Sue Ferguson Publishes Debut Collection

Sue Ferguson (B.A., English, 1985) has published her first collection of short stories with Nine Month Publishing.

Gaze: A Collection of Stories features sixteen stories that explore relationships with friends, family, and strangers. Several stories have been published previously in various literary journals, including New Letters, Mochila Review, Downgo Sun, and Chrysalis Reader.

You can read more about the collection, including critical reviews, and order your copy here.

Congratulations, Sue!

LeAnn Reilly publishes second novel

EFLJ alumna LeAnn Neal Reilly is publishing her second novel. Saint Sebastian's Head, a book of magical realism, is partially set in St. Joseph, MO.

Weeble has a secret so painful she’s hiding it even from herself. At ten, she meets Lauren Case, a book-loving daydreamer who offers Weeble refuge from the everyday degradations of life in her poor Midwestern family. Weeble fiercely protects Lauren, just as she protects her sister Annie. But there are forces at work she can’t withstand. When Richard Lee Grady arrives in town, he rips lives apart, including Weeble’s. Four years after college, Weeble has a new life, new friends, and the potential for love—if she can only admit what happened one hot July day in 1982.

ST. SEBASTIAN’S HEAD is a dark and riveting journey into the human heart, where fairy tales and incest, angels and demons, magical thinking and guilt, haunt one incredibly resilient woman.

For more information, view the trailer on LeAnn's website. The book is available online.

Congratulations, LeAnn!

Faculty Accomplishments this Summer

Mike Cadden made presentations on Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel The Dispossessed at Joplin, Jefferson City, and Columbia public libraries as part of the ReadMORE program sponsored by the Missouri Humanities Council.

Jeanie Crain has been reappointed for another year to the AQIP Reaffirmation Panel. She will continue on the Advisory Council and on the Admissions Panel and will also continue to serve as a Peer Reviewer for Action Projects

Jane Frick was a certified scorer at the National Writing Project's (NWP) evaluation conference held in Chicago. She also participated in the National Writing Project's State and Regional Network's leadership team meeting, held in Cleveland, Ohio.

Susie Hennessy was named a Future Leaders fellow for the American Association of Teachers of French. The fellowship workshop took place at the association's annual meeting, held in Montreal in July. Hennessy also presented a summary of her teacher recruiting program at the conference. Her presentation was entitled: "The Academy of Future French Teachers: a Plan for Recruiting."

Elizabeth Latosi-Sawin delivered a paper at the 9th International Conference of the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment called "From Grief to Hope and Action: A Pedagogical Approach to Cross-Disciplinary Environmental Literature." She also participated in a seminar on Ecomedia for which she wrote and also presented a paper entitled "Blown, Burnt, and Swept Away by Nonfictional Realities."

Mary Stone Dockery publications

Mary Stone Dockery's poem "Pices Elegy" has been published in the on-line literary journal Blood Lotus. Read our fabulous EFLJ alumna's work here.

Mary has also published a non-fiction piece in Blue Print Review. She wrote the initial draft in Dr. Sawin's course on creative non-fiction.

Congratulations, Mary!