Friday, January 17, 2014

2014 Scissortail: Author Biographies

Dorothy Alexander is a poet and storyteller from Cheyenne, Oklahoma. She has authored four poetry collections, including Lessons From an Oklahoma Girlhood, an ekphrastic collection of poems and visual art, and two volumes of oral histories. Her poems and non-fiction prose pieces have appeared in Sugar Creek Review, Blood & Thunder, Cooweescoowee, Sugar Mule Review, A&U Magazine, Oklahoma Today, Imaginary Family, Malpais Review, and others. She is a publisher of poetry and she facilitates poetry readings at the annual Woody Guthrie Folk Festival in Okemah, Oklahoma, and the Poetry @ the Paramount readings in Oklahoma City. Dorothy gratefully accepted the 2013 Carlile Distinguished Service Award bestowed by The Oklahoma Center for the Book and Friends of the Libraries in Oklahoma in recognition of her services to the Oklahoma literary community.

Alan Berecka’s poetry recently appeared in the San Antonio Express, and then shortly thereafter at the bottom of countless bird cages. His latest book With Our Baggage was released by Lamar University Press in July 2013. He is not sure he can claim that he works for a living, but he puts in his time as a reference librarian at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Timothy Bradford is the author of the introduction to Sadhus (Cuerpos Pintados, 2003), a photography book on the ascetics of South Asia, and Nomads with Samsonite (BlazeVOX [books], 2011), a collection of poetry. His poems have recently appeared in Upstairs at Duroc, Interim, and The Fiddleback, and he has been a visiting writer/lecturer at Marist College and in the Red Earth MFA program at Oklahoma City University during the past year. Currently, he is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Oklahoma State University.

James Brubaker is the author of Pilot Season, a collection of flash prose pieces published by Sunnyoutside. His manuscript, a collection of short stories called Liner Notes, won the 2013 Subito Press Book Prize in Prose, and will be published later in 2014. James’s stories have also appeared or are forthcoming in Zoetrope: All Story, Michigan Quarterly Review, Web Conjunctions, Hobart, The Normal School, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and Indiana Review, among others. James is currently teaching as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Oklahoma State University, where he is also the Interim Associate Director of the First Year Writing Program.

Julie A. Chappell is a professor of medieval and early modern literature and creative writing at Tarleton State University. Besides numerous academic books and essays, her poetry has appeared in several anthologies including Revival: Spoken Word from Lollapalooza 94; Agave: A Celebration of Tequila in Story, Song, Poetry, Essay, and Graphic Art; and Elegant Rage: A Poetic Tribute to Woody Guthrie. She also has published flash fiction in Cybersoleil: A Literary Journal. Her first poetry collection, Faultlines: One Woman’s Shifting Boundaries, was published by Village Books Press in October 2013. Her memoir, The Jail/House Rocked, is in progress.

Kevin M. Clay is an Associate Professor at Tarrant County College-SE. He has a BA and MA in English from Tarleton State University, and a PhD in American Literature from the University of North Texas. He won the Hoepfner Prize in 2006 from the Southern Humanities Review for his short story "Cowboys." His fiction and poetry have appeared in the Southern Humanities Review, The Sulfur River Literary Review, the William and Mary Review, and the British journal Staple. He lives in Arlington, Texas with his wife Elizabeth.

2014: Scissortail Schedule of Readings

Scissortail Creative Writing Festival
9th Annual: April 3 – 5, 2014
East Central University – Ada, Oklahoma

Thursday, April 3

I. 9:30 – 10: 45 Estep Auditorium

Ron Wallace – Durant, Oklahoma
Of Horses, Hawks and the World in Between
Maureen DuRant – Medicine Park, Oklahoma
Collect Call Home
Larry Thomas – Alpine, Texas
The Lobsterman's Dream (Poems of the Coast of Maine)

II. 11:00 – 12: 15 Estep Auditorium

J.C. “Catfish” Mahan – Edmond, Oklahoma
The Truth about The Truth
Elizabeth Raby – Santa Fe, New Mexico
Ransomed Voices
Alan Berecka – Del Mar College
With our Baggage

*** Lunch ***

Saturday, January 11, 2014

The Page One Literary Art Gallery Has Been Discontinued

2014 was the fifth and final Page One Literary Art Gallery. It has been a good run.  Thanks to all who made it possible!

Submissions are now being accepted for the Fifth Annual Page One Literary Art Gallery, which will be open for viewing on one night only: Friday, April 4th, 2014, from 8:00 p.m. to 9:30 p. m. at the Ada Arts and Heritage Center at 400 S. Rennie Street in Ada, Oklahoma. 
Submissions:
· are welcomed from any writers--emerging or emerged--who would like to get in on the Scissortail vibe;
· may be in any creative writing genre (poetry, flash fictiongraphic fiction, excerpt from a longer work, etc.);
· must not be previously published or already accepted for publication elsewhere;
· must be limited to one submission per author;
· must include authors name, school affiliation (if any) and status (student, teacher, etc., if applicable) on a separate sheet;
· may be submitted via e-mail (as a Word attachment), snail mail (see addresses below) or dropped off in the box on office door Horace Mann 316A on the ECU campus;
"Consecration of the Emperor Napoleon I " (1805-2807) by Jacques-Louis David
· must be submitted by 1 p.m. on Friday, March 28th;
· may be displayed at the Ada Arts and Heritage Center and may also be displayed on this website and at ecuenglishtalk;
· must be limited to a single page. Submissions that run longer than a page may be displayed in full on ecus englishtalk website, but when determining awards, judges will only consider the first page of the entry and only the first page of the entry will be displayed at the Ada Arts and Heritage Center.

The authors of outstanding submissions:
· will be identified by our panel of faculty judges;
· will be awarded with gift certificates designated for the purchase of books (authors scheduled to appear in the Scissortail reading program will not be in the running for these awards);
· must be in attendance at the Scissortail Wrap when the awards are distributed, one hour after the conclusion of the reading presented by Scissortail's featured speaker on Friday, April 4th, 2013 at the Ada Arts and Heritage Center;
· send your submissions to: sbenton@ecok.edu (subject line: Page One Literary Art Gallery) or mail to Steve Benton at Dept. of English and Languages, 1100 E. 14th Street, East Central University, Ada, Oklahoma 74820-6999.

This event enjoys the sponsorship and support of Literati (ECUs English Student Club), Originals (ECUs student-run creative writing journal), ECUs Sigma Tau Delta chapter(International English Honor Society), and the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival. 

Click here to see photos and video from our 2013 Gallery.

We look forward to seeing you soon!