We achieve

• Congratulations to Elizabeth Passmore for promotion from assistant professor to associate professor in 2011.
• Congratulations to Patrick Shaw for earning tenure in 2011.  
• Alice Shen’s full-length play, Entitled, has been published in the Fall 2010 issue of Southern Theatre magazine.  The play is the winner of the Southeastern Theatre Conference’s Charles M. Getchell New Play Award.

We create

• Nicole Louise Reid is just finished work on a triptych novella, A Purposeful Violence, the last piece of which has been singled out for prizes in four different contests by judges Robert Olen Butler, Ron Carlson, and David Bajo.  She is in the early stages of writing a sequel to her first novel, In the Breeze of Passing Things.
• Lance J. Farrell is completing his dissertation on romantic-era Irish women writers, and longing for spring so he can garden. 
• Patty Aakhus just finished writing her fourth novel, Shawneetown. She is seeking a publisher.

We learn

• Nicole Louise Reid just returned from the 2011 AWP Conference in Washington, D.C.  She never tires of hearing writers talk about writing and teachers talk about teaching there.

We present

• S. Elizabeth Passmore, Associate Professor of English, presented: “The Never-Ending Story: Traveling at the Speed of Folklore.” American Folklore Society Annual Conference. Indiana University, Bloomington. 12-15 October 2011. She also presented: “Teaching Gower in the Medieval Survey Course.” The Second International Congress of the John Gower Society: “John Gower in Iberia: Six Hundred Years." Department of English Studies of the University of Valladolid, Valladolid, Spain. 18-21 July 2011.
• Amy Montz presented a paper on Steampunk and Neo-Victorian literature in November, 2010, and offers her take on Suffragette fashion in April, 2011 in New Brunswick, New Jersey. 
• Chuck Conaway presents "Whose Delinquency?: Romeo and Juliet and the Problem of Youth Cultures" at the Shakespeare Association of America, Seattle WA, April 7-9, 2011.
• Patty Aakhus presented “Astral Magic and Adelard of Bath's Liber Prestigiorum; or Why Werewolves Change at the Full Moon,” Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institute, England.  October, 2010 and “Magic and Medicine: Asklepios and the Alchemical Serpent” Symposium on Science and the Occult in European History, October, Purdue University, 2010. 
• Nicole Louise Reid hit the trifecta while in Washington, DC for the AWP Conference.  She read from her novel, In the Breeze of Passing Things, at Politics & Prose bookstore, her short story, “Careless Fish,” at Books-A-Million bookstore, and her short story “Ice Cream” on a panel of other George Mason University MFA Fiction Alumni at the AWP Conference itself.

We publish

• S. Elizabeth Passmore, Associate Professor of English, published: “Teaching Gower in the Medieval Survey Class: Historical and Cultural Contexts and the Court of Richard II.” Approaches to Teaching John Gower. Essay in peer-reviewed pedagogical essay collection edited by Robert F. Yeager and Brian Gastle. Modern Language Association (MLA) “Approaches to Teaching” Series. 194-201, 2011.
• Stephen Spencer, Professor of English, published two poems: “Beautiful Regret” and “Sunday Night in the Mountains,” appear in the current issue of The Innisfree Poetry Journal. To read the poems visit the journal’s web site: http://www.authorme.com/innisfreepoetry14.htm. Scroll down and click on the author’s name.
• Matthew Graham, Professor of English, has poems appearing in the new anthology, And Know This Place: Poetry of Indiana published this summer by the Indiana Historical Society Press. On November 21st, 2011, Mr. Graham will give a poetry reading at Harlaxton College in Grantham, England.
• Michael Kearns published "Writing for the Street, Writing in the Garrett", Ohio State University Press, 2010.
• Howard Jones’s debut novel, Desert of Souls, has been published by a St. Martin's imprint, Thomas Dunne Books, 2011. 
• Stephen Spencer  published two poems, “Morning in Camden, Maine.” Tipton Poetry Journal (Summer, 2010): 11, and “Spanish Cobblestones.” the Aurorean 15.1(2010): 11.
• Molly Brost’s article, “Walking the Line: Negotiating Celebrity in the Country Music Biopic,” was published in the October 2010 issue of Scope: An Online Journal of Film and TV Studies.  Forthcoming articles will appear in the edited collections The Politics of Post-9/11 Music: Sound, Trauma, and the Music Industry in the Time of Terror; Television and Temporality: Exploring Narrative Time in 21st Century Programming; and Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Friday Night Lights.
• Chuck Conaway published  “'The … Monster which doth mock / The meat it feeds on': R.E.M.'s Monst(e)rous  Othello” in Journal of Adaptation in Film and Performance (2012); "Manson's R + J: Shakespeare, Marilyn Manson, and the fine art of Scapegoating."  Rock Brands: Selling Sounds in a Media Saturated Culture. Ed. Elizabeth  Christian. Lanham MD: Lexington Books, 2011;  “‘Ye sid ha taken my Counsel sir’: Restoration Satire and Theatrical Authority.” Gender  and Power in Shrew-Taming Narratives, 1500-1700. Eds. David Wootton and  Graham Holderness. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. 145-67.
• Julia Galbus published “Breathing Room.” In Charles Johnson: Embracing the World. Editors: Nibir K. Ghosh & E. Ethelbert Miller, New Delhi: Authorspress, 2011.
• Nicole Louise Reid’s story, “Careless Fish,” has just come out in an anthology called Confessions: Fact or Fiction? published by Chrysalis Editorial and is for sale on Amazon.com.  Her short story “Once It’s Gone” appeared in Limestone.  Her short-short story, “Ice Cream” appeared in Prime Number Magazine.  Her short story “A Purposeful Violence” is forthcoming in Yemassee. And her short story collection, So There!, is forthcoming from Stephen F. Austin State University Press in fall 2011.

We Read

• Check out the books we recommend to read >>

We travel

• S. Elizabeth Passmore, Associate Professor of English, received the College of Liberal Arts Faculty Development Award, May 2011, and traveled for research in London, England and Galicia and Castille regions of Spain in July 2011.
• Matthew Graham received a Faculty Award for Service, Teaching and Research to study Gallic in Ireland during the summer of 2010.   
• Nicole Louise Reid recently traveled to New Orleans, Montreal, Chicago, Kansas City, and Washington, DC.