Newsletter: February 2023

Our monthly newsletter, published online, celebrates the latest publications, acceptances, projects, presentations, awards, accolades, teaching highlights, activities, and more of English faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates.

Publications, Exhibits, and Acceptances

DJ Lee published the poems “Outside Zion” and “Divided by Zero,” and her photograph of Lake Michigan, in Global City Review’s 25th edition, whose theme is “Do We Have A Future.” Lee’s poem “Mima Mounds” was accepted for publication in the anthology Migrations to be published by NatureCulture.

Grant Maierhofer has a novel out on Kernpunkt Press this spring called Ebb, which was written entirely without using the letter A. He will also have a book out in the summer on Kernpunkt called Sentence-Making, which is more of a craft book that analyzes The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy.

Linda Russo’s poem “With Táamsas” appears in Plumwood Mountain, an Australian and International Journal of Ecopoetry and Ecopoetics.

As part of a group of essays on the relationship between misogyny and racism directed toward women of Asian descent, Pamela Thoma published in October 2022 “Learning from and Walking Lightly Through Pandemic Racism and Misogyny to Another World” in The American Mosaic: The Asian American Experience, an ABC-CLIO (Bloomsbury) educational database.

Lauren Westerfield’s collection of experimental essays and autofictions, Depth Control, will be published by Portland-based Unsolicited Press in 2025.

As the Nonfiction/Hybrid editor at Split/Lip Press, Lauren Westerfield is thrilled to celebrate the publication of Halfway From Home: Essays by Sarah Fawn Montgomery (November 2022). Westerfield served as the developmental and line editor for Montgomery’s collection, which has since been named “2022 Impressive Indie Book” by Independent Book Review and a 2022 Rumpus Prose Gift Guide selection.

Conferences, Readings, Workshops, Performances, and Presentations

Buddy Levy was a recent invited guest on a number of popular podcasts, including The Art of Manliness, No Barriers with Erik Weihenmayer, and History Nerds United. Links to the No Barriers and History Nerds United: No Barriers Apple Podcasts | History Nerds United

Buddy Levy was an invited guest expert on the History channel TV series History’s Greatest Mysteries, hosted by Academy Award Nominee and Emmy winning actor Laurence Fishburne, on January 7. Levy’s on-camera interview took place in Los Angeles, and dealt with the subject of the historical search for El Dorado, based on Levy’s book River of Darkness: Francisco Orellana and the Deadly First Voyage Through the Amazon.

Buddy Levy appeared on 12 radio programs (including nationally syndicated NPR stations as well as international radio programs) and 6 podcasts between November 30, 2022, and January 11, 2023, in support of his recently released book Empire of Ice and Stone: The Disastrous and Heroic Voyage of the Karluk.

The English Graduate Student Professional Development seminar, organized by Patty Wilde and Nishant Shahani, took place on February 3. Focusing on careers in libraries and archives, this session included the following panelists: Trevor Bond (he/his), Associate Dean for Digital Initiatives and Special Collections and Director of the Center for Arts and Humanities at Washington State University (PhD Public History, WSU); Nora Kuster (she/her), Head of the Humanities Library, Subject Librarian for English and American Studies and Director of the USA-Bibliothek at the University of Mainz in Germany (PhD English–Literary Studies, WSU); Kathryn Manis (she/their), Special Collections Instructor and Community Engagement Librarian at the University of Georgia in Athens (PhD candidate English–Rhetoric and Composition, WSU).

Pamela Thoma was a participant in “Transgressive Pedagogies of Feminist Theory: Conversations with the Editors and Users of Feminist Theory Reader,” a session at the annual conference in November 2022 of the National Women’s Studies Association in Minneapolis.

For the 2023 MLA Convention, Pamela Thoma presented “Refusing the Return: Illusory Separations, Debility, and Academic Post Work Imaginaries” in the Medical Humanities session titled “Returning to ‘Normal’ University Life: Pandemic Pedagogies during Debilitating Times.”

Lauren Westerfield gave an invited talk titled “Working With a Book Editor” for Mapping the Maze: Chart Your Path to Publication, a virtual writing conference hosted by Poets and Writers, in November 2022.

Teaching Highlights, Activities, and Innovations

At the English Department Open Mic on January 12, two finalists—Jada Rome and Arshaan Kahn—and winner Joel Kemegue of the Campus Civic Poet Award were featured and shared their work with the audience. Students Adaline Grace and Kailyn Edwards in English 357 designed PR materials to help get the word out. The Campus Civic Poet Award is offered annually and jointly by the Department of English and the MLK Program to celebrate a student’s commitment to activism and spoken word in our campus community. The award includes a $500 honorarium, mentorship, and invitation to read at civic-related events such as the annual MLK Celebration, the National Day of Racial Healing, and the Elson S. Floyd Cultural and Performing Arts Series.

Linguistics Club met on January 13 and 20 with advisor Michael Thomas. The club discussed dialects and Nic David’s 13 Months of Sukur. The film was presented by the site linguist for the UNESCO Sukur World Heritage Site.

WSU’s National Day of Racial Healing took place on Tuesday, January, 17. Cameron McGill organized a reading in conjunction with the event at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art where English Department faculty and students read works that engage the themes of: making a commitment to teaching anti-racism in the classroom; encouraging conversations and ways to heal in a safe environment; and promoting restoration and communication. The English Department partnered with Manuscripts, Archives and Special Collections to print copies of Ross Gay’s “A Small Needful Fact” on the library’s letterpress. Other members of the planning committee include Bryan Fry, Linda Russo, and Kristin Becker. English alum and former Campus Civic Poet Allyson Pang, who read at the event, wrote an article for AsAmNews on WSU’s Asian American and Pacific Islander mural and the National Day of Racial Healing.

The English Graduate Organization (EGO) sponsored the “EGO Back to the School Party” on Friday, January 20, in the Bundy Reading Room.

The Editing and Publishing Certificate Guest Speaker Series kicked off on January 24 with Blood Orange Review editors Colin Criss and Grant Maierhofer discussing their work editing a literary journal. On January 31, Lauren Westerfield invited three of her fellow Split/Lip Press editors for a virtual panel on independent and small press publishing (Kate Finegan, David Wojciechowski, Kristine Langley Mahler). Future speaker events will be announced to all department students, faculty, and staff, and will take place in the Bundy Reading Room.

Volume 15.1 of Blood Orange Review (BOR) will be published later this month. Please join Editor- in-Chief Lauren Westerfield and the editorial board in celebrating this 15th anniversary double issue of literature and art featuring winners of the inaugural BOR Emerging Writers Contest.

Roger Whitson and the Faculty Recognition Ceremony Committee will hold the 2023 Faculty Recognition Ceremony on Wednesday, April 12, from 5:00 to 7:00 PM in the Living Room of the Elson S Floyd Cultural Center. This is an informal get together celebrating the many and varied accomplishments of our faculty. Accomplishments can include but are not limited to: publications, exhibits, acceptances, conferences, readings, workshops, presentations, teaching highlights, activities, innovations, gatherings, awards, honors, prizes, fellowships, grants, short summaries of happenings, events, performances, symposia, and anything else you want to celebrate with your colleagues and students and the larger community. Please send your accomplishments and relevant snapshots over the last year (February 2022 – February 2023) to Roger as soon as possible.

WSU Visiting Writers Series, organized by Cameron McGill and Julian Ankney, will welcome the following writers in February: Angel Sobotta on February 7; Jose Hernandez Diaz on February 15; Robin Wall Kimmerer on February 21.

Upcoming English Department Open Mic nights will feature Grant Maierhofer on February 9, Jamie Flathers on March 9, and Jenny Liou on April 13. Open Mic is held in the Bundy Reading Room at 6:00 PM and all are welcome.

The English Graduate Organization (EGO) will be holding a Book and Bake Sale to raise funds for the 2023-2024 academic year. They are asking for donations of baked goods and books of any genre and length. Starting Monday, February 6, books can be dropped off at the designated boxes around Avery Hall. If you can donate baked goods, please contact Melanie Bell or Rashini Daluwatte.

English Graduate Organization’s Colloquium “This Book Will Change Your Life” will be Friday, March 31, at 3:00 PM in the Bundy Reading Room. Please submit abstracts of 250 words (students and faculty both are welcome to submit) by March 19 to Christel Woods.

The annual English Department Awards Ceremony will be held on Friday, March 31, from 3:00 to 5:00 PM. Please mark your calendars.

From the Chair’s Desk

February is a month of celebration for the English Department. Our faculty members have published remarkable poems, stories, essays, and books, for which we will recognize them at a Faculty Recognition Ceremony on Wednesday February 22 from 4:00 to 6:00 PM in the Living Room of the Elson S Floyd Cultural Center. Promotions will also be announced this month, which will give us even more to celebrate. We’ve had Editing and Publishing panels, Open Mics, English Club, and Linguistics Club meetings for our students. Just when we were sure there was nothing new under the sun, Linguistics Club discussed the 4,000-year-old tablets written in a “lost” Canaanite language that were discovered in Iraq, and they even include a love song. Happy Valentine’s Day, and thanks to all of the outstanding faculty, staff, and students, who have given us so much to celebrate!