Faculty:
MFAW-VT faculty member Kenny Fries gave three talks in Sofia, Bulgaria.  He presented “Stumbling over History:  Aktion T4 and the Holocaust” at Shalom Bulgaria and “Disability History and Disability Rights in the United States” and “Extraordinary Bodies:  Disability Representation in Literature, Film, Visual Art, and Performance” at Sofia University. The talks were sponsored by the Bulgarian Fulbright Commission.
MFAW-VT faculty member Douglas A. Martin read from his forthcoming book about Kathy Acker and took part in a discussion on the “anti-heroine” along with Rebecca Godfrey and Darcey Steinke as part of the launch of the 25th-anniversary edition of former MFAW-VT faculty member Steinke’s Suicide Blonde, with an introduction by Maggie Nelson.  The event was held at Greenlight Books in Brooklyn.
MFAW-VT faculty member Susan Kim was hired as the head writer for the third season of the Amazon children’s series Creative Galaxy.  Also, Welcome to the Wayne, the series Susan story-edited and wrote for last year will be premiering on Nickelodeon on July 24.
Alumni and students:
Kevin Rabas, MFAW-VT alum, was named Kansas Poet Laureate.  He will serve for two years. Kevin teaches at Emporia State University, where he leads the poetry and playwriting tracks and chairs the Department of English, Modern Languages, and Journalism.  He has seven books, including Lisa’s Flying Electric Piano, a Kansas Notable Book and Nelson Poetry Book Award winner. He is the winner of the Langston Hughes Award for Poetry, the Victor Contoski Poetry Award, the Jerome Johanning Playwriting Award, and the Salina New Voice Award.
MFAW-VT alum, and recent MFAW-WA visiting alum,  Alexis M. Smith won a Lambda Literary Award in Bisexual Fiction for Marrow Island, her second novel, which was published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Two of MFAW-VT alum Cody Pherigo‘s poems, “When My Body Is a Metaphor for Faith” and “He-dog,” will be published online in THEM Issue iii, a literary journal.  Cody is also a finalist for the 2017 Atlanta Review International Poetry Competition, and his poem “A Swinging God” will be published in their Fall 2017 Contest Issue.   This summer Cody will teach a six-week writing course on the work of Maggie Nelson at Richard Hugo House in Seattle, WA.
MFAW-VT student Aleesha Nash‘s flash fiction piece Wrong Stop has been published in The Wild Word‘s FILTH issue no. 17.