English Department Common Hour
"Celebrating the Work of Our Seniors"

Come eat free pizza and listen to a presentation by a panel of senior English majors about the English 404 thesis. Don't miss this informative session to learn tips and what to expect in the English 404 workshop!

Widely acclaimed poet Kendra Kopelke will read at Dickinson on Thursday, March 28 at 5 p.m. in the Stern Center Great Room. Kendra Kopelke is the author of four books of poems, including, most recently, Hopper’s Women, a series of poems in the voices of the women in Edward Hopper’s paintings. She is co-editor of Passager, now in its 22nd year, and Passager Books, a journal and press that features the work of older writers. She directs the MFA in Creative Writing and Publishing Arts at the University of Baltimore.

Cogan Alumni Fellowship - March 4 & 5
Martha Mihalick '01
 
Each Spring, Dickinson's English department invite an alumnus or alumna to share life and work experience with current students, and to reacquaint him or her with programs in the department and at the college. The program is named in honor of Eleanor Cogan on the occasion of her 90th birthday in 1999. Sadly, Eleanor passed away in December 2011 at the amazing age of 102. After her retirement as a research chemist, Eleanor took 52 courses at Dickinson, 32 in the English department. We honor her extraordinary commitment to lifelong learning and to the study of English Literature.   

• Monday, March 4 at 4:30 p.m. - Cogan Talk in  Stern Center Great Room
  Talk - Martha Mihalick '01  "Writing in the Margins: A Children's Book Editor in the Big City"
• Tuesday, March 5 at noon - Cogan Workshop - The Publishing Process in East College 405

Martha Mihalick '01 is an editor at Greenwillow Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. In more than a decade there, she has worked with many of the most acclaimed authors and artists in children's books. She acquires and edits books for children and teens of all ages, from picture books to young adult novels. Her books include the William C. Morris Award and Andre Norton Award finalist The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson, as well as its sequel The Crown of Embers; Breathe by Sarah Crossan;  Entwined by Heather Dixon; Masque of the Red Death by Bethany Griffin; and the Last Apprentice series, among others. She was also the founding chair of the Children's Book Council's Early Career Committee shortly after entering the publishing industry. She speaks regularly across the country at conferences for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. You can find her on twitter as @marthamihalick and her website is marthamihalick.com.

Martha graduated magna cum laude as an English major in 2001. She was head consultant at the Writing Center by her senior year, editor of The Bonfire student literary magazine, co-president of the Mermaid Players, and an active member of the Belles Lettres Literary Society. She also received a certificate from the University of Denver Publishing Institute in 2001. She now lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Shannon Kobran, a 2010 graduate of the University of Denver Publishing Institute and Dickinson College, will be on campus to speak with interested students about the Denver Publishing Institute and job opportunities in the industry. The information session will be held Tuesday, February 5 at noon in East College 406. Pizza will be provided. RSVP by Monday, Feb. 4 to Ms. Kelly Winters-Fazio at wintersk@dickinson.edu.

Highlights of the Denver Publishing program:
- Editing Workshop
- Marketing Workshop
- Scholarly Publishing
- Children's Books
- Independent Publishing
- Literary Agent
- Textbook Publishing
- Networking, networking, networking!

To learn more about the Denver Publishing Institute, check out their web site at:  http://www.du.edu/publishinginstitute/

Monday, November 19 at 4:30 p.m. in the Stern Center Great Room

Herbert F. Tucker, University of Virginia
 "To Conjure With: Thin Air, Thick Description, and the Invocation of a Project"

Currently at work on a wide-ranging examination of “Charm,” Professor Tucker will speak to the challenges and rewards of shaping an expansive intellectual idea into a concrete project with defined and achievable goals. Dr. Tucker, John C. Coleman Professor of English at University of Virginia, is the author of Epic (Oxford University Press, 2008), Tennyson and the Doom of Romanticism (Harvard University Press, 1988), and Browning’s Beginnings (University of Minnesota Press, 1981).

Thursday, October 18, 2012 at 7:30 p.m. in Mathers Theatre
The Insubstantial Pageant: Writing for Performance
Margaret Edson will discuss her perspective that we are born ready to talk and listen, but it takes years to learn to read and write. What is gained and lost when the redolent swirl of human experience is consigned to the abstract, linear, preterite alphabetic code? And what ironies await when the freeze-dried code is reconstituted as live performance?

Margaret Edson was born in Washington, DC in 1961.  Between earning degrees in history and literature, she worked on the cancer and AIDS inpatient unit of a major research hospital.  Wit was written in 1991, widely rejected, first produced in 1995, and awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1999.  The HBO production won the Emmy Award for Best Film in 2001.  Wit  has received hundreds of productions in dozens of languages and was presented on Broadway in 2012.  The script is used in classes ranging from AP English to medical ethics. Ms. Edson has been a classroom teacher for twenty years.  She currently teaches sixth-grade social studies.  She lives in Atlanta with her partner, art historian Linda Merrill, and their two sons.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Norman M. Eberly Writing Center and the Departments of English, American Studies and Theatre & Dance. 

 

The English department open house for Homecoming & Family Weekend Saturday, Sept. 29 from 10:30 a.m. to 12 noon in East College 405. Professors Claire Bowen and Carol Ann Johnston will discuss poems by John Donne and the Pulitzer-Prize-winning play that invokes the poems, Margaret Edson's Wit, in advance of Edson's visit to campus. Faculty will also be available to converse with parents, students, and alumni. Refreshments served.