Each month during the academic year, we assemble a newsletter of the department’s recent publications, presentations, announcements, and awards.
We’re happy to recognize the recent successes in research, scholarship, and creative activity outlined below.
Want to catch up on past successes or to find future announcements? Visit our archive of monthly newsletters Reading Matters as well as related blog posts.
Have news to report? Email us at english@ksu.edu.
— Karin Westman, Department Head
Publications
Traci Brimhall, “Divination” (poem). SWWIM 7 Mar. 2025.
Presentations
Traci Brimhall, “Not Cue Cards or Assignments: The Magic of the Poetry Prompt in the Creative Writing Classroom” (panelist) Association of Writers and Writing Programs, Los Angeles, CA. 27 Mar. 2025.
Wednesday Night Poetry Series (reading), AWP, Los Angeles, CA. 26 Mar. 2025.
Reading from Love Prodigal, Brooklyn Poets, Brooklyn, NY. 21 Mar. 2025.
“The Lost Poetry of Amelia Earhart” Riley County Historical Society/Flight Crew Coffee, Manhattan, KS. 11 Mar. 2025.
Poetry Under the Stars, Manhattan Public Library/Discovery Center, Manhattan, KS. 4 Mar. 2025.
Phillip Marzluf, “Nostalgic Masculinity and Travel in Early Twentieth-Century Mongolia.” Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference. Columbus, OH. 14 Mar. 2025.
Theresa Merrick, “How Colleges are Responding to AI.” Webinar for the American Association of Colleges and Universities AI Week series (online). 25 Mar. 2025.
Awards
Traci Brimhall has been named the 2025 Poet-in-Residence at the Guggenheim Museum.
Philip Nel’s How to Draw the World: Harold and the Purple Crayon and the Making of a Children’s Classic (Oxford UP, 2024) has won the PROSE Award in Literature from the Association of American Publishers.
Announcements
Mark Crosby has received promotion to full Professor, effective July 1, 2025.
Featured in Media
Traci Brimhall was interviewed on PBS/KTWU’s Inspire program for “Women in Poetry,” 20 Mar. 2025.
Colwill Brown, a former graduate student, published their first novel, We Pretty Pieces of Flesh (Henry Holt). In its starred review, Kirkus Reviews says it is “nearly the equal in honesty and subtlety to Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels.” (Known as Sarah Hannaway when at K-State, Brown was in the English MA Program 2013-2014 with a concentration in Creative Writing.)
Julie Hensley (MA ‘99) will publish her third book and debut novel, Five Oaks (Lake Union Publishing) in May 2025; it is available for pre-sale. Julie was also a Featured Author at the 20th Annual Scissortail Writing Festival, April 3-5, 2025, at East Central University in Ada, OK.
David Murphy (MA ’08) has published Wherever Fact May Lead Me: A Ranking of the Sherlock Holmes Stories (Dreameyrie, 2025).
Desiree Shippers (BA ’19) received a 2025 Rising Professional Award from the College of Health and Human Sciences for her work in advertising and documentary filmmaking.
Spencer Young (MA ’22) has received the 2025 Academy of American Poets University Prize for the poem “The boy I had been, the boy I had wanted, and the boy I lost somewhere along the way.”
Winniebell Zong (MA ‘21) has received the 2024 Elizabeth Alexander Creative Writing Award in poetry for the poem “3.13.22 | Translations of Ba’s Recipe for COVID Prevention.” The poem will be published in Meridians (vol. 24, no. 1, Spring 2025).
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