join us tomorrow at 4pm for our virtual publishing symposium with OSU Press editor Kristen Elias Rowley and Belladonna* founder Rachel Levitsky!
Third Annual Publishing Symposium
Category Archives: Alumni
Creative Writing Alum and Faculty Reading
Two incredible authors w/ Miami U connections are talking about their new books TODAY! Join us for a Q&A hosted by @tsnesbit featuring alumna @megiddings and professor Cathy Wagner!! https://facebook.com/MiamiOHCreativeWriting/
Alumna Reading
Meet alumna @judiketteler next Tues! A full-time freelance writer since 2002, she has written for dozens of consumer magazines, and is currently a columnist for @CincinnatiMag and a frequent contributor to The New York Times.
Miami Hosts 1st Annual Publishing Symposium
At the Miami University Creative Writing Program’s first annual Publishing Symposium on Friday, April 20th, literary agent Ayesha Pande and magazine publishers Rebecca Wolff and Michael Griffith gave a roomful of students advice on making their mark in the ever-shifting publishing landscape. Continue reading
Italian Mystic Women, Road Trips, and Running Beyond Limits: Jessie Chaffee, Brendan Kiely, & Dave Essinger
On Tuesday, October 3rd, Miami University had the honor of hosting authors Jessie Chaffee, Brendan Kiely, and Dave Essinger for a reading in Kreger Hall. Kiely and Essinger are Miami alums. Each writer read captivating excerpts from their latest books—The Last True Love Story, Running Out, and Florence in Ecstasy, respectively—and answered questions on the research process, authenticity, and publishing. Continue reading
Alum Matt Young Interview
On Thursday, February 16th, 2017, Miami University Master’s in Creative Writing graduate Matt Young sat down with students in TaraShea Nesbit’s Intermediate Nonfiction Writing course (ENG 323), to talk about his forthcoming memoir, Eat the Apple (Bloomsbury, 2018). The memoir explores the time in his life when he made a rash decision to join the military and the subsequent events that befell him. In this interview, Young discusses how he wrote the memoir, his use of unexpected point of views and images in the memoir, the ethics of writing about living people and real events, and the publishing process from query letters to working with a publisher. This interview was edited for cohesion and conciseness.
George Packer, MU Professor James Tobin, and Alum Matt Young Draw Crowds for War Stories
The filming studio of Williams Hall is a large room. It has to be in order to hold the massive props, recording equipment, high-end professional cameras, and the filmmakers themselves. As a testament to the anticipation for this February 16th reading, the room was nearly filled to the brim with chairs set a little too close together to seat the maximum possible audience. It was a gathering of three departments: English, History, and Journalism, meeting to share experiences, advance their knowledge, and celebrate the humanities. There were three speakers: Matt Young, George Packer, and James Tobin.
Continue readingGet It In Your Body: Alumni Open Up at Leonard Theater Talk
Three graduates of Miami’s Poetry MA program—alumni Darren Demaree, Daisy Levy, and Chris Michel—visited the Leonard Theater in Peabody Hall on Tuesday to participate in a roundtable discussion. Each took radically different paths after their MA program, leading to a richly diverse conversation connected by the transference of that passion. They explained how their experience here influenced their present literary identity, with special relation to the talk’s subjects: poetry, translation, journalism, and rhetoric. Continue reading
Alum Tom Dever Talks Screenplay-writing on a Shoestring in First Event of Year
On Thursday, September 15, nearly every seat of the Bachelor Reading room was eagerly filled to hear the insights of a recent Miami grad. Tom Dever earned his BA in Creative Writing here in Oxford before moving to California in pursuit of his MFA from the University of California and launching a successful career in the film industry. He walked up to the podium with a smile, sharing his excitement to be back on campus. Continue reading
The Writing Process: Finding What Works
When I sit down to work on a story I think, “Wouldn’t it be nice if I could just write a draft from beginning to end and be done for a day, then return to the thing, plow through another draft like a farmer tilling a field?” A field would be good. A field has finite boundaries that are usually pre-established by zoning laws or property lines. A lawn would be even better. More manageable. A story knows no bounds. I like to imagine a day when I can plan the time I will invest into a story, from the idea’s inception to the final polish.
Ask different writers about process, and you’ll receive almost completely different answers. Continue reading