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Last Saturday, May 5, we celebrated student and faculty success at our 2017-2018 Annual Awards Banquet. We'll have photos soon from Autumn Shoemaker (BS '10, Journalism Mass Comm), but for now, here are our award recipients. (Information about the student awards below is available from our department's web site.) Brink Memorial Essay Award: Jackson Wright … Continue reading 2017-2018 Annual Awards Banquet
In the ENGL 663 "Advanced Creative Writing: Poetry" class this semester, we have focused on developing a reading practice, a writing practice, and a strong sense of community. We’ve written fan letters to the poets we’ve read; students have taught great books to each other through a variety of exercises; and we have written and … Continue reading Creation Nation: A Week in the Advanced Poetry Classroom
As a creative writer at K-State, I was often caught between two worlds. Whenever I read a book, watched a movie, or even heard a bad joke, I asked one of two questions: Can I write a paper about this? or Can I write a story about this? So when Dr. Anne Longmuir had us read … Continue reading Tale as Old as Time
Touchstone enjoyed a rebirth this year. Almost a year ago, I decided that I’d put my extra semester of graduate school to use and thrust the magazine into the lit-mag world with new gusto. In the ever-digitizing world of literature, our first two goals were to establish an online presence at touchstonekstate.org and to archive digital … Continue reading Touchstone Literary Magazine Offers New Issue, Digital Archives
Before coming to grad school, I had actually only written one poem, and I had no real intentions of getting deeper into poetry – but when I got an email at the start of my first enrollment saying, “Hey, do you want to be in my class?” I was so excited to be included in … Continue reading Grad Student Spotlight: Maia Carlson
National Poetry Month began in 1996 through the Academy of American Poets. In their own words, “it has become the largest literary celebration in the world with schools, publishers, libraries, booksellers, and poets celebrating poetry’s vital place in our culture.” Here are 30 ways you can celebrate National Poetry Month here in Manhattan, KS, starting … Continue reading How to Celebrate National Poetry Month
On Wednesday, March 14, more than 50 people gathered in Union 227 to share perspectives on recent news stories concerning the author Sherman Alexie, such as the one published with NPR on social media, such as the one by Deborah Miranda. Faculty, staff, administrators, and students from across Kansas State University, as well as local … Continue reading Complicated Conversations
Thousands of creative writers descended on Tampa this week for the annual AWP Conference. We asked three Kansas State graduate students to weigh in on their conference highlights -- so far anyway. The Fifth Annual Rock and Roll Reading took place in Ybor City — a pocket of Tampa where stray roosters strut past strip … Continue reading Dispatches from #AWP18
All right, y'all, we're taking our shelfie game up a notch. In this new, somewhat regular feature called Office Space (yes, that's reference to the cult movie famous for "pieces of flair"), we'll take you into the the native habitat of the English professor, the somewhat cluttered office, and give you a tour of objects … Continue reading Office Space: Dan Hoyt
There’s this troubling question I’ve been getting since my second book came out. Maybe I should have seen it coming, but my first book, which is stories and not a novel, came out with a small press and didn’t get the fanfare. There were no interviews or Q&As at reading events. So I was caught … Continue reading Alumni Spotlight: R. Dean Johnson
