Last Friday October 4th, members of the English department community gathered in the rotunda of Engleman to celebrate the ten-year anniversary of Southern’s MFA program. Professors Tim Parrish, Jeff Mock, and Vivian Shipley, who exhausted themselves after years of trudging through tedious bureaucracies in order to craft the only full residency MFA program in Connecticut, took the podium to share anecdotes about how they labored for many years to bring the program into existence. Dr. Rachel Furey, Southern’s newest full-time fiction writing professor, also spoke about the warm community of writers she found here at SCSU.
The keynotes of the evening were readings by two Southern alumnae, writers Martina (Mick) Powell and Ryan Leigh Dostie. The audience first heard poetry from Powell’s chapbook chronicle the body, which featured works influenced by Powell’s self-described identity as a “queer black fat femme feminist” poet. Included in the selections she read were poems dedicated to Powell’s friend, who was lost in the Orlando Pulse Night Club shooting in 2018. Powell’s poetry had an emotional impact that reverberated throughout the rotunda, surely sprouting goosebumps on every arm. Dostie closed out the night with chilling readings from her own Formation: A Woman's Memoir of Stepping Out of Line. Dostie, a veteran who served in Iraq, wrote about her military experience that included her rape and the military’s efforts to cover it up. She read excerpts that seemed to leave every guest reeling in disbelief at the experience Dostie had as a female in the military, especially considering Dostie’s fearless claim of proud association with the military despite the way she was treated.
The community of Southern’s English department gathered afterward, chatting about the fruits of an excellent MFA program from two vibrant and talented writers. It was a treat for all to be able to see, firsthand, what excellent writers emerge from a one-of-a-kind program created and facilitated by dedicated and spirited professors of Creative Writing at SCSU.
Written by Stephanie Sirois