Howling Bird Press Literary Prize draws 60-plus manuscripts from across nation
(MINNEAPOLIS) – California poet Marci Vogel was selected as recipient of the inaugural national literary prize from Augsburg College’s Howling Bird Press, the publishing arm of the College’s Master of Fine Arts program. Vogel’s book-length collection of poetry – selected through blind reviews from a field of more than 60 manuscripts from across the nation – explores American life, art, history and culture through a range of eclectic voices, forms, images and styles.
“We are pleased that so many accomplished poets entrusted their manuscripts to us. It means that Howling Bird Press, one of the few graduate student-run publishing houses in the country, is recognized as a significant literary home for writers’ work,” said Cass Dalglish, director of Augsburg’s MFA program.
Dalglish described Vogel’s work as careful, confident and intriguing.
“Everything counts in Marci Vogel’s poems – image, metaphor, silence, punctuation,” Dalglish said. “Marci’s clear, poetic voice will resonate at the core of students’ work this year as we design, layout and publish her book.”
Vogel, a native of Los Angeles, will have her book “At the Border of Wilshire & Nobody” published next summer and will receive $1,000. The collection will be edited, designed and marketed by students in the MFA’s Career Concentration in Publishing.
Vogel is a Provost’s Fellow in the Ph.D. program in creative writing and literature at the University of Southern California where she teaches in the honors writing program. She is a long-time writer of prose who began writing poetry in her forties. Vogel’s work has been published in many journals and her work has earned prestigious national nominations including for the Rona Jaffe Writers’ Award, the “Best New Poets” anthology, the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Intro Journals Project and the Pushcart Prize. Vogel’s translation from French into English of Andrée Chedid’s 1956 poetry sequence, “In the Noon of Contradictions,” was selected for the 2014 Willis Barnstone Translation Prize.
Augsburg College’s MFA program, sponsor of the national literary award, is a two-year, low-residency program that offers tracks in creative nonfiction, fiction, playwriting, poetry and screenwriting. Concentrations are available in publishing, teaching and translation. Learn more about the program at www.augsburg.edu/mfa. Augsburg College is set in a vibrant Minneapolis neighborhood in the heart of the Twin Cities and offers more than 50 undergraduate majors and nine graduate degrees to nearly 4,000 students of diverse backgrounds. The trademark of an Augsburg education is its emphasis on direct, personal experience. Guided by the faith and values of the Lutheran church, Augsburg educates students to be informed citizens, thoughtful stewards, critical thinkers, and responsible leaders.
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The Minnesota Center for Book Arts‘ 26th Winter Book features poetry and prose by Heid E. Erdrich that explores the complex conversations between artists and viewers. Erdrich is a poet, writer, filmmaker, and mentor for students in Augsburg College’s Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program.
Augsburg College celebrated its new Master of Fine Arts in creative writing with a reading by Stephan Clark from his newly published book Vladimir’s Mustache and Other Stories. Clark is an assistant professor of English and a member of the MFA faculty.