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NEWS
AND VIEWS |
John
Guzlowski
Here's the news from Valdosta: It’s been a busy fall. I did something that I haven’t done for 35 years. I wrote a short story! When I first started writing in high school, I wrote fiction, science fiction in fact, but then when I went to college I was so busy reading fiction that I couldn’t find time for writing it. I guess this new story of mine is a sure clue that I have too much time on my hands. I’ve also been placing poems. Probably the one I’m most proud of is “My Mother’s Optimism,” a poem about my mom’s surgeries for breast and ovarian cancer. The poem was published in an anthology called Under Our Skin: Literature of Breast Cancer. I’ve also placed poems in the second edition of Blood to Remember: American Poets on the Holocaust, Atlanta Review, Free Lunch, New Works Review, and two polish journals, Nowa Olicta Poetow and Fraza. As always, it would be a pleasure to hear from any of my old friends at EIU. The
picture shows me and Linda on a Caribbean cruise last December. |
Bruce
Guernsey
I have a poem called "Vulture" coming out in Measure, a journal that publishes verse in meter and rhyme only (remember those terms?). One of my essays called "Nobody's Home," first published in War, Literature and the Arts, has been selected to be published in a forthcoming anthology called When War Becomes Personal. I'll be giving a reading in the Great Hall Series at Harlaxton College this March. |
I got a buck with my bow on Saturday, but you don't have to put that in Agora. |
Anne
Zahlan My very good news at the end of November: The forthcoming issue of the Thomas Wolfe Review is at the printer! For information see the Thomas Wolfe Society website. |
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Alumni News
Rardin began writing at the age of twelve, and despite the lure of beauty
school and veterinary college, she never truly wanted to do anything
else. She attended EIU from 1983 to 1987, where she majored in English
and minored in Creative Writing. While at Eastern she won the Louis
B. Murray Award for Children’s Literature. In fact, Rardin had
almost completed her first children’s novel when she received
word of the sale of her adult fantasy series. The news still hasn’t
quite sunk in. “When I’m holding the published book in my
hand,” says Rardin, “maybe then it will finally be real
to me.” Rardin lives in southeastern Illinois with her husband
and two children.
back in school for a Childhood Development degree, which she is discovering
is a cruel joke she has played
on herself. Terrible, she thinks, to raise one’s children, only
to go back to school to discover
all the ways you might have messed them up. Jeff
still writes poetry. Most recently, a poem of his entitled “Clean”
appeared in Poet Laureate Ted Kooser’s nationally syndicated newspaper
column, American Life in Poetry. Since grad school, Jeff has
also been writing fiction. His debut novel, Into the Desperate Country,
recently came out from March Street Press.
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