Kudos to #FresnoWriters is an ongoing series on the Fresno State MFA blog, celebrating the professional accomplishments of students, alumni, and faculty in Fresno State’s Creative Writing Program and Department of English.
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If the story of Hope Vang’s academic life so far was told as a children’s fairytale, you could imagine a narrator starting the brightly colored book with a wondrous voiceover introduction…
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Creative writers from Fresno State’s Department of English will headline the “Fresno Writers Live” performances at the 2025 Rogue Festival, scheduled for February 28 through March 8 in Fresno’s Tower District.
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Fresno State’s Department of English welcomes 10 acclaimed authors and scholars this spring for campus visits, including the poet and translator Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, the co-founder of Undocupoets, a collective that brings recognition to works written by undocumented poets and spreads awareness about the societal barriers they face as writers.
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Kudos to #FresnoWriters is an ongoing series on the Fresno State MFA blog, celebrating the professional accomplishments of students, alumni, and faculty in Fresno State’s Creative Writing Program and Department of English.
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Parker’s stories and poems focus on experimental forms and themes of family. She enjoys writing sci-fi and fantasy — like she has since she was a kid — but her interests in poetry, literary fiction and visual storytelling are expanding.
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Author, translator, and University of Virginia associate professor Carmen Lamas will deliver the keynote address for Fresno State’s eighth annual Students of English Studies Association symposium on December 12 and 13. The theme for this year’s SESA symposium is “Translations.”
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Fresno State alumna Samantha Golden works full-time as the recreation director at Gymnastics Beat and part-time as a writer for the Clovis Roundup community newspaper.
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From left, Fresno State MFA alumni Tiffany Crum, Samina Najmi, and Delaney R. Whitebird Olmo have all announced their debut books will be published in 2025. Kudos to #FresnoWriters is an ongoing series on the Fresno State MFA blog, celebrating the professional accomplishments of students, alumni, and faculty in Fresno State’s Creative Writing Program and Department […]
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Each October over the five-year campaign, three writers would take their turns publishing 15 new pieces in 15 days, staggered throughout the month, as members of the Creative Writing Alumni Chapter promoted their work on the FresnoWriters.com project website.
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Kudos to #FresnoWriters is an ongoing series on the Fresno State MFA blog, celebrating the professional accomplishments of students, alumni, and faculty in Fresno State’s Creative Writing Program and Department of English.
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“Although creative expression within Hmong history and culture is evident in our oral stories, oral poetry, textile art and the playing of various bamboo instruments… one will quickly discover that, even in this category, there are no novels, plays, or collections of poems, essays or short stories.” ~ Burlee Vang
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Kudos to #FresnoWriters is an ongoing series on the Fresno State MFA blog, celebrating the professional accomplishments of students, alumni, and faculty in Fresno State’s Department of English and Creative Writing Program.
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Fresno State’s Department of English welcomes seven accomplished authors and scholars this spring for campus visits, including the pathbreaking artist Sandra Cisneros, winner of the Poetry Foundation’s 2022 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize.
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Fresno Writers Live will feature the latest poetry and prose from 24 emerging Fresno writers in five storytelling and spoken-word shows.
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Dr. Stanley Poss, a Fresno State professor emeritus of English, passed away on Dec. 14, 2023, in Fresno. He was 96.
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Dr. Judith A. Rosenthal, a feminist literary scholar and Fresno State professor emerita of English, passed away from pancreatic cancer on Dec. 25, 2023. She was 78.
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With $2,905 in initial gifts from 39 students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community friends — most of those coming during Fresno State’s annual Day of Giving campaign — the English Department successfully established the new English Department Scholarship fund in 2022.
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Fresno State’s Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing will host three author readings in the month of October — one featuring the program’s faculty authors, one a celebration of contemporary queer literature, and one welcoming back to campus an alumni author with three new poetry collections being published this fall.
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By Jefferson Beavers, communication specialist, Department of English Two brand-new Fresno State alumni have begun their summers with full-time jobs that were secured and started months before finishing their undergraduate studies in the English Department. Literature major Beth Contreras started working as a legal assistant for the Fresno County Public Defender’s office in April, and […]
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This compilation includes news between January and May 2023
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Meet five English alumni who’ve gone on to successful careers outside of teaching or publishing.
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For high school students like De La Torre, the English Department’s biggest annual event marks a series of firsts: the first time stepping onto a college campus, the first time attending a writing conference and for some, the first time seeing their writing published.
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The 14th annual Undergraduate Conference on Multiethnic Literatures of the Americas (UCMLA) features keynote addresses from authors and scholars Shadab Zeest Hashmi and Dr. LeiLani Nishime.
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Creative writing and literature students from Fresno State’s Department of English will headline the “Fresno Writers Live” performances at the 2023 Rogue Festival, scheduled for March 3 through 11 in Fresno’s Tower District.
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Kudos to #FresnoWriters is an ongoing series on the Fresno State MFA blog, celebrating the professional accomplishments of students, alumni, and faculty in Fresno State’s Department of English and Creative Writing Program.
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The Fresno State Master of Fine Arts Program in creative writing announced Georgia author Éric Morales-Franceschini has won the 2022 Philip Levine Prize for Poetry book contest, which includes a $2,000 award and publication of his debut full-length poetry collection, “Syndrome.”
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Author and Central Valley native Manuel Muñoz will deliver the keynote address for Fresno State’s sixth annual Students of English Studies Association symposium on December 8 and 9. The theme of this year’s symposium is “Transcending Boundaries: Finding Hope in the Now.”
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Dozens of English Department alumni over the years have gone on to develop successful library careers.
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Author Mai Der Vang, an assistant professor of English at Fresno State, won an American Book Award for her documentary poetry collection, “Yellow Rain.”
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U.S. Poet Laureate Emeritus Juan Felipe Herrera, a professor emeritus of Chicano and Latin American studies at Fresno State, won a Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize in recognition of outstanding lifetime achievement in poetry.
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Dr. H. Ray McKnight, a Fresno State professor emeritus of English, passed away on Aug. 5 in Richmond, California. He was 88.
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The College of Arts and Humanities welcomes new faculty Dr. Sean A. Gordon to the Department of English. He earned a Ph.D. in English and American Studies from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he recently defended his dissertation, “On Being Dispersed: The Poetics of Dehiscence from ‘We the People’ to Abolition.”
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Dr. Steve Adisasmito-Smith, a Fresno State associate professor of English, passed away on July 10. He was 57.
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Dr. Bedross Der Matossian will present an in-person lecture entitled “The Horrors of Adana: Revolution and Violence in the Early Twentieth Century” at 7 p.m. Friday, August 26, at the Whitten Boardroom of the Smittcamp Alumni House.
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Frances Levine, whose gift to Fresno State of her U.S. poet laureate husband’s extensive personal book collection sparked the creation of the Philip Levine Reading Room inside the University library, passed away in Fresno on June 13. She was 94.
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Kudos to #FresnoWriters is an ongoing series on the Fresno State MFA blog, celebrating the professional accomplishments of students, alumni, and faculty in Fresno State’s Creative Writing Program and the Department of English.
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Dr. Robert O’Neil, a Fresno State professor emeritus of English, passed away Oct. 22. He was 93.
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The Linguistics Department at Fresno State studies the human capacity for language. As a defining characteristic of the human experience, without language, civilization, culture, scientific and technological development would not be possible.
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“When you have people who lift you up and push you to try new things, they are giving you the chance to grab onto what could give you success each and every time. You don’t always have to take it, but it also never hurts to try.”
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More than 100 writers will gather in Fresno’s Tower District on Saturday, Oct. 16 for LitHop 2021, the city’s free literary festival.
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What she didn’t know was that her graduate work as an editor with The Normal School literary magazine would not only give her a taste of the publishing world but would also help her build a vast and strange arsenal of random facts.
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Fresno State alumna Megan Anderson Bohigian has been named the City of Fresno’s fifth poet laureate, serving as the city’s literary ambassador.
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The university’s Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing will feature a virtual reading from the 2019 Philip Levine Prize for poetry winner and a half-dozen new podcast interviews with Fresno writers for its 2020-21 Fresno Poets’ Association reading series.
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Theatre students and recent alumni from Fresno State’s Department of Theatre and Dance and creative writing students from the Department of English will headline two shows at the 2021 Rogue Festival, happening virtually March 5 through 14.
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Kudos to #FresnoWriters is a regular series on the Fresno State MFA blog, celebrating the professional accomplishments of students, alumni, and faculty in the Creative Writing Program and the Department of English at Fresno State.
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Six Fresno State graduate students in the Master of Fine Arts Program have been awarded scholarships to attend the 2021 Desert Nights, Rising Stars virtual conference at Arizona State University.
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Zoyer Zyndel, a Fresno State alumnus known for his community volunteering and advocacy, particularly with the Central Valley’s LGBTQ communities, died in Fresno on Dec. 26. He was 34.
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Four alumni authors from Fresno State’s Master of Fine Arts Program in creative writing published their first books in 2019 and 2020, including National Book Award for Poetry finalist Anthony Cody.
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Dr. Emiliano Treré, a senior lecturer in media ecologies and social transformation at Cardiff University in Wales, will deliver a keynote address entitled “Taming the Sublime: The Ambivalent Political Implications of Technological Visions” as part of the fourth annual Students of English Studies Association symposium on Dec. 10 and 11.
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Dr. Jean E. Pickering, a feminist literary scholar and Fresno State professor emerita of English, passed away on Sept. 15. She was 87.
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Fresno State alumni authors Anthony Cody and Sara Borjas were recognized with national praise for their debut poetry collections.
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The Fresno State Creative Writing Alumni Chapter presents #FresnoWriters Live, a virtual reading to celebrate the bilingual children’s book “Esteban de Luna, Baby Rescuer! / Esteban de Luna, ¡Rescatador de bebés!” from Fresno writer Larissa Mercado-López. 10:30 a.m., Saturday, Sept. 19
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Kudos to #FresnoWriters is a regular series on the Fresno State MFA blog, celebrating the professional accomplishments of students, alumni, and faculty in the Creative Writing Program and the Department of English at Fresno State.
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March 25, 2020, was supposed to be a monumental day for Fresno State’s Department of English, as it was set to celebrate the 40th anniversary of its annual Young Writers’ Conference. But due to public health precautions for COVID-19, long-time conference coordinator Tanya Nichols had to do what so many artists have done during the pandemic — improvise.
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In a two-week span in March, Fresno State’s Department of English welcomes four nationally renowned and best-selling authors to campus to share their voices and literary art.
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Creative writing students from the Fresno State Master of Fine Arts program will headline the “Fresno Writers Live” performances at the 2020 Rogue Festival, scheduled March 6 through 14 in Fresno’s Tower District.
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The student-organized Chicanx Writers and Artists Association will host two visiting authors on campus this spring and will release the latest edition of its popular literary journal, Flies, Cockroaches & Poets.
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Thanks in part to a grant from California Humanities, the Fresno State Master of Fine Arts program will bring to the community a new four-part reading series this spring, Diverse Voices in Contemporary Fiction.
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These educators are dedicated teachers with a range of classroom experiences — from graduate teaching associate positions at Fresno State, to area high schools and community colleges — and they represent the latest standouts among our English and Creative Writing graduate program alumni who’ve decided to keep their higher-ed teaching work at home in the Central Valley.
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Fresno State English major Rodolfo Avelar never imagined himself sitting on a balcony overlooking downtown Minneapolis for his work, reading poetry manuscripts and thinking about graphic design.
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Lacy M. Johnson is author of “The Reckonings” (Scribner, 2018), which was named a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist in criticism and one of the best books of 2018 by the Boston Globe, Electric Literature, Autostraddle, Book Riot, and Refinery29.
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The fall 2019 Fresno Poets’ Association reading series lineup will celebrate past and present Fresno State faculty, including an opening reading with an accomplished novelist and a retiring poet professor from the Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing.
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Dr. James E. Walton, a professor emeritus of English at Fresno State and the first faculty to serve as coordinator of the university’s Africana Studies Program, passed away in Fresno on August 15, 2019. He was 74.
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Fresno State’s locally grown, nationally known literary magazine, The Normal School, will become an online-only publication starting this fall, ending an 11-year run as a printed periodical. The Spring/Summer 2019 issue of the magazine, due to hit bookstores by late August, will be its last physical issue.
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The Fresno State Creative Writing Alumni Chapter presents “Hot Off the Press 4” from 4 to 6 p.m. Saturday, June 8, at Collect Coffee Bar (3142 E. Campus Pointe Dr.) at Campus Pointe. The reading will celebrate new books from Fresno writers Sara Borjas, Lena Mahmoud and Monique Quintana.
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“I strongly believe in the value of not turning away from science or business or social sciences if you are grounded in the arts, and vice-versa.” – Leo Rowland
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As grand marshal, bearing the mace — the ornamented wood staff carried by the Commencement ceremony’s senior faculty member — carried added significance for Henson. Her husband served as the ceremony’s grand marshal and mace-bearer at least three times before his retirement. Zumwalt was back in attendance this year to watch Henson march in.
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Compiled by Jefferson Beavers
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Three Department of English faculty have new publications, and another has been selected to serve on a prestigious international academic delegation.
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Seven alumni authors from the Fresno State Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing published their first books in 2017 and 2018, following a record publishing year in 2016. In total, 15 of the program’s alumni have now published their first books in the past three years.
Read More~ By Jefferson Beavers, communication specialist, Department of English English faculty and award-winning translator Dr. Steve Adisasmito-Smith will deliver a keynote address entitled “The Humanities: An Evolving Hope” as part of the second annual Students of English Studies Association symposium on Dec. 13 and 14 on campus. Dr. Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval, dean of the College of […]
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By Jefferson Beavers Authors Joseph Cassara and Venita Blackburn, both new assistant professors of English at Fresno State, have each won national awards for their debut books. TheLos Angeles Press Club recognized Cassara’s novel, “The House of ImpossibleBeauties,” as Best Fiction Book 2018 in its 11th National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards. The awards were given at […]
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By Jefferson Beavers For the fourth year in a row, Fresno State’s locally grown, nationally known literary magazine, The Normal School, has earned high marks for gender parity in a nationwide report. The magazine also had four essays mentioned in the newest editions of the annual Best American series. The Normal School was again celebrated in […]
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By Jefferson Beavers Authors Beth Bich Minh Nguyen and Angela Morales will read from their work at The Normal School fall reading event on Friday, Dec. 7, inside The Backroom at The Revue coffee bar, 620 E. Olive Ave. The authors are returning to Fresno after teaching this past summer in The Normal School’s Creative Nonfiction […]
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By Jefferson Beavers Dr. Peter Everwine, a professor emeritus of English at Fresno State and nationally acclaimed poet and translator, died in Fresno on Oct. 28 at the age of 88. Services for Mr. Everwine are scheduled for 11 a.m. on Nov. 10 at Farewell Funeral Services, 660 W. Locust Ave. #101 in Fresno. The […]
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The fall 2018 Fresno Poets’ Association reading series celebrates Fresno State writers, including an accomplished poet and professor emeritus, and a featured reading with two new fiction faculty from the Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing. Admission is free to all three community readings, which are sponsored by the Fresno State College of […]
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The College of Arts and Humanities at Fresno State is the largest college on campus, encompassing nine departments, and the Armenian Studies Program. Each year, new faculty are brought on to elevate the academic offerings here at Fresno State. These new faculty members bring innovative research, diverse fields of study and technical expertise to our […]
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For Howard and Laurel Hendrix, raging California wildfires are personal. In addition to teaching in the Fresno State English Department, the husband and wife team are active community volunteers in fire prevention.
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The College of Arts and Humanities at Fresno State 