Category Archives: conference

Branding Girls in St. Louis

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As promised, here are two of the poems I read from BRANDING GIRLS in the creative writing poetry panel at MMLA.

I read five from the collection, but the door was open at the beginning of my reading and so there’s a bit of background noise in a few of the clips. I’m posting only the best.

I had a great time in STL!

Speaking of branding, I did do some tourist stuff while there, including the FREE tour of Anheuser-Bush. I’m not much for beer, any beer, American made or otherwise, but that caveat aside, Anheuser-Bush is smart in their marketing, promotion, and branding. First, the hour tour is FREE. You get to see the brewery, learn about the history of the company, and are walked around the “campus” of the company. This tour is lead by super-cute twenty-somethings who are smart, funny, and fit. They look like they would drink beer. They look like they’d be fun to hang out with. During the tour, you get to see the Clydesdale horses munching happily in an expansive arena. In the stables, the dalmatians, on cue, enter and mingle with the crowd, tails a-wagging. The dogs are friendly. They let you pet, scratch, and snap their picture. After the tour, you are given two FREE beers and as many FREE pretzels as you can eat and as much FREE Pepsi products as you can drink. Then you go home and tell all your friends about all the FREE stuff, post pictures of your FREE tour on Facebook, maybe *ahem* write about all the FREE stuff on your blog, and likely, have a new fondness, by the fact of all the FREENESS alone, for Anheuser-Bush.

Smart, smart, branding.

Branding St. Louis

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I’m reading from BRANDING GIRLS in the panel “Creative Writing: Poetry” this Friday at MMLA. Sunday, I join fellow DISPATCHES FROM THE CLASSROOM anthology contributors in the panel “Writers at Play: Exercises and Suggestions for the Creative Writing Classroom.” If you won’t be able to attend and still want a copy of the activity “Playing with Their Senses: The Feel of Things in the Creative Writing Classroom,” send me a note and I’ll send it your way.

Reading (poetry) at MMLA
12-1:30, Friday, November 4, 2011
St. Louis, Missouri

Reading (prose) at MMLA
8:30-10, Sunday, November 6, 2011
St. Louis, Missouri

I’m super excited for the reading and panel! I promise video clips when I return. In other news, I’m in UNL’s recent newsletter. The current issue of Cream City Review features two of poems on Matilda Fletcher from my dissertation. I’ve been working on getting stuff ready for my forthcoming chapbook SHE WHO LOVES HER FATHER from Dancing Girl Press. More on that soon.

up north

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I’ve returned from Fargo, North Dakota where I gave a poetry reading at 3:15 p.m. on March 26 at Red River Graduate Student Conference at the Memorial Union at North Dakota State University. I read from my dissertation on Matilda Fletcher and from Branding Girls.

I had a great time at the conference listening to good presentations and Q&A. I also got to do some research on a new project I’ve started during brief stopovers in Iowa. But I must say the travels to the conference were by far the most surprising. For example, I saw many deer, a muskrat, eagles, migrating birds, a pair of sandhill cranes, another pair of Canadian Geese walking the parking lot at Mills Fleet Farm, a fox, and two wolves along the freeway making their way through a field of snow in South Dakota. Wolves. Kid you not. I’d heard wolves before. I’d seen caged wolves at zoos, but seeing the two wolves free and wild was worth the trip. Wow.

Up and coming, I will be reading from my dissertation at the Rawley Conference, 9 a.m. Saturday April 9, 2011, here at UNL in the Union. Hope I see you there!

early turkey-day thanks

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Things I’m thankful for:

  • I’ve just sent Arts & Letters the proof of my essay “Hunger.” I’m so excited to have my essay in their spring issue!
  • One of my advisers, Joy Castro, wrote about my capstone oral for my comprehensive exams, which took place at the end of October.
  • I’m officially ABD! Or, as Joy called it in her post, All but done. Yippee!!
  • As part of my residency this past summer is: My poem “Maternal Lineage” is up on the National Park Service’s Herbert Hoover Historic Site website (a residency which was mentioned in USA Today. Wow). There’s an audio file of it too:

Maternal Lineage

  • Split This Rock accepted the panel proposal I and two other fantastic poets submitted. We’re doing a panel on writing the activist body. It’s going to be super fun!
  • My wonderful adviser Carole Levin has motivated me to look into fellowships. Thanks Carole!
  • The amazing editors at Pudding House and Dancing Girl Press are publishing my chapbooks Ghost Girl and My Imaginary, respectfully.
  • A short story I wrote has been accepted for the Fall 2009 Relief Anthology, edited by J. K. Richard. Yeah!
  • And of course: my sweet A.

Matilda in South Dakota

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I’ve just returned from Spearfish, South Dakota where I presented in the 2009 Western Literature Association Conference, “Lecturers, Matriarchs, Writers, Outdoorswomen: Voices from the Placeless Women of the West.” Joining me in the panel were two great writers, a poet scholar on “The Yellow Wallpaper” and a prose writer on gender. I read poems on Matilda Fletcher, the 19th century lecturer and suffragist from Iowa. She too spoke in South Dakota, over a hundred years ago. It was a fantastic panel. Thank you all who attended and who stopped by to say hello after the talk!

Because the conference was in the beautiful Black Hills, I did spend some time site-seeing. I made it over to Devil’s Tower, to Mount Rushmore, to the Bad Lands, and a few other spots, here and there. Even driving through South Dakota I couldn’t help but to think, what an amazing country.

awp 2009 – chicago

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Now that I’ve had a chance to recover from my first ever AWP, I thought I’d post a few photos. I presented in “‘Memory of Wounds’: Memoirists Tell Truth, Lies, and Memory” with Joy Castro (The Truth Book), Karen McElmurry (The Motel of Stars), Kelly Gray Carlisle (former managing editor of Prairie Schooner), Lucy Ferriss, and Carrie Anne Tocci. We had a great turn out. Here’s a few:

chicago awp 2009

chicago awp 2009

Besides my panel, I heard Jeanne Leiby (of The Southern Review) and Jocelyn Bartkevicius (of The Florida Review) share their wisdom in creative nonfiction, both in writing and as publishers. Also in nonfiction, Carrie Pomeroy explained her process in writing an essay about her mother. Robin Becker (my favorite of her books is All-American Girl), Katharine Haake, and others discussed creative writing pedagogy. And, I heard many, many more excellent writers, teachers, and editors speak, read, and advise. A great time all around.

Of course, I also took advantage of Chicago’s beautiful waterfront walk, museums, buildings, Michigan Avenue, and other pleasures. A few more concluding images:

the sub in the museum of science and industry

near navy pier

the bean