James Gamble (M.F.A. 1994; M.A. in Comparative Literature 2000; Ph.D. in Comparative Literature 2006) retired as Senior Instructor of English at the University of Arkansas after the Spring 2020 term. He misses interaction with students and colleagues but does not miss grading papers. At present he is reading and writing, watching hockey, and spending time with his breathtakingly helpful wife, Laura, two French bulldogs Piglet and Thunderchunk, and two cats, Ozark and Goldie.
Dave Kuhne (M.F.A. 1982) has recently published a novel, Maintaining Texas Pride, with Lamar University Literary Press. The novel is Kuhne’s fourth book, and his first since his retirement from TCU in 2012. The story concerns a young English professor who is denied tenure and goes to work at the coin-operated car wash he has inherited from his uncle. Mostly set in Fort Worth, Texas, the novel examines the narrator’s fall from the ivory tower to the gritty, but funny, world of car washing, and details his quest to reunite with his lost love from the university days. The book is available in print from Amazon and from Kindle for $2.99.
J.T. Mahany (M.F.A. 2018)’s translation of Eleven Sooty Dreams by Manuela Draeger was published on Feb. 9th by Open Letter Books. The book marks his third publication.
Charlotte Mears (M.F.A. 1980) has been invited by the editors of The Limberlost Review: A Literary Journal of the Mountain West to submit a few poems for consideration, and they have already accepted her poems “Early Morning” and “Time Heals All Wounds.” Mears was also invited by the editor of Portals Press to submit to the 40th Anniversary of the Maple Leaf Poetry Readings, New Orleans, Louisiana. Her poem “The Brink” was included.
Jen Siraganian (M.F.A. 2007) was inducted as the Poet Laureate of Los Gatos, California, in April 2021. Selected by the mayor and members of the Los Gatos Library Board and Arts and Culture Commission after an unanimous vote, she will serve a three-year term promoting poetry and literature in the community.
Sidney Thompson (M.F.A. 1994) has recently had his fourth book released, a historical novel titled Hell on the Border: The Bass Reeves Trilogy, Book Two (Bison Books), a sequel to last year’s novel, Follow the Angels, Follow the Doves. Both books are set in Arkansas. Thompson has two other books that have been previously published: You/Wee: Poems from a Father and Sideshow: Stories.
Lee Zacharias (M.F.A. 1976), Emerita Professor of English, University of North Carolina Greensboro, had her third novel, Across the Great Lake, released in a new paperback edition from the University of Wisconsin Press in the spring of 2021. It also won the 2021 Phillip H. McMath Book Award in Fiction. O.Henry and Pine Straw magazines published her short story “Being the Record of Hannah King, born April 14, 1681, Salem Village,” in their August, 2020 issues; the story will be reprinted in the anthology Taboos and Transgressions, to be published in May, 2021 by Madville Publishing. Her fourth novel, What a Wonderful World This Could Be, which was just released June 1, 2021 by Madville, has been named one of ten new books to watch for this spring by Walter Magazine. She also has essays forthcoming in Hear Me: Literature Voices the NCMA, the new ekphrastic catalog for the North Carolina Museum of Art, and in the anthology Homes, coming from Madville in September, 2021.