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Fall 2023 Reading Series
Mathias Svalina
October 2–6
Darrel Alejandro Holnes
Thursday, October 11
Wynne Home Readings
Wednesday, December 6
6:00 p.m.
Wynne Home Arts Center
FALL 2023
This coming semester, we will Mathias Svalina and Darrel Alejandro Holnes to campus. Watch this space for more information, as well as for readings featuring students in our MFA program.
Darrel Alejandro Holnes: Poet and Playwright
Thursday, October 12, 6 p.m.
Peabody Library
Darrel Alejandro Holnes is the author of Stepmotherland (Notre Dame Press, 2022) and Migrant Psalms (Northwestern Press, 2021). Holnes is an Afro-Panamanian American writer, performer, and educator. His writing has been published in English, Spanish, and French in literary journals, anthologies, and other books worldwide and online. He also writes for the stage. Most of his writing centers on love, family, race, immigration, and joy. He works as a college professor in New York City, NY.
On the page, he is the co-author of Prime from Sibling Rivalry Press, an Over the Rainbow List selection by the American Library Association, and the co-editor of Happiness, The Delight-Tree: An Anthology of Contemporary International Poetry, published to commemorate the United Nations International Day of Happiness. He is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Creative Writing, the CP Cavafy Prize from Poetry International, the Andres Montoya Poetry Prize from Letras Latinas, and the Drinking Gourd Poetry Prize from Northwestern University Press. His poems have been published in American Poetry Review, Poetry Magazine, Callaloo, Best American Experimental Writing, and elsewhere in print and online.
His plays have received productions or development opportunities at the Kennedy Center for the Arts American College Theater Festival (KCACTF), The Brick Theater, Kitchen Theater Company, Pregones Theater/PRTT, Primary Stages, and elsewhere. He is a member of the Lincoln Center Director’s Lab, Civilians R&D Group, Page 73’s Interstate 73 Writers Workshop, and other groups. His plays, Starry Night, and Bayano, were both finalists for the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Playwrights Conference, the Princess Grace Award in Playwriting, and several other awards and honors. His other plays include Black Feminist Video Game, which was produced by The Civilians for 59E59 Theaters’ Plays in Place, Center Theater Group, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and the Williams Center for the Arts at Lafayette College. His play Franklin Ave was featured in The Sol Project’s Sol Fest and as a part of the Sin Muros Festival at Stages Houston. He is currently an artist-in-residence at the Latinx Playwrights Circle.
Mathias Svalina: Poet and Dream Deliverer
Monday, October 2, 6 p.m.
Evans Complex 212
Mathias Svalina is the author of seven books, most recently America at Play, a collection of absurdist instructions for children's games, published by Trident Books. His poetry collection Thank You Terror is forthcoming this winter and his first short-story collection, Comedy, will be published in 2024. Svalina was a founding editor of Octopus Books and has led writing workshops in universities, libraries, community spaces, and in prison. Since 2014, he has run a dream delivery service, traveling around the country to write and deliver dreams to subscribers. With the Dream Delivery Service, he has worked with the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art, the Poetry Foundation, The Moca Tucson, and the University of Arizona Poetry Center.
Throughout the month of October, Svalina will be in Huntsville and available to deliver poems to anyone within the Huntsville city limits. If interested, please visit www.dreamdeliveryservice.com to register for a subscription for October's deliver.
For more information, contact Dr. Ginger Ko (gingerko@shsu.edu).
NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION INTERN
Bleah Patterson is a poetry candidate in the Creative Writing, Editing, and Publishing MFA Program, here at SHSU. She has gone to an abundance of conferences, festivals and residencies this academic year such as the Sigma Tau Delta Conference, the Sundress Residency in Tennessee, New Orleans Poetry Festival and more. Along with these, she has also been accepted as this year's SHSU National Book Foundation Intern! The National Book Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the outreach of literature and education. Below is an expanded version of of her recent interview.
What are you most excited about NBF? I think that it’s going to be a really great opportunity to learn more about the literary community on a larger scale. A lot of my experience so far has been from the publishing and editorial side of things, so seeing the way an non-profit organization operations when their mission is just supporting authors who have already gone through the publishing process will be really exciting. Also, isn’t it every writer’s dream to spend a Summer in New York City?
What do you hope to learn at the NBF internship? I’m hoping to learn more about grant writing and fundraising, I think that’s an invaluable skill that I can take with me into my career after graduation.
What advice can you give to those hoping to intern with the NBF someday? Well, I haven't interned yet, but as far as the application process I think it's just really important to distinguish yourself as someone who's very open to learning new things and adaptable. As well as someone who has passion for literature and authors.
What has been your favorite part about traveling to different conferences/festivals and residencies? Growing up in Texas and sort of poor, I don’t think I ever imagined that I’d be able to travel very much. So having the opportunity to see new cities and states, the exposure to new places is an incredible one. It’s also just so amazing that at these different things, I’m surrounded by people who are not only passionate about the same things I am, but they come specifically to hear each other talk about them and learn about them together. It’s a very supportive environment that’s taught me a lot about how much we all need community.
How many have you been to so far this academic year? This year I have been to two writers residencies, Sundress in Tennessee and Bethany Arts Community in New York; I’ve gotten to go present my work at three different conferences which was super fun and enriching.
What has been your favorite festival/conference/residency this year so far? That’s an impossible question, because they’ve all been amazing for different reasons. I will say I presented at the New Orleans Poetry Festival and then one day later went to my residency at Bethany Arts Community and to experience those two things back to back really solidified how life changing a strong community can be. In both instances I was surrounded by people who only wanted to help each other, strengthen each other’s work, and lift each other up.
How do you prepare? Poorly, probably. Haha, I’m always so tired after a lot of conferences or residencies. But seriously, I think that it’s just about budgeting your time---I mean I’m always in classes when these are happening too---so I finish my assignments far in advance and reach out to professors about finishing deadlines early ahead of my trips. Professors have been so immensely supportive about all of these things, even when I’ve had to turn something in very early or miss a class and Zoom in instead.
How has being in the SHSU MFA program prepared you for NBF? Conferences/festivals/residencies? The Professors in the MFA courses are very supportive of this work, and give me the time to be able to do it which is amazing of them. Additionally, my GAships at TRP and with the Chair of the English department have really given me a lot of experience that will help me at NBF. Mostly professors have just been great about reading conference papers and providing feedback, reading application materials, and offering letters of recommendation.
How do you use what you learn at the conferences/festivals/residencies in school? I know I keep saying this, community has been a glaring thing I’ve learned while I’m doing these things. And I try to bring that community back to SHSU. Through the Grad Reading Series, and some work I’m hoping to do with Sigma Tau, as well as just inviting a lot of the students out for application workshops, submission parties, things like that. Writer’s and academics I think sometimes feel that this work we do is a solitary thing, but I’ve learned that having a strong sense of community makes a huge difference in the quality of our work and our lives.
What is one conference/festival/residency you are looking forward to? I applied to a residency in Portland for after graduation next year, so fingers crossed! I’m also really excited for AWP, the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, conference in Los Angeles next year too! I’ve submitted some panel proposals so fingers crossed on that one too.
Tell us about the Sigma Tau Delta conference! I was surprised by how large this conference was! I got to sit on some amazing panels, and I got to attend some really powerful poetry readings. It was a blast and very informative.
Tell us about your residencies! I was finishing up a poetry manuscript while at Bethany Arts Community, and I was able to complete it much sooner than I thought! So I spent the rest of the time working on a new project. Additionally, we were given the opportunity for a community engagement project where we went and read our poetry and offered a really extensive Q&A about our writing process. That part was so emotional and wonderful, people were very moved and very excited to get the opportunity to come speak to us and ask us questions.
Tell us about NOPF. New Orleans Poetry Festival is unlike any other festival I’ve been too. NOLA is so rich in culture and the people there are so vibrant and excited about the work that they’re doing. Everyone accepted me with open arms and seemed excited about my own work. I presented a paper there and it was standing room only, people were so excited about each and every presentation given. It was truly a very supportive and energy filled environment.
Any advice to those wanting to get into an MFA or find a writing community? Read a lot, write a lot, read some more, and write about what you learn from reading. It sounds so simple, but that’s really my advice. Additionally, find community near you. If you’re in an undergraduate program, find professors in the creative writing department and see if you can take or even audit their courses. If getting into a graduate program for creative writing is a goal, then spend time with those professors and ask if they’ll help you prepare your application materials. As far as finding a community inside or outside of a university, I think you can’t go wrong with getting online. So many of my writing friends I communicate with over social media, we Zoom every week or every month and we write together and talk about each other’s work.
