Literary Happenings at ASU this October

Literary Happenings at ASU this October

The Department of English at Arizona State University is putting on a series of informative and educational events this October. Take a look at some of the happenings on campus:


John Plotz – ‘We Have Always Been Posthuman: Speculative Satire before Science Fiction’ | October 2nd

Come to the annual Ian Fletcher Memorial Lecture, sponsored by the Department of English in honor of Professor Ian Fletcher (1920-1988). This year’s lecture will be delivered by John Plotz, the Barbara Mandel Professor of the Humanities at Brandies University and co-host of Recall This Book podcast. His research interests are in nineteenth- and twentieth-century British literature, the novel, science fiction, and fantasy, and is the author of several related works including “The Crowd: British Literature and Public Politics” (2000), “Portable Property: Victorian Culture on the Move” (2017), and “My Reading: Ursula Le Guin’s ‘Earthsea'” (2023).

The event will take place in Ross-Blakley Hall (RBHL) room 196 on the Tempe Campus. Doors open at 4:45. The event begins at 5:15. Refreshments will be served. Learn more.


‘Flatland’ Book Club with John Plotz | October 2nd

Professor John Plotz will also be hosting a discussion of the nineteenth-century novel “Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions” (1884) by Edwin Abbott Abbott.

The book club will take place in Ross-Blakley Hall (RBHL) room 324 on the Tempe Campus. The event will be held from 10:45 a.m.-noon. Please RVSP if you would like to attend this free event.


Echoes Seen: Collaborations in Image and Verse | September 14 – October 14

Supported by the Institute for Humanities Research, Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, The Department of English and the School of Art; the graduate students and faculty of the MFA programs of Creative Writing and the School of Art at ASU present “Echoes Seen: Collaborations in Image and Verse.” The exhibition displays work across many mediums, varying from photography, drawing, clothing, ceramics, paper-mâché, video and sound installation, and range in subject matter from joy, collective mythology, personal history, cultural fragments and their assemblage, and the significance of artifacts. In this exhibition, the possibilities for new perspectives in artists’ craft through the lens of collaboration – in pleasurable submissions and active encounters with another’s imagination – is ultimately about forging new and radical relationships through art.

The exhibition is open from September 14 – October 14, 2023. The gallery is open Thursday-Saturday, noon-5 p.m. ; first and third Fridays, 6 to 9 p.m. Learn more.


Humanities Week | October 15-20th

From October 15-20, ASU will be hosting The College’s Humanities Week with over 20 in-person and virtual events. Learn more.


MFA Student Reading Series | October 20th

Presented by ASU’s Creative Writing Program, the event brings notable alumni authors to the ASU community for readings and discussions about their writing and literary works.

The event will take place at the Ellis-Shackelford House, 1242 N. Central Ave. Phoenix, AZ 85004 from 5:30-7:00 p.m.


ASU Common Read: A Virtual Visit with Woo-kyoung Ahn | October 26th
ASU is excited to host Yale psychologist Woo-kyoung Ahn, author of “Thinking 101: How to Reason Better to Live Better,” for a virtual visit. Ahn will discuss “Thinking 101″—ASU’s Writing Programs selected Common Read for 2023-24—and answer questions from students and faculty.

The event will be held on Zoom from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. MST on Thursday, October 26, 2023. Learn more.


Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing: Distinguished Visiting Writers Series (DNRS) | October 27th

The Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing holds a series of free events open to the public to ensure all individuals have the ability to participate in the literary arts. Visiting authors host small workshops in partnership with the Piper Writers Studio, engage in intimate craft talks with students, visit ASU classes, and participate in other meaningful activities.

This month, the Piper Center welcomes Eileen Myles and Jenny Irish. The event will feature a reading and conversation with two inimitable voices as they read their work and discuss poetry, life, love, gender and more.

About the authors:

Eileen Myles

Eileen Myles (they/them, b. 1949) is a poet, novelist and art journalist whose practice of vernacular first-person writing has made them one of the most recognized writers of their generation. Pathetic Literature, which they edited, came out in Fall of 2022. A “working life,’ their newest collection of poems is out now. They live in New York & in Marfa, TX.

Jenny Irish

Jenny Irish is from Maine and lives in Arizona. She is the author of the hybrid collections Common Ancestor and Tooth Box, and the short story collection I Am Faithful. Her latest book is the poetry collection, Lupine. She is an associate professor of creative writing at Arizona State University.

Hear from these talented writers on Friday, October 27, 2023 from 6:30-8 p.m. MST.

The event will be held on the Tempe Campus in the Piper Writers House. RSVP to save your spot for this exciting literary event. Learn more.

Distinguished Visiting Writers Series Features Norma Cantú & Denice Frohman

Distinguished Visiting Writers Series Features Norma Cantú & Denice Frohman

The Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing holds a series of free events open to the public to ensure all individuals have the ability to participate in the literary arts. Visiting authors host small workshops in partnership with the Piper Writers Studio, engage in intimate craft talks with students, visit ASU classes, and participate in other meaningful activities.

This month, the Piper Center, in partnership with the Hispanic Research Center at ASU, welcomes Norma Cantú and Denice Frohman. The event will offer a rare opportunity to hear from two acclaimed Latinx writers talking about mentorship, ancestry, and how we leverage the past to create something new.

About the authors:

Norma Cantu

Norma Elia Cantú, the Norine R. and T. Frank Murchison Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, is a folklorist, scholar, poet, and novelist. She served as the President of the American Folklore Society between 2019 and 2021. She is Professor emerita in English at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She is a co-founder of CantoMundo, a national organization that celebrates Latino/a poets and poetics. Her most recent publications include the novel, Cabañuelas, and Meditación Fronteriza: Poems of Love, Lifeand Labor and the co-edited anthologies, Teaching Gloria E. Anzaldúa: Pedagogies and Practices for our Classrooms and our Communities and meXicana Fashions: Politics, Self-Adornment, and Identity Construction.

Denice Frohman

Denice Frohman is a poet and performer from New York City. A Pew Fellow and Baldwin-Emerson Fellow, she’s received support from CantoMundo, Headlands Center for the Arts, the National Association of Latino Arts & Cultures and Millay Colony. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The BreakBeat Poets: LatiNext, Nepantla: An Anthology for Queer Poets of Color, ESPNW and elsewhere. A former Women of the World Poetry Slam Champion, she’s featured on hundreds of national and international stages from The Apollo to The White House. She lives in Philadelphia.

Hear from these talented writers on Thursday, September 21, 2023 from 6:30-8 p.m. MST.

The event will be held on the Tempe Campus in the Alumni Lounge in the Memorial Union. RSVP to save your spot for this exciting literary event.

Superstition Review Submissions Open

Superstition Review Submissions Open

Superstition Review

Superstition Review is open to submissions for Issue 31! Our submission window closes January 31st, 2023.
Our magazine is looking for art, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Read our guidelines and submit here.

Storytelling in a Climate Crisis

Storytelling in a Climate Crisis

Storytelling in a Climate Crisis poster.
Storytelling in a Climate Crisis

On September 14 at 6pm, Lauren Kuby will be at the Changing Hands Bookstore in Phoenix to exchange poetry and stories about the environment and environmental crisis. Please note that performer signups are limited, and these signups close September 7.

The Changing Hands Bookstore is unique to Arizona and offers new and used books. They often host author events.

Lauren Kuby is a sustainability scientist at Arizona State University and a recognized national champion for climate action and clean energy.

Register here to join!

Superstition Review Submissions Open

Superstition Review Submissions Open

A graphic that explains Superstition Review is open to submissions from August 1 to August 31.
Superstition Review

Superstition Review is open to submissions for Issue 30! Our magazine is looking for art, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Read our guidelines and submit here.

Conversations in Craft and Content

Conversations in Craft and Content

Check out Arizona State University’s new creative writing lecture series hosted and moderated by Mitchell Jackson, Guggenheim fellow, Pulitzer winner, and the John O. Whiteman Dean’s Distinguished Professor of English at ASU. Join Jackson as he welcomes two-time National Book Award-winner Jesmyn Ward as the inaugural guest at this virtual event via Zoom on Friday, February 4, 2022, at 6 p.m AZ/MST.

Photo of Jesmyn Ward by Beowulf Sheehan

The Conversations in Craft and Content lecture series is free of charge and open to the public. Take advantage of this great opportunity to learn more about Jesym Ward’s craft including her writing and revision process, philosophies that guide her, and ideas about her work.

Learn more about the moderator, guest, and series on the Department of English’s website and register here!

Contributor Update, Darrin Doyle

Join Superstition Review in congratulating past contributor, Darrin Doyle, on his upcoming release. Darrin will be releasing a new short story collection called “The Big Baby Crime Spree and Other Delusions.” It is part of Wolfson Press’s American Storyteller’s series and it’s scheduled to release in March 2021. Darrin Doyle teaches at Central Michigan University. The Big Baby Crime Spree and Other Delusions is his fifth book of fiction. He’s the author of the story collections Scoundrels Among Us and The Dark Will End the Dark (Tortoise Books) and the novels The Girl Who Ate Kalamazoo (St. Martin’s Press) and Revenge of the Teacher’s Pet:A Love Story (LSU Press). He lives in Mount Pleasant, Michigan with three other humans and a cat.

“The stories in Darrin Doyle’s new collection are full of rich, complicated characters and unique, unusual situations. The dark humor and pathos in these highly imaginative stories reminded me of the brilliant films of David Lynch. If Lynch wrote short fiction, it would doubtless lurk in the same neighborhood as Darrin Doyle’s.” – Christine Sneed, author of The Virginity of Famous Men and Little Known Facts

Check out Darrin’s interview with Wolfson Press here, as well as what Goodreads has to say about Darrin’s upcoming book here. To see what else Darrin is up to, take a look at his Twitter. See also his fiction featured in Issue 16.

Contributor Update, Thomas Legendre

Join Superstition Review in congratulating Thomas Legendre on taking part in Creative Archaeology – Finding the Present in the Past. In this online event, hosted by Archaeology Scotland, Thomas Legendre takes us on a journey to Kilmartin Glen, exploring the prehistoric landscape through fictional writing. How do Neolithic sites become “personal” to us? How does the past become present, and the present past? Check out the video, available on YouTube.

Thomas Legendre’s most recent novel, Keeping Time, was published by Acre Books/University of Cincinnati Press. His previous work includes The Burning (a novel), Half Life (a play produced by NVA and the National Theatre of Scotland), and Dream Repair (a radio drama aired by BBC Radio 4). He is an Assistant Professor in English at the University of Nottingham. For more detail visit Thomas’s website here.

Congratulations, Thomas!

Check out Thomas’s Twitter and his fiction featured in Issue 18 here

Intern Update: Kevin Hanlon

Today’s intern update features Kevin Hanlon, former fiction editor for Issues 12 and 13 of Superstition Review.

With a BA in English, Creative Writing and a Doctor of Law JD, Kevin began working as a proofreader for RR Donnelley last year. He has worked as a writer for Java Magazine, a Phoenix-based journal on local arts and culture and YabYum, a music and culture magazine also based in the valley.

We are so proud of you Kevin!

You can view his work on Java Magazine here and his work on YabYum here. If you’d like to learn more, you can check out Kevin’s LinkedIn here.