Danny Kraft
Poetry Participant, '19He has started Di Freyd fun Yidishn Vort/The Joy of the Yiddish Word, a free online newsletter of Yiddish poetry in translation.
Omnium Gatherum: Alumni & Teaching Staff News
Welcome to the Community of Writers Omnium Gatherum & Alumni News. We invite you to find out what our community has been up to recently. You may view by date or by program (see left sidebar). Sign up for monthly updates here.
We also invite alumni and staff to submit your news here. Please note that news must be less than 12 months old, brief and to the point, and may be edited for brevity and/or clarity.
Andrew Tonkovich
Fiction Workshop participant; Fiction workshop teaching staffHis essay on Michelle Latiolais’ novel SHE appears in a new collection, The Many Voices of
the Los Angeles Novel (Cambridge Scholars Press). The essay, “Ariadne’s Thread or Things Befall Apart (Together) in L.A.: She by Michelle Latiolais,” appears alongside laudatory meditations on the work of writers Wanda Coleman, Joan Didion and Carolyn See, among others.
Lawrence Coates
Writers Workshop Participant '18His story “The Ferry and the Road,” which appeared in Story in 2021, was named a Finalist for the 2022 Spur Award in Short Fiction, given by Western Writers of America. The story was workshopped at the Community of Writers in 2018. It is also the first chapter of his novel-in-progress.
Tim Wendel
Fiction Workshop participant '87, '88; Screenwriting Workshop participant '07His latest novel, Escape from Castro’s Cuba, received the Professional Achievement Award for Johns Hopkins University faculty. In addition, the novel was a finalist, and the only work of fiction, selected for the Casey Award, given annually to the best baseball book.
Jeff Adams
Writers Workshop Participant '19His short story “Around Here Somewhere” appears in the Spring 2022 issue of 34 Orchard.
Corey Campbell
Writers Workshops Participant, '18Her short story “In a Burning Volcano” appeared in Salamander, issue #53 (Fall/Winter 2021-2022). It was a finalist for the Salamander 2021 Fiction Prize.
Attended with the help of Isobel English Scholarship
Diane Wolff
Writers Workshop participant '83; Screenwriting Workshop participant '84Her Palace Drama Fish Shoes has been posted on the story platform Wattpad in episodes. “What happens when the daughter of Emperor Khubilai Khan must persuade her father to listen to her husband, the King of Korea and desist from invading Japan by sea? To read it for free, download the Wattpad app and go to Historical Fiction.
Sands Hall
Fiction Workshop teaching staffHer piece on “finding current relevancy—and outrage—in the accusations of plagiarism that have long haunted a classic of the West: Wallace Stegner’s Angle of Repose” is out now in Alta.
Terence Clarke
Writers Workshop Participant '72, '73His fourteenth book, a story collection titled San Francisco, will be published on June 1, 2022. It is so titled because every story takes place in that city. One of the stories, “Crusts of Bread and Such,” will appear in the Fall 2022 issue of Catamaran Literary Reader.
Sholeh Wolpé
Writers Workshsop Participant,'04Her most recent book Abacus of Loss: A Memoir in Verse (University of Arkansas Press, March 2022) is hailed by Ilya Kaminsky as a book “that created its own genre—a thrill of lyric combined with the narrative spell.” A short film about the book marries her poetry and voice to music and film: https://youtu.be/0iHMAZwYrhw
Alix Christie
Writers Workshop Participant '00Her short story “Everychild” won the 2022 Jeffrey E. Smith Editor’s Prize in fiction from the Missouri Review and appears in the spring 2022 issue. Her second novel, a family epic of the fur trade set in the 19th century Pacific Northwest, will be published in spring 2023 by High Road Books, an imprint of the University of New Mexico Press. Her latest book, “Toxic: A Daughter’s Memoir of Desertion”, is out on submission.
Gretchen McCullough
Writers Workshop Participant, '06, '08, '19Her translation with the poet, Mohamed Metwalli’s book, A Song on the Aegean Sea will be published by Laertes Press, May 2022.
Stella Santamaria
Poetry Workshop participant '21Her “zip ode” was selected as the week 1 spotlight poem for WLRN/ O, Miami Zip Ode Project and featured on air and on instagram for the O, Miami Poetry Festival. She will be reading her poem in the virtual Zip Odes Finale on Wednesday, April 27 at 7 PM ET.
Attended with the help of Ancina Family Scholarship
Vishwas Gaitonde
Writers Workshop Participant, '14His short story ‘Vermin’ was published in the 2021 issue of Descant.
Anthony J. Mohr
Writers Workshops participant '08His essay, “The Wonderful World of Beverly Hills,” was published in the winter 2022 issue of Mason Street Review. In March, 2022, his essay, “The Hamburger,” appeared in Ink, a Hippocampus anthology.
Linda Toren
Poetry Workshop participant '98, '02; Art of the Wild '03Raven Braids the Wind, from Wisdom through Manzanita Writer’s Press (MWP), is her first poetry collection to be published.
Daniel Pope
Writers Workshop participant, '19, '21His short story, “Good Neighbors,” which was chosen as a finalist for the 2021 Narrative 30 Below Contest, was published as a Story of the Week in Narrative Magazine in April 2022.
Attended with the help of Carlisle Family Scholarship
Stella Santamaria
Poetry Participant, '21Her poem was selected for the WLRN/ Zip Odes Project for the O, Miami Poetry Festival.
Attended with the help of Ancinas Scholarship
Anna Hogeland
Writers Workshop Participant, '19Her debut novel, The Long Answer, was published by Riverhead Books (Penguin Random House) on June 21, 2022.
Attended with the help of UCI scholarship
Ruben Quesada
Poetry Workshop participant '07His anthology of edited essays, Latinx Poetics: Essays on the Art of Poetry, will be published by the University of New Mexico Press this November.
Ruben Quesada
Poetry Workshop participant '07He has a new poem “My Mother Is a Garden” in Issue 41 of The Adroit Journal.
Attended with the help of UC Riverside scholarship
Anna Lena Phillips Bell
Poetry participant, '21Her poem “Emerald (a charm for ash)” won the 2021 Winter Anthology Contest, and appears in volume 12 of the Winter Anthology online.
Ann Fisher-Wirth
Poetry Workshop participant '92, '00, '09, '13, '20She is retiring in June after nearly 50 years of university teaching. She is currently coediting an anthology of eco-poetry, prose, and art from Africa, Asia, Latin America, Oceania, and the Southern US for the journal Global South; and coediting a Literary Field Guide to Mississippi. She will be in residence at Storyknife, the women writers’ retreat in Homer, Alaska, in October 2022, where she’ll work on a new book of poems.
Laura Secord
Poetry Workshop Participant '00, '03Her new historical novel-in-verse, An Art, a Craft, a Mystery (Livingston Press, 2022), is
a family saga told in a series of short poems. A hybrid of poetry, historical fiction and feminist literature, it tells the stories of two real women, Lydea Gilbert and Katherine (Kate) Harrison, who lived along the frontier of the Connecticut River in the mid 1600s. They were healers, midwives, farmers and ordinary women who faced the struggles and joys of life in a wild new land. They were women in a puritan culture, women of intuitive genius and healing powers, who lived through times where feminine power and the value of women’s lives was suspect and condemned.
Mary F. Burns
Writers Workshops Participant, '05Her fourth historical mystery in the John Singer Sargent/Violet Paget series is out now! The Eleventh Commandment was dubbed by Kirkus Reviews as “A thrilling whodunit and an edifying work of historical fiction….an exceedingly intelligent and entertaining novel.”
Caroline Kim
Writers Workshops Participant, '18, '19Her short story “Motherhood” appears in the Spring 2022 Issue of STORY Magazine.
Victoria Dalkey
Poetry Participant '92Her poem Making Love I Remember a Dark Wood appears in the Spring 2022 issue of Birmingham Poetry Review number 49.
Sergio Reyes
Poetry Workshop Participant '20, '21In April 2022, Rosebud Magazine published “The Forbidden Kingdom”, a poem selected as finalist in the 2021 Rosebud Poetry Contest.
Sergio wrote this poem, originally entitled “Monday blob” for a Monday morning workshop led by Camille Dungy in 2020. By coincidence, Lester Graves Lennon also attended this workshop. Later that year, he assumed the role of Poetry editor for Rosebud Magazine and judged the poetry contest.
Issue #69 of Rosebud Magazine is currently available at Barnes & Noble bookstores.
Jennifer Egan
Writers Workshop participant '89Her new novel, The Candy House, was published on April 5, 2022 from Scribner’s.
Shelley Wong
Poetry Participant, '16Her debut full-length poetry collection As She Appears (YesYes Books), winner of the 2019 Pamet River Prize, will be published in May, 2022.
