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Less than a month away from our 2017 Summer Residency! Remember our readings and afternoon sessions are free and open to the public, so we look forward to seeing many alumni and friends at this year's events. See our full schedule here.
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We'll be celebrating several of our successful alumni at this year's residency. On Sunday, July 23 we'll hear from graduates Marilyn Bousquin, Nicole Robinson, and Marci Vogel, who will offer their advice and experience on staying connected and active with literary pursuits after graduation.
Later that evening they will be joined by Jon Kerstetter for an alumni reading, beginning at 7 p.m.
We'll hear more from Jon Kerstetter on Monday, July 24 as he shares his experience in bringing a memoir to print with Penguin/Random House (forthcoming in September).
Sarah Freligh will also be joining us as well for a fun writing exercises on Wednesday afternoon -- a prompt party, based on her popular Poetry Boot Camp. This event is open to the public and scheduled for Wednesday, July 26, 3:30-5:00 at The Happy Grape.
 Marilyn Bousquin
Creative Nonfiction, Class of 2011
Marilyn Bousquin, founder of Writing Women’s Lives™ Academy, is a writer as well as a writing mentor, teacher, and coach for women who write about real life. Known as an integrative writing coach, she specializes in teaching both the craft of writing memoir and the consciousness work that leads to recovering one’s voice and claiming one’s truth both on the page and off the page.
 Sarah Freligh
Poetry, Class of 2013
Sarah Freligh is the author of Sad Math, winner of the 2014 Moon City Press Poetry Prize and the 2015 Whirling Prize from the University of Indianapolis. Other books include A Brief Natural History of an American Girl, winner of the Editor’s Choice award from Accents Publishing, and Sort of Gone. Her work has appeared in Sun Magazine, Hotel Amerika, BOAAT Journal, Rattle, on Writer’s Almanac, and anthologized in the 2011 anthology Good Poems: American Places. Among her awards are a 2009 poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and a grant from the Constance Saltonstall Foundation in 2006.
 Jon Kerstetter
Creative Nonfiction, Class of 2011
Jon Kerstetter is the author of Crossing: A Doctor-Soldier' Memoir. He received his medical degree from the Mayo Medical School in Rochester, Minnesota and his MFA degree from Ashland University in Ohio. He practiced emergency medicine and military medicine, serving as a combat physician and flight surgeon for the US Army and completing three combat tours in Iraq. He has also taught disaster relief and practiced emergency medicine in Kosovo, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Honduras .
 Nicole Robinson
Poetry, Class of 2011
Nicole Robinson is the assistant director for the Wick Poetry Center at Kent State University where she also teaches. In 2016 she received an Individual Excellence Award in poetry from the Ohio Arts Council. Her recent poems have appeared in Artful Dodge, CALYX, Great River Review, The Louisville Review, Spillway, and elsewhere.
 Marci Vogel
Poetry, Class of 2011
Marci Vogel is the author of At the Border of Wilshire & Nobody, winner of the 2015 Howling Bird Press Poetry Prize. A native of Los Angeles and first-generation college student, Vogel is currently a Provost’s Fellow in the Ph.D. program in creative writing and literature at the University of Southern California. Her poetry, translations, and essays have appeared in a number of publications, including FIELD, Plume, Jacket2, ZYZZYVA, Puerto del Sol, Poet Lore, Colorado Review, and Seneca Review. |
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Mansfield Reformatory Tour Offered During Residency
During this year's residency, students will have the opportunity to embark on a trip to the Ohio State Reformatory, also known as the Mansfield Reformatory. Now a historical site, it was an active prison from the 1834-1984. The prison is locally renowned as the filming site for the 1994 movie The Shawshank Redemption, but also for its historical significance and reported paranormal activities.
The trip will be led by Dr. Maura Grady, Director of the Writing Center at Ashland University, who has been active in restoring and promoting the site as a local tourist destination. In 2016, Dr. Grady co-authored a book with Tony Magistrate,The Shawshank Experience: Tracking the History of the World's Favorite Movie.
Read more about the Mansfield Reformatory.
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Faculty News
Follow @ashlandmfa on Twitter and the Ashland University MFA Program Facebook page for regular updates about our faculty, staff, alumni, and students.
Deborah Fleming
Poetry Faculty
Deborah Fleming was interviewed by Diamond Dave Whitaker on Mutiny Radio's "Common Thread Collective" program on May 12 about her hippie/Vietnam War novel "Without Leave" (2014) in connection with the 50th anniversary of 1967. Also, her poetry collection "Into a New Country" (2016) was one of twenty books longlisted from about 450 entries for the Lascaux Review Poetry Book Prize. Finally, Deborah gave a paper, "The Image of the Great House in the Poetry of W. B. Yeats and Derek Walcott," at the W. B. Yeats Symposium in Barcelona, Spain, in December, 2016.
Steve Harvey
 Creative Nonfiction Faculty
Steve's essay, "Another Way," is forthcoming from Water-Stone Review. It is part of a three-part series called "The Broken Cup" that he read with the help of fellow faculty members during several residencies at Ashland in the past. His weekly blog The Humble Essayist continues to bring readers a new Paragraph of the Week and sometimes features current MFA students as guest columnists.
Christian Kiefer
Director
MFA Director Christian Kiefer wrote this stirring memorial for Dennis Johnson for the San Francisco Chronicle. He was also quoted in a few articles on LitHub and a forthcoming article on LongReads. Johnson, considered one of the greatest writers of his generation, passed away May 24. Read it here.
Alex Lemon
Poetry Faculty
Alex Lemon visited Ashland University in April and gave a reading in creative nonfiction. His new book Feverland: A Memoir in Shards will be available in paperback edition on September 11, 2017. It's listed on Amazon for pre-order, and it's lookin' good! Alex is serving as judge for the Grist Journal's spring ProForma competition and will be a panelist for Nonfiction Now in Iceland next month. Alex also has a new poem, Stowage, in the 2017 May/June edition of The American Poetry Review Vol 46, No.03.
Mark Neely
Poetry Faculty
Mark Neely has several new poems out in the spring issues of FIELD, Passages North, Southern Indiana Review, and Birmingham Poetry Review.
Robert Root
Creative Nonfiction Faculty
Robert Root had his article, "The Welcome Oak," published on Wisconsin Life. You can read this exciting piece here.
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Current Students
Kristin Ryan
Ashland MFA thesis student Kristin Ryan's poem, "Dissociative Amnesia," was featured on Glass: A Journal of Poetry.
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Alumni News
Carolee Bennett
Class of 2015
Carolee's poem "Ornithophobia, Diffused" was featured in The American Poetry Journal. Three poems from Carolee's MFA Thesis are forthcoming in the on-line lit journal Contrary. You can follow Carolee at her blog Good Universe Next Door.
Kathleen Cadmus
Class of 2016
Kathy had a short work of nonfiction published in The Columbus Dispatch -- the primary newspaper for Columbus, Ohio. " First Person: New moms occupied by fears, questions" appeared on May 8.
Grace Curtis
Class of 2010
Grace will be participating in a reading with other Dos Madres Press authors at Mac's Back Books in the Cleveland area, Saturday, June 17, 2017. Open to the public. More info here.
Grace also did a writer for the Ohio Poetry Association in the Painesville, Ohio area Tuesday, May 2.
Sarah Freligh
Class of 2011
Sarah has new work in Diode Poetry. Her poem " Ann Arbor, 1974" is available for your online reading. She also has new flash fiction " The Thing with Feathers" on Smoke Long Quarterly.
Detrick Hughes
Class of 2011
MFA poetry grad Detrick Hughes will be part of a tasty reading at Calvino's in Toledo, Ohio, June 11. http://calvinostoledo.com/
David MacWilliams
Class of 2011
David has an essay in the Spring 2017 issue of Creative Nonfiction. His essay, "Khalid," had its early drafts workshopped while David was in the MFA program. He currently teaches writing and linguistics at Adams State University in Colorado.
Robert Morrison
Class of 2015
Robert has a poem, "Gatsby's Green Light," in the Spring 2017 issue of The Broken Plate. The Broken Plate is a nationally distributed literary magazine produced by Ball State University undergraduates. The magazine features poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, screenwriting, one-act plays, art and photography, book reviews, and interviews.
Carrie Slone Krucinski
Class of 2013
Carrie has a poem, "A Room With Solid Walls," in the Spring 2017 issue of The Broken Plate. Three of her poems are also now available on the Rag Queen Periodical. You can read "Empty," "Doors," and "Revelation" online.
Ginny Taylor
Class of 2011
Ginny was a first place winner in the 22nd Annual Geagua Park District Nature Writing Contest. Her essay "The Giant Along the River" took first place in this year's Adult Prose category. Read more.
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