MFA in Writing: Related Content

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This Will Be My Undoing, a collection of essays by Morgan Jerkins MFA '16, was included in the The Millions most anticipated books of 2017 list.

Morgan Jerkins MFA '16 was interviewed as part of the Pen Ten interview series on Pen America last month. She spoke about "the responsibility of the writer" which she sees as "to be honest and vulnerable. Jerkins is the author of a forthcoming collection of essays, This Will Be My Undoing. She is currently a contributing editor for Catapult. Her take on the Colin Kaepernick controversy, "What Colin Kaepernick's National Anthem Protest Reveals About American" was published in Rolling Stone in August. 

In its Guide to 2016’s Great Reads, NPR recommended Nitro Mountain by Lee Clay Johnson ’07, The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney MFAW ’13, Kookooland by Gloria Norris ’76, and The Queen of the Night by former MFAW faculty Alexander Chee.

Earlier this week, Mashable announced their long lists for several categories of the 2017 PEN Literary awards, which include a number of Bennington graduates.

Last month, Buzzfeed published a memoir-style essay by Chandra Ganguly MFAW '18 called "How They Killed My Grandmother." 

Morgan Jerkins MFAW ’16 recently published an essay in Rolling Stone on “What Colin Kaepernick’s National Anthem Protest Tells Us About America.” In it, she argues that “People aren’t merely upset because he is disrespecting the flag; they are upset because [his] anger illuminates just how divided this nation is and has always been.” 

NPR's Selected Shorts aired a reading of Megan Mayhew Bergman's story "Hell Diving Women" from her collection Almost Famous Women. Anika Noni Rose (Dream Girls, Raisin in the Sun) read it.

MFA(W) visiting faculty member Mark Slouka pens a letter to Donald Trump and thousands of writers sign on, by Kara Bloomgarden-Smoke '07

Faculty member in literature Benjamin Anastas reviews Elisha Cooper's memoir Falling: A Daughter, a Father, and a Journey Back, an account of the author's daughter's struggle with cancer, for The New York Times.

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney MFAW '13 talks to the New York Times about the decision to pursue a degree in writing at age 50 and selling her first novel—started while she was a student at Bennington—for a seven figure advance.

Sarai Walker, a graduate of the MFA Program at Bennington College, spoke with Scott Simon about her novel Dietland.

MFA core faculty member Alexander Chee spoke with Alison Kinney of the LA Review of Books about his novel, Queen of the Night.

Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney (MFA) spoke with Vulture about the inspriation and process behind her debut novel, The Nest. The interview is titled: A First-Time Novelist’s 7-Figure Midlife Breakthrough. 

Morgan Jerkins MFAW '16 published an essay in The New Yorker called "Black Women Writers and the Secret Space of Diaries."

The novel manuscript by Gail Vida Hamburg (MFAW June '04), Liberty Landing, was a finalist in the 2016 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction. Hamburg workshopped the first 30 pages in a workshop at Bennington with Bob Shacosis workshop two summers ago.

Bennington MFA Writing Seminars graduate Megan Galbraith published an essay, titled "Sin Will Find You Out" in Catapult. The essay recounts her search for and conversation with her birth mother, who gave Galbraith up for adoption at six months old. 

Alexander Chee's latest novel, The Queen of the Night, is being greeted with enthusiastic praise on the heels of its February 2 release. Chee is a faculty member in the MFA in Writing program at Bennington College.

Bennington alumni play a starring role in The Millions’ list of Most Anticipated Books of 2016, which includes works by Hannah Tennant-Moore MFA ’10, Sara Majka MFA ’09, Cynthia Sweeney MFA ’13, and Charles Bock MFA ’97, as well as faculty member Alexander Chee. 

Megan Mayhew Bergman MFA ’10, associate director of the MFA in Writing program, published an essay in The Wall Street Journal about her recent experience in northern Kenya as a guest researcher with the BOMA Project.

A poem by Nathalie Handal MFA ’02, Lady Liberty, is featured in posters for the Poetry in Motion® series offered by the MTA in New York City, which serves poetry to seven million commuters daily.

"Strange Days” by MFA in Writing Director Sven Birkerts and "Vision" by Tiffany Briere MFA '11 were included in The Best American Essays 2015. “The Siege at Whale Cay,” by Assistant Director Megan Mayhew Bergman MFA ’10, was included in The Best American Short Stories 2015.

A new book by Sven Birkerts, director of the MFA in Writing Program at Bennington College, has been garnering attention in advance of its October 6 publication date.

A new book by Sven Birkerts, director of the MFA in Writing Program at Bennington College, is receiving warm attention. Changing the Subject: Art and Attention in the Internet Age, published by Grey Wolf Press, which focuses on the effect of digital culture on our ability to engage with our world, and the fate of writing in such a context, has been reviewed in the Chronicle for Higher Education, New Republic, and the New York Times Book Review.

Megan Mayhew Bergman (MFAW '10) has been appointed associate director of the MFA in Writing Program at Bennington College. She is the author of two critically acclaimed works of short fiction (Birds of a Lesser Paradise and Almost Famous Women) and is at work on a novel that will be published by Scribner.

Caroline Zancan MFAW '14, author of Local Girls, links her debut novel to her time at Bennington in an interview with Melville House.

The New Yorker profiled the artist Elise Engler MFA ‘86 in their June 8 issue, highlighting the completion of her year-long project of drawing every one of Broadway’s two hundred and fifty-odd blocks in New York City.

MFA alumna Megan Mayhew Bergman's forthcoming collection of stories, Almost Famous Women, received a starred review from Kirkus, and is an Indie Next Pick for winter. Due out in January, Academy Award-winning actress Anjelica Huston called it "heartbreaking and lovely".

Katy Simpson Smith MFA ’13's new novel, The Story of Land and Sea, is “not only among the most assured debut novels in recent memory,” raved a Vogue magazine review, but also “heralds the birth of a major new talent.”

Visual arts faculty member Ann Pibal, MFA faculty member Major Jackson, and alumna Kiran Desai ’93 are among the 175 artists, scholars, and scientists—out of nearly 3,000 applicants—to receive 2013 Guggenheim Fellowships.

The stories that comprise MFA alumna Jamie Quatro '09's recently released debut collection, I Want to Show You More, according to noted literary critic James Wood in his New Yorker review, "are passionate, sensuous, savagely intense, and remarkable for their brave dualism."