Hope College English Department

Congratulations to Anna Snader ’26 for an incredible accomplishment! Her publication "Cranes for Lost Children" appears in The Fourth River Journal, Issue 0.16: For the Birds.

Link: https://www.thefourthriver.com/o16-nonfiction/2025/10/16/cranes-for-lost-children

Well done, Anna!

About the journal: The Fourth River is a journal of nature and place-based writing that is published by Chatham University's MFA Program.

A huge shoutout to Kelsey Sivertson ’24 for an incredible accomplishment! Her two poems, “Purity Rules” and “Deconstruction,” have made their way into the pages of the Oakland Arts Review. Congratulations, Kelsey!

ABOUT OAKLAND ARTS REVIEW:
“Oakland Arts Review (OAR) is an annual journal published through Oakland University in Rochester Hills, Michigan. OAR is dedicated to the publication and advancement of literature written by undergraduate students from across the United States and around the world. We publish fiction, poetry, essays, comics, hybrid and
experimental work, and art. Because we believe that undergraduate students have much to contribute to the literary world, it is our mission to provide a platform for this generation’s emerging writers and, in so doing, create a journal that is of both high artistic quality and great literary significance to readers from all backgrounds.”

Fall in love at first line!!

Getting things ready for our “Blind Date With A Book” event! ♥️📖 Thursday, February 13, 4:30 pm, Lubbers 3rd floor lounge. Books are limited to the first 15 people. Refreshments will be served.

Can you fall in love at first line?
Choose any one of our wrapped books based only on its first line. Take a chance and see where the storyline takes you! Limited to the first 15 guests. Valentine’s refreshments provided.

From the Big Read Lakeshore blog (https://blogs.hope.edu/thebigread):

The official kick-off to the Big Read season is just around the corner! Join us Monday, October 28 from 7:00-8:30pm! It will be held in Maas Auditorium at Hope College on 264 Columbia Ave Holland, MI. There will be two keynote speakers, Drs. Jeanne Petit and Kristin VanEyk, along with a Gatsby-themed performance by the Hope College dance group StrikeTime.

Dr. Kristin VanEyk will discuss reading The Great Gatsby as a teacher of English and dive into some of the moral implications of the text:

"I’ll be talking about Gatsby’s enormous striving, but his striving toward the wrong goals. Gatsby’s goal, to be with a married woman, is corrupt from its inception, and leads to further corruption and decay. Along the way, Gatsby is willing to sacrifice his integrity, to compromise the integrity of those around him, and to sacrifice his well-being (indeed, his very life) for material gain. The willingness to sacrifice one’s life and integrity for goals that are corrupt from their inception is an ancient problem, but it’s also a modern problem. What solutions might we pursue? Sabbath: the ultimate revolt, the radical owning of who we truly are."

Does "irregardless" make you cringe? Do you worry that no one knows how to use the apostrophe anymore? If so, this lively session on language is for you. As a historian of the English language, a linguist, and an English professor, Anne Curzan explains changes happening in spoken and written English and whether we need to worry. You’ll leave with a heightened awareness of changes afoot in the English language and tools for becoming an even more skilled speaker and writer.

Sponsored by the Hope College Arts and Humanities, the Big Read, College Writing, Education, English, First Year Seminar, Phelps Scholars, and Social Sciences Departments and Programs.

Professor Curzan is an expert on the history of the English language, and in addition to studying how the language itself has changed over the past 1500 years, she explores how attitudes about words and grammar have shifted. She describes herself as a fount of random linguistic information about the English language, which she enjoys sharing online and on the radio. Professor Curzan can be found talking about language on the weekly show “That’s What They Say” on local NPR station Michigan Public; she also wrote biweekly (in the every two weeks sense!) for six years for the blog Lingua Franca on the Chronicle of Higher Education’s website. Her TED talk “What makes a word ‘real’?” has more than 2.1 million views on the national TED talk site.

Our faculty are ready to make this year amazing!

Bravo! Your hard work has truly paid off in the most magnificent way. Congratulations to this year’s English Department award recipients!

This is a great opportunity for anyone interested in a leadership position! Be sure to scan the QR code for complete information on the available positions and how to apply!

“I love encouraging students to follow their academic curiosities and creative instincts.”

Read more about Dr. Graham Liddell in our latest blog post. Click the link in our bio!

Show the world what HOPE looks like. Join us in making a gift to support students and scholarships at Hope College. hope.edu/give2hope