Ashland MFA Program - Student News

Valerie Due, MFA student, has had her essay "The Skinning Board" selected as the winner of the Writers at Work nonfiction fellowship competition, which includes prize money, publication in Quarterly West, a featured reading at the Writers at Work Conference, full tuition for the conference, free housing, and a manuscript consultation with a visiting writer or agent while at the conference. Abigail Thomas, the judge of the contest, had this to say about Due's piece: "I love the emotional restraint coupled with the ravishing prose of the piece. It serves so perfectly the young narrator whose initiation into the harsh realities of life--and death--on a farm is being presented here."

Peter Campion's essay on poetry and politics is now featured on Poetry Daily. He won a Pushcart Prize for his poem, "Just Now."

Robert Root's The Nonfictionist's Guide: On Reading and Writing Creative Nonfiction will be published in paperback edition in August 2008 by Rowman and Littlefield.

Stephen Haven's new book The River Lock: One Boy's Life Along the Mohawk has been published by The University of Syracuse Press.

Angie Estes has had three of her poems translated and published in the recent Russian anthology Contemporary Poetry in the United States: A Bilingual English-Cyrillic Edition. New poems also appear in the Spring 2008 issue of FIELD. Her lyric essay, "Want," was just published in the anthology Every Passing Breath: Contemporary Poets Respond to the Psalms.

Amy Campbell, Incoming MFA student, was a finalist for the Hunger Mountain Creative Nonfiction Prize for her piece, "A World Away."

Timothy West, Incoming MFA student, has had his poem "To My Daughter on a Workday" selected to be featured on an RTA bus card in Cleveland, Ohio for the annual Moving Minds: The Verse and Vision Project.

Ashland MFA Student News & Publication Activity

Though the Ashland MFA is only in its second season of admissions, its students have been actively submitting and getting published. Congratulations to our current students in their publication activity!

Class of 2009

Valerie Due

Winner of the 2008 Writers at Work nonfiction fellowship competition for her essay "The Skinning Board." Due received $1,500 in prize money, publication in Quarterly West, a featured reading at the Writers at Work Conference, full tuition for the conference, free housing, and a manuscript consultation with a visiting writer or agent while at the conference. Abigail Thomas, the judge of the contest, had this to say about Due's piece: "I love the emotional restraint coupled with the ravishing prose of the piece. It serves so perfectly the young narrator whose initiation into the harsh realities of life--and death--on a farm is being presented here."

Joanne Lehman

Traces of Treasure: Quest for God in the Commonplace published in 1994 by Herald Press. It won a Silver Angel for Excellence in Media.
Morning Song, Joanne's first collection of poetry, won the Wick Poetry Chapbook Prize and was published by Kent State University Press in 2004.
Kairos: A Novel was published by Herald Press in November 2005.

Joanna Robinson

"Skin Deep" was published in Issue 9.1 of River Teeth.
"Journey Through the Trees" will be published in an upcoming issue of Tampa Review.
"Mars" will be published in the November issue of The Southern Review.

JR Simons

"The Sparrow with the Broken Wing" was published in the Fall/Winter 2007 issue of Common Threads, the semi-annual publication of The Ohio Poetry Association.

Class of 2010

Amy Campbell

"A World Away" was the finalist for the 2007 Hunger Mountain Creative Nonfiction Prize

Joy Gaines-Friedler

"Assisted Living" will be published in Rattle's Winter 2008 issue.
Finalist for the 2007 Margie Review poetry contest. Her poems will appear in the 2008 issue.
Like Vapor, Joy's first book of poetry, was published by Mayapple Press in May 2008.

Timothy West

"To My Daughter on a Workday" was selected to be featured on an RTA bus in Cleveland, Ohio for the annual Moving Minds: The Verse and Vision Project.