Calling all MAE and MAWP Alumni The English Department is so proud of their alumni! Because of that, we are eagerly seeking information about what our alumni are up to! If you have any upcoming projects, recent achievements, or any news you would like to share with the department, we would love to hear about it! If you are interested, send an email to crestre4@depaul.edu or jhicke11@depaul.edu so we can get in contact with you!
The English Department received wonderful news that alumnus Thom Kudla’s latest book, HOW I AM DIFFERENT, was named a finalist in the Poetry Category of the 2017 Next Generation Indie Book Awards! The ebook version won multiple medals in the 2017 Global Ebook Awards. HOW WE ARE DIFFERENT (HWAD), an Apple app based on that book, was recognized by the Independent Book Publishers Association as a Benjamin Franklin Digital Award Silver Honoree. To download the app, visit this site: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hwad/id1220860133?mt=8. Thom’s books of poetry COMMENCEMENT and OUT OF CONTEXT won the 2017 IndieReader Discovery Award for… Read Article →
As final grades roll-in, Ex Libris wants to offer its congratulations to all English graduate students for their hard work this year! Kudos, you make this department great. Also, deserving recognition as the year closes is Bill Johnson-Gonzalez who earned a well deserved tenure track position this year. Superb! And a nod to adjunct faculty member Jeff Kessler for defending his thesis project on the imaginary portrait in late 19th century Britain at Indiana University. Nice work Jeff! But, most importantly, Ex Libris would like to give a huge round of applause to this year’s… Read Article →
Voting is open for the Chicago Reader’s annual Best of Chicago awards and DePaul’s own Kathleen Rooney has been nominated for the category of Best Novelist! Kathleen has been making waves and garnering well deserved accolades with her new novel, Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk. An urban love-letter and deftly crafted portrait of a powerful woman, Lillian Boxfish has been called, “prescient and quick….a perfect fusing of subject and writer, idea and ideal” by the Tribune. Along with Kathleen, DePaul English Department alumni Alison Ogunmokun has been nominated for best poet. Congrats! To vote for Kathleen and Allison –… Read Article →
The English Department received wonderful news this week that alumnus John C. Lillig was named a partner at Hoogendoorn & Talbot LLP, effective January 2017! Previously, John had been an associate at the firm since 2010. He concentrates his practice on counseling for-profit and non-profit corporations and individuals on transactional, real estate, and copyright matters. His clients include several writers and filmmakers, and he is on the Board of Directors of Polyphony H.S., a non-profit literary magazine for high school writers and editors founded by Chicago author Billy Lombardo. John is a 1996 graduate of… Read Article →
Ex Libris wants to give a shout-out to a few members of the DePaul English community we are especially proud of this month! First off, a huge congratulations to Kathleen Rooney for the release of her highly anticipated novel Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk! Can’t wait to read it Kathleen!! Borja Cabada, a recent graduate of the MAWP, has been named winner of the 2016 Logroño Book Award for Emerging Authors in Spain for his novel, The Sound of Atlantis. The novel, which will be published in the spring, started as a project while he was still at DePaul…. Read Article →
Ex Libris, on behalf of the English Department, would like to wish a heartfelt congratulations to all of the Master of Arts in English and Master of Arts in Writing and Publishing graduates of the 2015-2016 school year! A graduate degree is no easy task, but with hard work you have all completed an impressive accomplishment. We are proud of every graduate, and thank you for your dedication. Congratulations! You deserve it! Spring 2016 Graduates: Christian Anderson, MAWP with Distinction Jennifer DePoorter, MAWP with Distinction Karina Diaz, MAE Kent Doyle, MAE Amy Finn, MAWP Isabel Flores, MAWP with Distinction Ariyel Jefferson-Ray… Read Article →
DePaul English Department alum Teresa Villa-Ignacio, who earned a bachelors degree in English in 2000, will be presenting “Aspirational Images and Posthuman Ethics: Cole Swensen, Suzanne Doppelt, and Pierre Alferi” at the University of Chicago this Thursday, February 18. Find out more on the flyer below.
Ex Libris contributor Matt Adams recently interviewed MAE alumnus Carolyn Rudinsky. Carolyn graduated from DePaul in June 2015 and now works as a Communications Coordinator for Gads Hill Center, an educational non-profit based in Pilsen. Here, Carolyn offers her insights into what inspired her to pursue opportunities in the non-profit sector and how she leveraged her connections at DePaul to pursue a post-grad career. Matt Adams: Tell me a bit about yourself. Are you a Chicago native? From where did you obtain your undergrad? What drove you to pursue your MAE at DePaul? Carolyn Rudinsky: The term… Read Article →
The Visiting Writers Program will be celebrating the release of MAWP graduate Jessica Chiarella’s debut novel And Again. Chiarella will be on campus to read and discuss her work. The event takes place on Tuesday, January 26 at 6:00 pm in Richardson Library Room 115. Chiarella is a Vernon Hills native who graduated from DePaul in 2014. Currently she is enrolled in the University of California, Riverside’s MFA program. In And Again, Chiarella explores the impact of a miracle cure on the lives of terminally-ill patients. Though given a chance to live again, Chiarella’s tenderly wrought characters may have lost another crucial aspect… Read Article →
Digital Scholar Amanda Licastro, MAE ’08, teases out insights from student course blogs, online academic genealogies, and Twitter. BY HANA YOO Amanda Licastro has more than 1,000 Twitter followers. One week, she recalls, her tweets garnered more than 29,000 views. Generally, her Twitter account averages a couple thousand views per week. “I joke that I got into the graduate center through Twitter,” says Licastro, MAE ’08, currently a PhD student in English at CUNY Graduate Center and an instructional technology fellow at Macaulay Honors College. As a prospective graduate student, Licastro started following academics… Read Article →
Tuesday, May 19, 7 p.m. Poetry Foundation 61 West Superior Street Free Admission The Poetry Foundation‘s Open Door reading series presents work from Chicago’s new and emerging poets and highlights the area’s writing programs. Each one-hour event features readings by two Chicagoland college and graduate writing program instructors and two of their current or recent students. May’s Open Door Reading presents Eastern Illinois University’s Charlotte Pence and her student Derick Ledermann along with DePaul University’s David Welch and his former student, MAW alumna Laura Wagner.