Our own Nicole Cooley is featured in LitHub’s “Six Poetry Collections to Read in July.” This list, curated by Rebecca Morgan Frank, has been crafted not just to bring you the best of the best of just-published poetry books but also to bring you places during these summer months, as Morgan Frank puts it “New Orleans and small towns in Virginia and Michigan; the varied landscapes of California; Jeju City in Korea; and where we all meet up far too often: cyberspace.”

Who doesn’t want to travel on the cheap? Head over to LitHub to hear about Nicole’s latest book of poetry, Mother Water Ash, and all the places you might go this summer, thanks to your local bookstore:

A big congratulations to MFA alum Liv Mammone, who is the Poem-a-Day on the Academy of American Poets website!

Poem-a-Day is the original and only daily digital poetry series of the Academy of American Poets featuring over 250 new, previously unpublished poems by today’s talented poets each year. torrin a. greathouse is the guest editor of July.

This is fresh off the heels of Liv being selected as the Poetry Foundation’s Poem of the Day back at the end of June, so you know that Liv’s upcoming book, Fire in the Waiting Room (Game Over Books, 2025) is going to be much acclaimed.

Go read (or listen) to Liv’s poem now:

https://poets.org/poem/fear-2

MFA alum John Rice just had a piece published by McSweeney’s Internet Tendency this morning, a review of the 7-Eleven french toast breakfast sandwich, under their Reviews of New Foods section.

McSweeney’s Publishing is a non-profit publishing house based in San Francisco, California, founded by author Dave Eggers in 1998. In addition to their daily humor website, McSweeney’s also publishes approximately ten titles a year, as well as the quarterly literary journal Timothy McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, The bimonthly magazine The Believer, Illustoria (an art and storytelling magazine for six to 11-year olds), and, formerly, the legendary food journal Lucky Peach.

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency is considered one of the most preeminent publications for literary satire and humor, so a big congratulations to John is in order!

Go check it out now, and think about it every time you are near a 7-Eleven:

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/7-eleven-french-toast-sandwich-with-sausage-egg-cheese-and-chipotle-bacon-mayonnaise-dressing

We just got some excellent news today: MFA student Richard Prins has been selected for The Best American Essays 2024. Richard, fresh off the heels of winning an NEA Fellowship, had his essay “Because: An Etiology” selected by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and acclaimed New York Times critic Wesley Morris.

The Best American series selects twenty essays out of thousands of nominations from literary journals which represent the best examples of the form published the previous year. Each year an established writer is brought in to act as judge for this prestigious anthology, but is presided over by series editor Kim Dana Kupperman at HarperCollins.

The anthology officially publishes towards the end of October, so you can preorder your copy now. Or, you can read Richard’s inventive essay “Because: An Etiology” in the Potomac Review.

Congratulations, Richard!

I’m seeing double–two QC MFA Programs?!

Students from our MFA Program in Creative Writing met up and held a reading in the thesis show for the QC MFA in Studio Art this past weekend, at Art Cake Gallery.

Our MFA candidates read in front of visual art installations and were treated to a sound installation by our graduating MFA student Julie Goodale.

Our own Nicole Cooley’s new book of poems, Mother Water Ash, will be coming out this summer from LSU Press.

Mother Water Ash explores the personal grief of a mother’s sudden death alongside the environmental crises of the storms, fires, and floods that now dominate our world. Examining the landscapes of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, these poems ponder what it means to mourn in the face of ecological catastrophe, and traipse the terrains left by loss.

To preorder your copy, go to the LSU website:

MFA alum Todd Sullivan has a big write-up in The Korea Times, for the 10th anniversary of his literary journal, Samjoko Magazine.

Todd moved to Korea to teach English language courses and has thrived. Todd is the author of five novels, most recently Blood Stew and The Gray Man of Smoke and Shadows, as well as dozens of short stories, poems, essays, and novelettes. He was also nominated for a Pushcart Prize last year for his short story “One Hour,” in the journal After Dinner Conversations.

Congratulations on all your hard work, Todd! Go read Todd’s profile in The Korea Times:

https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2024/04/113_369487.html

MFA student Julie Hornberger has won a 2024 National Organization of Italian American Women (NOIAW) Scholarship. Each year, NOIAW proudly awards 4-6 scholarships to deserving Italian American Women, enabling them to chase their dreams of higher education. Julie Hornberger was selected from among the many applicants because of her studies here at the MFA Program in Creative Writing & Literary Translation.

Established in 1980, the National Organization of Italian American Women (NOIAW) is dedicated to uniting, celebrating, enriching and empowering generations of Italian-American women.

Congratulations, Julie!