SOUL BONE℠ LITERARY FESTIVAL
List of Public MIU MFA Showcase Residency Events
Aug. 19 - Sept. 1, Fall 2024

 
 

Our online Soul Bone℠ Literary Festival pairs writing and craft with creative process, consciousness, and healing. It promotes the kind of writing and creative work that comes from duende, the unspeakable energies that arise from the soles of our feet and run through our spines; that make us feel physically as if the tops of our heads were taken off when we read or write (Emily Dickinson); that connect heart and mind and senses or marry body and spirit; that culture empathy; that reconnect us to earth and nature and each other; that spark the mystical soul and give life to our writing, yet that also include death and shadow.

The festival is co-sponsored by the MIU MFA in Creative Writing’s residencies and the Soul Bone℠ Literary Center. Below we list our public events that are included in our Soul Bone℠ Literary Festival. You can register for our Fall 2024 Festival via our Eventbrite page, which is also linked in below. Events are free, online, and open to the public, but donations are encouraged via our Eventbrite page. We will use any donations to help sponsor future festivals so we can continue offering our events free of charge. You can contact us at soulboneliterary@gmail.com.

 

Fall 2024 Festival Event List

Welcome to our Soul Bone℠ Literary Festival for Fall ‘24. Please join us for another MIU MFA Residency Showcase with lots of free literary events offered by alumni and faculty of the MIU MFA in Creative Writing and a few very special guests. Our festivals are free, online, and open to the public. Donations are very much appreciated and warmly welcomed! The event registration pages in Eventbrite include a donation option. We will use all donations to sponsor and make possible more free events in the future. We hope to see you soon!

“I just got to finish out my first week of the semester with one of the most meaningful, heartfelt workshops I’ve ever taught [at the Soul Bone Literary Festival]. I’m so thankful for the opportunity to talk to people and give space for vulnerability.”
— Alice Paige
 

FREE ZOOM REGISTRATION VIA EVENTBRITE
Aug. 19 - 30, 2024

TIME ZONE CONVERTER if you need it. All events are Central Time.

 

MONDAY, Aug. 19, 2024

As is our tradition, our first festival reading features our full-time MFA faculty: Eileen Espinoza and MIU MFA program director Nynke Passi. This time, we’ll be joined by undergraduate English dept. faculty, Clint Martin, who will be teaching two of our MFA courses this coming school year: Writing Pedagogy and Literary Theory for the Creative Writer. We want to take this opportunity to introduce him to our community tonight.

Eileen Elizabeth Espinoza is a full-time faculty in our MFA program and a frequent mentor in various genres. She’s a queer essayist and poet, the co-founder of Boshemia Magazine, and the recipient of the 2021 McQuern Award in Nonfiction. Her essays have been published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Bellevue Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her poetry has been selected by both Dorothy Allison and bell hooks for collections such as The Anthology of Appalachian Writers and Appalachian Review. She earned her MFA in Nonfiction from the University of California, Riverside, and her first book, Carrying the Bones: Rituals for a Dying World, is forthcoming from University Press of Kentucky (2024). 

Clint Martin received his MFA from Spalding University in the spring of 2020. Since then, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in several literary journals and magazines such as Sycamore Review, Sheepshead Review, Binary Review, Motherwell Magazine, and The Bluebird Word. Clint has been a reader for The Louisville Review and been the faculty advisor for The Midway Muse. Currently, Clint is a full-time faculty member of MIU's English department and will also be teaching two MFA courses for us this coming school year.

Nynke Salverda Passi is the director of this MFA program and co-chair of MIU’s English dept. She was born and raised in the Netherlands. Her work has been published in CALYX, Gulf Coast, Poetry Breakfast, Life & Legends, and more. Her poetry has been anthologized in Pandemic Puzzle Pieces and River of Earth & Sky (Blue Light Press), Carrying the Branch (Glass Lyre Press), and Oxygen: Parables of the Pandemic (River Paw Press). Together with Rustin Larson and Christine Schrum, she edited the poetry collection Leaves by Night, Flowers by Day.

 

TUESDAY, August 20

In this generative session, author and MIU English department faculty Craig Deininger explores the image. Writers perceive what others may not perceive, taking in the world of the senses in a fresh way. Through the five senses, writers lead their audience into the world of the written word in any genre. Honing the image is the first tool in the toolbox of any poet and writer.

Craig Deininger received his MFA in Poetry from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He also received an MA and PhD in Mythological Studies and Jungian Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute in California. He currently teaches creative writing at Maharishi International University. His writing has appeared in The Iowa Review and he is a regularly featured for the Joseph Campbell Foundation. Together with Patrick Slattery, he published a volume of poetry called Leaves from the World Tree: Selected Poems (Mandorla Books) in 2018.

Photo credit: Sonja Rosing

 

In this generative workshop, MIU faculty and undergraduate program director Mel McCuin will deepen the coversation on the image by looking in-depth at the haiku. To create vibrant haiku, a writer must use language that appeals to the five senses: sight, taste, touch, sound, and smell. In this workshop, participants will explore the role of sensory detail in poetry and craft three to four haiku. 

Melanie McCuin received her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Northern Arizona University in 2014. She currently teaches composition and creative writing at Maharishi International University where she is our new undergraduate program director. Her writing has appeared in The Salt River Review, The Gila River Review, The Blue Guitar, and Unstrung. Her most recent work can be viewed in the June 2022 issue of Salamander and at howweare.org, a website devoted to the reflections of musicians, artists, and writers during the Covid-19 pandemic. Mel also creates video poems.

 

Tonight we celebrate two graduating students from our MFA in Creative Writing at MIU: Sherri Shields (who graduates with an emphasis in fiction and creative nonfiction) and Minca Borg (who graduates with an emphasis in poetry and creative nonfiction, including journalism). Congratulations to these two remarkable writers!

Sherri Shields joined our MFA in Spring ‘21 and graduated with a dual genre emphasis (creative nonfiction and fiction) last spring. Sherri loves young adult and children’s fiction as well as creative nonfiction. She writes tender, gorgeous essays about her childhood and the Midwestern landscape. She also writes fictional hybrid pieces and humorously, darkly satirical short stories that comment on modern life, especially the emotional nuances of personal relationships and equity and equality. Sherri can make you feel deeply emotional one moment, then make you laugh uproariously the next. And she makes you look at yourself - and at our common humanity - flaws and all.

Dominica Borg is a recent graduate of the MFA with a dual genre emphasis in creative nonfiction and poetry. Her favorite genre is literary journalism. Dominica's work has been published in the Van Buren County Register and The Iowa Source, and she is a participant in The Thirsty Word reading series. Dominica works as a ghostwriter and freelance rural reporter with an emphasis on human environment relationships, small business and economic development, food, agriculture, and policy. She holds a B.S. in Sustainable Living (an applied liberal sciences degree) and is a former science and social studies teacher.

 

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 21

In this generative workshop, poet and educator Leah Waller will guide us in an exploration of different elements of the physical and emotional anatomy as we seek to capture the human form in writing. To aid in our inspiration, we will examine work by acclaimed writers who use the page as a canvas for body expressions. You’ll have the opportunity to create your own body writing and learn new ways to refine it. 

After receiving her MFA in Creative Writing from Northern Arizona University, Leah Waller served as the Assistant Managing Editor for Thin Air Magazine and taught writing in Flagstaff. Excited to reconnect with her roots, Leah returned to Iowa as an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing and served for years as MIU’s undergraduate program director for the BA and BFA programs in Creative Writing. She is also the co-chair of MIU’s department of English. Leah’s work has been published in literary journals, magazines, newspapers, and anthologies such as The Noise, The Barely South Review, Four Ties Lit Review, and The Daily Palette. Leah’s poetry collection Under the Cedar Tree had a soaring debut on Amazon’s top ten in poetry.

 

Nonfiction writer and composition expert Clint Martin examines the often overlooked element of setting, essential to any genre of writing. Setting serves to anchor story, scene, and image, and without it, your writing will float without connection to time and space. The art of creating a good setting allows your reader to enter the universe of your poems, essays, memoirs, novels, and stories. In this lecture we will explore the formidable influence of setting. Not only will we discuss the need for grounding our readers in time and place, but we will also look at the subtleties that develop in our work when we establish a spatial context. 

Clint Martin received his MFA from Spalding University in the spring of 2020. Since then, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in several literary journals and magazines such as Sycamore Review, Sheepshead Review, Binary Review, Motherwell Magazine, and The Bluebird Word. Clint has been a reader for The Louisville Review and been the faculty advisor for The Midway Muse. Currently, Clint is a full-time faculty member of MIU's English department and will also be teaching two MFA courses for us this coming school year.

 

Tonight we host three poets well-known in our local poetry community: Rustin Larson, Bill Graeser, and Craig Deininger. Rustin has been a frequent mentor in our MFA program and Craig Deininger is a faculty in MIU’s English department. Bill has a sizable poetic following in our local Fairfield, Iowa, community. These three poets have read together before, and you will enjoy their fresh voices!

Rustin Larson has been a frequent mentor in our MFA program. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Vermont College and is a seven-time Pushcart nominee whose fiction has appeared in Delmarva Review, Wapsipinicon Almanac, and The MacGuffin. His poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, Iowa Review, North American Review, Thrush, and Poetry East. He is author of Bum Cantos (Blue Light Press), The Philosopher Savant (Glass Lyre Press), and Crazy Star (Loess Hills Press), and more.

Bill Graeser is a "small word poet."  His poems are themselves small and rarely reach a second page. He memorizes each one by heart, so his readings really are performances. With a sly wit and mystical inclination, Bill knows how to capture his audience’s hearts. Bill received various awards through the Iowa Poetry Association's Awards Received. His work has been published or included in North American Review, Michigan Avenue Review, TelePoem Booth Iowa, Lyrical Iowa, Chiron Review, Long Island Quarterly, The Dryland Fish, and This Enduring Gift. He is the author of Fire in a Nutshell and Rushing is a Waste of Time.

Craig Deininger received his MFA in Poetry from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He also received an MA and PhD in Mythological Studies and Jungian Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute in California. He currently teaches creative writing at Maharishi International University. His writing has appeared in The Iowa Review and he is a regularly featured for the Joseph Campbell Foundation. Together with Patrick Slattery, he published a volume of poetry called Leaves from the World Tree: Selected Poems (Mandorla Books) in 2018.

 

THURSDAY, Aug. 22

Nonfiction writer and composition expert Clint Martin digs into analyzing a text, an essential skill for the MFA student. Although analysis is a mental activity, at the heart of it, analysis is the simple act of observation. In this lecture, we will practice the art of observing, so we can see how it is from here that the mind can begin to analyze—not summarize—a text effectively. 

Clint Martin received his MFA from Spalding University in the spring of 2020. Since then, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in several literary journals and magazines such as Sycamore Review, Sheepshead Review, Binary Review, Motherwell Magazine, and The Bluebird Word. Clint has been a reader for The Louisville Review and been the faculty advisor for The Midway Muse. Currently, Clint is a full-time faculty member of MIU's English department and will also be teaching two MFA courses for us this coming school year.

 

In this generative session, author and MIU faculty Craig Deininger explores the metaphor and its relationship to myth.

Craig Deininger received his MFA in Poetry from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He also received an MA and PhD in Mythological Studies and Jungian Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute in California. He currently teaches creative writing at Maharishi International University. His writing has appeared in The Iowa Review and he is a regularly featured for the Joseph Campbell Foundation. Together with Patrick Slattery, he published a volume of poetry called Leaves from the World Tree: Selected Poems (Mandorla Books) in 2018.

 

  • PRESENTATION AND READING
    Poetry and Bringing Our Youth Back to the Land
    with Loa Niumeitolu, Lehua Taitano, and Kim Shuck
    Time: 7:30 - 9:30 PM CDT
    Free Eventbrite registration here

Poets and activists Loa Niumeitolu, Lehua Taitano, and Kim Shuck talk about the role of poetry in bringing youth back to the land.

Lehua Taitano is a queer CHamoru writer and interdisciplinary artist from Yigu, Guåhan (Guam). She is the author of Inside Me an Island (WordTech Editions, 2018) and A Bell Made of Stones (TinFish Press, 2013). Taitano is the program and community manager at Kearny Street Workshop, and she lives on unceded Ohlone territory (San Francisco).

Loa Niumeitolu is a Tongan poet, community organizer and farmer. Her work appears in Whetu Moana: Contemporary Polynesian Poems in English; Homelands: Women’s Journeys across Race, Place, and Time; Yellow Medicine Review: A Journal of Indigenous Literature, Art, and Thought; Muliwai: Hawai’i Review; and was featured on BBC Radio Scotland.  As an educator and organizer, she has worked with(in) Mataliki: Tongan Writers Group in Tonga; Ex-Prisoners and Prisoners Organizing for Community Advancement in Worcester, Massashusetts; Pacific Islander women and men prisoners in Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla and California State Prison, Solano; and co-founded the Two Spirit Takataapui LGBTQ indigenous support groups: One Love Oceania, Oyate Tupu‘anga, and Spirit Root Medicine People.

Kim Shuck engages in many things poetic. She organizes at least three poetry readings a month, has been published in many places, got some degrees (less poetic),  says things in public, and edits stuff, and has been awarded various certificates, fellowships, things that stand on shelves and one thing that should really be a cheeseboard rather than a wall adornment. Her latest books are Pick a Garnet to Sleep In and Deer/A-wi  with Denise Low.

 

FRIDAY, Aug. 23

  • GENERATIVE WORKSHOP
    Transforming Habits into Meaningful Rituals to Enrich Your Writing Life & Increase Creative Flow
    with Eileen Espinoza
    Time: 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM CDT
    Free Eventbrite registration here

Eileen Espinoza is the most gentle midwife in guiding you in how you can transform your habits into meaningful rituals to enrich your writing life and increase your creative flow.

Eileen Elizabeth Espinoza is a full-time faculty in our MFA program and a frequent mentor in various genres. She’s a queer essayist and poet, the co-founder of Boshemia Magazine, and the recipient of the 2021 McQuern Award in Nonfiction. Her essays have been published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Bellevue Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her poetry has been selected by both Dorothy Allison and bell hooks for collections such as The Anthology of Appalachian Writers and Appalachian Review. She earned her MFA in Nonfiction from the University of California, Riverside, and her first book, Carrying the Bones: Rituals for a Dying World, is forthcoming from University Press of Kentucky (2024). 

 

This workshop is essential for all MFA students and will help you be prepared in any academic setting. The basic structure of any story is beginning, middle, and end. It is no coincidence then that an essay, even an academic one, follows this same pattern. Not only that, but the parts that make up an essay follow the same pattern as well. By having a clear understanding of this basic structure, we can ensure our writing doesn’t get lost or start to ramble in our academic writing. 

Clint Martin received his MFA from Spalding University in the spring of 2020. Since then, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in several literary journals and magazines such as Sycamore Review, Sheepshead Review, Binary Review, Motherwell Magazine, and The Bluebird Word. Clint has been a reader for The Louisville Review and been the faculty advisor for The Midway Muse. Currently, Clint is a full-time faculty member of MIU's English department and will also be teaching two MFA courses for us this coming school year.

 

  • MASTER CLASS
    The Power of Silence & Space in Disentombing Marginalized Perspectives
    with Sasha Kamini Parmasad
    Time: 7:30 - 9:30 PM CDT
    Free Eventbrite registration here

Sasha Kamini Parmasad will look at the role of silence and space on the page when we tell our marginalized and silenced perspectives. She will use the poet Muriel Rukeyser's work as a point of reference in guiding your own process with marginalized narratives in your own life.

Sasha Kamini Parmasad is a frequent poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction mentor in our MFA, and is a full-time faculty in our English department. She also teaches our introduction to consciousness-based education courses and is our resident TM-teacher. She will be our Fall ‘24 mentor in creative nonfiction. Sasha holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University and is the author of the poetry collection No Poem (Yuganta Press). She has designed and taught academic and creative writing courses at Columbia University. Her work is included in Modern English Poetry by Younger Indians (Sahithya Akademi) and an anthology from Red Hen Press, among other places.

 

MONDAY, Aug. 26

As writers, our curiosity guides us to explore, travel, and take advantage of what this incredible planet has to offer in great or small journeys. The first draft of any great piece of writing is not a page of words but a web of experiences, and some of the greatest works come about when we dare to travel away from home. Explore how to capture the magic of travel and vacation in your writing using timeless techniques and dynamic platforms. 

After receiving her MFA in Creative Writing from Northern Arizona University, Leah Waller served as the Assistant Managing Editor for Thin Air Magazine and taught writing in Flagstaff. Excited to reconnect with her roots, Leah returned to Iowa as an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing and served for years as MIU’s undergraduate program director for the BA and BFA programs in Creative Writing. She is also the co-chair of MIU’s department of English. Leah’s work has been published in literary journals, magazines, newspapers, and anthologies such as The Noise, The Barely South Review, Four Ties Lit Review, and The Daily Palette. Leah’s poetry collection Under the Cedar Tree had a soaring debut on Amazon’s top ten in poetry.

 

In this hour, we host the thesis reading of our Fall ‘24 MFA graduate, Tamlin Orion Day. Congratulations, Tamlin!

Tamlin Orion Day is a graduate of MIU’s BA and BFA programs in creative writing and is graduating from our MFA program this Fall. He has worked as an editor at iPhone Life Magazine, as a sensitivity reader, plus as an editor, copy-editor, and freelance writer, as a founding member of Fairfield Speakeasy, as a slam poetry coach, an artist, and a daycare provider. Tamlin is the father of two cats, LiLi and Miles. Besides creative nonfiction and hybrids, Tamlin writes poetry, some fiction, and is an artist, a graphic designer, and a cartoonist. He has been published in The Rio Review and more.

 

MFA graduate Chris Vasques offers a master class on writing a little weird: adventures in surrealist microfiction.

C. W. M. Vasques holds an MFA from the MFA in Creative Writing at Maharishi International University. His fiction, poetry, and essays explore surrealism and absurdism styles through themes of recovery, control, consciousness, compassion, resilience, power, and the nature of reality. His background is in community development, transpersonal psychology, environmental activism, archetypes, symbolism, and mythology. Vasques’ hobbies include playing music, reading, gaming, hiking, yoga, and finding new coffee shops with comfy chairs near plugs.  He lives in Massachusetts.

 

In this hour, we host the thesis reading of our Spring ‘24 MFA graduate, Chris Vasques. Congratulations, Chris!

C. W. M. Vasques holds an MFA from the MFA in Creative Writing at Maharishi International University. His fiction, poetry, and essays explore surrealism and absurdism styles through themes of recovery, control, consciousness, compassion, resilience, power, and the nature of reality. His background is in community development, transpersonal psychology, environmental activism, archetypes, symbolism, and mythology. Vasques’ hobbies include playing music, reading, gaming, hiking, yoga, and finding new coffee shops with comfy chairs near plugs.  He lives in Massachusetts.

Note that this event will be rescheduled at a later, since we ran out of time.

 

  • MENTOR READING
    Presenting Our MIU MFA Fall ‘24 MFA Mentors
    with Sasha Kamini Parmasad (Creative Nonfiction), Eileen Espinoza (Poetry), and Eric Boyd (Fiction)
    Time: 7:30 - 9:30 PM CDT
    Free Eventbrite registration here

We are delighted to host our Fall ‘24 MIU MFA mentors tonight in this special reading!

Sasha Kamini Parmasad is a frequent poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction mentor in our MFA, and is a full-time faculty in our English department. She also teaches our introduction to consciousness-based education courses and is our resident TM-teacher. She will be our Fall ‘24 mentor in creative nonfiction. Sasha holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University and is the author of the poetry collection No Poem (Yuganta Press). She has designed and taught academic and creative writing courses at Columbia University. Her work is included in Modern English Poetry by Younger Indians (Sahithya Akademi) and an anthology from Red Hen Press, among other places.

Eileen Elizabeth Espinoza is a full-time faculty in our MFA program and a frequent mentor in various genres. She’s a queer essayist and poet, the co-founder of Boshemia Magazine, and the recipient of the 2021 McQuern Award in Nonfiction. Her essays have been published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Bellevue Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her poetry has been selected by both Dorothy Allison and bell hooks for collections such as The Anthology of Appalachian Writers and Appalachian Review. She earned her MFA in Nonfiction from the University of California, Riverside, and her first book, Carrying the Bones: Rituals for a Dying World, is forthcoming from University Press of Kentucky (2024). 

Eric Boyd is our Fall ‘23 fiction mentor. He is a winner of the PEN Prison Writing Award and Slice Magazine's Bridging the Gap Award. His writing has appeared in Joyland, Hobart, Guernica, and The Offing, as well as the anthologies Prison Noir (Akashic Books) edited by Joyce Carol Oates, and Words Without Walls (Trinity University Press). He is the editor of The Pittsburgh Anthology (Belt Publishing) and holds an MFA from The Writer's Foundry in New York City.

 

TUESDAY, Aug. 27

  • GENERATIVE WORKSHOP
    Building Theme through the Elements of Literature: Developing the Abstract through the Concrete
    with Clint Martin
    Time: 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM CDT
    Free Eventbrite registration here

While subject matter often gets our attention, it is the theme(s) of a piece that resonate once the story has been told. Therefore, as writers, we need to be aware of our theme(s) and do what we can to make that resonance ring at multiple levels. In this lecture, we’ll look at how to use the concrete elements of literature like plot, character, and setting to develop the abstract ideas of theme. 

Clint Martin received his MFA from Spalding University in the spring of 2020. Since then, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in several literary journals and magazines such as Sycamore Review, Sheepshead Review, Binary Review, Motherwell Magazine, and The Bluebird Word. Clint has been a reader for The Louisville Review and been the faculty advisor for The Midway Muse. Currently, Clint is a full-time faculty member of MIU's English department and will also be teaching two MFA courses for us this coming school year.

 

  • MASTER CLASS
    The Poetic Onion: Crafting Layers of Meaning Using Lineation, Line Breaks & White Space
    with Mel McCuin
    Time: 1:30 - 3:30 PM CDT
    Free Eventbrite registration here

Like an onion, a timeless poem grows in potency and impact with each layer of meaning. To craft poetry that offers new insight with each reading, a writer must master lineation, line breaks, and white space! In this workshop, participants will read poetic works and practice exercises designed to enhance their writing practice.

Melanie McCuin received her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Northern Arizona University in 2014. She currently teaches composition and creative writing at Maharishi International University where she is our new undergraduate program director. Her writing has appeared in The Salt River Review, The Gila River Review, The Blue Guitar, and Unstrung. Her most recent work can be viewed in the June 2022 issue of Salamander and at howweare.org, a website devoted to the reflections of musicians, artists, and writers during the Covid-19 pandemic. Mel also creates video poems.

 

Tonight we’ll feature the poets Kai Coggin, who will be reading from her recently published book Mother of Other Kingdoms, and Nicole Callihan, who will be reading from her newest book, chigger ridge.

Kai Coggin is the Inaugural Poet Laureate of the City of Hot Springs, and author of five collections, most recently Mother of Other Kingdoms (Harbor Editions 2024). She is a Certified Master Naturalist, a K-12 Teaching Artist with the Arkansas Arts Council, and host of the longest running consecutive weekly open mic series in the country—Wednesday Night Poetry. Recently awarded the Don Munro Leadership in the Arts Award for Visionary Service, Coggin is the recipient of a 2024 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship, a 2024 INTERCHANGE Community Grant, a 2023 CATALYZE grant, a 2021 Governor’s Arts Award, and twice named “Best Poet in Arkansas” by the Arkansas Times. Kai lives with her wife in a peaceful valley, where they tend to wild ones and each other. In 2024, she received an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship. www.kaicoggin.com.

Nicole Callihan’s most recent book is chigger ridge (The Word Works 2024). Other books include This Strange Garment (Terrapin 2023) and the 2019 novella, The Couples. She also co-edited the Braving the Body anthology published by Harbor Editions in March 2024. Her work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, Tin House, Conduit, The American Poetry Review, and as a Poem-a-Day selection from the Academy of American Poets. Winner of an Alma Award, her next book, SLIP, will be published by Saturnalia in 2025. Find out more at www.nicolecallihan.com.

 

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 28

  • MASTER CLASS
    Finding Yourself in a Universe of Stories: Layering Time & Grounding the Meta-Narrative
    with Dominica Borg
    Time: 1:30 AM - 3:30 PM CDT
    Free Eventbrite registration here

How do you tell a story about a river? How do you tell a story that spans decades, generations, centuries? How do you humanize history? How do you humanize contemporary issues? How do you embody a collective story?

Literary journalism necessitates grounding abstract topics in sensory detail, human experience, and inter-generational or even geologic memory. The same craft techniques nonfiction writers use to make science, history, and civics not only accessible but vivid, tangible, and riveting can be used in any genre. From the "kitchen table" lyric narrative of poet Nickole Brown, to Ben Goldfarb's Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter that spans a continent and several centuries, to three generations navigating color lines and the meaning of race in The Vanishing Half, a novel by Brit Bennett, any genre has the power and potential to tell a story that layers and transcends time and place. This class will help you to illustrate and embody concepts or events through research, immersive observation, and narrative structure.

Please read this article in preparation for the workshop: https://www.iowasource.com/2023/09/01/iowa-water-crisis/

Additional books referenced as examples in this workshop include Snowball Earth, The Best Strangers in the World, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, The Beak of the Finch, Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity, and Braiding Sweetgrass. Craft books include The Writing Life by John McPhee and Meander, Spiral, Explode by Jane Alison.

Dominica Borg is a recent graduate of the MFA with a dual genre emphasis in creative nonfiction and poetry. Her favorite genre is literary journalism. Dominica's work has been published in the Van Buren County Register and The Iowa Source, and she is a participant in The Thirsty Word reading series. Dominica works as a ghostwriter and freelance rural reporter with an emphasis on human environment relationships, small business and economic development, food, agriculture, and policy. She holds a B.S. in Sustainable Living (an applied liberal sciences degree) and is a former science and social studies teacher.

 

Tonight, MFA favorite guests Stacy Jane Grover and Alice Paige join us for a reading of memoir and fiction.

Stacy Jane Grover grew up as a pastor’s kid in Southeast Ohio in a large farming family. Before becoming a writer, Stacy went to school for culinary arts and hotel/restaurant management and managed in the service industry for over a decade. She then earned a BA from Ohio State University and an MA in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from the University of Cincinnati. Her essays have appeared in Salon, Bitch Media, Belt Magazine, and two book anthologies from Belt Publishing. Her 2021 essay “The Girl in the Mall” garnered a 2022 Best American Essays notable mention. Her first book, Tar Hollow Trans: Essays, is available from the University Press of Kentucky, which was a finalist in the category of Transgender Nonfiction of the Lambda Literary Awards in 2024.

Alice Paige is an author, educator, and activist from Chicago, Illinois. She teaches creative writing at Hamline University, Saint Paul Conservatory for the Performing Artist, and the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop. She writes about the healing power of community, the dangers of assimilation, and the ghosts of what we once were. Her work can be found in American Precariat, Take a Stand: Art Against Hate, A Raven Chronicles Anthology, Luna Station Quarterly, The Rumpus and plenty of other strange places.

 

THURSDAY, Aug. 29

We all know how to write sentences, but how often do we think about why we’re creating a particular sentence in a particular way? In this lecture, we’ll examine a variety of sentence structures and discuss their effects in order to advance our awareness of the art of the sentence, a fundamental aspect of writing. 

Clint Martin received his MFA from Spalding University in the spring of 2020. Since then, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in several literary journals and magazines such as Sycamore Review, Sheepshead Review, Binary Review, Motherwell Magazine, and The Bluebird Word. Clint has been a reader for The Louisville Review and been the faculty advisor for The Midway Muse. Currently, Clint is a full-time faculty member of MIU's English department and will also be teaching two MFA courses for us this coming school year.

 

Event description forthcoming.

Denise Low, Kansas Poet Laureate 2007-09, is a founding board member of Indigenous Nations Poets, former board president of AWP, and curator of “Indigenous Voices” for The 222 in northern California. She taught at Haskell Indian Nations University, where she founded the creative writing program. Her House of Grace, House of Blood (2024) is an archive/verse project (University of Arizona). Other publications are Deer/A-Wi (Mammoth), with Kim Shuck; Turtle’s Beating Heart: One Family’s Story of Lenape Survival (University of Nebraska).

Aileen Cassinetto is co-editor of Dear Human at the Edge of Time: Poems on Climate Change in the United States (2023), a companion to the Fifth National Climate Assessment, and The Nature of Our Times: Poems on America’s Lands, Waters, Wildlife, and Other Natural Wonders (2025), a companion to the First National Nature Assessment. She is a 2021 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow, and her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Anthropocene, Consequence Forum, Mount Hope, Poetry, and Rust & Moth.

Kim Shuck engages in many things poetic. She organizes at least three poetry readings a month, has been published in many places, got some degrees (less poetic),  says things in public, and edits stuff, and has been awarded various certificates, fellowships, things that stand on shelves and one thing that should really be a cheeseboard rather than a wall adornment. Her latest books are Pick a Garnet to Sleep In and Deer/A-wi  with Denise Low.

 

  • CANCELED: MASTER CLASS
    The Impact of Culture on Consciousness: Exploring the Literary Aesthetics of People of Color
    with Sasha Kamini Parmasad
    Time: 7:30 AM - 9:30 PM CDT
    Free Eventbrite registration here

We apologize, this event has been canceled due to illness. We will reschedule it for a later time if we are able. Contact us if you want to be notified of the rescheduling of this event.

Sasha Kamini Parmasad is a frequent poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction mentor in our MFA, and is a full-time faculty in our English department. She also teaches our introduction to consciousness-based education courses and is our resident TM-teacher. She will be our Fall ‘24 mentor in creative nonfiction. Sasha holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University and is the author of the poetry collection No Poem (Yuganta Press). She has designed and taught academic and creative writing courses at Columbia University. Her work is included in Modern English Poetry by Younger Indians (Sahithya Akademi) and an anthology from Red Hen Press, among other places.

 

FRIDAY, Aug. 30

In this workshop, Eileen Espinoza explores the relationship between time and memory and writing using Virginia Woolf as a leaping off point for prompts and discussion.

Eileen Elizabeth Espinoza is a full-time faculty in our MFA program and a frequent mentor in various genres. She’s a queer essayist and poet, the co-founder of Boshemia Magazine, and the recipient of the 2021 McQuern Award in Nonfiction. Her essays have been published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Bellevue Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her poetry has been selected by both Dorothy Allison and bell hooks for collections such as The Anthology of Appalachian Writers and Appalachian Review. She earned her MFA in Nonfiction from the University of California, Riverside, and her first book, Carrying the Bones: Rituals for a Dying World, is forthcoming from University Press of Kentucky (2024). 

 

Revision is an essential component of the writing process. Much of writing is revising, but revising is not something writers can leave to chance. Simply “reading over” a work will not suffice. Today, writer and educator Clint Martin offers techniques to help you revise intentionally. This lecture will present ideas on how to establish a focus so that revision becomes more intentional and thus more efficient and effective. 

Clint Martin received his MFA from Spalding University in the spring of 2020. Since then, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in several literary journals and magazines such as Sycamore Review, Sheepshead Review, Binary Review, Motherwell Magazine, and The Bluebird Word. Clint has been a reader for The Louisville Review and been the faculty advisor for The Midway Muse. Currently, Clint is a full-time faculty member of MIU's English department and will also be teaching two MFA courses for us this coming school year.

 

  • MASTER CLASS
    The New American Mythos: Writing Speculative Stories in America from the Margins
    with Alice Paige
    Time: 7:30 AM - 9:30 PM CDT
    Free Eventbrite registration here

The American Mythic shifts beneath a cacophony of new voices; the old language of the sacrifice, the sword, and the beast are repurposed and reinvented for modern conversations. Join in a 120-minute workshop to discuss the methods in which language, tropes, and story structures are reimagined to illuminate voices pushed to the margins of past American narratives. This workshop will be part-lecture and discussion and part-generative.

Alice Paige is an author, educator, and activist from Chicago, Illinois. She teaches creative writing at Hamline University, Saint Paul Conservatory for the Performing Artist, and the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop. She writes about the healing power of community, the dangers of assimilation, and the ghosts of what we once were. Her work can be found in American Precariat, Take a Stand: Art Against Hate, A Raven Chronicles Anthology, Luna Station Quarterly, The Rumpus and plenty of other strange places.

 

SATURDAY, Aug. 31

We are thrilled to have with us on our final festival night our former MFA faculty, beloved by students and guests, Jennifer Espinoza! She will be reading from her new poetry collection, which just came out from Alice James Books: I Don’t Want to Be Understood.

Joshua Jennifer Espinoza’s work has been featured in Poetry, Denver Quarterly, American Poetry Review, Poem-a-Day, Lambda Literary, PEN America, The Offing, and elsewhere. Her full-length collection THERE SHOULD BE FLOWERS was published by Civil Coping Mechanisms in 2016. She also is the author of  I’m Alive / It Hurts / I Love It (Big Lucks 2019) and I Don’t Want to Be Understood (Alice James Books, 2024). She holds an MFA in creative writing from University of California, Riverside. For several years she was a full-time faculty in MIU’s MFA in Creative Writing and now she is a frequent guest at our festivals and residencies, plus an adjunct mentor in our MFA.