Miami University Pressis proud to present a Zoom reading on Thursday, November 14th from 6-7:30PM EST by distinguished Irish poet and editor Randolph Healy, author of books including The Electron-Ghost Casino (Miami University Press, 2024) and Green 532: Selected Poems 1983-2000 (Salt, 2002).
Healy will be introduced by recent Miami MFA graduate Sean Pierson, author of The Perfect Season (Wild Honey Press, 2024).
Comprising forty-nine units, with a bespoke porch and optional exit through a bestiary, Randolph Healy’s The Electron-Ghost Casino has a décor ranging from the cerebral (all percentiles included) to the earthy. Notes of horror, intimacy, fractured histories, and joy echo from its chambers. Healy is the author of Green 532: Selected Poems 1983-2000 (Salt 2002) and other books and chapbooks celebrated by readers throughout the Anglophone poetry world. This is his first American book publication. Are some of his tunes unfamiliar? Don’t worry, or do. We may be out of time, but there’s still space. Dance.
Join us in welcoming creative writing alumnus and tech CEO Patrick Briggs ’06, who will be giving a talk about how an English degree can bring career success!
The lecture will be held in Harris Hall (500 Harris Drive) on Thursday, October 24th at 4:30 PM in room 111A. A reception will follow.
Patrick Briggs is the CEO of Semify, a white-label digital marketing service provider. Prior to joining Semify, Patrick was an entrepreneurial leader for startups and technology companies in Silicon Valley and New York City. Over the last fourteen years, Patrick has driven nine-figure revenue growth by leading marketing, sales, product positioning, cost optimizations, and strategic development in consumer-packaged goods businesses, customization and promotional printing businesses, business-to-business technology and software businesses, and business-to-business and business-to-consumer insurance products. Patrick holds an MBA from Columbia Business School, a BA in English: Creative Writing with a minor in Anthropology from Miami University, and the Boy Scouts of America rank of Eagle Scout.
This event is sponsored in part by the Department of English, the Center for Career Services and Success, and the Marilyn Gustche Lectureship Fund.
Join us for a special event with Rita Dove, Miami University creative writing alumna, Pulitzer Prize winner and National Poet Laureate Emeritus
Alumna poet Rita Dove will join us virtually for a reading and conversation including creative writing poetry faculty in the Heritage Room, Shriver Center. You can check out a recent Paris ReviewInterview of the US Poet Laureate Emeritus and Pulitzer Prize winner in which she speaks about her time at Miami and its influence on her.
Each year the Creative Writing Program brings in members of the publishing industry–such as editors, publishers, agents, and authors–often alumni or friends of the program. This year we are doing it by Zoom. Please sign up using the QR code in the brochure or this link:
We heard a short preview of Dan Remoto’s powerful writing during our successful annual charity event, Writers Harvest. Too short.
So please join the Creative Writing Program for a fiction reading with Dan Remoto, who will read from his new book, The Heart of Summer ( Penguin Random House Southeast Asia) at Miami on Thursday, February 22nd, 7:30pm in BAC 337. (Zoom attendees, please register here.)
“A collection of short fiction on love, longing and loss written in the realist and fantastic modes. A young boy and his sisters gather beautiful shells on the beach as mementos of a country they will leave behind.”
Danton Remoto has published a novel called Riverrun and a book of stories called The Heart of Summer with Penguin Random House Southeast Asia. He studied at Rutgers University and the University of Stirling in the UK. He is an MFA Poetry student at Miami University.
Poets Isaac Pickell, an alumnus, and David Schloss, Miami Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing, read from their new books of poetry. They were wonderful readings and it was great to see these familiar faces.
I was surprised to hear that David retired in 2011 (though he taught until 2014), because it didn’t seem long ago. Covid distorts time. He was one of the professors who hired me twenty years back, and those first years occupy a much larger space in my memory, time wise, than the years since.
I was also surprised to hear that Isaac got his MFA in 2017, because that didn’t seem long ago either. It was interesting to hear them back to back, because their approaches to poetry are very different, yet both deeply engrossing. I recommend you order their books. The Q & A was interesting too, so much so that if host Cathy Wagner hadn’t kept track of time the discussion could have gone on for hours. Though I regrettably don’t have a transcript, this photo comes from that exchange.
Their bios are below the photo. Thanks to those who came out.
–BR
Isaac Pickell
A recent alum of Miami’s MFA program, Isaac Pickell is a Black & Jewish poet and PhD candidate at Wayne State University in Detroit, where he teaches and studies the borderlands of blackness and black literature. Isaac’s new book of poems It’s Not Over Once You Figure It Out is available for pre-order from Black Ocean. Joe Hall praises the book’s “jaw-dropping turns of thought…The poems defend against the brutal foreclosures of this historical moment”; Taylor Byas says “Pickell’s speaker collapses time as we know it.”
David Schloss
David Schloss was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1944, and educated at Columbia University, The University of Southern California Cinema School, Brooklyn College (BA), and The Iowa Writers Workshop (MFA). After teaching at Miami for decades, he retired in 2014 from Miami as Emeritus Professor of English. His new book, Provocations—his sixth full-length poetry collection—is just out from Dos Madres Press. John Ashbery lauds him for “reinventing classical forms and meter to speak profound truths on vital issues of our day.” Lesley Hardy calls Provocations “a blistering “report” on disaster and war…a monumental and challenging work.”
UPDATE: We had a great event. Special thanks to all our alumni guests who shared their experiences and advice, and those of you who joined us. We had great feedback and questions in the chat. Current MFA student Ty Young was asked at the last minute to help with the technical aspects of the event and did a great job, Thanks!
In association with the exhibition, Poetry at Miami: 1827-Now, at King Library.
Even though the wonderful readings hosted by faculty poets Keith Tuma and Cathy Wagner are over, you can still see the excellent associated exhibit, Poetry at Miami: 1827-NOW, on the third floor of the King Library, Miami University. Organizer and Librarian Mark Dahlquist has been very supportive of Miami creative writers for which the library has many resources. Check out the helpful Creative Writing resources page on the library website.
On March 3rd, 2023, Creative Artist Agency Agent Alex Rice (and Miami alumna) joined the creative writing program’s Annual Publishing Symposium for a panel discussion on the publishing environment, and tips for students looking to get published or find a career in publishing. It was a fantastic event with many students turning out. I was lucky enough to be able to ask her questions on the panel, and she was generous in her answers and also in her willingness to do an interview.
