Two upcoming Vermillion Literary Project activities:
VLP Reading & Poetry Slam – Join us Thursday, November 19, 7 p.m. at the Coffee Shop Gallery (24 W. Main Street), Vermillion, for the VLP Reading & Poetry Slam. Our featured reader this month will be Ed Allen. Allen has published two novels: Straight Through the Night, and Mustang Sally, which was made into a film, Easy Six (retitled in a Showtime DVD release as Easy Sex). He is also the author of The Hands-On Fiction Workbook. His fiction and poetry have appeared in The New Yorker, GQ, Story, Prairie Schooner, The Indiana Review, and River Styx. His collection of short stories, Ate it Anyway, won the 2002 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. His first collection of poetry, the sonnet sequence 67 Mixed Messages was published by Ahsahta Press in 2006. He has been a contestant on Jeopardy and was once on the same Delta flight as Tiny Tim. He currently teaches in the creative writing program at USD.
Join an exciting new writing community, EXORCISE YOUR WRITES! on Monday, November 16, 7 p.m. at the Washington Street Arts Center, 202 N Washington, Vermillion. Exorcise Your Writes is a community writers group that brings area writers together on the third Monday of every month to free themselves from the usual “anti-writing” spirits: The evil voice of the inner ear (self-censoring), the mind eraser (writer’s block), the blinding blank page, the floating fingers that lure writers to the web, and the spring in the chair that causes writers to pop up and make coffee. EVERYONE is welcome! Whether a published writer or just starting out, come to this supportive, inspiring, creative group to exorcise (and exercise) your writing, to share and receive feedback from your peers, and to listen to other creative spirits. Bring your poems, scribbles, chapters, scenes, sketches, drafts, characters – or just come and listen! For more information, contact group organizer Sandra Kern Mollman at Sandra.Mollman-AT-usd-DOT-edu. Sponsored by the Vermillion Literary Project (VLP) http://orgs.usd.edu/projlit.
Workshops, sponsored by the University Writing Center, University
Libraries, and the Department of English, are available to students,
faculty and staff who wish to improve their writing skills. No
pre-registration is required, and the workshops are free of charge. All workshops are held in Old Main 106 from 7 - 8 p.m. (unless otherwise noted).
Writing Assistance Workshop: English 101, 210, and IdEA Capstone Courses: December 2, 7-9 p.m. This two-hour workshop provides opportunities for students to receive individualized assistance with papers in English 101, English 101+, English 210, or IdEA capstone courses. Students should bring their essay drafts and outlines, laptops, writing assignment sheets, grammar handbooks, as well as ideas for revision. This is a WORKING session, not a presentation. Ken Green, Coordinator of the Writing Center and Writing Center Staff.
Writing Essay Exams: December 9, 7 p.m. Prepares students for writing in-class essay exams. This workshop is intended especially for advanced undergraduates as well as graduate students preparing for comprehensive exams. The workshop includes techniques for planning, quick drafting, and proofreading and advice on most important elements of essay exam composition.
Students--undergraduate or graduate, of any major--are welcome to join the Vermillion Literary Project, a very cool organization that publishes a literary magazine and hosts a number of literary events for the USD community and the general public. Some of the benefits are
membership in the U's only student creative-writing & literary organization;
membership in a consistently award-winning organization;
hands-on experience organizing and hosting monthly poetry slams;
hands-on publishing experience with creating the annual VLP magazine (editing, design, etc.);
experience dreaming up, organizing, and hosting literary events throughout the school year;
being part of a community of students who share your interest in all things literary!
The deadline for creative and critical submissions to the 2009 John R. Milton Writers' Conference has been extended until September 7, 2009. See the conference website for additional information.
High school students can register, with a teacher or principal's nomination, for “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: A Creative Writing Camp,” to be held Saturday, September 26, 2009, at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion.
Our former colleague, poet and assistant professor Craig Arnold, is still missing after a week of searching. Craig, who taught in the USD English Department at the University of South Dakota in 2003-04, had traveled to Japan on a creative exchange fellowship. He went missing when he was exploring a volcano on the island of Kuchino-erabu-shima. Craig has been writing a book of essays and poetry about volcanoes and has been keeping a weblog, Volcano Pilgrim: Five Months in Japan as a Wandering Poet.
Craig assisted with the Vermillion Literary Project while he was at USD, and he also was a featured poet at the VLP 2009 Poetry Festival. Craig has published two books of poetry, the award-winning Shells and, more recently, Made Flesh. You can listen to Craig read some of his poetry from Made Flesh on these two Youtube sites:
Craig is an assistant professor of English at the University of Wyoming. With the assistance of his university, a fund has been established to support the search efforts to find Craig. The Paypal link directly to the fund is here: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=5149253. You can also continue to follow the story of the search on a Facebook site that his family has established, "Find Craig Arnold."
Jason Berger, currently of the University of Connecticut, has accepted the offer of a position in early American literature at the University of South Dakota. He will begin teaching in fall 2009.
Berger's field of specialization is nineteenth-century American literature. His interests include American studies and critical theory (especially Lacanian psychoanalysis and Marxism). His dissertation is titled "Antebellum at Sea: United States Maritime Narratives and Constructions of Fantasy." One of his recent publications is "Killing Tom Coffin: Rethinking the Nationalist Narrative in James Fenimore Cooper'sThe Pilot." Early American Literature 44.3.
Darlene Farabee will host a reading of Shakespeare's All's Well that Ends Well. This late comedy by Shakespeare has a few dark twists to it. Set in France, the play features a resourceful young woman, a King who suffers from a fistula, an unmatched braggart soldier, a good clown role, lost and missing rings, and a few mistaken identities along the way.
Please respond by 6pm on tuesday 9 December if you would like to join in! Cast list will be sent out that night. This playreading will be the last one of the semester, but there are plans to continue them next semester. To reach Professor Farabee please e-mail her at darelene.farabee-AT-usd-DOT-edu.
December 5, 3:30 p.m., Farber Hall- PhD student Brian Twenter will present his dissertation research in a lecture entitled "Discovering Lewis and Clark: A Lakota Perspective." This event is a Colloquium.
Join us on Thursday, November 20, 2008, 7-9 p.m. for the last VLP Reading & Poetry slam of the year. The reading will feature the fiction of Dennis Sjolie.
An associate professor of English and coordinator of the ESL program at USD, Dennis Sjolie is also a bass/keyboard for the band Narrative Fee. His recent work appears in The Griffin, Quarter After Eight, and English Journal, with new fiction forthcoming in Way Out West. Check out his songs & songs by his band mates at www.narrativefeed.com.
Sjolie's reading will be followed by a poetry slam- competitive performance poetry- open to anyone. Slam poets should bring 3 original poems. Prizes will be awarded.
We will also be announcing the winners of this year's 12th annual VLP Short Story Contest at the slam. The contest was held October 25, with 30 writers from South Dakota and Iowa participating.
For more info about poetry slams, go to www.usd.edu/orgs/projlit/vlpslam.cfm or for more info on the Vermillion Literary Project (VLP), go to http://www.usd.edu/orgs/projlit.
* IdeaFest and the Graduate Forum for Research and Creative Work will be held concurrently on March 31 and April 1.
* Stephen Burt, a poet and scholar who teaches at Harvard University , will be a guest of the English Department on April 17 and 18. We anticipate that he will read his creative work on the evening of the 17th, with a colloquium on the afternoon of the 18th. Thanks to Lee Ann Roripaugh for arranging this visit.
Friday, December 5, at 3:30 p.m. in Farber Hall- Brian J. Twenter, a candidate of the PhD in English at USD, will give a lecture based on his doctoral dissertation, title to be announced.
Friday, November 14, at 3:30 p.m. in Farber Hall- Susan J. Wolfe, Chair of the Department of Languages, Linguistics, and Philosophy and a graduate faculty member in the Department of English at USD, will present a paper entitled, "Mind-Body Splits in Space: The Trills of Star Trek."
