In Memoriam: Emerita Nancy Cutbirth Small

Dr. Nancy Cutbirth Small passed away after a long illness on Friday, 27 November 2009. Nancy joined the Department of English in 1971 and retired as Associate Professor with emerita status at the end of 1995. Her career was distinguished above all by the nurturing care that she lavished on her students, by her teaching of numerous courses in Renaissance Literature (particularly poetry), by her editing of The Anthony Powell Newsletter, and by her labors in conjunction with her future husband Tom in organizing what were then annual Shakespeare Festivals sponsored by the Department.

Following retirement Nancy pursued her passions for peace and the natural world. She was an early opponent of the war in Iraq, an early and active member of the Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy, and a founder of the Kalamazoo chapter of Wild Ones, an organization that advocates for natural landscapes. She lectured widely and wrote numerous letters and essays advocating for the preservation of natural spaces and all critters that live in, on, or above them. In a sense she never stopped teaching, as those who gardened with her, or received plants from her hands, or sought her advice on what to plant and where and why would testify.   T. H. Seiler

See also the Obituary in the Kalamazoo Gazette. Please also note that the family has established an online Guest Book until 12/1/2010.

Bonnie Jo Campbell (MFA 1998) finalist for National Book Award

Bonnie Jo Campbell is among the finalists for the National Book Foundation's "National Book Award" for American Salvage. Please read the full article in the NY Times.

Bonnie Jo Campbell's "American Salvage" Has Once Again Gained Success

"In her new short-story collection, American Salvage, Bonnie Jo Campbell looks at working-class life in Michigan. Reviewer Alan Cheuse says both roughness and beauty can be found in Campbell's stories about cold, meth-drenched small towns."

The following is the transcript of the National Public Radio broadcast relating to her book:

NOAH ADAMS, host:

From NPR News, it's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Noah Adams.

MELISSA BLOCK, host:

And I'm Melissa Block.

Michigan has been one of the hardest-hit states in the economic downturn. The unemployment rate there right now is 15 percent. And it is among Michigan's struggling working class that Bonnie Jo Campbell sets her new book of short stories. It's called "American Salvage."

Alan Cheuse has this review.

ALAN CHEUSE: Campbell sets most of her stories in a small Michigan town that's been saturated with methamphetamine, a place suffering from a declining Rust Belt economy and all of the usual small-town modern pains: loss of love, splintered families, despair about the future.

Even the happy families, such as that of the yard man, Jerry, and his wife, Natalie, must fight off assaults from invading nature, from ermines to bees to snakes. Jerry can't sleep because of a hole in the baseboard of their bedroom. He's afraid that anything could move into that empty space and lurk there.

That worry turns up in many of the other stories. In "King Cole's American Salvage," an ex-con named William Slocum, Jr. holds up an auto salvage yard owner, beating him nearly to death, all so he can buy his beloved girlfriend, Wanda some meth - to keep herself going, we hear, since she'd lost her job.

In one of the most chilling passages in recent fiction, Slocum presents his girl with a wad of blood-spattered cash.

Campbell writes: Here's your house payment, babe. Look at you, Wanda says, but she was looking at the money. With two fingers, she lifted a $50 bill from the stack and held it away from herself. Willie, this money's covered with blood. Sorry about that. Slocum looked at his hands, which were also covered with blood. We can wash it in the sink, Wanda said.

What these people do to each other can't be washed away. But in these stories about cold, lonely, meth-drenched, modern, working-class, small-town Michigan life, there's a roughness and even beauty.

Few of the stories have endings that seem resolved. Because of their despairing feel and their shape and form, they seem quite lifelike, all too real.

BLOCK: The book of short stories is called "American Salvage" by Bonnie Jo Campbell. Our reviewer is Alan Cheuse. And Alan's latest book is "A Trance After Breakfast."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112651628

Vincent Reusch

Vincent Reusch, recent PhD graduate, got a job at Concordia College, Minnesota--a fiction position.

Laura Feffer (2008) wins prestigious award

Laura Feffer (2008) just learned that she is the recipient of the prestigious Farmer Award from the Editor of English Journal, with a circulation of over 30,000 the largest circulation academic journal in the world! Laura's essay about her students engaging in ensemble theater, written with Allen Webb as an independent study during her MATE program, was one of two essays selected this year to be given this national award at the secondary section of NCTE at the luncheon at the conference this November in Philadelphia.

American Salvage

National Public Radio book reviewer Alan Cheuse has just reviewed
AMERICAN SALVAGE, Bonnie Jo Campbell's (1998 MFA) third book of fiction,
which has just gone into a third printing. Cheuse says many all good
things, compares Campbell to D.H. Lawrence, and refers to a particular
scene in the title story as "one of the most chilling passages in recent
fiction." AMERICAN SALVAGE was published by Wayne State University
Press as part of the Made in Michigan series.

One of the stories in the collection, "The Inventor, 1972,"
has won the 2009 Eudora Welty Prize from /Southern Review./

Campbell teaches at the Pacific University low residency MFA program in
Oregon, and currently she is is running around promoting AMERICAN
SALVAGE, so if you want her to come to her town, just contact her on
facebook or at her website: www.bonniejocampbell.com.

'American Salvage' delves into lonely, modern working-class small-town Michigan life

Bonnie Jo Campbell creates stories that somehow dig deep while also soaring

By Alan Cheuse |Special to Tribune Newspapers

July 25, 2009

Well, it looks as though Illinois writer Jean Thompson, with her recent collection "Do Not Deny Me," has middle-class Midwestern life pretty well covered for the year. Now here's Bonnie Jo Campbell in "American Salvage" taking on the question of life among Michigan working-class folks, and making stories that dig deep and somehow soar at the same time.

She sets most of her stories in a small Michigan town that has been saturated with methamphetamine, a place suffering the torpors of a declining Rust Belt economy and all of the usual small-town modern times pains -- loss of love, splintered families, despair about the future -- as well. Even the happy families, such as that of Jerry and his wife, Natalie, must fight off assaults from invading nature, from ermine to bees to snakes. Jerry can't sleep because of a hole in the baseboard of their bedroom, fearing that anything "could move into that empty space and lurk there, a bat or a squirrel or bugs or some awful art of himself, maybe."

That worry turns out to be in many of the other stories, except it's people from town, the neighbors, who assault one another. In the story "King Cole's American Salvage," from which Campbell takes the title for the collection, an ex-con named William Slocum Jr. robs an auto salvage yard owner, beating him nearly to death, all so he can buy his beloved girlfriend Wanda some methamphetamine "to keep herself going since she had lost her job" and help her pay her mortgage. He beats the salvage yard man so badly with a length of galvanized pipe that the victim's blood spills over the money Slocum finds in his pockets.

In one of the most chilling passages in recent fiction -- all the more so because of the matter-of-fact way the writer presents it -- Slocum presents his girl with the cash. " 'Here's your house payment, babe.' 'Look at you,' she said, but she was looking at the money. With two fingers she lifted a 50-dollar bill from the stack and held it away from herself. 'Willie, this money's covered with blood.' 'Sorry about that.' Slocum looked at his hands, which were also covered with blood. 'We can wash it in the sink,' Wanda said."

Alas, what these people do to one another can't be washed away or erased. Even the children suffer from a deadening of expectations, as we hear when a schoolgirl, run over by a man racing along the road on a foggy morning, lies waiting for help, considers the miseries of what may come in her life. "What if the future were camouflage and gray and sour, phlegm and dirty snow, wounds and scars and boys killing helpless pond creatures?"

Humor is a toothless meth addict, joking with her earnest ex-husband that she has committed incest with her former stepson. And though the future envisioned by the most level-headed adults, as in the mind of Doug, the victim of an accident, takes on a certain lyrical force, it remains bleak nonetheless: "The universe seemed darker than he'd realized, and larger, which made each thing in it, including him, smaller. Years ago, smart-aleck schoolboys like him ... should have learned more than their grammar and arithmetic. Why hadn't they learned the way bodies could break and how slow and difficult it was to heal?"

In these stories about cold, lonely, meth-drenched, working-class Michigan life, there's a certain beauty reaching something like the sublimity of a D.H. Lawrence story. Few of the stories have endings that seem resolved. Because of their despairing feel, and their shape and form, they seem quite lifelike.

Alan Cheuse is an author, a writing teacher at George Mason University and a book commentator for NPR's "All Things Considered."

"American Salvage"

By Bonnie Jo Campbell

Wayne State University Press, $18.95, 171 pages

Former English Faculty, Ken Macrorie, Dies

From Las Cruces Sun-News "Ken Macrorie was born in the Mississippi River town of Moline, Ill., in 1918. He graduated from Oberl[l]in College in Ohio and served in the Army during WWII. He then earned a master's degree in English at the University of North Carolina where he became a civil rights activist and began his lifelong dedication to breaking down racial bigotry and bars to equality wherever he was. He taught at Michigan State University and was active in forming the teachers union. When he began work on his doctorate at Columbia University, he studied perception, concentrating on how it affected journalists and accompanying New York Times reporters on assignments. He wrote his doctoral thesis on objectivity/subjectivity in reporting. After receiving his degree, he returned to Michigan State, eventually moving to San Francisco State and then to Western Michigan University where he made the breakthroughs that led to his national leadership role in re-educating teachers trapped in unproductive teaching methods to learn how to express themselves in print and pass that knowledge on to their students." For the full obituary, visit the Las Cruces Sun News.

WMU Alumni Kelly Sandoval's Update

Kelly Sandoval just got her BA in English/Creative Writing.  She wrote "How to Win in Reno" in a 5660 workshop last year.  The story was a runner-up for the 2009 Undergraduate Fiction Award, and is now going to appear in Esopus Magazine.

Bonnie Jo Campbell (MFA 1998) publishes American Salvage

Bonnie Jo Campbell's third book of fiction, AMERICAN SALVAGE has been released into the wild. Booklist gave the story collection a starred review, and on Sunday, Julia Keller wrote a feature about BJC and her book in the Chicago Tribune. Read the story HERE.

After only three weeks, Wayne State University Press has done a second
printing of AMERICAN SALVAGE. Be sure to attend her Kalamazoo Book Release Party at Bell's Brewery, on May 24, the Sunday before Memorial Day, from 2-8 pm. As well as books and beer, there will be readings, art, music, pin the tail on the donkey, Kalamazoo's biggest ball of string, lots of temporary tattoos and more. BJC will read at 3:00. If you have any questions, contact BJC at bonniecamp@gmail.com.

Three English Alumni Publish

Dennis Hinrichsen (1975), winner of the FIELD Poetry Prize, 2008 (Kurosawa's Dog)

David James (1977), publishing his second book after a 25 year hiatus (She Dances Like Mussolini, March Street Press)

Marc Sheehan (1977), winner of the Ashland Poetry Prize for 2008 (Vengeful Hymns, Ashland Univ. Press)

Party for Arnie

Dear All,

On behalf of the faculty and staff of the English Department, I would like to invite all of you to attend a retirement party honoring Arnie Johnston, since July 2008 Professor and Chair Emeritus after 42 (!) years of service to Western. Please join us and spread the word. All of Arnie's friends, students, staff, collaborators, and colleagues are invited. The event will take place on Tuesday, April 21, from 5-9:00 pm in the Lee Honors College Lounge.

All best,
Richard

Lisa Eckert becomes Director of Yellowstone Writing Project

Former Ph.D. student, Lisa Eckert, is now director of a new National Writing Project site at Montana State University. Lisa was originally a high school teacher at Gull Lake, and wrote an award-winning NCTE article for the English Journal that grew out of a paper she did for Larry Syndergaard. She also worked as a summer grad assistant for the Third Coast Writing Project..

Jon Taylor, MFA '96

Jon Taylor, MFA '96 (Poetry) is Assistant Professor in the Department of Languages and Literature at Ferris State University. He teaches creative writing, professional writing, and literature. After many years of teaching, living life, and dabbling in Ph.D. programs (English Ed. & Academic Leadership) he has recently refocused on writing and has just finished a writing sabbatical. He completed his first collection of poetry and is currently seeking a publisher. In the past year, he attended the Bear River Writer's Conference in Petoskey and the Colrain Poetry Manuscript Conference in Massachusetts and had excellent experiences at both. He lives in Big Rapids with his wife and two sons, aged three and eight. His older son has autism and his new work focuses on the experience of raising him. He recently started a Facebook account and has been in touch with former friends, colleagues, and mentors (including Arnie Johnston). You can contact Jon there: http://www.facebook.com/people/Jon-Taylor/1513111565 or at taylorj @ ferris.edu.

Rose Swartz

Rose Swartz, an English major--Creative writing, who graduated a couple of years ago (you may remember her for editing The Laureate), is in her second year at Arizona State where she is poetry editor of Hayden's Ferry Review. She just won the Hot Metal Press chapbook contest for her manuscript entitled "Things I've Left Between." She has been awarded a fellowship to Prague for this summer and also an artistic residency to collaborate with another artist from someplace in the world for a month in Tabor, Czech Republic. We're very proud of her.