Marci Calabretta's Debut Chapbook Published by Finishing Line Press

Finishing Line Press has published  Last Train to the Midnight Market by Marci Calabretta.  Of this debut chapbook, Jim Daniels (former Visiting Writer at FIU) says, "This tightly coiled collection has the feel of a novel; her characters are real enough to break your heart."


Calabretta is a second year graduate student and Knight Fellow in the MFA program at Florida International University.

Richard Ford to Receive Sanders Award at FIU April 4th

On April 4th, Richard Ford will receive the 4th annual Lawrence A. Sanders Award for Fiction. Ford is the author of seven novels, including his latest Canada, the Bascombe novels (The Sportswriter, Independence Day—winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN Faulkner Award—, and The Lay of the Land), as well as four collections of short stories, among them Rock Springs and A Multitude of Sins. The presentation program will take place at 8 PM on April 4th, on the Biscayne Bay Campus of FIU in the Academic One auditorium, AC I-194, and is open to the public.  This event is part of the FIU Creative Writing Program's Writers on the Bay Series, which gives students and the community access to world-renowned authors.

The Sanders Award is given annually to a writer of fiction, identified by the FIU Creative Writing Program, whose work combines literary excellence with popular appeal. The award is supported by a grant from the Lawrence A. Sanders Foundation of Boca Raton. Sanders, who died in 1998, was the author of well-regarded popular novels, including The First Deadly Sin. The Creative Writing Program also wishes to extend its thanks to The Betsy Hotel and Barnes & Nobles Booksellers for their support of Writers on the Bay.

White Pine Press Issues Postage Due by Julie Marie Wade

Julie Marie Wade's first full-length poetry collection, Postage Due, has been published by White Pine Press.  Selected for the press's Marie Alexander Poetry Series, Postage Due  "is a scrapbook of poetic artifacts documenting an odd girl's coming of age. Interspersed with postcards to a lost past, fan letters to childhood heroes, and inhabited voices as varied as Hester Prynne, Mr. Clean, and Vanna White, this collection pulses with kitsch and candor."

Julie Marie Wade is also the author of the poetry chapbook Without (Finishing Line Press, 2010) and two collections of lyric nonfiction, Wishbone: A Memoir in Fractures (Colgate University Press, 2010) and Small Fires (Sarabande Books, 2011).  A new nonfiction chapbook, Tremolo, is forthcoming from Bloom Press in Spring 2013.  Wade is the newest member of the creative writing faculty at Florida International University.
 
On Sunday, April 7th at 4 PM, FIU's Julie Marie Wade and Denise Duhamel, along with Maureen Seaton of the U. of Miami, will be reading from their new books at Books & Books in Coral Gables More info. on this trio, their books, and this festive occasion, here. Mark you calendars.

Christine Kling's A Circle of Bones Published

Christine Kling's A Circle of Bones, her fifth novel, has been published by Thomas & Mercer.  Circle of Bones, a Caribbean thriller about the race to recover secrets found in the wreck of a World War II submarine, is the first in a three-book series.




Kling's previous novels, the Seychelle Sullivan series, are Surface Tension, Cross Current, Bitter End, and Wrecker's Key. Kling reports that she has retired from teaching at Broward College and is "living the dream of full-time cruising on board my 33-foot Caliber sailboat Talespinner." More about her writing and the nautical life on her website.

Campbell McGrath & Dennis Lehane Win Gold Medals in the Florida Book Awards

Prof. Campbell McGrath and MFA program alumnus Dennis Lehane have each won gold medals in the Florida Book Awards for books published in 2012. The awards are coordinated by the Florida State Libraries and co-sponsored by a number of Florida literary and cultural institutions. The medals will be presented at the Florida Heritage Awards ceremonies in Tallahassee on March 20, 2013.

McGrath's In The Kingdom of the Sea Monkeys won the Gold Medal in Poetry. This is McGrath's third win in the Florida Book Awards.  Shannon won the 2009 Poetry Gold Medal, and Seven Notebooks the 2008 Silver in Poetry.  “It feels great, it’s an honor,” McGrath said. “I love the idea of the Florida Book Awards, they bring attention to Floridian literature, the arts and culture. This is an award unique to our home state, so it’s important.”

The Gold Medal for General Fiction went to Live By Night, Lehane's eleventh book, tenth novel and the second in his historical series that follows Joe Coughlin, the son of a Boston police captain turned mobster during the prohibition era of the 1920s.

Other FIU Creative Writing winners in past years are: Lynne Barrett, Gold Medal, General Fiction 2011, for Magpies; alumna Patricia Engel, Silver Medal, General Fiction 2010, for Vida; Denise Duhamel, Silver Medal, Poetry 2009, for Ka-Ching!; alumnus Jesse Millner, Bronze Medal, Poetry 2009, for Neighborhoods of My Past Sorrow;  John Dufresne, Gold Medal, General Fiction 2008, for Requiem, Mass; James W. Hall, Silver Medal, Genre Fiction 2007 for Magic City; and alumnus Leonard Nash, Silver Medal, General Fiction 2007, for You Can't Get There From Here. The Florida Book Awards were established in 2006 to recognize, honor, and celebrate the best Florida literature published each year.

John W. Evans Wins River Teeth Book Award

River Teeth has announced that FIU MFA alumnus John W. Evans is the winner of the 2013 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Book Award, for his manuscript Young Widower. The book will be published in 2014 by the University of Nebraska Press.

Evans is the author of two poetry chapbooks, No Season (FWQ) and Zugzwang (RockSaw). Since completing his MFA, he has been a Stegner Fellow in Poetry and a Jones Lecturer at Stanford University, where he continues to teach creative writing. You can learn more about Evans and his writing at his website.

Denise Duhamel's Blowout Published

The University of Pittsburgh Press has just published Denise Duhamel's poetry collection Blowout. "Blowout is both a celebration and mourning of romantic love—the blowout of a party, as well as the sudden rupture of a front tire."  Booklist says Blowout, "presents the miracle of how serious a life embedded in humdrum and commercialized reality can be...'Worst Case Scenario'—a solid block of successive personal disasters—negatively apotheosizes just such embeddedness. It takes your breath away."

 

Sunday April 7th at 4 PM,  FIU's Denise Duhamel and Julie Marie Wade, along with U.M.'s Maureen Seaton, will be reading from their new books at Books and Books in Coral Gables, FL. Mark your calendars for this trio now.