MFA Alums & Students: Books, Books, Books!
In mid-February current Creative Writing MFA student Antonia Angress took to Twitter to announce the sale of her novel Sirens and Muses to Ballantine/Random House. A week later, MFA alum Lauren Fox appeared on The Today Show talking about her latest bestselling novel, Send for Me (Knopf). Two weeks later alum Jonathan Escoffery announced the sale of two books to MCD/Farrar, Straus & Giroux for fall 2022. Creative Writing Program alums and students are announcing new books and publishing deals at a ferocious rate.
“We are so proud and so happy for these terrific writers," says Creative Writing Program Director Julie Schumacher. "Our students and alumni have been publishing work since the inception of the MFA in 1996—but I don't remember another outpouring of new novels, memoirs, and collections of poetry and essays like this one. It seems that every other week we are hearing good news, and we love to celebrate these successes with our University of Minnesota MFA authors."
Given this literary avalanche, a list seems in order. Or two. All names below are MFA alumni of the Creative Writing Program except where noted. (If we’ve missed a recent or forthcoming title, let us know at sutt0063@umn.edu.)
New and noteworthy
- Mike Alberti, debut story collection Some People Let You Down (Texas A & M University Press)
- Kendra Atleework, debut memoir Miracle Country (Algonquin Books)
- Marge Barrett, debut poetry collection If You Have Something to Say, Margaret (WordTech Communications)
- Eric Dregni, memoir, For the Love of Cod: A Father and Son's Search for Norwegian Happiness (University of Minnesota Press)
- Matthew Duffus, debut story collection Dunbar’s Folly and Other Stories (Unsolicited Press)
- Lauren Fox, fourth novel Send for Me (Knopf)
- Sari Fordham, nonfiction debut Wait for God to Notice (Etruscan Press)
- Student torrin a. greathouse, debut poetry collection Wound from the Mouth of a Wound (Ballard Spahr Prize for Poetry, Milkweed Editions)
- Joseph Harris, debut story collection You’re in the Wrong Place (Wayne State University Press)
- Patrick Hueller, middle grade fiction Read at Your Own Peril (INtense Publications)
- Éireann Lorsung, third poetry collection The Century (Milkweed Editions)
- Brian Malloy, fourth novel After Francesco (John Scognamiglio Books)
- Student Zi Ning Mok, debut poetry collection The Orchid Folios (Ethos Books)
- Scott F. Parker, third memoir Being on the Oregon Coast (Little Bound Books)
- William Reichard, eighth poetry collection Our Delicate Barricades Downed (Broadstone Books)
- Ethan Rutherford, second story collection Farthest South (A Strange Object)
- Student Said Shaiye, debut mixed genre Are You Borg Now? (Really Serious Literature)
- Amy Shearn, third novel Unseen City (Red Hen Press)
- Michael Walsh, second poetry collection Creep Love (Autumn House Press)
Save the date
- Antonia Angress, debut novel Sirens and Muses (Ballantine/Random House, 2022)
- Erica Berry, nonfiction debut Cry Wolf (Flatiron/Macmillan)
- Victoria Blanco, nonfiction debut Out of the Sierra (Coffee House Press)
- Lucas DeLima, second poetry collection Tropical Sacrifice (Birds LLC, 2021)
- Jonathan Escoffery, debut linked story collection If I Survive You and novel Play Stone Kill Bird (MCD/Farrar Straus Giroux, 2022)
- Kathleen Glasgow, third young adult novel You’d Be Home Now (Delacorte Press, September 2021)
- Roy G. Guzmán, debut young adult memoir in verse How to Inhale Bleach (Scholastic/Push, 2023)
- Trevor Ketner, debut poetry collection [WHITE] (2020 National Poetry Series Winner, University of Georgia Press, 2021)
- Kathryn Savage, debut lyric essay collection Groundglass (Coffee House Press, 2022)
- Mihret Sibhat, debut novel The History of a Difficult Child (Viking Books, 2022)
- Claire Stanford, debut novel Happy for You (Viking Books, 2022)
- Shana Youngdahl, second young adult novel A Catalog of Burnt Objects (Dial, 2023)
