The MFA Program in Creative Writing & Environment Presents

EARTH-ANIMAL-ORACLE:

4th Annual Symposium on Wildness, Wilderness

& the Creative Imagination

Iowa State University

Ames, IA

Memorial Union
February 17 - 19, 2008

 SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17

• 1:00 P.M.    English Club Luncheon with Zachary Jack   (Café Diem, 229 Main St., Ames)

• 2:00 P.M.    Reading:  Letters to a Young Iowan  (Ames Public Library,  515 Douglas Ave.)

Zachary Jack is an assistant professor at North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. He is the editor of Black Earth and Ivory Tower: New American Essays from Farm and Classroom. 

Jim Pease has a broad background in education, natural resources, and wildlife.  He currently serves as Extension Wildlife Specialist and Associate Professor in the Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management at Iowa State University. 

Neil Nakadate is the University Professor of English at Iowa State University. He teaches courses on American Literature since 1914, contemporary fiction, U.S. minority literatures, rhetoric and writing. Dr. Nakadate is the author of seven books, including Understanding Jane Smiley (South Carolina, 1999). 

Susan Futrell grew up in Ames playing in the Reactor Woods. Now she is a freelance writer with her own business, One Backyard. She specializes in sustainable agriculture, having written about local, organic and place-based foods such as Muscatine melons and heirloom apples. 

Phyllis Harris has an M.F.A. from the low-residency program at Vermont College and is the author of Stories from Where We Live: Great Lakes Edition (Milkweed Press). She lives in Ames, Iowa.

• 7:00 P.M.    Performance:  Inpanh Thavonekhan  (Sun Room, Memorial Union)  

                                                  --Laotian Flute Music and Woodcarving

• 8:00 P.M.   Keynote:  Brenda Peterson, "Rapture in the Earth"  (Sun Room, Memorial Union)

MONDAY, FEB. 18TH

• 9:00-10:00 A.M.  Workshop: "The Craft of Environmental Fiction," Brenda Peterson (Pioneer Room, Memorial Union)                                               

In this craft workshop, renowned author Brenda Peterson will discuss how animals can become characters in fiction. She will draw examples from her novel Animal Heart. In this, her fourth, novel, Peterson offers a captivating love story of people whose compassion for animals compels them into extraordinary acts of heroism. Based on cutting-edge science, this powerful page-turner tackles such timely and troubling issues as low-frequency active sonar and animal experimentation and forewarns of a future of Dead Zone oceans, disappearing species, and a world with creatures whose DNA boundaries have been genetically blurred. At once prescient and poignant, Animal Heart is a haunting, highly original story of the deep bonds between humans and animals--and of our inevitably linked fates.

• 10:15-11:15 A.M.  Books of Place and the Cartography of the Self  (Pioneer Room, Memorial Union)
                                 --ISU Alumni Writers Roundtable Reading and Discussion              
  

Neelika Jayawardane, assistant professor at the State University of New York—Oswego, teaches contemporary South African literature, film and art. She grew up in Sri Lanka and Zambia and will discuss her current research at the Centre for African Studies at the University of Cape Town.

Anna Leahy is an assistant professor at North Central College and the current winner of the Wicks Poetry Award from Kent State University for her collection of poems, Constituents of Matter. Leahy is internationally known for her work in creative writing pedagogy and edited the collection Power and Identify in the Creative Writing Classroom: The Authority Project (Multilingual Matters, 2005).

Linda Morganstein lives in the Twin Cities and works as a free-lance medical writer and personal trainer. She became a certified personal trainer when researching the profession for her first novel Ordinary Furies (Spinsters Ink, 2007).

Richard Solly's latest book is a collection of poetry, From Where the Rivers Come (Holy Cow Press, 2006). Solly’s writings have received four Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowships, the Bush Foundation Fellowship, and the Loft-McKnight Award. He currently works as a senior acquisition editor for Hazelden Publishing.

• 11:15 A.M.-12:00 P.M. Discussion Groups:  ISU Alums Discuss the Writing Process  (Pioneer Room, Memorial Union)

--Neelika Jayawardane:  Writing from Two Continents:  Neelika Jayawardane will discuss the multi-cultural pleasures and challenges of writing from the two worlds of North America and Africa.

 --Anna Leahy:  The Value of Conferences and Networking: Anna Leahy will discuss the fun and value of going to conferences, meeting new colleagues, proposing a panel, and watching the results appear in print.

• 1:00-2:00 P.M.   Paul Brooke and Ken Waldman  (Pioneer Room, Memorial Union)
                                --Poetry Reading, Fiddle Music and Nature Slide Show
  

 Paul Brooke will read and show slides from his latest book of poetry, Light and Matter (Wheaton Press.) Brooke lives in Ames, Iowa, and teaches in Des Moines at Grand View College. He earned his Ph.D. in English from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1995 and his M.A. in English from Iowa State University.  His writing centers on two major areas: nature and culture. Once working as a biologist and naturalist in Alaska, Brooke's writing draws from environmental issues and scientific observation. Culturally, Brooke has studied the Lakota people and their language, and he is currently finishing a biography entitled Ash of the Dragonfly: The Life History of a Lakota Woman.

• 2:15-4:00 P.M.  Panel:  Black Earth Institute:  "Plants and Animals in the Field, Oracles on the Page" (Pioneer Room, Memorial Union)

Members of the Black Earth Institute will discuss scientific work and observation of animals in the field. They will then examine the transformation of those animal images into both stereotype and oracular wisdom on the literary page. Their remarks will include the observation of grapes, pumpkins wolves, eagles and other creatures that have become important symbols in Native American stories, fairy tales, and Celtic and African mythology.  

Allison Hedge Coke, Native American poet and writer, is the author of three volumes of poetry, Dog Road Woman (American Book Award); Off-Season City Pipe (Wordcraft Writer of the Year Award); and Blood Run (a free verse play regarding an Indigenous mound site); as well as a memoir, Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer. She holds an endowed chair at the University of Nebraska-Kearney. 

Cristina Eisenberg is a Ph.D. student in Forestry and Wildlife, Oregon State University College of Forestry. She is currently researching wolves and is at work on a book about trophic cascades, Landscapes of Hope: Trophic Cascades and Biodiversity, for Island Press. 

Deborah Holton is an associate professor at the School for New Learning, DePaul University. Holton has served as Writer-in-Residence for the District of Columbia, and as dramaturg for such distinguished companies as the Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival and Pegasus Players. 

Patricia Monaghan, Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at DePaul University, is the author of more than 20 books of nonfiction and poetry.  Winner of the Pushcart Prize and the Friends of Literature Award for poetry, she is at work on a book of poems entitled Earth Oracle. 

Judith Roche is the author of three collections of poetry, Myrrh/My Life as a Screamer, Ghost and recently, Wisdom of the Body. She is also co-editor of First Fish, First People: Salmon Tales of the North Pacific Rim, which won an American Book Award. She has worked in collaboration with visual artists on several public art projects which are installed in the Seattle area. She is the 2007 Distinguished Writer at Seattle University. 

Mary Swander’s latest book is The Desert Pilgrim: En Route to Mysticism and Miracles (Viking). She has published 10 books of poetry and non-fiction and has won scores of awards including the Whiting Award and a National Endowment for the Arts Award. Swander is a professor of English and Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University.

• 7:30-8:00 P.M    Fiddle Music and Natural History Slide Show  (Sun Room, Memorial Union)
                              --Ken Waldman and Paul Brooke 
   

• 8:00 P.M.   Reading: Ven Begamudré and Sheryl St. Germain (Sun Room, Memorial Union)          
  

Ven Begamudré was born in Bangalore, India in 1956 and emigrated to Canada with his family when he was six. In addition to short stories and novels, Begamudré has written a biography of Isaac Brock for young adults, and has edited or co-edited a couple of literary collections. He has completed six writer-in-residence appointments including the Canada-Scotland Exchange. Begamudré has a degree in public administration from Carleton University and an MFA in creative writing from Warren Wilson College in Asheville, N.C. He lives in Regina, Saskatchewan and the island of Bali.

A native of New Orleans, Sheryl St. Germain has taught creative writing at The University of Texas at Dallas, The University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Knox College and Iowa State University. She currently directs the MFA program in Creative Writing at Chatham College where she also teaches poetry and creative nonfiction. Her work has received several awards, including two NEA Fellowships, an NEH Fellowship, the Dobie-Paisano Fellowship, the Ki Davis Award from the Aspen Writers Foundation, and most recently the William Faulkner Award for the personal essay.  Her poems and essays have appeared in numerous literary journals, including TriQuarterly Review, Chatahoochee Review, New Letters, River Styx and Calyx. Her books include Going Home, The Mask of Medusa, Making Bread at Midnight, How Heavy the Breath of God, and The Journals of Scheherazade. She has also published a book of translations of the Cajun poet Jean Arceneaux, Je Suis Cadien. A book of lyric essays, Swamp Songs: the Making of an Unruly Woman, was published in 2003 by The University of Utah Press.  Her latest book of poems, Let it Be a Dark Roux: New and Selected Poems, was published by Autumn House Press in 2007.

•   9:00 P.M. Reception following Readings, Sponsored by the English Club (Sun Room, Memorial Union)

TUESDAY, FEB. 19TH

• 9:00-10:30 A.M.   Panel: "What Can Wildlife Tell Us About Our Changing World?" (Pioneer Room, Memorial Union) 

Do not be surprised to find crocodiles patrolling the banana tree-lined banks of the Hudson River before your grandchildren graduate from high school.  You will die in a world you do not recognize.  --Helen Pollard, author of The Tern’s Last Egg

The world is transforming before our eyes.  We can no longer console ourselves with the idea that this global warming problem scientists have been warning us about is at least a generation away.  This is the generation.  The changes are happening now.  Residents of Maine watch as their birdfeeders fill with migratory songbirds in February.  Flowers that once bloomed only in the southern states now grow in Nebraska.  Enormous Asian carp leap after speedboats on the Mississippi.  Rain forest amphibians vanish forever in a single season.  Animals are extremely sensitive to the changes we’ve caused here on Earth.  If we pay attention, wildlife can tell us great deal about this new planet we live on.  During this session, the panelists will discuss the changing behavior of a variety of animals, and what these changes might mean.

Diane Debinski currently teaches in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology at Iowa State University.  She pursues research and teaching in the fields of conservation biology, landscape ecology, and restoration ecology.  Dr. Debinski also conducts research and is helping to implement new university programs related to recruitment and retention of women and minorities in science and engineering.

Brent Danielson received his Ph.D. from the University of Kansas and now teaches in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology at Iowa State University.  He is a population and community ecologist interested in seeing how the world might work as viewed through the eyes of his favorite study organisms - typically mice and voles.

Fred Janzen currently teaches in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology at Iowa State University.  Dr. Janzen is involved in the research of reptile biology, especially turtles and other reptiles along the Mississippi River.  This has included field studies of turtle nesting behavior, analysis of molecular evolution, selection theory, and computer modeling of hybrid zones and population demography.

Lisa Schulte teaches in the Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management at Iowa State University.  Dr. Schulte’s research is focused on ecosystem patterning and dynamics.  Her forest-related research assesses such things as the change in regional ecosystems of the U.S. Lake States, the maintenance of oak ecosystems within the Midwest Driftless Area, and long term forest response to catastrophic windthrow and salvage logging.

• 10:45 A.M.-12:00 P.M.  Reader's Theater Play:  "Farmscape:  Documenting the Changing Rural Environment" (M-Shop, Memorial Union)
                          --Student Reader’s Theatre Production

ISU creative writing students document the American farmscape through interviews with real people involved in real changes in how we grow our food and live our lives in the rural United States. You’ll take delight in a sip of Zinfandel at a new winery and savor the taste of organic vegetables on a truck on its way to the local farmer’s market. You’ll make a stop at a bed and breakfast and Hispanic cultural center and gaze out the window at restored wetlands and prairie. You’ll also suit up in protective clothing and a mask before you enter a hog confinement operation and you’ll watch pigs move quickly down a conveyor belt at an IBP slaughtering plant. You’ll experience the David and Goliath story of an organic farmer up against the economic forces of the 3500 acre agri-business operation next door. In the end, you’ll understand that during the pioneer days, farming completely changed the ecosystem of the prairie. A hundred and fifty years later, this landscape is dramatically changing again.

• 1:00-2:00 P.M.  Field Trip: The Reactor Woods with Jim Pease

Join naturalist Jim Pease as he leads a winter walk through the beautiful oak woodland of Reactor Woods located just off Ontario Street at the edge of the ISU campus.
 

Dr. Jim Pease has a broad background in education, natural resources, wildlife and camping. He currently serves as Extension Wildlife Specialist in the Department of Animal Ecology at Iowa State University. He teaches courses in interpretation of natural resources, human dimensions of wildlife, and international agriculture courses and directs statewide efforts in Extension wildlife education. He and his graduate students conduct research in the areas of environmental education, interpretation, and human dimensions. He has considerable international experience, teaching and conducting other projects in Costa Rica, Brazil, and Russia. Pease is also a frequent guest on WOI radio.

Sponsors:  College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, Committee on Lectures (funded by GSB), the Writers' Bloc, LAS Miller Lecture Fund, the English Club, the Center for Excellence in the Arts & Humanities, the Leopold Center, the Bioethics Program, Department of Ecology, Evolution & Organismal Biology, Environmental Studies, Department of Geological & Atmospheric Sciences, Department of English, Greenlee School of Journalism, Departments of Landscape Architecture and Community and Regional Planning, Departments of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Department of Natural Resource Ecology Management, and the Henry A. Wallace Endowed Chair for Sustainable Agriculture.

General Information:

• All Events are Free & Open to the Public 

• No Registration Required

• For more information about the conference, contact Mary Swander (mswander@iastate.edu) or Debra Marquart (marquart@iastate.edu)

• For Hotel Reservations:  Contact The Memorial Union Hotel, 1-800-433-3449