CHRIS ANSON

Over the summer, Chris Anson gave papers at the International Writing Across the Curriculum Conference in Ann Arbor, MI, in June, and at the European Association for Research on Language and Instruction in Liverpool, England, in July. He gave the opening plenary address at the 50th anniversary conference of Dartmouth ’66, a transcontinental meeting that contributed to the genesis of the field of writing studies. He gave an invited talk at University College in Cork, Ireland in July.

His essay “The Pop Warner Chronicles: A Case Study in Contextual Adaptation and the Transfer of Writing Ability” appeared in College Composition and Communication, and a co-edited collection of essays titled Critical Transitions: Writing and the Question of Transfer was published recently by Colorado State University Press. “Students’ Perceptions of Oral Screencast Responses to Their Writing: Exploring Digitally Mediated Identities” — an article he co-authored with Deanna Dannels, Larissa Carneiro, and Johanne Laboy — was published in the Journal of Business and Technical Communication.

He co-led a one-day institute, “Program Development from a Renewed Perspective: Reading Across the Curriculum,” at the Council of Writing Program Administrators conference, which was held in Raleigh (with many thanks to the NC State members of the local planning committee: Chen Chen, Dana Gierdowski, Krystin Gollihue, Gwendolynne Reid, Meridith Reed, and Kendra Andrews).

John Balaban’s essay “John Barth, Undergraduate Academic Adviser” was published July 9 in Narrative Magazine: http://www.narrativemagazine.com/issues/stories-week-2015-2016/story-week/john-barth-undergraduate-academic-adviser-john-balaban. The original version appeared in John Barth: A Body of Words (Dalkey Archive Press, 2016).

BELLE BOGGS

Belle Boggs’s new book — The Art of Waiting: On Fertility, Medicine, and Motherhood — will be published September 6 by Graywolf Press. The Art of Waiting was chosen for the Indie Next list by the American Booksellers Association and as a Discover Great New Writers selection by Barnes & Noble. Belle is scheduled to discuss the book on NPR’s Weekend Edition on September 4 and on WUNC’s The State of Things on September 6. The book launch will take place at Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies on September 7 from 6–7 p.m. All are welcome to attend.

Boggs has new work forthcoming in Powell’s book blog, Refinery 29, and the Newyorker.com, and excerpts from the books to be published in Slate and New York Magazine’s The Cut.

In February, she will appear on an Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) panel with Paul Lisicky and Angela Palm, moderated by Steve Woodward, entitled “Looking Outward: Avoiding the Conventional Memoir.”  

DANA GIERDOWSKI

Dana Gierdowski’s e-book chapter “A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words: Understanding Expectations and Mapping Preferences for Writing Classroom Design,” co-written with Susan Miller-Cochran, was published this summer in the collection Making Space: Writing Instruction, Infrastructure, and Multiliteracies (eds. Purdy and DeVoss, University of Michigan Press).

As managing editor of interTEXTS, the First-Year Writing Program’s student anthology, Gierdowski coordinated the third edition’s publication along with editorial team members Paul Colby, Chelsea Krieg, Wanda Lloyd, and Meridith Reed. The collection was published in July. 

In July, Gierdowski and CRDM PhD student Meridith Reed presented “Making Affect Count: Assessing the Intangible Effects of Class Size in a First-Year Writing Program” at the annual Council on Writing Program Administrators Conference, held in Raleigh.

JULIA GONZALEZ, JAMIE LARSEN & BERYL PITTMAN

Julia Gonzalez, Jamie Larsen, and Beryl Pittman developed and led the first technical communication certificate program for students from Nanjing Normal University in Nanjing, China. The program ran from July 18–29 and included 15 participants.

MARSHA GORDON

On August 23, Marsha Gordon’s latest “Movies on the Radio” segment — about music movies — aired on WUNC’s The State of Things (http://wunc.org/post/movies-radio-music-cinema). The July 20 segment on animal movies included a call-in from Daun Daemon: http://wunc.org/post/movies-radio-animal-films.

MELANIE GRAHAM

Melanie Graham’s poem “Nip of Teeth” won First Prize in the Kakalak 2016 Poetry Contest and will be published in Kakalak 2016.

In late July and early August, Paul Isom visited the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Southern Mississippi to review the university’s student media operation. He was asked to recommend ways to make the program more efficient and effective through improvements in structure, focus, budgets, and personnel. During his time in Hattiesburg he met with university and school administrators, faculty, advisers and graduate and undergraduate students and toured facilities that house a newspaper, television studio, a record label with recording studio, a radio station, and a PR and advertising firm.

JIM KNOWLES

In May, Jim Knowles organized and chaired the panel “Is There a Text in This Field?: Middle English Canonical Texts and the Edition of Record” at the International Medieval Congress in Kalamazoo, MI.

In July, he gave a paper titled “Chaucer’s Fart and Julian’s Treasure, Or Four Ways of Looking at Buried Treasure” at the New Chaucer Society conference at Queen Mary University, London.

DORIANNE LAUX

On October 5, Dorianne Laux will teach a workshop and give a reading at Lost Lake Writer’s Retreat in Michigan. 

Laux’s poem “Enough Music” was reprinted in Poems in the Waiting Room, a charitable trust that distributes 7,500 poetry cards every season to medical waiting rooms, rest homes, hospices, and prisons throughout New Zealand. 

Sinda Nichols, founder and director of Live Ink Theatre, will use Laux’s poem “For the Sake of Strangers” in a special event entitled “love is love is love.” It will be one of 49 poems for the victims of the shootings at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, FL. The event will take place on September 11 at the Amelia Musical Playhouse in Fernandina Beach and will benefit the LGBT Community Fund for Northeastern Florida.

Her poem “Prince” will appear in “This Thing Called Life”: Poetry Inspired by the Music and Spirit of Prince, a special issue of the Delaware Poetry Review.

The Chicago Quarterly Review will publish her poems “Bad Idea,” “Brittlebush,” and “Grunion Run.”

LEILA MAY

Leila May’s book Secrecy and Disclosure in Victorian Fiction was published by Routledge in August.

JENNIFER NOLAN

In July, Jennifer Nolan presented “Repositioning P.D. James for the 21st Century: Scribner, Mystery Fiction, and the Literary Canon” at the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing (SHARP) annual conference in Paris, France.

STACEY PIGG

Stacey Pigg was invited to join the editorial board of Written Communication, a top journal for research on writing.

DICK REAVIS

An article by Dick J. Reavis appears in the August issue of the Texas Observer (https://www.texasobserver.org/tent-city-dallas-feature/).

JOHN WALL

John Wall’s “Gazing into Imaginary Spaces: Digital Modeling and the Representation of Reality” recently appeared in Early Modern Studies and the Digital Turn (eds. Laura Estill, Diane Jakacki, and Michael Ullyot), published by Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies.