2023 National Book Award for Fiction, was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Lambda Literary award, and the Southern California Book Award. A 2024 Guggenheim Fellow, he’s also received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center. His first novel, We the Animals was a national bestseller and adapted into a feature film. He lives Los Angeles, and is an associate professor of English at UCLA.
Wednesday, February 12, 3:30 PM @ Flowers Hall 230: Amanda Johnston
AMANDA JOHNSTON is the 2024 Texas State Poet Laureate and a 2024 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow. The author of Another Way to Say Enter, Amanda is a former Board President of Cave Canem Foundation, a member of the Affrilachian Poets, cofounder of Black Poets Speak Out, and founder of Torch Literary Arts.
Wednesday, February 26, 3:30 PM @ Wittliff Collections: Saúl Hernández
SAÚL HERNÁNDEZ is a queer writer from San Antonio, TX who was raised by undocumented parents. A Macondista, a 2021 Tin House alum, and a 2024 Lambda Literary Fellow, he earned an MFA in Creative Writing from The University of Texas at El Paso. His debut collection How to Kill a Goat & Other Monsters is out now.
Thursday, February 27, @ LBJ Ballroom: African American Read-In (More details to come)
The National African American Read-In (AARI) is a groundbreaking effort to encourage communities to read together, centering African American books and authors. It was established in 1990 by the Black Caucus of the National Council of Teachers of English to make literacy a significant part of Black History Month. This initiative has reached more than 6 million participants around the world.
Wednesday, April 2, 3 PM: Endowed Chair Reading @ Wittliff Collections: Layli Long Soldier
LAYLI LONG SOLDIER received a BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts and an MFA from Bard College. She is the author of the poetry collection WHEREAS (Graywolf Press, 2017), which won the 2018 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and was shortlisted for the National Book Award. Long Soldier has received a Lannan Literary Fellowship, a National Artist Fellowship from the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, and a Whiting Writers’ Award. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Wednesday, April 9, 3 PM: Clark Prize Reading @ Wittliff Collections (More details to come)
This award is given to a novelist.
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More information about the Clark Prize can be found here:
https://www.english.txst.edu/about/clark/fiction-prize.html
More information about the Therese Kayser Lindsey Literary Series can be found here:
https://www.english.txst.edu/about/tkl.html
More information about the Katherine Anne Porter Literary Center can be found here:
https://kapliterarycenter.txst.edu
MORE ABOUT TXST ENGLISH NEWS
Watch this space!
The TXST English Newsletter will appear biannually.
The Fall 2024 inaugural issue includes news submitted between September and December 2024. Future Spring issues will include news items submitted between January and June; future Fall issues will include news items submitted between July and December.
Links for updated newsletters appear on the department homepage (linked here), as well as in department emails and on social media.
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