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Send Your Updates for the Mennonite Writing Bibliographies
April 13, 2009Ervin Beck is in the process of updating the three bibliographies linked on the CMW homepage. Please send your additions, corrections and suggestions to ervinb@goshen.edu. Note that the bibliographies do not usually include book reviews, self-published books or single poems or short stories published in periodicals or anthologies.
Ervin Beck, CMW Journal Editor, Goshen College
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Blog features materials about Yaguchi
March 16, 2009Ross Bender has posted materials related to the Japanese poet Yorifumi Yaguchi on his blog Mennonite Oku no Hosomichi. He writes:
I have been posting [Yaguchi] materials on my Osoroshii Menonaito Nikki blog the past few weeks. These include photos of a 1967 pastors' conference in Hokkaido which my father and I attended as part of his "Project Contacting Younger Churches" when he was Dean of AMBS. I've included several paragraphs from his diary of that trip. Also photos by missionary Charles Shenk of me, my dad, and Yaguchi. Also a scan of an early Yaguchi volume of poetry …
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Mennonite Comic Fiction by Paul Wiebe
March 1, 2009Read James Juhnke's review of Christian Bride, Muslim Mosque, Paul Wiebe's a comic novel of growing up Mennonite in Idaho during the 1940s and 50s.
http://www.mennoweekly.org/2009/3/9/comic-novel-growing/
Paul Wiebe, professor emeritus at Wichita State University, has founded his own press, Komos Books, named after the Greek word for comedy and has published several works of comic fiction.
Read about Paul Wiebe and his previous novel, Pope Benedict XVI, here:
http://webs.wichita.edu/dt/insidewsu/show/article.asp?563
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Watch out for that Mennonite in a Little Black Dress!
January 31, 2009One of Henry Holt's lead titles for the fall of 2009 will be Rhoda Janzen's memoir entitled Mennonite in a Little Black Dress: A Memoir of Going Home. It's already made Publishers' Weekly, and it's being blurbed by the likes of Elizabeth Gilbert and Cynthia Kaplan.
Stay tuned to the CMW news blog for more on this book in the coming year.
Rhoda Janzen is an Associate Professor of English at Hope College, where she teaches American literature and creative writing. She lives in Allegan, Michigan. She is the author of Babel's Stair , a book of poems.
http://www.word-press.com/janzen.html
Rhoda …
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Welcome to the CMW
January 15, 2009Welcome to the brand new Center for Mennonite Writing on the Web. We hope that you will visit us often to explore our features: the CMW Journal with a discussion forum, CMW Encyclopedia, and the CMW Community.
The CMW Journal , guest edited by Ervin Beck, will be published bi-monthly. Each issue will typically focus on a particular theme, author, or genre within Mennonite Writing, and will include poetry, fiction, essays, and criticism.
CMW Journal Discussion , housed in the CMW Community , is a forum feature that allows readers to interact with and respond to articles and literary works …
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Special Issue of CMW Journal on Yorifumi Yaguchi
January 15, 2009The second issue of CMW Journal will be devoted to Yorifumi Yaguchi, acclaimed Japanese poet who is also a Mennonite lay pastor. Disillusioned with Buddhism as a force for peace in Japan, Yaguchi discovered Mennonite missionaries in Japan after World War II and was delighted to find a religion of peace. Subsequently, Yaguchi attended the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Indiana during the 1960s, and became a Mennonite. While in the United States, he published several chapbooks of poetry with the Pinchpenny Press at Goshen College. Upon returning to Japan, he became an active lay pastor at a Mennonite …
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Call for Papers: Mennonite/s Writing: Manitoba and Beyond
January 14, 2009Mennonite/s Writing: Manitoba and Beyond
Winnipeg, October 1 - 4, 2009Featuring a literary tour of southern Manitoba, and readings by: David Bergen, Sandra Birdsell, Di Brandt, David Elias, Patrick Friesen, Sarah Klassen, David Waltner-Toews, Armin Wiebe, Rudy Wiebe and others to be confirmed.
Writers who have grown up within the Mennonite communities of Manitoba have made a huge contribution to Canadian literature over the course of the last half century. Among those recently nominated for national literary awards are novelists David Bergen, Sandra Birdsell, Miriam Toews, Rudy Wiebe and poets Di Brandt and Patrick Friesen. These and other Mennonite …
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The Body and the Book available in paperback this spring
January 14, 2009Julia Spicher Kasdorf's essay collection, The Body and The Book: Writing from a Mennonite Life, will be released in paperback this spring by Penn State University Press with a new introduction by the author.
From the publisher's website:
“Poetry often arises in unlikely places. This fine book helps us understand why.” —Brian Conniff, Religious Studies Review
Now in paperback, Julia Kasdorf's The Body and the Book: Writing from a Mennonite Life investigates the often difficult relationships among writing, community, and belief. The book examines aspects of Mennonite life from the perspective of family stories and historical documentation as well …
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Helen Alderfer's collected poems published by Cascadia
January 13, 2009Helen Wade Alderfer has long been known in Mennonite publishing, as the editor of Christian Living for 25 years, and On the Line for 14 years, as well as editor of A Farthing in Her Hand . Fewer people know that Alderfer has also been a life-long poet and devoted member of a writing group. Now, for the first time, Helen's poetry has been collected in a single volume, The Mill Grinds Fine , and co-published by Cascadia Publishing House with Herald Press.
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Julia Spicher Kasdorf receives NEA Poetry fellowship in Literature for 2009
December 4, 2008Julia Spicher Kasdorf, author of Sleeping Preacher and Eve's Striptease , has been awarded a Fellowship in Poetry by the National Endowment for the Arts. The NEA announced today a list of 42 poets who will be recipients of grants in 2009. Each of the authors will receive $25,000 to support a creative writing fellowship.
2009 Grant Awards: Literature Fellowships (Poetry)
- Allen, William M.
- Bargowski, John
- Black, Rebecca
- Bohince, Paula
- Brown, Nickole
- Candelaria, Xochiquetzal
- Charara, Hayan
- Cole, Henri
- Diaz, Joanne
- Dischell, Stuart
- Freligh, Sarah
- Frost, Helen
- Gibb, Robert
- Goetsch, Douglas
- Graham, Loren
- Green, Samuel
- Hicok, Bob
- Jaffe, Maggie
- Kasdorf, Julia …