2007-2008 Edition

THE SCRIVENER's New Look


We hope you'll like this new, web-based (and environmentally friendly!) blog format for The Scrivener, the English Alumni Newsletter of the Department of English at Old Dominion University.

With active links and the ability to position the newsletter so it is easier to access from the internet for alumni near and far and for other readers at large, The Scrivener in its new format hopes to make it even more possible for all of you out there to keep close ties with the English Department at Old Dominion University.

We'd love to hear from you-- send us your news!
Write us at TheScrivenerAtODU@gmail.com


Woman Writing A Letter,
by Dutch artist Frans Van Merris (1680)

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NEWS FROM THE OFFICE OF THE DEPARTMENT CHAIR

David Metzger, professor and chair of the Old Dominion University English department, has been appointed as the new Dean of the ODU Honors College. Chandra De Silva, Dean of the College of Arts and Letters, and Dr. Metzger met with faculty of the English Department on 11 June to discuss the transition. On 1 July 2008, Metzger officially succeeds longtime dean Louis H. Henry, who retired at the end of the spring semester.

Dr. Metzger, who joined the ODU faculty in 1993, has spent his entire career at the university in the English department. In addition to his teaching duties, he founded the Writing Tutorial Service, which currently serves roughly 2,000 students. Metzger has also served as director of the Jewish Studies Program (2000-07), and he established the Graduate Writing Assistance Program. As a scholar, Metzger is the author and/or editor of four books, guest editor of three special issues of journals, and author of over forty articles and book chapters on a wide range of topics in rhetorical and pedagogical studies.

Metzger’s duties as Honors College dean are not expected to affect his teaching load, although he now will split his classes between the English department and the college. Provost Carol Simpson said, "Professor Metzger is an excellent choice for the dean of the Honors College at Old Dominion University. He brings a special combination of talents and abilities to the role. He is a brilliant and articulate teacher as well as a highly respected scholar. His special interest in interdisciplinary dialogue is particularly relevant to the mission of the college." Simpson added, "David's vision for the college matches well the mission of the university to enrich the lives of students, faculty, alumni and the community at large. I look forward to working with him to enhance the contributions of the Honors College, especially in the development of an undergraduate research culture at ODU. I am confident that David will be a superb dean of the Honors College."

The Honors College was established in 1997 as a means of furthering the university's commitment to academic excellence. The college offers qualified students the opportunity to enroll in a four-year honors program, which features the best of aspects of both a large-university education and a small-school experience. High school students who apply for admission to the Honors College are evaluated by grade point average, SAT scores, class rank and a written personal statement. Honors College students enjoy low-enrollment courses designed specifically for the college, which emphasize teaching and innovation. Students are free to select any major. Majors currently being pursued by Honors College students include English, economics, history, political science, accounting, finance, education, criminal justice, sociology, biology, nursing, music, sports medicine and physics.

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ACCOLADES

Dr. Bridget LeAnn Anderson, Assistant Professor of English and Applied Linguistics, received a 2008 State Council of Higher Education Virginia (SCHEV) Outstanding Faculty Award in the category of "Rising Star." Bridget is a sociolinguist specializing in acoustic phonetics and language variation. Her theoretical work demonstrates the interaction of phonetic principles with social and ideological factors in structuring sound systems of American English, with a focus on "everyday" types of speech found in oral histories and personal narratives. Her first book, Migration, Accommodation, and Language Change: Language at the Intersection of Regional and Ethnic Identity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008) examines the linguistic consequences of the "Great Southern Migration," the largest internal migration in US history. The methodological combination of ethnographic fieldwork and laboratory-standard acoustic analytic procedures yields an analysis which demonstrates the interaction of linguistic processes (e.g. coarticulation and phonological leveling) with social and ideological factors (such as the social salience of residential segregation) in the speech sounds of African American and Appalachian White Southern migrants and their descendants in the Detroit metro area. Her second book, Smoky Mountain English: Appalachian English in the Great Smoky Mountains of the American South (Dialects of English Series, Edinburgh University Press, anticipated for release in late 2008 or early 2009) is based on data she collected during ethnographic fieldwork from 1995-2000 in the rural Smoky Mountains of far western North Carolina.

At Old Dominion University, Dr. Anderson incorporates research and service learning into her pedagogical practices. She directs Tidewater Voices, a community language and oral history project whose goal is to allow the people of the Tidewater region to tell their own stories, in their own words and in their own language-- thus providing a living cultural and linguistic history that captures the distinct dialect features of this historical region. Students are trained to create archival-quality recordings, to conduct linguistic analyses, and to write descriptions of Tidewater dialects. They also complete service learning projects employing the tools of linguistics to address social problems involving language, and providing specific social benefits. Bridget holds an MA in English with a concentration in Linguistics from North Carolina State University, and a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Michigan.

Dr. Joyce Neff received one of two Teaching With Technology Awards for 2008 for her contributions and leadership in the application of instructional technologies to writing instruction. Joyce has been a leader in distance education for the last fourteen years. The award came with a $3000 check and an Apple video iPod.

In addition to the Teaching with Technology Award, Joyce also received the Faculty Innovator Grant along with Kevin DePew and Matt Oliver. The grant is given by the Center for Learning Technologies, and will be applied to the study of conferencing software to facilitate collaborative learning from a distance. Joyce was also recently elected Assistant Chair of the National Consortium of Doctoral Programs in Rhetoric and Composition.

Dr. Jeffrey Richards was honored as a 2007 Eminent Scholar at the 2008 Faculty Awards Program in the spring.

At the same program, Dr. Michael Pearson of the MFA Creative Writing Program was recognized for 20 years' service to the University.

Dr. Janet Bing was a 2007 University Finalist, State Council of Higher Education Virginia (SCHEV) Outstanding Faculty Awards Program.

Dr. Luisa A. Igloria was one of the Finalists for the first Doctoral Mentoring Awards given by the University in the spring of 2008 to four faculty members selected from across campus. She was also recognized at the 2008 Faculty Awards Program for the 49th Parallel Poetry Prize, the James Hearst Poetry Prize and the National Writers Union Poetry Prize, among other poetry awards she received in 2007.

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PROGRAM NEWS & RELATED UPDATES

WTS Opens in New BAL Location

At the beginning of fall 2008, Writing Tutorial Services (WTS) opened in its new location on the first floor of Batten Arts & Letters Building (BAL 1002). The new location not only offers a bigger space which allows tutorials to be conducted comfortably, but it is also more visible to the student population. Students who had used WTS services in previous semesters have expressed their appreciation of the new space.

During the academic year, WTS continued to provide quality writing advice to the campus population. With the diversity of expertise that tutors (Victor Barrett, Brandon Geter, Chinchi Kungaa, Eric Obrynba, Chvonne Parker, Dana Staves, Randi Tucker, and Emily Louise Zimbrick) brought with them, WTS was capable of addressing many ODU students' writing inquiries. Graduate writing tutor Erin Pastore also helped to guide many graduate students through their term paper, theses, and dissertation writing experiences.

WTS conducted weekly workshop series as well, covering topics from Understanding Audience to Plagiarism and Citations, to Common ESL Errors. These workshops were well attended, often drawing fifteen to thirty students per session. Similar workshops will be offered in the coming academic year, and WTS is interested in hearing about additional topics that might be covered.

Finally, WTS, with the support of a Faculty Innovator Grant, tested the Macromedia Breeze software as a means of supporting online tutorials. With this software, WTS hopes to expand services to students at a distance and offer tutorials similar to those conducted in a face-to-face setting. Macromedia Breeze facilitates real-time video and audio conferencing while tutor and student look at the same document. While not all students might have the capability to take full advantage of the software's features, WTS sees this as an enhanced step towards incorporating distance students into the ODU culture.

For further inquiries, please write or call Kevin Eric DePew,
Director of Writing Tutorial Services
(757.683.4019 and kdepew@odu.edu)

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WTS at the Beach

Lecturer Julie Manthey is happy to share that she has worked hard to organize the Writing Tutorial Services for our students at the Virginia Beach Higher Education Center (VBHEC). Our student base at the Beach continues to grow, and Julie has been ably assisted by graduate assistant Virginia Amberman.

New Courses in Professional Writing Emphasis

The Professional Writing emphasis is busy reviewing and revising the curriculum at the MA level. New courses have also been developed. These include, at the undergraduate level, Introduction to Digital Writing and Client-based Research Writing; at the graduate level, new courses include Writing with Video, New Media Theory, and Practice I and II. Dr. Kathleen Gossett came on board in fall 2007 as an expert in new media studies; another new faculty member in professional writing will begin teaching in fall 2008.

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1st Publishing Festival Held at ODU

On 29 March, the MFA Creative Writing Program and the English Department hosted the first Publishing Festival on campus, dubbed "So You Think You Can Write? Straight Talk About Writing." The intensive one-day program was co-coordinated by MFA alumni and English Department faculty members Anne Wilson Gregory (MFA 2004, Adjunct Instructor) and Kathy Fowler (MFA 2003, English Lecturer and IDS Coordinator).

Editors and publishers of literary journals and magazines including Blackbird, Smartish Pace and Potomac Review; successful authors across several genres; and publishing representatives gave pragmatic advice and insightful talks on all aspects of the writing process; also featured was a nontraditional panel with one of the speakers based in the west coast, on the future of the book in a digital environment.

L-R: Anne Wilson Gregory, Kathy Fowler, MFA poetry grad Christian Gerard,
Poetry East Editor Richard Jones, Luisa Igloria, Smartish Pace Editor Stephen Reichert

The day's programs were capped off by a Keynote and Reading delivered by poet and editor Richard Jones, who was the MFA Creative Writing Program's Spring 2008 Visiting Poet in Residence.

The highly successful event was advertised to members of the Hampton Roads writing community, but was primarily conceived to meet the needs of ODU's MFA Creative Writing Program students.

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2008 ODU-Poetry Society of Virginia-
Academy of American Poets
College Poetry Prizes Announced

Undergraduate Ryan F. Glass and MFA poetry student Myrna Amelia Mesa (expected to graduate August 2008) are the top winners in this year's ODU College Poetry Prizes co-sponsored by the MFA Creative Writing Program, the Poetry Society of Virginia, and the Academy of American Poets.

Ryan's poem "To a Rainy Day Woman" received an Honorable Mention Award in the Undergraduate Category; and Myrna's poems "All I Know About My Grandmother, Guillermina" and the sonnet crown "Cuban War Letters" received the First Prize in the Graduate Category; Myrna's "Cuban War Letters" also just recently placed Finalist in the 2008 Columbia Poetry Contest and Finalist in the 2008 Poetry Contest of the Nimrod International Journal of Poetry and Prose.

Other winners in the Graduate Category are MFA poetry grads Matilda Cox (First Runner-up) for her poem "Illustrating Life;" and Eddie Dowe (Second Runner-up) for his poem "Burden."

Vivian Teter, professor of English at Virginia Wesleyan College, Pushcart Prize nominee and author of Translating a Bridge (Quartet Series, 2007; Toadlily Press), judged the contest.

The ODU College Poetry Prize Contest for the 2008-2009 academic year will officially open in fall 2008, with an expected entry deadline in early to mid-January 2009.

In 1955, The Academy of American Poets established its University and College Poetry Prize program at ten schools. The Academy now sponsors over 200 annual prizes for poetry at colleges and universities nationwide, and has awarded more than $350,000 to nearly 10,000 student poets since the program's inception.

In 2007, the Poetry Society of Virginia through the efforts of current State Poet Laureate Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda, named our MFA program for an endowment enabling the Academy of American Poets to count Old Dominion University among the colleges and universities at which the annual College Poetry Prize is offered.

Many of America's most esteemed poets won their first recognition through an Academy of American Poets College Prize, including Diane Ackerman, Toi Derricotte, Mark Doty, Alice Fulton, Tess Gallagher, Louise Glück, Allen Grossman, Jorie Graham, Kimiko Hahn, Joy Harjo, Robert Hass, Li-Young Lee, Brad Leithauser, J. D. McClatchy, Heather McHugh, Gregory Orr, Robert Pinsky, Sylvia Plath, Mark Rudman, Mary Jo Salter, Gjertrud von Schnackenberg, George Starbuck, Mark Strand, and Charles Wright, among others.

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Graduate Student Workshops on Crafting a Career

In April this year, Dawn Thacker and Timothy Richardson, both ODU alums, led workshops on "Crafting a Career: Graduate School and Beyond."

Dawn Thacker (MA English, 2005) has just defended her dissertation ("Silent Soldier: Rhetorical Constructions of Subjectivity in the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Army") under the direction of Sharon Crowley at Arizona State University. Her research interests include postmodern and feminist rhetorics, and queer theory.

Tim Richardson (MFA 1997) is currently assistant professor of rhetoric and Director of Creative Writing at the University of Texas-Arlington. He received his PhD in English from Loyola University (2004), and has published poems in the Paris Review and other journals. He is completing work on his first scholarly book manuscript, It is Not in Heaven: Rhetoric, History, and the Possibility of Writing.

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FACULTY NOTES ~

Awards;
Tenure & Promotion;
Publications; Scholarly & Related Activities

Nancy Topping Bazin (Eminent Scholar and Professor of English) is now an artist (and even has a business license!); her paintings, in a variety of media and styles, are displayed continuously at two Virginia Beach Galleries. She has a changing display on a wall at the Artists Gallery (608 Norfolk Ave.) and also participates in monthly exhibits on different themes. Nancy is also one of the five Managing Artists at the Pembroke 4 Art Gallery.

Adjunct Professor in English Composition Pierre Beauregard was Finalist in Meridian's Editor's Prize in fiction, with his short story "Autumn." The story was published in the May 2008 issue.

Graduate Program Director in Applied Lingusitics, Janet Bing published "Liberated Jokes: Sexual Humor in All-Female Groups" in (Volume 20, Number 4); and "Module 1: Fundamentals of Interpersonal Communications," "Module 2: Home Culture Orientation" in Humor: International Journal of Humor ResearchInterpersonal Dynamics in Cross Cultural Communication (prepared for the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command; 2007). With Charles Ruhl, Janet also published "It's All My Fault! The Pragmatics of Responsibility Statements" in Journal of Pragmatics (Volume 40, Number 3).

Michael Blumenthal, Darden Endowed Chair in Creative Writing, published the article "Baboon Heaven" in Natural History Magazine; he has had his poetry and fiction featured in The Chattahoochee Review, New Works Review, New Letters, The Southern Review, Green Mountains Review, Poetry East, Cutthroat, and The Yalobusha Review.

Matilda Cox, Director of Advising for the College of Arts & Letters, was awarded a place in the Cave Canem Summer Retreat for Writers.

Kathy Fowler published a story in The Powhatan Review, and her "The Between Molecules, Then Atoms" was published as the Hot Opener on Potomac Review's website. With Anne Wilson Gregory, she successfully co-directed the 'So You Think You Can Write?' One-Day Publishing Festival in March.

Lenore Hart's new novel, Becky: The Life and Loves of Becky Thatcher (St. Martin's Press, January 2008) was selected as an alternate selection of the Literary Guild and the Book of the Month Club (both Doubleday book clubs). Lenore wrote the lyrics of a four-part oratorio called Nativity in Black and White (music composed by Stefan Dulcie); it was performed in the spring by the Salisbury University Music Department with tenors, a soprano, and a thirty-member chorus. In addition, with David Poyer she co-authored "How to Win A Novel Contest" which appeared in The Writer (April 2008). Lenore's interview with Norris Church Mailer will appear in the fall 2008 issue of Provincetown Arts. She is at work on a new novel on Edgar Allan Poe and Virginia Clemm (St. Martin's Press), and she will be Visiting Fiction Writer at Elizabethtown College, PA, for the coming schoolyear.

Michelle "Dee" Heart was recognized by students of the Residential College with a "Star Faculty" award in the spring semester.

The Ragdale Foundation awarded the Anne Vogt Fuller and Marion Titus Searle Fellowship to Luisa A. Igloria (summer 2008). Luisa will work on a new poetry manuscript and give a reading during this Ragdale residency. Some new poems have been published in Poetry East, Natural Bridge, qarrtsiluni and in the persona poem issue of Poemeleon.

Tom Long, who has taught as Adjunct Assistant Professor of English for us, is leaving the Hampton Roads area this summer. He will accept an Associate Professor in Residence position at the School of Nursing, the University of Connecticut. Previously he had worked as writing coach for faculty and doctoral students in the SON programs. He will be on the graduate faculty, will write and edit SON publications, and continue his own research in medical humanities (representations of the body, sexuality and disease).

Manuela Mourao's "Whitewash" and other paintings were part of an exhibit and international symposium on Art and Cartography-Cartography and Art (a collaboration of the Technical University Vienna, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and RMIT University, Melbourne) from 30 January to 3 February. She also exhibited her works at the Selden Gallery in downtown Norfolk.

Joyce Neff was promoted to Professor in July 2007. Her book Across Distances and Disciplines: Writing Research and Pedagogy in Distributed Learning (co-authored with Carl Whithaus) was recently released by Lawrence Erlbaum/Taylor & Francis (New York, 2008).

David Pagano published "The Space of Apocalypse in Zombie Cinema" in Zombie Culture: Autopsies of the Living Dead, eds. Marc Leverette and Shawn McIntosh (Scarecrow Press, 2008); and "Narrative Unreliability in Film and Literature" in Notes on American Literature (Volume 16, Number 2).

Michael Pearson has published the following works: "Western Dreams: Taos, Santa Fe, and Home" in Literary Review Web; "Burmese Days" in The Truth About the Fact: International Journal of Nonfiction (Volume III, Number 1); "Twists and Turns in Burma: A Place Where Anything Can Happen" in The Atlanta Journal and Constitution; and Innocents Abroad Too: Journeys Around the World on Semester at Sea (forthcoming from Syracuse University Press).

Janet Peery and Sheri Reynolds (MFA Creative Writing Faculty) have been promoted to Full Professor. Janet's novel What the Thunder Said is available in paperback this June from Picador.

Jeffrey Richards published "The Adventures of Emmera, the Transatlantic Novel, and the Fiction of America" in Early American Literature (Volume 42, Number 3); and his review of Eliza Richards' Gender and the Politics of Reception in Poe's Circle (Cambridge University Press, 2004) in South Atlantic Review (Volume 72, Number 1).

Craig Stewart published "Social Cognition and Discourse Processing Goals in the Analysis of 'Ex-Gay' Rhetoric" in Discourse & Society (Volume 19, 63-83); and "Conversational Argumentation in Decision-Making: Chinese and US Participants in Face-to-Face and Instant Messaging Interactions" in Discourse Processes (Volume 44, 113-139).

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STUDENT ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Second year MFA poetry grad Christian Anton Gerard has received a full fellowship to the Bread Loaf Writers Conference this summer.

Second year Ph.D. student in Rhetoric and Textual Studies Elif Guler won the 2008 Sigma Tau Delta Henry Regnery Endowed Scholarship; the award is given annually to an outstanding student scholar.

Mary Hanlin, MFA poetry/MA student, was one of 120 Librarians from across the country selected as an Emerging Leader by the American Library Association (ALA). A native of Norfolk, Mary has a Bachelor's degree from Christopher Newport University and a Master's in Library and Information Science from the University of Pittsburgh.

English Composition student Manuela Hansmeier's "The German Way Into Your Heart" was published in the Virginian-Pilot's Co-Pilot section.

Rachel Inghram has won this year's English Undergraduate Literary Essay Contest with "A Busy Actor in Their Play: Rosalind as a Changing Character in Shakespeare's As You Like It." The essay was written in fall 2007 for Dr. Imtiaz Habib's English 303/Shakespeare's Histories and Comedies. This year's judges were Dr. Jeffrey Richards, Dr. Joseph Cosco, and Dr. Manuela Mourao.

English Lecturer and VBHEC English Coordinator Katherine Jackson's English 110 Composition students were recently published by the Virginian-Pilot: Nicole Agnese, "For this Family, Fish is the Dish of Unity (3 December 2007) and Delont'e Parker, "Coming In Right on Time" (12 December 2007).

Mimi Leonard published "Podcasting's Possibilities" in Inquiry: The Journal of the Virginia Community Colleges (Volume 13, number 1, Spring 2008).

Leslie Norris won one of the CCCC (Conference on College Composition and Communication) 2008 Scholars of the Dream Award for her proposed paper "Multimodal Pedagogy in Basic and Freshman Writing Courses."

Sarah McCoy (MFA 2007) has landed a two-book deal with Shaye Areheart Books. Her debut novel The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico is a young girl's coming-of-age story set in 1960s-era Puerto Rico.

Heather Lettner-Rust, with four co-authors, published "Writing Beyond the Curriculum: Transfer, Transition and Transformation" in Across the Disciplines.

MFA Fiction student Dana Staves won the Women's Studies Essay Contest (Graduate Division) for her paper "Girls Like Us: Queering Fatness in Hairspray."

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PRESENTATIONS & CONFERENCES

English Adjunct Instructor and Arts & Letters Graduate Style Editor Alicia DeFonzo (MA Literature, 2007) presented her essay "Servants as Unwitting Accomplices in Late Gothic Fiction at the National Popular Culture Association Conference in San Francisco (March 2008). Her essay "The Monster's Request for a Sister in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" was accepted at the International NarrativEncounters Conference at UCC Ireland in February, though she was unable to attend.

Applied Linguistics faculty Janet Bing and Joanne Scheibman will be presenting papers at the International Gender and Language Association Conference in Wellington, New Zealand (3-5 July), together with (now graduated Linguistics students) Natasha McKeller and Sibley Slinkard.

Elif Guler presented and designed the poster "Orientalist Rhetoric and its Paradoxical Role in Representing Turkey's Identity" for Research Expo 2007: 400 Years of Discovery, Old Dominion University (April 2007). In addition, she presented the following papers at these conferences: "Science and Reason in the Public Discourse of Kemalism: A Pentadic Analysis of Ataturk's Speech on the 10th Anniversary of the Turkish Republic" at the 13th Biennial National COnference of the Rhetoric Society of America (Seattle, WA; May 2008); and "Literacy and Affordances in Different Writing Systems: The Transition of Turkish from the Arabic Script to the Latin Alphabet" at the 3rd Biennial Conference on Intercultural Rhetoric and Discourse, Ohio State University (Columbus, OH; June 2007).

Joyce Neff presented "The Literacies of Online Learning" at the Composition Studies Conference: Literacies - Personal, Professional, Academic (University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH; 13 October 2007). She also presented "Writing Across the Curriculum as a Rhetoric for Distance and Distributed Learning" at the Rhetorics and Technologies Conference, Penn State University, State College (8 July 2007).

MFA faculty member Luisa A. Igloria keynoted the Virginia Humanities Conference at Radford University in April 2008.

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OTHER NEWS

Remica Bingham (BA 2002), who received her MFA from Bennington College (2005) and has taught as an Adjunct for the English Department, has been awarded fellowships from the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshops and Cave Canem. Her first book of poetry, Conversion, won the 2007 Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award (Lotus Press, 2007). Currently, she is the Writing Competency Coordinator at Norfolk State University.

Karen Brown (nee Williams; BA English, 1996) received her Master of Library and Information Science from the University of South Carolina in May 2003. She has worked as Serials and Electronic Resources Catalog Librarian at North Carolina State University, and is currently Reference Librarian at the University of South Carolina's Thomas Cooper Library. She also teaches a one-credit information iteracy course, and co-directs the university's Fall Festival of Authors event.

Natalie G. Diaz (MFA 2007) has been accepted into the Doctor of Education in Organizational Leadership program at Grand Canyon University.

Letitia Montgomery-Rodgers (MFA 2007) is the YA Librarian in the Norfolk Main Library.

Felicia Sawyer (BA English 1970) of Portsmouth, VA, wrote to share the news that her son James Parnell Sawyer, who graduated from Woodrow Wilson HIgh School in 2006), was accepted at the College of William & Mary and received a Eure Scholarship from his area bowling youth league.