Anthony Gagliano's The Emperor's Club Published

MFA alumnus Anthony Gagliano's noir thesis novel, Straits of Fortune, was published by Harper Collins to critical acclaim.  But while he was working on the follow-up, continuing the adventures of Jack Vaughan, Gagliano suffered a stroke and died at 53, leaving The Emperor's Club incomplete.  His professors at FIU, Dan Wakefield and Les Standiford, took on the task of finishing the book, which has now been published by MidTown Publishing.

The result, says Pamela Akins in The Florida Book Review, is "an action-packed crime tale, preserving Gagliano's sharp, world-weary voice."  How Standiford and Wakefield's approached turning the layered drafts of the unfinished book into the published one is recounted in this article from FIU news.

Dan Wakefield Has Edited Kurt Vonnegut: The Letters

FIU's long-time Writer-in-Residence Dan Wakefield has "splendidly assembled and edited" (New York Times) the letters of Kurt Vonnegut. The book is just out from Delacorte Press. A starred review in Publishers Weekly says of Kurt Vonnegut: The Letters,  “Fans will find the collection as spellbinding as Vonnegut’s best novels, and casual readers will discover letters as splendid in their own way as those of Keats.”
 

Dan's many fans in South Florida will be welcoming him back to Miami in November when he'll appear at Miami Book Fair International.  Dan was Writer-in-Residence in the FIU Creative Writing Program from 1994-2010, and received the university's Excellence in Graduate Mentorship Award. He teaches in the Low Residency MFA in Writing Program at Converse College in Spartanburg, S.C.  and leads workshops  in "Spiritual Autobiography" and "Creating from the Spirit" all around the U.S.  Readers can learn more about Dan's novels, books of nonfiction, and many other projects and achievements on his website.