Valerie Surrett, ABD

This just in from Katy Ryan:

"I am delighted to announce that Valerie Surrett passed her booklist exam with grace and humor. Now able to tell the difference between utopias, eutopias, dystopias, critical dystopias, and anti-utopias are committee members Gwen Bergner, Michael Germana, Rosemary Hathaway, Lisa Yaszek (outside), and me. 

Congratulations on a fantastic exam, Valerie!"

The Tenants add their congratulations and confirm that the swaddling team will be at Valerie's door within the hour.

Sharon Kelly, ABD

Today was the oral portion of Sharon Kelly's booklist exam, and the conversation between Sharon and her committee (Ryan Claycomb, Brian Jara from Women's and Gender Studies, John Lamb, Lisa Weihman, and yours truly as Chair) covered both the spiritual and material aspects of life in Victorian London, from table-turning to green carnations.

Throughout, Sharon responded to the barrage of questions with aplomb and good humor. As a result, the Tenants are very happy to be able to congratulate Sharon on passing her Qualifying Exam for Doctoral Candidacy, which officially makes her ABD. If you check a Victorian etiquette book, the appropriate gift for this is paper.

Phillip Zapkin, ABD

After a very pleasant and intellectually stimulating conversation that ranged from Aristotle to By the Bog of Cats, including a detour onto Janet Yellen, Phil Zapkin's committee--chaired by Ryan Claycomb and composed of Katy Ryan, Lisa Weihman, Emily Klein of St. Mary's, and yours truly--quickly concluded that Phil was more than ready to begin writing his dissertation and unanimously agreed that he had passed his Qualifying Examination for Doctoral Candidacy.

In other words, while you cannot yet call Mr. Zapkin "Dr. Phil," it's only a matter of time. In the interim, he might answer to "ABD Phil."

Appalachian Prison Book Project Book Sale/Bake Sale This Wednesday in Colson Hall.

Hi Everyone! If you are in Colson Hall on Wednesday, October 22, 2014 between 9AM and 4PM, you should stop by the Appalachian Prison Book Project's Annual Book Sale/Bake Sale.  (And before you fortify yourself with tasty treats AND knowledge, be sure to check out the APBP on Twitter and on Facebook.)

In other awesome news: every Saturday during the Spring and Fall Academic Semesters, the APBP runs open training hours from 10AM-1PM in our workspace at the Garlow House on Spruce Street.  If you want to be trained by a certified APBP trainer in how to respond to letters, select, and wrap books, now's your chance.  We look forward to seeing you there.

October 22, 2014

9:00 am – 4:00 pm
Colson Hall, Room 130

In support of the

Appalachian Prison Book Project

Please join us for a Book Sale and Bake Sale in support of APBP. We are currently raising funds to support some important purchases for our organization, including new shelving, a printer, a table banner for our events, other special interest books, and as always, postage for mailing out books.

APBP is a 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated to sending free books to women and men incarcerated throughout the Appalachian region.

Do Plants Have Feelings? Professor Farina's Talk on October 29 Will Answer This Question

The Youngest Tenant, October 2014 Edition

The Tenants are pleased to welcome Henry Mark Sardone-Jones, who is apparently related to Professor John Jones and who joined us in Colson Hall on October 2nd.

At 7 lbs, 13 oz., Henry is also currently the smallest tenant. The trophy for this has been placed next to his crib in the nursery in the East Wing.

Kittens on Theory

This is what the Internet is for, says Professor Allen, so I present my kitten, Myrna Loy, reading The Critical Tradition.

Then, in a reversal many of us have known, seemingly being swallowed by it.

And finally, poor thing, simply succumbing, as is bound to happen.

When I tired to cheer her up by reading aloud from Horace's Ars Poetica, her comment was to align herself with Mother Goose.

Tenants, have you heard...?

Hello Kitty is not a cat.

I repeat the blasphemy: Hello Kitty is not a cat.

I know: what?!

I too am upset.

The ever-alert Rosemary Hathaway broke the "shocking" news to me this morning, first thing, at 7:37, via text.

Then savvy newcomer Julia Daniel sent me another link this afternoon ("Saw this and thought of you").

Quite frankly, I do not believe it. Kitty has whiskers! I mean, aren't those whiskers??

And, no offense to little girls, but I would NEVER carry a lunch box with a picture of a little girl on it. Just sayin'.

I suppose all you lit. crit. types can continue to analyze Kitty as a text. Hardly matters if she's a cat or a girl. But it isn't as interesting, is it?

So what if Hello Kitty has a cat of her own (Charmmy Kitty)? What does that prove? It's not uncommon for one cat to have another (less powerful) cat as an assistant/apprentice.

Oh, and, turns out, she can play the piano, fyi. But, again, so what? Lots of cats can play the piano as well as a little girl can (or most adults).

I'll close by saying that, just by coincidence, I'm eating a Hello Kitty sugar cookie (thank you, Amanda Tustin!) that most definitely looks like the face of a cat, as any little girl would tell you.

Postcards from the Interns

Our Humanities Summer Interns, Kayla McKinney and Allyson DeMaagd, have been hard at work collecting images for Julia Daniel's new book on landscape and modern American poetry. Here are some postcards from their more exotic locations. Who knew archival research could be so adventuresome?

Dispatches from the 2014 West Virginia Writers' Workshop: Day 4

After four days of readings, writings, workshops, book launches, visits from campus dignitaries, and what turned in to over 200 live-tweets, the 2014 West Virginia Writer’s Workshop ended yesterday at noon, in Colson Hall.  

The last day’s event was a Panel on Publishing (one of the most popular events from the 2013 Writer’s Workshop last year, actually).  The lovely ladies from PageSpring, Lynn and Katherine came, as well as the fantastic poet, Renee Nicholson, (fresh from her Friday book-release of the book, Roundabout Directions to Lincoln Center) our insanely prolific department chair, Jim Harms and the publishing power-couple, Allison Joseph and Jon Tribble, who match their exemplary poetry with tireless work for the Crab Orchard Review, and the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry.  

Mark Brazaitis moderated the panel, and fielded excellent questions from the audience, such as

-I am a new writer.  Where should I start sending my work to?

-How do you organize a chapbook manuscript, or any manuscript for a book of poems?

-How do you deal with rejection as a professional author?

As you can imagine, everyone on the panel really brought their A-game.  For the answers they gave to these and other questions, take a look at my live-tweeting of the event, at:

@WV_Workshop

Our writers and participants bid their sweet adieus after that, and we were left to reflect on the excellent weekend.  

Natalie counted out our Shann Palmer Memorial Scholarship Fund, and we realized that because of the generosity of the participants this weekend, we have an actual scholarship in place! Thank you to everyone who donated.  We know Shann would have been so delighted by our fundraiser.  I was walking around with my envelope, and lottery tickets on Saturday at the open mic, and everyone wanted to add something, and talk about Shann.  It was really wonderful. I will post details regarding the scholarship to our social media account in the coming months, so please stay tuned.  

You must forgive me for the late-ness of this post. I am back to my work-a-day routine, and while I will be posting to the workshop Twitter account regularly, there won’t be any more live-tweeting for a while.  More importantly though, I have been voyaging into the dark forest of Facebook for the first time in a couple of years, to set up an official Page for our Workshop.  While it is still very much a work in progress, you can find us (and please like us) here:

https://www.facebook.com/WVWritersWS

I expect to be posting to that page pretty regularly, and you can too, of course, because Facebook is a supernatural entity or something like that.  

Of course I must extend Mark’s thank yous to everyone who made this workshop possible, including all of you here in the English department and in the College of Arts and Sciences at large, who assisted our participants, attended (or read at) our readings, made everyone feel at home in Morgantown and at WVU, and generally gave us all a writing-weekend to remember.  Next year promises to be another great series of workshop events, so tune in to Facebook, Twitter, and this Blog to hear all about it, as the third week of July 2015 rolls around.  

Also, thank you dear reader(s), for reading my posts and reports on all of the happenings, and letting me be that obnoxious person with the camera, and the open laptop for four days straight.  

~Dominique