Graduate Studies

The graduate program experienced a new burst of energy over the course of 2022, as students returned to campus and in-person relationships were rekindled. We welcomed a diverse incoming class of talented PhD students: Tyler Clark, Jeremy Geragotelis, Jonathan Hoel, Dyala Kasim, Christina Muoio, Lauren Ottaviani, Helin Park, Ian PowellPalm, and Raihan Rahman. Students in their first, second, and third years had the opportunity to meet in person for the first time this fall at a welcome reception hosted by incoming Associate Graduate Program Director Caroline Yang and me. It was impressive to see how many second- and thirdyear students had already cultivated strong bonds with one another, despite the challenges of the pandemic. Throughout the past year, I have been inspired many times as I am reminded of the resilience, spirit, and wide-ranging talents of our graduate students.

Many of our grads achieved important milestones in 2022. Thirteen students defended their dissertations and received their PhDs: Damien Weaver, Leslie Leonard, John Yargo, Tom Pickering, Saumya Lal, Stacy Reardon, Subhalakshmi Gooptu, Sohini Banerjee, Katherine Blanchard, Robin Garabedian, Yunah Kae, Shannon Mooney, and Maria Ishikawa. Eleven students passed their area exams: Grayson Chong, Rowshan Chowdhury, Merita Ljubanovic, Matthew Walsh, Sally Luken, Stacie Klinowski, Chandler Steckbeck, Manasvini Rajan, Sarah Ahmad, Nataliya Kostenko, and Angela Kim. And eight students passed their advisory or qualifying exam: Miranda Lutyens, Jade Onn, Chi Nguyen, Nana Prempeh, Robert Murray, Olivia Barry, Oscar Garcia, and Tim Ong. Over the course of the year many students published new work across a variety of venues and gave presentations at national and international conferences. Seven students were awarded summer dissertation fellowships. In addition, Sharanya Shridhar received a Mellon Decolonial Global Studies Fellowship, and Elena Kalodner-Martin received both the Amplification Award and the Graduate Research Award from the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing (ATTW).

The English Graduate Organization, chaired by Chandler Steckbeck, organized another active year of professional, social, and scholarly programming, including the Untimely Meditations series on the theme of Growth and Recovery. Faculty and graduate students came together for a meet-

MFA Program for Poets and Writers

The MFA program is thrilled to welcome poet Abigail Chabitnoy. In reflecting on her new role Abby said, “A semester into joining the MFA community at UMass, what I’m most excited by and grateful for is the truly reciprocal nature of that word, community. I find my engagement with my own work expanding and burrowing into the conversations and insights into what poetry can achieve that I have had with my students.”

Also joining us this year as visiting faculty are CAConrad, Nathan McClain, and Hoa Nguyen. We couldn’t be more excited for our students to work with these distinguished poets. Peter Gizzi is on sabbatical and has been busy reading in London; Boulder, Colo.; New York City; and elsewhere. His next book, Fierce Elegy (Wesleyan), is forthcoming in fall 2023, and Sabina Murray’s Muckross Abbey and Other Stories is due out from Grove Atlantic/Black Cat in March 2023.

The 58th year of the annual Visiting Writers Series (VWS) opened with a welcome reading for Chabitnoy, followed in October by Edie Meidav reading from her genrebending lyric novel Another Love Discourse, and finally with brilliant readings by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah and Kyle Dacuyan. Open to the public, VWS connects to the Living Writers course, providing opportunities for 70 undergraduate students to engage with celebrated contemporary writers.

A Fond Farewell to Noy Holland

and-greet in October and a mixer in November. EGO Conference co-chairs Rowshan Chowdhury and Jarrel De Matas hosted a successful online conference in the spring of 2022 on the theme of Inter-/Dis-connections, featuring keynote speaker Wai Chee Dimock. Incoming cochairs Shwetha Chandrashekhar and Manasvini Rajan are planning a conference on the theme of Reading Conflicts: Bodies, Spaces, Affects to be held this spring—in person! As I prepare to complete my term as graduate program director, I am filled with pride in our students and gratitude for everyone who helps to support our program. I would like to take a moment to thank Caroline Yang, who assisted me with hosting events and helping to carry out the administrative tasks of the program, in addition to providing sensitive, needful support to students on the job market. I also want to thank Wanda Bak for managing the office and for her deep and long-standing devotion to our students. Numerous faculty members lent their expertise to the teaching of exciting new courses and advised our students through their exams and dissertations. Finally, am grateful to the many students who have helped enliven and diversify our program through their intellectual boldness, their service and activism, their innovative teaching, and their commitments to a caring and supportive graduate community.

In the fall we bid a fond farewell to two dedicated mentors on the MFA program faculty,Ocean Vuong and Noy Holland, and to our beloved MFA program coordinator, Francis Lo. Ocean accepted a tenured position at NYU, and Noy decided to step away from teaching after more than 25 years in the MFA. She will remain involved with many of the projects she helped to imagine including the Juniper Institutes, Paperbark and the interdisciplinary, campus-wide Art Sustainability Activism series. Noy, Ocean, and Francis will be sorely missed yet we are excited for the new program coordinator to start in spring 2023 and look forward to announcing our new faculty next year.

After six years serving as the MFA’s director, Jeff Parker will turn over the post to Edie Meidav in fall 2023. Parker’s steady hand, vision, and commitment to students, faculty, and staff have made a tremendous impact on our community. Parker said, “What a joy and privilege it has been to help lead the program the past six years. I’m very proud of so many things we’ve been able to do (reach 100% student funding, foster more diverse cohorts, resurrect the annual Juniper Festival, lower workshop caps, increase administrative transparency and efficiency, etc.). A good MFA should be a kind of incubator that allows you to focus as much as possible on your writing, and I hope that, despite the challenges of the past few years, you’ve all been able to find that kind of space here. Huge thanks to Francis and Jennifer and my colleagues for the support and goodwill and thanks to all of the poets and writers in the program for continuing to believe in this crazy, wonderful thing we all do!”

We thank Parker for his leadership, look forward to reading his latest work, and send a mighty welcome to Meidav as she steps into her new role in September.

—Jennifer Jacobson, Associate Director, MFA for Poets and Writers

In celebration of Noy’s career fostering communities for writers and for activists in the face of global climate change, the MFA program and the Art Sustainability Activism collaboration at UMass presented a reading with Noy and special guest, Joy Williams.

Noy Holland is the 2018 recipient of the Katherine Anne Porter Prize from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. She is the author of the novel Bird, and four collections of short fiction, The Spectacle of the Body, What Begins with Bird, Swim for the Little One First, and I Was Trying to Describe What It Feels Like: New and Selected Stories.