Morning, Winter Solstice

Dr. Deborah Fleming, chair of the department, has published her poetry collection Morning, Winter Solstice with Vineyard Press of New York.  The poems are concerned with two bioregions in Ohio and tell the stories of the power of nature to restore itself and the way in which nature gives rise to  myth.

Ashland Poetry Workshop

This December, the Ashland University English Department invites regional poets to a free poetry workshop weekend.  The event includes workshop sessions, seminars, and readings by the workshop instructors. 

Guest presenter Lynn Powell will give a reading and a seminar that will focus on the work of two of Ohio's most prominent and influential poets - Mary Oliver (who is an Ohio native) and Elton Glaser (who has lived in Ohio for close to forty years).

Workshops will be led by Lynn Powell, Deborah Fleming (English Department chair), Stephen Haven (Director of the MFA Program), and Sarah M. Wells (Administrative Director of the MFA Program).

Any and all poets are welcome to register, but space is limited, so please contact Sarah Wells by November 24 at swells@ashland.edu or 419.289.5957 to register.

When: December 1 and 2, 2012
Where: Ashland University, Ashland, Ohio

Visit the Ashland Poetry Workshop blog for complete details, travel information, and local accommodations.

Funding for this program was made possible in part by the Ohio Humanities Council with support by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in the program do not necessarily reflect those of the National Endowment for the Humanities, or of the Ohio Humanities Council.

Country Boys and Nazi Comedy

Sarah Wells Reading: Monday October 29

On Monday, October 29, poet and essayist Sarah M. Wells will be reading from her work.  Sarah is the author of Pruning Burning Bushes from Wipf and Stock Publishers (2012), and a chapbook of poems, Acquiesce, winner of the 2008 Starting Gate Award through Finishing Line Press (2009). Poems by Wells have appeared or are forthcoming in Alimentum, Ascent, Christianity & Literature, JAMA, Literary Mama, Measure, New Ohio Review, Nimrod, Poetry East, Puerto del Sol, Rock & Sling, and elsewhere. Her essays have been published by Ascent and River Teeth.  The reading will be held in 138 Schar College of Education at 4:30.

Sarah's poetry has been honored with two Pushcart Prize nominations. Her essay, "Those Summers, These Days" was named a notable essay in the Best American Essays 2012. She has received scholarships to attend the Key West Literary Seminar and West Chester Poetry Conferences. The beginning of her essay "Country Boys, City Boys" can be found here.  For more about Sarah, visit her blog at http://www.sarahmwells.com/p/bio.html.

Film Studies Lecture: Friday, 11/2, 3:00 pm, 115 Dauch

If you saw Quentin Tarantino's last film, you know that there was a Nazi film industry during World War II.  But have you ever wondered what Nazi-era German film comedy was like?  Dr. Valerie Weinstein of the University of Cincinnati will give a talk entitled "Laughing Matters:  Film Comedy and the Politics of Race in Nazi Germany."  Dr. Valerie Weinstein is an Assistant Professor of German Studies at the University of Cincinnati. She has also taught at Williams College, University of Nevada--Reno, and Tulane University. She earned her Ph.D. from Cornell University in 2001 and has published articles on Weimar and Nazi Cinema and on other aspects of nineteenth- and twentieth-century German literature and culture. She is currently working on a book-length project on Antisemitism and Third Reich Film Comedy.

 

STD End of Year Cookout

To celebrate the end of the year, members of Sigma Tau Delta, the English Honors Society, got together with department faculty at the home of Michael and Hilary Donatini (who has since welcomed a daughter to her family).  On a splendid late spring day a wonderful time was had by all, and Lindsay Arron amazed everyone with her pitch-perfect imitations of all her professors.  

Senior Reading

 Please join us on Monday, April 23, 2012 at 4:30 pm in 138 Schar for a reading of creative work by Ashland University undergraduate students, featuring graduating senior Laura Huntington.  All types of creative work will be read--essays, short fiction, and poems. Please come and support creative writing at Ashland University and enjoy the work being done by our students.

Spring Readings

English Department Spring Readings Set for April

The readings will take place in Room 138 of the Dwight Schar College of Education Building and is free and open to the public. The readings begin at 4:30 p.m. followed by refreshments at 5:30 p.m.  For more information, please contact Kari Repuyan at 419.289.5110 or at krepuyan@ashland.edu.

 

JENNIFER HAIGH - FICTION - APRIL 9, 2012

Jennifer Haigh is a novelist and short story writer. Her novels – Faith, The Condition, Baker Towers and Mrs. Kimble have won both the PEN/Hemingway Award for debut fiction and the PEN/L.L. Winship Award for outstanding book by a New England writer, and have been published in sixteen languages. Her short stories have been published in The Atlantic, Granta, The Saturday Evening Post and many other magazines. A native of western Pennsylvania, she earned her M.F.A. in fiction writing at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and now lives in the Boston area.

RICHARD HOFFMAN -NONFICTION - APRIL 16, 2012

Richard Hoffman is the author of Half the House: a Memoir, and the poetry collections, Without Paradise, Gold Star Road, winner of the 2006 Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize and the 2008 Sheila Motton Award from the New England Poetry Club, and his latest, Emblem. A fiction writer as well, his Interference & Other Stories was published in 2009.  His work has appeared in Agni, Ascent, Harvard Review, Hudson Review, The Literary Review, Poetry, Witness and other magazines. His new memoir, Love & Fury, will be published by Beacon Press in Fall 2013. He teaches at Emerson College and currently serves as Chair of PEN New England.

Maura Grady Brings Film Studies to AU English

Maura Grady poses with her collection of Mad Men figures.

New English faculty member Maura Grady is piloting Ashland University’s screenwriting course, which replaced playwriting in the creative writing major.   She also teaches ENG371 Literature and Film, and is developing new courses in film history, theory, and production, with the goal of offering a major in film studies in conjunction with Ashland’s Journalism and Digital Media (JDM) department.  She earned a Ph.D. in English with a film studies dissertation from the University of California-Davis, and taught at the University of Nevada-Reno before coming to Ashland.   Her most recent publication is on the television show Mad Men, and she is revising her book about women in films about the workplace, a study that goes from the early film serial Hazards of Helen to The Devil Wears Prada (2006).  A big fan of film genre, such as film noir, science fiction, screwball comedy, westerns, melodrama, and slasher films, Grady teaches films such as James Cameron’s original Terminator in addition to more canonical film.  In her screenwriting class she is having students analyze Robert Rodriguez’s El Mariachi, famously produced on a shoestring budget of $7000, to learn how to make a successful feature film without breaking the bank.  While a major in film studies is still probably a few years away, current AU students can major in English and creative writing, study screenwriting and adaptation, and make their own films using the state-of-the-art digital equipment.