OU's Creative Writing Program: English Department

10/13/2021

In light of the iffy weather and a muddy tent after the recent rain, we are moving this year’s Maurice Brown Poetry Reading, featuring Mary Ann Samyn, to our rain site, Ballroom B in the Oakland Center. Please** share with your students (also remind them there are still spots for the virtual 11:00 am craft talk!)! The reading will still be available via Zoom, as planned. Many thanks, Katie





The 2021 Maurice Brown Poetry Reading

featuring Mary Ann Samyn



Thursday, October 14th, at 5 PM

NEW LOCATION: BALLROOM B, UPPER LEVEL, OAKLAND CENTER

Reading is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.



The reading will also be available to attend virtually via Zoom. You may register at this link to receive the meeting information.



Oakland University alumna Mary Ann Samyn is the author of six collections of poetry: Air, Light, Dust, Shadow, Distance, winner of the 2017 42 Miles Press Prize; My Life in Heaven, winner of the 2012 FIELD Prize; Beauty Breaks In; Purr; Inside the Yellow Dress; and Captivity Narrative, winner of the 1999 Ohio State UP/The Journal Prize. She has also published two chapbooks. She is Professor of English in the MFA in Creative Writing program at West Virginia University. She lives in West Virginia and in Michigan.



Samyn will give a craft talk, "The Frog in the Pond: On Not Missing What’s Right There," at 11:00 am, 10/14, via Zoom. Writers of all genres and alumni welcome: there are still spaces available! Email Professor Katie Hartsock to RSVP and receive the Zoom link at [email protected]



Sponsored by Oakland University’s Department of English and Creative Writing program, in memory of Professor Maurice Brown. With special thanks to Judy Brown and Mathilde Brown Swanson for their continued support of this reading series.



--
Katie Hartsock, PhD
Assistant Professor
Department of English
344 O'Dowd Hall
248-370-2263
[email protected]
Oakland University
Rochester, MI 48307

Editor,
Center for Public Humanities at Oakland University

Advisor, Sigma Tau Delta, English Honors Society

Katie Hartsock

4:50 PM (14 minutes ago)

to Robert, Christopher, Kevin, Gania, Susan, Jeffrey, Jonathan, Natalie, Timothy, Kitty, Kyle, Andrea, Joanne, Leslie, me, Adam, Jennifer, Kevin, Katie, Niels, Jeff, Bridget, Andrea, Brendan, Kevin, Peter, Susan, Bailey, Charlie, Megan, Rita, Kathleen, Doris, Alison, Justin, David, Rachel, Amanda, Annie, Julia
Hello again, everyone,
I apologize for the multiple emails, but my previous email incorrectly listed the room in the OC: this event will be held in Banquet Room B in the OC, tomorrow afternoon, at 5 PM. many thanks, Katie



The 2021 Maurice Brown Poetry Reading

featuring Mary Ann Samyn



Thursday, October 14th, at 5 PM

NEW LOCATION: BANQUET ROOM B, UPPER LEVEL, OAKLAND CENTER

Reading is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.



The 5 PM reading will also be available to attend virtually via Zoom. You may register at this link to receive the meeting information.



Oakland University alumna Mary Ann Samyn is the author of six collections of poetry: Air, Light, Dust, Shadow, Distance, winner of the 2017 42 Miles Press Prize; My Life in Heaven, winner of the 2012 FIELD Prize; Beauty Breaks In; Purr; Inside the Yellow Dress; and Captivity Narrative, winner of the 1999 Ohio State UP/The Journal Prize. She has also published two chapbooks. She is Professor of English in the MFA in Creative Writing program at West Virginia University. She lives in West Virginia and in Michigan.



Samyn will give a craft talk, "The Frog in the Pond: On Not Missing What’s Right There," at 11:00 am, 10/14, via Zoom. Writers of all genres and alumni welcome: there are still spaces available! Email Professor Katie Hartsock to RSVP and receive the Zoom link at [email protected]

10/10/2021

The 2021 Maurice Brown Poetry Reading featuring
Mary Ann Samyn
Thursday, October 14th, at 5 PM in the OU Tent behind Kresge Library
Reading is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.
The reading will also be available to attend virtually via Zoom. Email Professor Katie Hartsock to RSVP and receive the Zoom link at [email protected].
Oakland University alumna Mary Ann Samyn is the author of six collections of poetry: Air, Light, Dust, Shadow, Distance, winner of the 2017 42 Miles Press Prize; My Life in Heaven, winner of the 2012 FIELD Prize; Beauty Breaks In; Purr; Inside the Yellow Dress; and Captivity Narrative, winner of the 1999 Ohio State UP/The Journal Prize. She has also published two chapbooks. She is Professor of English in the MFA in Creative Writing program at West Virginia University. She lives in West Virginia and in Michigan.
Samyn will give a craft talk, "The Frog in the Pond: On Not Missing What’s Right There," at 11:00 am, 10/14, via Zoom. Writers of all genres and alumni welcome! Email Professor Katie Hartsock to RSVP and receive the Zoom link at [email protected]
Sponsored by Oakland University’s Department of English and Creative Writing program, in memory of Professor Maurice Brown. With special thanks to Judy Brown and Mathilde Brown Swanson for their continued support of this reading series.

09/14/2021

The 2021 Maurice Brown Poetry Reading

featuring Mary Ann Samyn



Thursday, October 14th, at 5 PM

In the OU Tent behind Kresge Library

Reading is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.



Oakland University alumna Mary Ann Samyn is the author of six collections of poetry: Air, Light, Dust, Shadow, Distance, winner of the 2017 42 Miles Press Prize; My Life in Heaven, winner of the 2012 FIELD Prize; Beauty Breaks In; Purr; Inside the Yellow Dress; and Captivity Narrative, winner of the 1999 Ohio State UP/The Journal Prize. She has also published two chapbooks. She is Professor of English in the MFA in Creative Writing program at West Virginia University. She lives in West Virginia and in Michigan.



Samyn will give a craft talk, "The Frog in the Pond: On Not Missing What’s Right There," at 11:00 am, 10/14, via Zoom. Writers of all genres and alumni welcome! Email Professor Katie Hartsock to RSVP and receive the Zoom link at [email protected]



Sponsored by Oakland University’s Department of English and Creative Writing program, in memory of Professor Maurice Brown. With special thanks to Judy Brown and Mathilde Brown Swanson for their continued support of this reading series.

05/14/2021

Congrats to this year's grads! Here's the video we made for yall!

Congrats to Winter 21 grads!

04/06/2021

To the Oakland University literary community:

Happy spring! The Creative Writing program is pleased to announce this year's winners of the flash fiction contest. Many thanks to the contributors -- we are so impressed with the quality of the work we received. Write on, everyone!

Undergraduate contest winners:
First place (tie): Lucas Jeffrey, "Yesterday"; Zainab Khatri, "when the dust settles"
Second place (tie): Cole Patrick Lackowski, "Will They Remember My Name?"; Renee Seledotis, “Interviews as a Whole Person”Third place: Alexandra Rye, “Nexxremis”Fourth place: Connor Michael Stevens, "I Still Do Too"
Honorable Mention: Dean Vaglia, "A Vague Oregon Feeling"
Graduate student/alumni contest winners:
First place: Shaun Moore, "The Sorting Man"Second place (tie): Nic Bongers, "Fallen"; John Coughlin, "The Aging Gamer"Third place: Jess Tess-Navarro, "Awake"

03/29/2021

A list of lit mags created in 2020 or after

01/21/2021

OU Creative Writing Program Faculty/Alumni Reading
with Annie Gilson and C. R. Grimmer
February 9th, at 6:00 PM via Zoom
(contact Professor Hartsock at [email protected] for meeting info)
See you there!

Annie Gilson has taught at Oakland University for 21 years. She writes both children's fantasy and realistic fiction, and is at work on five novels, a YA fantasy trilogy entitled Skyrider, and two stand-alone novels, one entitled Mouse and Goose, the other A Book of Mirrors. Her first novel, New Light, explores how the longing to imagine a better world can also lead people into cults. She received a B.A. in creative writing from Bard College and a Ph.D. in Twentieth-Century Literature from Washington University in St. Louis. She is represented by Kelly Sonnack of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency.

C. R. Grimmer (she/her or they/them) is a poet and scholar at The University of Washington (UW), Seattle. They are the author of The Lyme Letters, which was completed with support from a Harlan Hahn Disability Studies Fellowship and forthcoming February 2021 from Texas Tech University Press as the Walt McDonald First Book Award Recipient. Their poems are in journals such as Poetry Magazine and Fence Magazine; their research can be found in journals and reviewed collections, such as The Comparatist. C. R. created and hosts The Poetry Vlog, a free video and podcast series dedicated to building social justice coalitions and teaching materials through poet and scholar dialogues. Recently, C. R. completed their Ph.D. in Literature and Cultural Studies at the University of Washington. In addition to serving as Communications Manager for the Simpson Center for the Humanities, they are also currently a Public Scholarship Project Director in the UW Department of English. You are welcome to learn more about their various projects or reach out to them at crgrimmer.com.

11/10/2020

Earthlings and Aliens: Jeff VanderMeer Reads From his Work

Department of English, Oakland University
November 11, 2020, 5:00pm EST

The Creative Writing program and the English Department at Oakland University, with support from Dean Kevin Corcoran of the College of Arts & Sciences, invite you to a Zoom webinar featuring fiction writer Jeff VanderMeer. He will be reading from his work and doing a question and answer chat afterward.

Jeff VanderMeer was recently profiled in the New York Times. His NYT-bestselling Southern Reach trilogy has been translated into over 35 languages. The first novel, Annihilation, won the Nebula Award and Shirley Jackson Award, and was made into a movie by Paramount in 2018. Recent works include Dead Astronauts, Borne (a finalist for the Arthur C. Clarke Award), The Strange Bird. These novels, set in the Borne universe, are being developed for TV by AMC and continue to explore themes related to the environment, animals, and our future. His novel A Peculiar Peril (FSG Kids) just came out to rave review, and his novel Hummingbird Salamander (MCD/FSG) has been optioned by Netflix and Michael Sugar (Anonymous Content). Called “the weird Thoreau” by The New Yorker, VanderMeer frequently speaks about issues related to climate change and storytelling. He lives in Tallahassee, Florida, with his wife Ann, cat Neo, and a yard full of native plants.

To get the link for the Zoom meeting, please email professor Annie Gilson at [email protected].

10/22/2020

Please join us, via Zoom, for the 2020 Maurice Brown Poetry Reading, on Thursday October 22nd at 6 PM, featuring Amit Majmudar. A Q&A following the reading will feature a discussion of the importance and possibilities of poetry in the time of pandemic, as well as connections between medicine and literature. Contact Katie Hartsock if you want to join at hartsock oakland.edu.

Amit Majmudar is a novelist, poet, translator, essayist, and diagnostic nuclear radiologist. Majmudar’s latest poetry collection is What He Did in Solitary (Knopf, 2020); other recent books include Godsong: A Verse Translation of the Bhagavad-Gita, with Commentary (Knopf/Penguin Random House India, 2018) and the mythological novel Sitayana (Penguin Random House India, 2019). His poetry has appeared in The Best of the Best American Poetry 25th Anniversary Edition, numerous Best American Poetry anthologies, as well as the Norton Introduction to Literature, The New Yorker, and Poetry; his prose has appeared in The O. Henry Prize Stories 2017, The Best American Essays 2018, and the New York Times. His first poetry collection, 0',0', was shortlisted for the Norma Farber Poetry Award from the Poetry Society of America, and his second collection, Heaven and Earth, won the Donald Justice Award. He also edited an anthology of political poetry, Resistance, Rebellion, Life: 50 Poems Now (Knopf, 2017). His novel Partitions (Holt/Metropolitan, 2011) was shortlisted for the HWA/Goldsboro Crown Prize for Historical Fiction and was named Best Debut Fiction of 2011 by Kirkus Reviews. Winner of the Anne Halley Prize and the Pushcart Prize, he served as Ohio's first Poet Laureate. He practices diagnostic and nuclear radiology full-time in Westerville, Ohio, where he lives with his wife, twin sons, and daughter.

10/08/2020

Hey all, I need a favor. If I can get 100 people to subscribe before next week, I can get a better youtube link. I will be hosting Jeff VanderMeer's talk on my youtube channel, and I would like to have it be a better link than this one! So please click on it and hit subscribe. Thanks!

Channel link

09/17/2020

Jeff VanderMeer reading! Wed., October 14, 5-6:30 pm. Link to follow!

Jeff VanderMeer, a NYT-bestselling novelist, reads from his fiction and discusses the role of ecology in his work. His prize-winning novel, Annihilation, won the Nebula Award and Shirley Jackson Award, and was made into a movie by Paramount in 2018. His work has also been optioned by Netflix and Michael Sugar (Anonymous Content). Called “the weird Thoreau” by The New Yorker, VanderMeer frequently speaks about issues related
to climate change and storytelling. He lives in Tallahassee, Florida, with his wife Ann, cat Neo, and a yard full of native plants.