News Page

The Fiction Writing Department is pleased to announce that Hair Trigger 27 (2005) has been awarded a Gold Crown Award from the Columbia University Scholastic Press Association. This is the ninth year in a row that the magazine has received a Crown Award. Click here for more information.

Faculty/ MFA alum Joe Meno’s new short story collection Bluebirds Used to Croon in the Choir (TriQuarterly) came out in November. Joe’s third novel Hairstyles of the Damned (Akashic/Punk Planet) with over 50,000 copies in print has been named a Best Book of 2005 by the Chicago Tribune.

Faculty Sam Weller’s The Bradbury Chronicles, the authorized biography of Ray Bradbury, is also a Chicago Tribune Best Book of 2005. Chronicles has made a Los Angeles Times best-seller, a New York Times “Editor’s Choice,” an Atlanta Constitution Journal’s “best biography.” It will be published in Japan in 2006.

Faculty Alexis Pride presented a paper “Teaching Artists as Civic Leaders: Empowering the Underserved” at the International Leadership Association’s (ILA) convention in Amsterdam. Alexis’s book, Where the River Ends (UTOUR) inspired by the life of Chicago Educator Mama Hawk will be published in August.

Faculty Laurie Lawlor’s book This Tender Place has been excerpted in Natural History Magazine. She recently presented at the North American Environmental Educators Association Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico. MFA alumna

Cris Burks’s second novel, Neecey’s Lullaby (Doubleday) will be out in March and has already been selected for Black Expressions Book Club, with a targeted membership of 400,000 readers. Neecy is part of Cris’s MFA thesis, which is being published as two novels to fulfill her 3-book deal with Harlem Moon Press.

Faculty Brian Costello published his novel, The Enchanters Vs. Sprawlburg Springs, (featherproof) in December to positive reviews in the Chicago Reader, New City and the Colorado Daily.

MFA alumna Vanessa Angone has set up a project through CBS at Paramount Pictures as Co-Executive Producer of Lori Gottlieb’s memoir Stick Figure, which Vanessa optioned after participating in Columbia’s Semester in L.A. Adaptation program.

MFA candidate Marcus Sakey has sold The Blade Itself in auction to St. Martin’s as part of a 2-book, 6-figure deal. International rights to the literary thriller developed in Patricia Pinianski’s Suspense Thriller class have been sold to the UK, Sweden, Japan and Poland. There’s talk of a movie deal in the works.

Fiction Writing Chair Randall Alber’s article “Voice and the Writer” appeared in the Summer 2005 issue of England’s Writing in Education journal.

Faculty and MFA alum Jeff Jacobson has sold his book Wormfood, his thesis, to Harbor House and will be published by Harbor’s Batwing Press.

MFA alumna and former faculty Doris Hunt Jorden’s novel Sister Katie won an honorable mention in the Writer’s Digest 12th Annual Self-Publishing Book Awards in the August 05 issue of Writer’s Digest.

Hair Trigger 26 took home the Silver Crown Award at the 2005 Columbia University Scholastic Press Association awards ceremony (CSPA) held in New York City. The following stories and creative design won Gold Circle Awards:

• “Abilene,” by Dorothy Duenow (MFA candidate), Experimental Fiction 1st place.
• “An Investment in Velocity,” by Bob Whiting (Fiction Writing major), Experimental Fiction 2nd place.
• “The Stomach,” by Tina Spielman (Fiction Writing major), Experimental Fiction 3rd place.
• “Everybody Needs to Eat,” by Nicki Brouilette (Fiction Writing alumna), Essay category 1st place.
• “The Never-Ending Memoir of a Disgruntled Foreigner,” by Beverly Mendoza (MFA candidate), Essay category 2nd place.
• Sarah Faust and Mary Johnson (Creative and Print Services staff) won 1st place for their cover design.

Faculty and MFA alumnae Megan Stielstra and Felicia Swanson presented papers on the topic "Gender and Writing in Education" at the National Association of Writers in Education (NAWE) Summer 2005 Conference at London Metropolitan University. NAWE supports the development of creative writing throughout the United Kingdom.

Faculty Mort Castle’s novel The Strangers has been released by Overlook Connection and Poe’s Lighthouse has anthologized his story “The Watcher at the Window.” Mort was named a Notable Alumni on the Illinois State University Alumni Association’s website for his seven horror novels, two short-story collections, and other “shorter works.”

Newcity’s Lit 50 2005 featured Fiction Writing full-time faculty Joe Meno (#29), Fiction Writing Chair Randall Albers (#40), and Fiction Writing full-time faculty Sam Weller (#48) as people who really “book in Chicago.”

MFA alum Matte Elkins is the new chief writer/editor at the Alliance to Save Energy, www.ase.org in Washington D.C. ASE is a non-profit coalition of business, government, consumer, and environmental leaders that promotes energy efficiency world-wide to benefit the economy, environment, and energy security.

MFA alumna Debra Shore is running for a seat on the board of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago. “Because water matters,” she says. Debra wants to bring her conservation experience gleaned as the current editor of Chicago Wilderness Magazine to a body that controls an $800 million budget to manage wastewater for the 5 million residents of Cook County IL.

Alumna Cassandra A. Adler is a new Policy Fellow at The Humphrey Institute.

BA alum Derrick Jackson received a scholarship to the Solstice Writers Conference (http://www.pmc.edu/solstice) in Brookline, Massachusetts, a nine-day summer event featuring workshops and readings by preeminent American writers, including Dennis Lehane and A. Manette Ansa.

Fiction Writing major Chelsea Wells received a second $2,000 scholarship from the Chicago Community Trust Foundation.

Faculty and MFA alum Jotham Burrello’s two educational DVDs So, Is It Done? Navigating the Revision Process and Submit, the Unofficial All-Genre Multimedia Guide to Submitting Short Prose are being distributed by In-sight Media. So, Is It Done? was reviewed in the October 1, 2005 issue of Booklist.

Fiction Writing alumna Judi Lee Brandwein performed her one-woman, one-night, stand-up comedy act, “Fornicationally Challenged,” at the Apollo Theater in Chicago.

Fiction Writing student Aimee Algas read a personal essay on Chicago Public Radio’s (WBEZ) morning magazine program Eight Forty-Eight.

Faculty Patty McNair’s article about shopping in Prague, “Tales from the Czech-Out Line,” appeared in the January issue of enRoute, Air Canada’s onboard magazine.

Alumna Sharon Mesmer’s new book In Ordinary Time was reviewed in the May 1, 2005 Booklist. “Mesmer’s imagination shows no limits.”

Fiction Writing major Patty Templeton is now the book reviews editor for Bridge magazine.

Mayor Richard M. Daley proclaimed April 18, 2005 as Ray Bradbury Day in Chicago and the department celebrated at Harold Washington Library with readings, a conversation with faculty Sam Weller, author of the authorized Ray Bradbury biography, and a live telephone conversation with Ray Bradbury.

Fiction Writing major Chelsea Wells won a second $2,000 scholarship from the Chicago Community Trust Foundation and also a $500 Guild Complex Nonfiction Award in a competition judged by Alex Kotlowitz for her instance collection "Into the Eye of You." Based on her awards reception reading at the Guild, Chelsea has been invited to a residency at the Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest, IL..