Check out the profiles of our first and second year BA/MA students on the “Student Bios” page!

The BA/MA program is an integrated undergraduate/graduate degree in English with a creative writing concentration in Poetry and in Prose (fiction and creative nonfiction). This is a full-residency program that can be completed in two years—the student’s senior year and the additional M.A. year. Under the supervision of a creative writing faculty member, students complete a substantial creative project and also receive teaching assistantships that provide teaching experience. Applications are due March 15th, 2020. For more information, check out the BA/MA program page on the English Department’s website.

Known for his fresh, well-crafted stories that evoke the American West, writer Callan Wink will offer a reading as part of the Mary E. Rolling Reading Series. The public reading is free and will be held in Foster Auditorium in Paterno Library on Thursday, November 7, at 7:30 pm.

Wink has been the recipient of a National Endowment of the Arts literature fellowship and the Wallace Stegner fellowship from Stanford University. Wink’s stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Playboy, Men’s Journal, The Best American Short Stories Anthology, and many other publications.

He is the author of the short story collection Dog Run Moon, which was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and awarded an honorable mention in the 2017 Pen/Hemingway Awards. Publishers Weekly praised Wink for “the transparency of his writing, at once delicate and brutally precise” that “gifts us with the wonderful feeling of knowing someone you’ve only met in a book.” His debut novel, August, a coming of age story of a farm boy from Michigan, is forthcoming in May from Random House Publishing and is being previewed with acclaim.

Wink received his MFA in creative writing from the University of Wyoming. Currently, he splits his time between Santa Cruz, California, and Livingston, Montana. His time in Montana is spent working as a fly-fishing guide.

The Mary E. Rolling Series is a program offered by Penn State’s Creative Writing Program in English, which receives generous support from the College of the Liberal Arts; the Department of English; the Joseph L. Grucci Poetry Endowment; the Mary E. Rolling Lectureship in Creative Writing; and University Libraries.  A full list of readings in the 2019-20 series can be found at https://creativewriting.psu.edu/.

Award-winning magazine writer, essayist, memoirist, and Penn State alumna Vicki Glembocki will offer a reading as part of the Mary E. Rolling Reading Series. The reading is free and open to the public and will be held in Foster Auditorium in Paterno Library on Thursday, October 10, at 7:30 pm.

Glembocki has written for many established publications including Parents, Women’s Health, The Daily Beast, Philadelphia, Salon, More, Playboy, and Ladies Home Journal. Currently, she is a contributing editor and columnist at Reader’s Digest and a Writer at Large at Philadelphia Magazine. Previously she was the articles director at the Philadelphia Magazine. Additionally, Glembocki is the author of the 2009 memoir The Second Nine Months: One Woman Tells the Real Truth About Becoming a Mom: Finally.

Vicki Glembocki’s large collection of profiles, personal essays, and long-form narratives show her mastery and attention to detail. For The Penn Stater Magazine, she has profiled notable alumni such as Modern Family star Ty Burrell. Her “Suburbanista” column in the Philadelphia Magazine has been described as “wry and subversive” by the City and Regional Magazine awards, which awarded her Best Column in 2014.  And her column for Reader’s Digest called “You be the Judge” has inspired and generated much discussion and a committed reader base since 2013.

Glembocki has served as an editor for The Penn Stater Magazine and Pitt Magazine, and has worked in public relations for Dartmouth University. In addition to writing, Glembocki also serves as a consultant for many magazines and publications on editorial content and strategies. Currently, she resides in Atlanta with her husband and daughters.

Glembocki received both her BA (’93) and MFA (’02) from Penn State, with a focus in nonfiction writing. One article, called “A Ring in Her Navel”, originally written for an undergraduate creative nonfiction class taught by Penn State professor Toby Thompson was published in Playboy – it’s a piece that Thompson says he still teaches in his classes. Glembocki also judged the 2016 Toby Thompson Prize for Literary Nonfiction as part of the English Department Writing Awards.

The Mary E. Rolling Reading Series is a program offered by Penn State’s Creative Writing Program in English. The series receives generous support from the College of the Liberal Arts; the Department of English; the Joseph L. Grucci Poetry Endowment; the Mary E. Rolling Lectureship in Creative Writing; and University Libraries.  A full list of readings in the 2019-20 series can be found at https://creativewriting.psu.edu/.

(Glembocki photo: provided by author)

(The Modern Man: The Penn Stater Magazine)

by Anushka Shah

It’s hard to stop staring at a man wearing two clunky, silver watches on each arm. But even more captivating are the stream of words coming out of Terrance Hayes’ mouth.  Hayes is casual and disassociative, but always thoughtfully personal in his presence and his poetic voice. It was simply dazzling to have him read his work for this year’s Emily Dickinson Lecture and participate in a Q&A. Here are some highlights, pieces of advice for writing, analogies on theory, and everything in between:

1. On his significant use of poetic forms: It’s fun to push against form. Imagine doing a break dancing routine vs. you doing that same dance routine in a strait jacket. Obviously, the dance routine in the strait jacket is better.
2. On poetry and any art forms: The point is to be expressive. Don’t think about it much when you’re creating. Make it casual.
3. On creating: When there’s less capacity for judgment, you can do more.
4. On his two watches: I’m obsessed with time.
5. On poetry vs. other mediums: Poetry absorbs everything. It’s the receptacle for other mediums.
6. On writing poems:  When writing a poem, you actively give it attention, but once that’s done, you let it survive on its own. Then you raise another poem. Poems are like kids.
7. On revision: I have to change for my work to change.
8. On his work: Obsessive record keeping
9. On form again: Form is like changing outfits for snatches of sound.
10. On reading: I’m always skimming, but close reading the things I like. Pay attention to what makes you stop.

Join the Kalliope staff and contributors to celebrate the release of Kalliope 2019!

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On Tuesday, April 2, the English Department celebrated English Department Writing Award winners (along with those receiving outstanding alumnus and teaching awards), at its 2019 Spring Awards Ceremony.

You can find a full list of this year’s writing award winners, as well as the names of judges, on our awards page. Below are some photos from the event.

On Thursday, April 4, nonfiction writer, conservationist, and Penn State grad Katie Fallon will speak on the University Park campus about her book Vulture: The Private Life of an Unloved Bird. The event will take place at 7:30 p.m. in the Assembly Room of the Nittany Lion Inn. 

Katie Fallon is the author of Vulture (UPNE, 2017) and Cerulean Blues: A Personal Search for a Vanishing Songbird (Ruka Press, 2011), as well as two books for children. Her essays and articles have appeared in a variety of literary journals and magazines, and she has taught writing at Virginia Tech, West Virginia University, and in the Low-Residency MFA programs of West Virginia Wesleyan College and Chatham University. She is also a founder of the Avian Conservation Center of Appalachia. Fallon lives in Cheat Lake, WV, with her family. 

In Vulture, Katie Fallon discusses the turkey vulture, an overlooked and under-appreciated species that plays an extremely important role in our ecosystem.  Written as a travelogue, scientific exploration, ecological memoir and love story, Vulture appeals to a wide variety of readers.  

The Evening with Katie Fallon is the final reading in this year’s Mary E. Rolling Reading Series. It is also the culmination of the slate of events surrounding the 2019 Community Read of Vulture: The Private Life of an Unloved Bird, an annual event organized by the Center for American Literary Studies (CALS) and Centre County Reads (Information about additional events related to the Community Read can be found at http://cals.la.psu.edu/ and http://www.centrecountyreads.org/.) 

The Mary E. Rolling Reading Series is a project of Penn State’s Creative Writing Program in English. It receives generous support from the College of the Liberal Arts, the Department of English, the Joseph L. Grucci Poetry Endowment, the Mary E. Rolling Lectureship in Creative Writing, and the University Libraries. Additional support for this reading was provided by the Penn State Sustainability Institute.  

The event is free and open to the public; no registration is necessary.
Parking at The Nittany Parking Deck is free with validation from the Nittany Lion Inn.