DIONNE IRVING BREMYER

Dr. Michael Richards ('02) has been superintendent of Harrisonburg City Schools for the past four years. He resides in Virginia with his soulmate NoNieqa and his two beloved beasties, Jandi and Langston

Stuart Ross' ('03) recent work has appeared in Oyez Review. He writes a column on new books at Eclectica Magazine, where he is Reviews Editor.

This year, Sarah Roth's ('15) writing appeared in mercury firs, Gastropoda, Foglifter, and Synapsis As an editor at Tendon, Johns Hopkins University's medical humanities journal, she helped usher in the fifth issue, "Sanctuary " Roth is excited to be heading to a writing residency at Hypatia-in-the-Woods in August She's currently ABD at JHU and is hoping to finish her Ph.D. sometime in the not-too-distant future.

Sami Schalk's ('00) second academic book Black Disability Politics came out from Duke UP in October 2022 and is available open access here.

Jacob Schepers ('19) and Sara Judy ('20) have launched ballast, their new online poetry journal With two issues out this year and two more already in the works, ballast has had the privilege of publishing a handful of fellow ND MFAs among the contributors. Follow on Twitter (@ballastjournal) and Instagram (@ballastpoetryjournal).

Lindsay Starck ('10) had new pieces recently accepted in lit journals: "Emile Benveniste" is forthcoming from Epiphany; "Fata Morgana" is forthcoming from Salamander; and "History of the Handshake" is forthcoming from Fourth Genre Her novel Monsters We Have Made is forthcoming from Vintage/Anchor Books in 2024.

Joseph Earl Thomas' ('19) debut book is Sink: A Memoir (Grand Central Publishing, 2023).

Desmond Francis Xavier Kon Zhicheng-Mingdé (’09) and his co-editor Eric Tinsay Valles won gold for Digital Media at the 2023 Illumination Christian Book Awards This was for The Jesuit: Finding God in All Things, a commemorative e-anthology to mark the Quadricentennial Canonization of St. Francis Xavier and St. Ignatius of Loyola. Following their win last year in the same category for A Given Grace: An Anthology of Christian Poems, this makes it a world’s first for any author to clinch the top prize twice in consecutive years. This received media coverage in the Union of Catholic Asian News, LiCAS News, and World Catholic Association for Communication (Asia) Fresh from the lifting of COVID-19 travel restrictions, Desmond was invited to the Canberra Poetry on the Move Festival as an International Featured Poet. Other reading and hosting engagements included the Singapore Writers Festival, Poetry Festival Singapore, Unity Young Writers Festival, Singapore Literature Prize Awards Ceremony, SingHealth NUS-NTU Medical Humanities Seminar, and Ministry of Education Literature Seminar. He has a recent interview on the Australian podcast Death and Donuts by Seb James, with new poems appearing in Ekstasis, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, Not Only Lines: NUS Centre of the Arts 30th Anniversary Anthology, and People of Asia Journeying with Jesus: Reflections on the Synod on Synodality. Desmond has been named one of the judges for the Dr Alan HJ Chan Spirit of Singapore Book Prize, Singapore’s richest book award, as reported in The Straits Times. His other updates may be found on his author website: desmondkon.com