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What do chickens, questions about motherhood, and Minnesota have in common with Boise State University’s creative writing program? Jackie Polzin (MFA, 2018) and her first novel “Brood.”
In the novel, an unnamed narrator works through the grief of a miscarriage by caring intently for her small brood of chickens – Gloria, Gam Gam, Darkness, and Miss Hennepin County. The narrator faces predators, neighbors, bad luck, an arctic Minnesota winter, then a sweltering summer.
“A lot of the story is rooted in true experience,” Polzin said. “It explores all kinds of feelings surrounding infertility, miscarriage, motherhood, and what it means if you want to be a mother and can’t be a mother. And, what does it matter to care for things?”
Read more at
https://www.boisestate.edu/giving/2022/06/24/alums-first-novel-meditates-on-grief-love-and-the-tenuous-art-of-raising-chickens/.
Boise State University College of Arts and Sciences
Boise State English Department
Boise State University MFA in Creative Writing
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Congratulations to Kelly Hopping, an assistant professor in Human-Environment Systems, and Jill Heney and Tiffany Hitesman, lecturers in the Department of English, who received a GEM3 Workforce Development Seed Grant for their project Collecting Gems: Improving Workforce Communication and Listening Skills Through Documenting Oral Histories of Idaho’s Sagebrush Steppe.
Working with others from across the Boise State University campus, they will collaborate with three interdisciplinary Vertically Integrated Projects (VIPs) to train students on collecting and archiving multi-generational oral histories from rural communities across Idaho’s sagebrush steppe.
The project addresses the need for increased visibility of rural voices in higher education, develops an archive of local knowledge and experience, emphasizes the practice of listening for researchers and participants, and positions students as interviewers and researchers through a multi-semester experiential learning project.
Boise State College of Innovation + Design
Boise State University College of Arts and Sciences
Boise State English Department
Several outstanding Broncos are pursuing highly competitive scholarships this spring, including six Fulbright semifinalists. Over the past five years, Boise State Honors College has doubled the number of students who receive scholarships while more than doubling the amount of scholarship money available to those students.
Nearly half of Boise State University’s Fulbright scholarship applicants become semifinalists. The six semifinalists for English teaching assistant awards abroad are:
• Olivia Bates (elementary education, ’20) – Indonesia
• Daniel Hopkins (history and social science secondary education, ’19) – Netherlands
• Wayne Hamilton (history, ’21) – Bosnia
• Sandra Siharath (psychology, ’21) – Laos
• Ben Geffon (English, linguistics, global studies, ’21) – Kazakhstan
• Julia Donegan (political science, ’19) – Malaysia
Winners of the Fulbright awards will be announced in the coming months.
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Boise State University College of Arts and Sciences
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The Best Value Schools website ranked Boise State University’s MFA in Creative Writing program one of the top five programs in the country for 2021 along with Stony Brook University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the University of Minnesota Twin Cities.
“It’s wonderful to see this new ranking, especially on the heels of three recent MFA graduates landing book deals: Mary Lowry (Simon & Schuster), Ariel Dixon (Random House), and Jackie Polzin (Doubleday Books),” wrote Mitch Wieland, professor of creative writing and editor of The Idaho Review. “Our fantastic students are what makes the creative writing program thrive and excel.”
Graduates in fiction have won an NEA fellowship, a Whiting Award, and a National Magazine Award. Meghan Kenny’s novel, “The Driest Season,” was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Two of the program’s graduates, Christian Winn and Malia Collins, were Idaho Writers-in-Residence.
https://www.bestvalueschools.org/writing-programs/
Boise State University College of Arts and Sciences
Boise State University MFA in Creative Writing
Theatre, Film and Creative Writing at Boise State University
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"I cannot completely express how grateful I am for the financial aid being provided to me by you. I've worked with utter dedication and determination throughout high school in order to achieve my goal of continuing to higher education. Financial aid such as this is what will make that dream a reality for me. A million times over, thank you." — Jordyn
Boise State English Department
Boise State University College of Education
Boise State University College of Arts and Sciences
This episode of the podcast series – which highlights Boise State University students, faculty and alumni who are proudly representing the university on campus and across the globe – places the spotlight on two exceptional students who are working to make Boise, and this university, home for everyone.
Halima Hamud, a political science major who has her sights set on holding leadership positions with ASBSU and beyond, came to America from Kenya when she was 11 years old. Shukuru Kamulete, a native of the Democratic Republic of Congo, relocated to Boise at age 14 and is now finishing his degree in social work. These two students discuss the many challenges they have overcome and their work in local high schools to encourage other refugee students that they, too, can achieve their dreams through higher education.
We also hear from Gail Shuck, professor of English at Boise State and the director of English language support programs.
Subscribe to Beyond The Blue on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever podcasts are streamed.
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Photo: February 2020
Congratulations to Jennifer Black, a lecturer in the Boise State English Department, who authored Leading From the Margins: Paulina in Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale” an article in SAGE Business Cases. Black argues that the play demonstrates the evolution of Paulina from a marginalized figure to an effective female leader.
As her abstract points out, “The Winter’s Tale” portrays the jealous king Leontes, who accuses his wife Hermione of committing adultery with his best friend Polixenes. Hermione’s servant Paulina confronts Leontes, but is ineffective in calming him with her bold criticisms of his behavior. As the play progresses, Paulina becomes a more effective leader, even in her position of relative powerlessness. Although she has no official status or authority, she learns to use patience and persistence to guide the king to become a wiser and more effective ruler, as well as to protect those for whom she cares.
Read the article at
https://sk.sagepub.com/cases/leading-from-the-margins-paulina-in-shakespeares-the-winters-tale.
Boise State University
Boise State University College of Arts and Sciences
Congratulations to Jenn Mallette, an associate professor in the Boise State English Department, and Boise State University senior English major Amanda Hawks who recently co-authored an article published in a special issue of the “Journal of Writing Assessment,” on contract grading.
The issue included voices from students, teachers, and researchers who tease out the implications, possibilities, and challenges of various approaches to grading contracts.
Read the article at
http://journalofwritingassessment.org/article.php?article=158.
Boise State University College of Arts and Sciences
Congratulations to Ralph Clare, an associate professor in the Boise State English Department, who published the essay, Metaffective Fiction: Structuring Feeling in Contemporary American Literature, in the collection “After Postmodernism: The New American Fiction” (Routledge, 2020).
The essay explores the role of affect in Vladimir Nabokov’s 1962 novel “Pale Fire” and Doug Dorst and J.J Abram’s 2013 novel “S.” and argues that contemporary fiction heralds a unique, self-aware treatment of affect and emotion that is distinct from that of its postmodern predecessor.
Boise State University
Congratulations to Ti Macklin, a lecturer in the Boise State English Department and associate editor of the Journal of Writing Assessment, who collaborated with JWA editors Diane Kelly-Riley and Carl Whithaus, editorial assistant Stacy Wittstock, and guest editor Asao B. Inoue on a special issue on contract grading.
This issue includes voices from students, teachers, and researchers who tease out implications, possibilities, & challenges of various approaches to grading contracts.
Read the issue at
http://journalofwritingassessment.org/index.php.
Boise State University
Boise State University College of Arts and Sciences
Congratulations to Steven Olsen-Smith, a professor in the Boise State English Department, who will present A Wonder, a Grandeur, and a Woe: Melville and Human Progress, the keynote address for the New Bedford Whaling Museum’s 25th Annual “Moby-Dick” Marathon Reading at 5 p.m. (MST) on Friday, Jan. 8, 2021.
Get your tickets online at
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/a-wonder-a-grandeur-and-a-woe-melville-and-human-progress-lecture-tickets-128180692903.
Olsen-Smith is the editor of Melville’s Marginalia Online. The talk will look closely at Melville’s body of work to trace his conception of our prospects for edification and advancement. Olsen-Smith will explore how admirers of Melville might ponder anew the writer’s conception of humanity’s capacity for individual, social and evolutionary growth.
Olsen-Smith is a past president of the Melville Society, and he has held visiting appointments as the Holland H. Coors Endowed Chair at the United States Air Force Academy. Olsen-Smith’s research explores the influence of Melville’s reading and sources on Moby-Dick and other writings.
Since 1977, The New Bedford Whaling Museum has hosted a live reading of the classic work every January. The event draws readers and enthusiasts from around the world to the museum and the livestream reading online. The marathon continues through Sunday, Jan. 10.
The event includes Melville-inspired activities, including opportunities to chat with scholars from the Melville Society Cultural Project (MSCP) and a chance to “stump” the scholars by testing their Melville knowledge.
Boise State University College of Arts and Sciences
Boise State University