December 8, 2013
Dear BGSU Creative Writing Alumni:
We’ve had a very exciting and wonderful year here at the Creative Writing Program!
In August, I took over the directorship from Dr. Lawrence Coates, who will be
serving, as of Fall 2014, as the new Chairman of the BGSU Department of English.
Please join me in congratulation Dr. Coates on his important new position!
We’ve had some important achievements this year, for the program as a whole, and
for its faculty and alumni. Below is a brief look at our newsworthy
accomplishments. You can also enjoy a front-page article about our program’s
successes in the Bowling Green Sentinel-Tribune, at the link below:
http://www.sent-trib.com/front-page/bgsu-creative-writing-program-issomething-to-write-home-about
High rankings nationally -Our Creative Writing Program is rising high in the national rankings for popularity
and job placement! The 2014 MFA Index in Poets and Writers has ranked our program
#30 in the nation in popularity (a measure of how desirable it is to apply to our MFA via
survey) out of over 150 full-residency MFA programs. This puts us in some pretty
rarified air with respect to peer institutions like UT Austin (#21); Johns Hopkins (#25);
Columbia U (#26); and Purdue U (#30—tied with us). Also, our ranking among MFA
programs is now #15 in the country in job placement.
Alumni successes –
This year, two graduates of our MFA and our BFA program have won major national
book prizes in fiction!

Tessa Mellas, MFA, won the prestigious Iowa Short Fiction Prize for her debut
collection of short stories, “Lungs Full of Noise,” forthcoming from the
University of Iowa Press in 2013.
Tessa will be joining our faculty in this coming spring semester, as the program’s
Distinguished Visiting Writer.

Monica McFawn Robinson, BFA, won the prestigious Flannery O’Connir Award
for Short Fiction for her collection, “Bright Shards of Someplace Else,”
forthcoming from the University of Georgia Press in 2014.
Monica will be reading next fall semester in our Prout Chapel Reading Series.
New books by and prizes for Creative Writing faculty --
* Dr. Lawrence Coates’s novel, The Garden of the World, was awarded the College
English Assocation of Ohio’s Nancy Dasher Award for the best book of creative writing,
statewide. Just recently, Dr. Coates’s short story, “Bats,” won a grand prize of $1000
in the Barthelme Prize for Short Prose competition; “Bats” will be published this spring
by Gulf Coast magazine.
* Dr. Wendell Mayo’s new book, The Cucumber King of Kedainiai: Fictions, was
awarded the Subito Press Award for Innovative Fiction, and was published by the
University of Colorado Press in October, 2013.
* From Abigail Cloud, an MFA alumna, faculty member, and editor-in-chief of MidAmerican Review, comes Sylph, a collection of poems, winner of the Lena MilesWever Todd Prize, in spring 2014 from Pleiades Press.
* Dr. Sharona Muir’s new book, Invisible Beasts: Tales of the Animals that Go
Unseen Among Us, is forthcoming in summer 2014 from Bellevue Literary Press at
New York State University.
Prout Chapel Reading Series –
Four wonderful writers graced the Prout Series during the fall of 2013. In poetry,
we had readings from Denise Duhamel (pictured in the Sentinel-Tribune article,)
whose work has been featured by Bill Moyers, as well as Mary Biddinger, an alumna
of BGSU and editor of the Akron Series in Poetry. In fiction, we were fortunate to
host Bonnie Jo Campbell, a Pushcart prizewinner and nominee for the National Book
Award, as well as Mark Brazaitis, the featured reader at our Winter Wheat literary
festival.
Winter Wheat Literary Festival
Winter Wheat was host to over 250 students, faculty, alumni, and guests from at
least six states. Many of our undergraduates attended too. Some of Winter
Wheat's workshops, including alumnus Matt Bell's, broke registration records!
Mat Bell’s thoughts on revision, and those of Traci Brimhall, completely changed
the way participants thought about the task. It was a transformational and exciting
festival.
Mid-American Review
We’re proud that MAR is approaching its 35th anniversary year! We're launching
a new arts collaboration contest in which artists will produce works inspired by
poems and stories MAR has printed. We'll also be launching a blog, and getting in
touch with some of the writers we published in our Unpublished Writers issue
from the 25th anniversary, to see what they've been up to.
Please keep in contact with us here at the program and let us know your news;
we’re always happy to hear from our alumni. Wishing you a joyous holiday
season,
Sharona Muir
Director
Creative Writing Program