in residence // 2022 Alumnx Magazine

IN RESIDENCE 2022

Vermont College of Fine Arts

ALUMNX MAGAZINE

inside this issue

Faculty View: LUIS JACOB

Life After the MFA: ANN DÁVILA CARDINAL, DAWN CLEMENT, ‘SEGUN OLUDE

Residencies Reimagined

The Next Generation of Changemakers

Class News

A moment from the summer 2021 Music Composition residency, the only on-campus residency of that summer. Students used chalk to create a collaborative music piece on a campus walkway. The chalk writing reads: “Please add a note, or a few, in honor of someone” and “Community Memorial Song Experiment.”

Dear VCFA Community,

This is an exciting time for VCFA as we embark on the next chapter in the college’s evolution.

Our mission states we are a “...community of artists constantly redefining what it means to be an arts college.” This commitment to innovation is one of the defining characteristics of VCFA and has distinguished us from other institutions. In 2008, a group of dedicated individuals brought together our three legacy programs to create an independent arts college focused solely on masters level instruction, which then grew to become the first college to bring the low-residency model to disciplines like graphic design and music composition. For years, VCFA has been at the forefront of creating new models to support artists and their growth.

As we move boldly into the college’s next evolution, we are keenly aware of the role we can play in empowering the full range of artistic voices and their impact towards creating a better world. Adopting our four strategic pillars (reported out in the last in residence) was the first step in achieving this goal.

By partnering with other colleges as hosts for our summer and winter residencies, we are making the next move towards realizing our full potential. By prioritizing investment in people and programs over physical infrastructure, we will be able to increase scholarships, expand professional development for our alumnx, further develop fellowship opportunities at our Center for Arts + Social Justice, and so much more.

We are truly reimagining how we can best live our institutional values and build a graduate arts college for the future. You will read more about how this manifests in the pages of this magazine.

While change, almost necessarily, is accompanied by feelings of loss, it also opens up space for new opportunities and possibilities. Over the past several months, I have appreciated the opportunity to come together in person and virtually with students, faculty, staff, and alumnx as our community begins to reimagine the VCFA residency experience. Both faculty and staff have been generating exciting ideas about how we can continue to enhance the learning experience for our students, including interdisciplinary enrichment and opportunities now that we are able to all gather together on one campus.

Our strategic initiatives will serve as our guiding principles as we together explore the many ways this change will allow us to invest our resources in the people that make up this incredible community. VCFA has always been at the forefront of defining what it means to be an arts college. I look forward to defining this next chapter together.

With gratitude, Leslie Ward (’16 W) President

We are truly reimagining how we can best live our institutional values and build a graduate arts college for the future

Residencies Reimagined

A New Chapter for VCFA

Last summer, VCFA announced that beginning in the summer of 2023 we will have a new home for our beloved summer residency programs. All six programs will be conducted on the Colorado College campus in Colorado Springs, Colorado, bringing our students and faculty exceptional facilities, increased opportunities for collaboration, and more resources for scholarships and program investments.

We are excited for our students, faculty, and others in the VCFA community to experience the benefits of our new residency location. Established in 1874, Colorado College is a private, four-year liberal arts college that is consistently ranked among the top 30 liberal arts colleges in the United States. While Colorado College has a relatively small undergraduate community of just about 2,000 students, it sits on a beautiful 92-acre campus in downtown Colorado Springs that is truly in tune with its focus on the arts. Its facilities are

comprehensive and modern—Colorado College offers VCFA artists community recording studios, a 300-seat concert hall, soundproof music rooms, photo labs, print studios, painting and drawing studios, theaters, over a dozen galleries, and campus accommodations that offer accessibility and inclusive housing options for adult students. With this additional space during our summer residencies, students and faculty will be able to collaborate in ways that were not possible before.

“Our commitment to the arts is necessarily tied to innovation, and we’re constantly reevaluating and redefining how to best support our community and the progressive, transformative programs for which VCFA is known. We’re thrilled to be continuing the College’s tradition of excellence in this next chapter and are eager to share in the enhanced opportunities it will afford our students, faculty, and community.”

– Leslie Ward, VCFA President

After our final winter residencies conclude in early 2023, VCFA will transition from a 12-residencies-a-year schedule to a two-residencies-a-year schedule. This means that, for the first time ever, the college’s academic calendar will accommodate concurrent residencies and interdisciplinary collaboration in the summer and winter semesters.

Why did we make this decision and why now?

The decision to relocate to a new campus space for VCFA residencies came after deep consideration and deliberation by the Board of Trustees.

When evaluating VCFA’s underutilized campus in Montpelier, Vermont, it became clear that our current facilities and resources could not accommodate the College’s goals for growth, concurrent residencies, and interdisciplinary study.

To better align the College’s resources with the needs of our students, faculty, staff, and alumnx, the Board evaluated opportunities to strengthen the College’s financial position and resources dedicated toward scholarships and funding for faculty and staff. After a year of consultation and consideration, the Board finalized the plan to move summer residencies to Colorado College and begin our unified academic calendar in 2023.

This move brings significant financial benefits to VCFA—chief among which is the ability to offer more scholarships and to invest more fully in the College’s four strategic initiatives, which include increasing access to VCFA’s academic programs, a dedication to equity and empowerment, a life-long commitment to our alumnx and their careers, and elevating the impact of art as a tool for change.

“We now have the opportunity to invest in our students and faculty more than ever before. In line with our mission, this new partnership will allow for more equitable access to the VCFA experience.”

– Matthew Monk, Academic Dean

Fall 2022 Staff and Faculty Colorado College Campus Visit

VCFA faculty and staff convened at Colorado College this fall to explore the scenic campus. The group experienced Colorado College’s innovative, state-of-the-art facilities—from Packard Hall’s “smart classrooms” and group piano class lab to the Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center’s Interdisciplinary Experimental Arts (I.D.E.A.) space— and began visualizing and planning the next phase of our residency program.

“Colorado College has everything the WCYA program needs. We have space to explore and connect within and across programs and dedicated space just for our community. It definitely lends itself to that ‘Brigadoon’ feeling the WCYA community adores, full of unique spaces and hidden gems—the rare book room was my favorite!

“One of the best parts about our visit to Colorado College was spending time with my colleagues across multiple programs and departments. We got a glimpse into each others’ spheres, from the challenges of printing on a large scale to the importance of knowing how much weight a ceiling can hold in a gallery to the joy of finding we’d have a state-of-the-art recording studio at our disposal. It really helped to solidify us into a team that is working toward a common goal: a successful first summer in Colorado!”

– Katie Rasmussen, Program Director for the MFA in Writing for Children & Young Adults

With this decision to relocate came the deep consideration of the principles at the heart of our College. VCFA is the only institution in the country dedicated solely to low-residency graduate arts education using an individualized mentorship model, and we knew it was crucial that we find a campus community that shared our values, our sense of innovation, and our deep, fundamental commitment to the arts. Colorado College is exactly that community, and its leadership played an integral part in reimagining our residencies. Like VCFA, Colorado College understands the necessity of empowering students in the arts, is deeply devoted to making space for the arts in all areas of study, and is committed to equity and inclusion.

“We are thrilled to welcome Vermont College of Fine Arts students, faculty, and staff to Colorado College starting this summer. I am sure that VCFA’s culture of creative boundary pushing will find exciting synergies on campus with CC’s ethos of integrating the arts and innovation. And there’s nothing more inspiring than our beautiful Rocky Mountains in the summertime.”

– L. Song Richardson, Colorado College President

Finally, in addition to offering numerous benefits to our current students, VCFA plans on utilizing this added room—both in facilities and housing—to improve alumnx offerings during future summer residencies. Our faculty and staff are using this time of transition to envision new ways to bring even more alumnx to residency than ever before. The College is already looking forward to what this expanded gathering will mean for our community, all while holding meaningful space to honor and remember the deep-rooted memories made on and around our Montpelier, Vermont campus.

“If I allow myself to sit in the space between the “was” and the “will be,” sooner or later I start to hear a rustle. That rustling is anticipation, and it gets more insistent, and my mind starts to play around, preparing for the spring into something fresh, stimulating—new. After enjoying so much in Vermont, having experienced so much good there, I’m starting to hear a rustling, and look forward to turning a page and finding all the crazy and intense and brilliant and beautiful stuff that Colorado will bring.”

– Natalia Ilyin, MFA in Graphic Design Faculty

“I’m about as umbilically tied to this Montpelier campus as anyone, given my decades of history with the college and living just up the road. I’m also keenly aware that the spell we fall under when we gather—that Brigadoon magic—is cast by not the place but the people, our special VCFA way of being artists together.”

– Ellen Lesser, MFA in Writing Faculty and Director of the Postgraduate Writers’ Conference

“Community” has always been the touchstone of VCFA’s values, and it is our hope that by forging these new channels for interdisciplinary collaboration and discourse on the Colorado College campus, we’ll only further strengthen what “community” means to VCFA.

“Our people are what make VCFA so special, and I’m thrilled to be embarking on this journey with all of you to build a future for the College that is meaningful, innovative, and collaborative.”

– Leslie Ward, VCFA President

Learn more about VCFA’s new vision and transition plans at vcfa.edu/reimagine. We can’t wait to share this next step with you.

A New Home for VCFA’s Novel Retreat and Postgraduate Writers’ Conference

As the VCFA Novel Retreat enters its 10th year, and the VCFA Postgraduate Writers’ Conference enters its 28th, VCFA is thrilled to continue the legacy of these gatherings in 2023 and beyond. As residencies begin to find their stride on the Colorado College campus, these two cornerstone events will be held on the wonderful Champlain College campus in Burlington, VT.

With new space comes new opportunities, and VCFA is excited to enhance the experience and quality of life at our two conferences. The 2023 Novel Retreat and the Postgraduate Writers’ Conference will be held June 5th through the 11th and August 7th through the 13th respectively. More updates will be provided in the coming seasons via our College website and social media.

Please contact VCFA Novel Retreat Director Connie May Fowler (novel.retreat@ vcfa.edu) and VCFA Postgraduate Writers’ Conference Director Ellen Lesser (pgconference@vcfa.edu) for any immediate questions.

Photography: Provided by Colorado College.

Program Highlights

In 2021 and 2022, VCFA’s academic programs continued their commitment to online events and programming while welcoming students and alumnx back to in-person residencies, retreats, and conferences. With Music Composition leading the way and hosting the first in-person residency since 2020, and Writing for Children & Young Adults spearheading VCFA’s first “Cloud Residency,” gathering in any form was the clear highlight

MFA in Film

The MFA in Film introduced three new scholarships in the spring of 2021: the LGBTQ+ and Genderqueer Filmmaker Scholarship, the Woman Filmmaker Scholarship, and the BIPOC Scholarship. After the success and positive impact of these scholarships, the MFA in Film introduced the Filmmakers with Disabilities Scholarship in August 2021.

For the fall 2021 residency, visiting filmmakers included JOSEPH PATEL, JOSHUA PEARSON, DIANE PARAGAS, SAHRA MANI, NORA FINGSCHEIDT, TRAVIS WILKERSON, JAMES LONGLEY, and TYLER TAORMINA. The spring 2022 residency visiting filmmakers were SYLVAIN BELLEMARE, HILARY BROUGHER, SAM GREEN, PRASHANTH KAMALAKANTHAN, BILL SVANOE, and JOHN VALADEZ (’19 F).

MFA in Graphic Design

The MFA in Graphic Design expanded their virtual programming this year, with stellar virtual events such as “Design Your Life” with LORILEE RAGER (’21) and ’SEGUN OLUDE (’14) and “How Type Works” with TRÉ SEALS

On the residency side of things, the fall 2021 residency saw visiting designers DAVID BENNEWITH, ALEJANDRO MAGALLANES, FERNANDA MARTINS, PEPE MENÉNDEZ, and MARIAN BANTJES. The spring 2022 residency included visiting designers MUNIRAH ALSHAMI, MAYA MOUMNE, BAHIA SHEHAB, and MINDY SEU. A highlight from the year was the 2022 alumnx mini-residency in October, which brought alumnx back to campus for an exciting and wonderful weekend.

Left: Mindy Seu, spring 2022 Graphic Design visiting designer

MFA in Music Composition

“My favorite memory from the past year was the opening welcome meeting we had during the summer 2021 residency. Seeing so many of our community members in person after so many months of Zooming felt so good. And the residency week, with live music and lots of interaction, was really wonderful. We were lucky to have that opportunity in the midst of so much uncertainty.”

—Carol Beatty, Program Director, MFA in Music Composition

In August 2021, the MFA in Music Composition hosted the only on-campus residency of the summer. Students, faculty, and guest composers and musicians were delighted to be able to work in person and make music together. Visiting ensembles included THE CITY OF TOMORROW (Elise Blatchford, Rane Moore, Stuart Breszinski, Nanci Belmont, Leander Starr), DUO CORTONA (Rachel Calloway, Ari Streisfield), ANNA’S GHOST (Anna Webber, Freddie Bryant, Gregg August, River Guerguerian), and INVOKE (Nick Montopoli, Zachariah Matteson, Karl Mitze, Geoff Manyin). The winter 2022 residency hosted visiting ensembles TALUJON PERCUSSION TRIO (Tom Kolor, Michael Lipsey, and Matt Ward), ASHLEY BATHGATE, ANNA’S GHOST (Mariel Bildsten, John Clark, Russ Johnson, Red Wierenga, Lisa Mezzacappa, Brian Shankar Adler), VOICE/PIANO TRIO (Jeremy Siskind, STEPHANIE MEYERS (’16), Robert Frankenberry), and CHATHAM BAROQUE (Andrew Fouts, Patricia Halverson, Scott Pauley).

In March 2022, class of 2017 alumnx TIFFANY PFEIFFER CARR (’17) left her position as Program Assistant and class of 2015 alumnx MARGIE HALLORAN (’15) joined the program staff, becoming Assistant Director in May. The program is extremely grateful for Tiffany’s service and dedication to the program during a time of staffing restructuring and a range of residency formats. They look forward to her visiting campus with her new baby daughter, Nova.

MFA in Writing

This year, the MFA in Writing welcomed visiting writers FERNANDO A. FLORES, LIZA NASH TAYLOR (’18), WENDY S. WALTERS, and YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA to the winter 2022 residency. The summer residency featured visiting writers DOMINIC BUCCA (’18), DOLEN PERKINS-VALDEZ, JAQUIRA DÍAZ, and KAVEH AKBAR. In addition to its residencies, Writing continued its beloved Virtual Alumnx Reading Series in 2021 and 2022. Adding to its list of virtual events, the program launched the Faculty Presentation Series, hosting public readings in the summer, fall, and spring.

Lastly, Writing welcomed new faculty members at the end of 2021, including SJ SINDU, FERNANDO A. FLORES, MICIAH BAY GAULT, GEOFF BOUVIER, ROBIN MACARTHUR (’10), MELISSA FALIVENO, and WANJIKU WA NGUGI

Top: Visiting musician Anna Webber and Ingrid Laubrock (’23 MC)

Left:

Music Composition visiting ensemble Invoke

Program Highlights

MFA in Writing for Children &

Young Adults

In the summer of 2021, the MFA in WCYA launched the Rita Williams-Garcia Fund. In honor of Rita WilliamsGarcia, her contributions to literature, and her contributions to VCFA, this new scholarship will help provide tuition support for BIPOC writers. The program is continuing its work in meeting fundraising goals for this incredible scholarship, which you can support at vcfa.edu/giving.

WCYA brought back its virtual Book Birthdays Series for yet another year with JENN BAILEY (’17) at the helm. Readers this year included the likes of LAURIE MORRISON (’12), LYNDA GRAHAM-BARBER (’09), MONICA ROE (’15), and many more.

WCYA’s winter 2022 residency hosted visiting writers YAMILE SAIED MÉNDEZ (’17) and FRAN WILDE, with EMILY X.R. PAN as the Writer-in-Residence. In the summer of 2022, the program ran three simultaneous residencies. In addition to a large group on campus for their first in-person residency since January 2020, WCYA also ran a fully remote residency called “Cloud Residency.” Each residency had dedicated faculty, unique programming, and ample support from staff and graduate assistants. Program Director KATIE RASMUSSEN noted that “We are so glad to be able to meet all of our students where they are and provide really excellent teaching, learning, and community for both residency experiences.” The program also welcomed 20 writers back to the Oxford/Bath Spa residency after a three-year hiatus.

Lastly, the program welcomed CEREDWYN BAGLEY (’14) as the new Program Assistant.

MFA in Visual Art

The MFA in Visual Art saw yet another year of successful residencies. In the summer of 2021, ANN BURKE DALY was the Artist-in-Residence, MARI SPIRITO and CANDICE HOPKINS were the visiting scholars, and JAYNE WILKINSON, JESSICA LYNNE, PAMILA MATHARU, PUBLIC STUDIO, and YOUNG JOON KWAK were the visiting artists.

The winter 2022 residency hosted MICHAEL RAKOWITZ as the Artist-in-Residence, T.J. DEMOS as the visiting scholar, and CHARISSE WESTON, ALVIN LUONG, CALISTA LYON, TOLEEN TOUQ, SARA K AMALVAND, and MICHEL DROGE as visiting artists.

Ways to Connect

CONNECT

Share your news, projects, and accomplishments: vcfa.edu/alumnx/share-your-news

Join us for ongoing events & series: vcfa.edu/events

Learn about our alumnx retreats & postgraduate semesters: vcfa.edu/programs/non-degree-programs

Connect with fellow graduates on the VCFA Alumnx Commons: alumnx.vcfa.edu

Update your contact information: vcfa.edu/alumnx/update-your-contactinformation

FOLLOW @VCFAedu

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Become an Alumnx Social Media Ambassador

Looking to show off your VCFA colors on your own social media? You can become a VCFA Alumnx Social Media Ambassador by using our Social Media Toolkit to add VCFA emblems and information to your social profiles.

Learn more about how you can tell others about your VCFA experience at this QR Code.

Questions? Ideas?

Want to get involved? Contact alumnx@vcfa.edu

Sustaining a Lifelong Commitment to Art

VCFA announces new initiatives to support and inspire alumnx—wherever their art may take them next

Since VCFA established Lifelong Engagement & Support as one of its four strategic initiatives, the Office of Institutional Advancement has been working on a range of new programming dedicated to increasing artist-forward engagement opportunities that keep alumnx feeling supported, empowered, connected, and enriched.

This past year, the office’s major focus has been threefold: to establish professional development programming unique to the needs of working artists in today’s climate; to continue and expand VCFA’s peer-to-peer mentorship and collaborative offerings to alumnx beyond graduation; and to maintain virtual event spaces across our MFA programs for alumnx, students, faculty, and guests to gather, learn, and celebrate each other from anywhere in the world.

Tapping into our vast network of artists, VCFA is working with alumnx who bring insider industry knowledge and expertise to create a series of professional development workshops, webinars, and panels on topics of interest to emerging and established artists alike. Victoria Wells Arms (’19 WCYA), founder of the agency Wells Arms Literary, is consulting on a series for our writing community that focuses on topics such as the ins and outs of publishing contracts, how to find an agent, and more. We’ve also conducted workshops with Jessica Muñiz-Collado (’14 MC), who has built her own consulting business which provides bespoke employment and income resources to musicians and composers looking to further their careers.

In partnership with New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), VCFA hosted a series of opportunities created specifically for VCFA artists, focusing on developing new skills and securing professional opportunities. Recent workshop offerings included “Navigating the Arts: Pathways to Working with Galleries, Festivals, and Institutions,” a dynamic discussion featuring a panel of distinguished arts professionals on various strategies artists can use to engage gatekeepers in the art world, and “Building Your Grant Writing Toolkit,” an online workshop which focused on empowering artists with the vocabulary, proposal structuring, and research skills needed to effectively communicate their projects to funders.

On an ongoing basis, VCFA sponsors event registration for VCFA artists to attend a range of existing workshops offered by NYC-based nonprofit and grantmaking organization Creative Capital. This year, alumnx were invited to participate in Creative Capital workshops covering topics such as “Financial Literacy for Artists,” “Social Media for Social Practice Artists,” and “Public Art: From Proposal to Installation.” Interested alumnx are encouraged to visit Creative Capital’s website (www.creativecapital.org) for more information on upcoming lecture and workshop offerings.

Peer-to-peer programs at VCFA have existed long before the world went remote, but today these programs feel ever more necessary. Our MFA in Writing program’s Writer2Writer exchange, coordinated by Andrew Marshall (’12 W), first began as a way for alumnx to commit to their writing practice outside of residency, to keep participants’ workshopping muscles toned, to strengthen peer-to-peer bonds, and, frankly, to not have to write alone! This year, the peer exchange program is looking to expand with an additional track called Book2Book, for writers actively working on full-length manuscripts.

Newly developed in the MFA in Graphic Design program this year is the “GEM” (Graphic of Every Measure) initiative, which offers virtual peer critique groups to Graphic Design alumnx. Founded and coordinated by Michael Scaringe (’15 GD), GEM invites participants to meet via Zoom every two months to present their latest projects to the group and provide feedback to one another. Scaringe reflects on GEM’s encouragement of artistic exploration, noting that alumnx projects currently range from zine-making to digital type to the creation of experimental classroom syllabi: “The focus is partly to reengage in a personal practice that is reflective of the artist’s own personal interests and experiences,” Scaringe says. “GEM is here to help all alumnx continue this personal practice, no matter what form it takes.”

In addition to honing one’s personal arts practice, an essential component of sustaining a positive and everlasting engagement with the arts is taking time to celebrate our community’s notable achievements and wins. VCFA continues to provide joyous, creative, and vital spaces for alumnx showcases, readings, and performances galore. Virtual fêtes, such as the monthly WCYA Book Birthday Parties and the Writing Alumnx Reading Series, have become permanent fixtures in our writers’ book tour circuits, with alumnx and student authors gathering online to read from their newly published works and provide one another with a spirited, supportive audience. Ongoing series, like our Alumnx Artist Talks, carve out opportunities for our artists to deepen conversations about their work and discuss the various intersections of their artistic and professional practices.

Whether you’re looking to further build your artistic toolkit, reconnect with peers and their work, reignite the supportive spirit of residency, or even just hankering to listen, watch, read, and celebrate your fellow VCFA artist-friends, our alumnx are always welcome here!

Lifelong Engagement & Support begins with VCFA’s commitment to maintaining a home away from home for all alumnx. With so many opportunities to cultivate the ways in which we live as artists, we’re excited for our growing community to keep striving and thriving ever forward together.

Top: VCFA MFA in Graphic Design graduating exhibition by Dina Lutfi, Spring 2022

Right: A hybrid music moment from the summer 2021 Music Composition residency

The Next Generation of Changemakers

The Center for Arts + Social Justice enters a new year

Since its official launch in summer 2021, the Center for Arts + Social Justice at VCFA has established itself with a full year of programming anchored by two core components: the Academic Fellowship Program and the Center Event Series.

The academic fellowship program seeks to support and amplify the work of VCFA artists working at the intersection of arts and social justice. Last fall, the Center for Arts + Social Justice awarded two $5K Thesis Fellowship Grants and five $2K Fellowship Grants to students across our MFA programs. This spring, Center staff and the Office of Institutional Advancement worked directly with fellows to connect them with alumnx mentors and a range of professional development opportunities. Fellows participated in two presentation sessions as they continued to refine their projects and share resources.

The annual Center for Arts + Social Justice Thesis Fellowship Grants were awarded to Brad Bailey (’22 F) and Juliet Way-Henthorne (’22 W), and the Center for Arts + Social Justice Fellowship Grants went to Leah Byck (’22 VA), Jen Gilomen (’23 F), Vic Rodriguez Tang (’22 GD), Jaquay Smith (’22 MC), and Diana Norma Szokolyai (’22 W). The seven fellows were selected in recognition of their commitment to social justice and in celebration and support of their projects, all of which align with the Center’s guiding principle: that art is a vital tool for social change, equity, and systemic transformation. Rich in inclusive storytelling, centered on accessibility, and actively responding to the crises and injustices of our past and present, our fellows’ projects range from a series of free music-education videos spotlighting BIPOC children, to a critical exploration of the writing and publishing of biracial Asian-American memoirs, to the creative spearheading of a menstrual products brand that caters first to trans and non-binary people.

MFA in Film candidate Brad Bailey describes his current work-in-progress: “Marlon Riggs was one of the most prolific documentary filmmakers of the late 20th century.

Images:

GRID: 2021 Center for Arts + Social Justice Fellows

INSTALLATION: VCFA MFA in Graphic Design graduating exhibition by Vic Rodriguez Tang, Spring 2022

His films, including TONGUES UNTIED (1989), were a bold and bracing look into the peak of the AIDS Crisis and other challenges for people of color during the late 1980s and early 1990s. My film will look at the legacy of that work and will also assess its relevance for today’s America.” Leah Byck, a Visual Art MFA candidate, says of the Fellowship Grant’s support, “I am working on a film about hidden disabilities and mental illness, will be performing a drag show about mental illness, and will be painting a few paintings about disability. This grant will not only help support material costs, but will help production of these projects and the overall amount of time that will go into these pieces.”

Academic Dean Matthew Monk has worked closely with the fellows, and he notes that, “From the start, reviewing the impressive fellowship applications confirmed that a great many VCFA students are interested in, committed to, and experienced in artistic practices and scholarship rooted in social justice. Being a part of the fellowship program—getting to know the fellows, learning more about their work, and watching them interact and support each other—has been extremely gratifying for me.”

Inspired by the outstanding work of the first group of Center fellows, he looks forward to “seeing the positive impacts the Center fellowships will make in the programs and at VCFA as a whole as we continue to build on this important program.”

Another integral element to the Center, the Event Series offers opportunities for the VCFA community to connect and engage with topics of social justice within their individual practice, career, and community. The series welcomes artists, leaders, and advocates from around the globe to host virtual, public, and free events, workshops, readings, screenings, Q&As, and more.

In late September 2021, Felicia Rose Chavez, awardwinning author of The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop: How to Decolonize the Creative Classroom, hosted a three-day series at VCFA on anti-racist thinking in the classroom. Following a public reading from The AntiRacist Writing Workshop, Chavez guided two workshops for VCFA students and alumnx: “Self-Advocacy for Students” and “Self-Advocacy for BIPOC Students.” Each workshop explored anti-racist creative writing pedagogy and empowered students to claim ownership of their individual identities, their work, and their professional relationships. Felicia Rose Chavez described the intention of each workshop as a discussion on “how to resist silencing as a strategy to maintain authority over one another (and even ourselves).” Throughout the workshops, Chavez encouraged participants to integrate deep listening into their artistic practice as a means of developing their own self-advocacy. Chavez’s lesson on cultivating listening is a testament to her ongoing dedication to the support of writers of color in the decolonized classroom; she presents a form of inclusive listening that is both a personal and shared endeavor, a listening that asks every individual—instructor and students alike—to feel from the inside, to look out and really hear one another. “Listen to your fears and desires around artmaking,” Chavez says. “Listen to your intuition about a vision for a project. Listen to your preferred artistic mentors as guide. Listen to and honor one another’s work without imposing your individual aesthetic values, and finally listen to (and untangle) the technical, creative, and emotional needs surrounding your work.”

Also included in the Center’s event series was the screening of the documentary WARRIOR WOMEN in mid-November, followed by a Q&A with its filmmaker, Beth Castle, and American Indian Movement veteran and Lakota matriarch Madonna Thunder Hawk, moderated by the previous director of VCFA’s MFA in Film program, Brad Heck (’19 F). WARRIOR

WOMEN follows Madonna Thunder Hawk and her daughter Marcy—both women at the forefront of Native issues—as they navigate leadership, motherhood, and community in Indigenous resistance movements, from the protests against the environmental devastation of the Dakota Access Pipeline to the continued fight against colonial violence. This free, public event allowed VCFA community members across the country to experience Thunder Hawk’s story in her own words.

The Center teamed up with the MFA in Graphic Design program in February 2022 to host a hands-on, experimental workshop with Tré Seals, founder of the diversity-driven type foundry Vocal Type Co. In his presentation, “How Type Works,” Seals navigated viewers through his own design process and his use of typography as a way of learning BIPOC design histories. Inspired by the lack of diversity and inclusion Seals witnessed firsthand in the graphic design industry, each Vocal Type typeface highlights a piece of history from a different underrepresented race, ethnicity, or gender—from the Women’s Suffrage Movement in Argentina to the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. Since the founding of Vocal Type, Seals’ fonts have built the basis for dozens of public designs, such as BLM street murals, protest signs, environmental campaigns, corporate initiatives, and nonprofit brand identities. Participants in Seals’ February workshop were provided with the tools and tips to create their very own typeface using the Vocal Type approach.

With inclusivity, identity exploration, and innovative expression at the heart of its mission, the Center for Arts + Social Justice first launched from a belief in the power of art as a tool for change. Building on that foundation, the Center’s newest initiatives further amplify the power of artists and activists to make that vision a reality.

For more information about the Center for Arts + Social Justice and upcoming events, visit : vcfa.edu/center

Faculty View

Creating Between the Lines:

a feeling many of us are familiar with in these endlessly fractured days. But upon peering further, our noses inches away from the canvas or the screen, the individual lines of Luis Jacob’s “On a Vacant Lot” harmonograph series announce themselves one by one, their unique strands and paths apparent, a scream of their particular existence in this jumbled state. One line, an anchor among the chaos. Follow it to its end.

Borders. Boundaries. Lines that divide. Lines that blur. It is these fraught and complex lines of our lives that Luis Jacob, MFA in Visual Art faculty, interrogates and reflects on in his visual and curating work.

Born in Lima, Peru, Jacob has called Toronto his home since first immigrating with his family in 1981. With Toronto as his home base and focus of interrogation and inquiry, he acknowledges the complications of the place in which he lives. “I live on colonized Indigenous (Mississauga Anishinaabe) territory. The city’s economic

dependence on real-estate speculation and its central role in the financing of global resource extraction endow it with vitality and a certain viciousness. With more than half of its population having been born outside of Canada, it is also one of the most multicultural cities on earth,” Jacob says. “What interests me are the city’s own ‘narratives of place’—the ways in which, over time, Toronto has generated certain types of storytelling about itself—and the ways in which these stories also generate a certain way of understanding (and misunderstanding) this place I call home.”

To further illustrate and investigate the complicated Ontario city he calls home, Jacob served as the chief curator of a 2016 exhibition called Form Follows Fiction: Art and Artists in Toronto at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, University of Toronto Art Centre. Jacob’s exhibition featured work by 86 Toronto-based artists over a period of 50 years of Canadian art history, and it shed light on the ways in which performance and allegory are woven into the artists’ articulation of their shared city. This panorama of perspectives asks the viewer to consider: “How do artists in Toronto visualize their sense of place? Is there such a thing as a ‘made-in-Toronto’ approach to this articulation?”

At first glance, the viewer is spiraling—

A conversation with Luis Jacob, MFA in Visual Art

Following the success of Form Follows Fiction, Jacob released an evocative catalog of the same name in 2020. Published by Black Dog Press and in partnership with the Art Museum at the University of Toronto, Jacob’s book not only presents the exhibition’s 86 featured artworks—to be contemplated and studied at the viewer’s own pace—but also includes an archive of historical and geographical curios: local ephemera to contextualize, locate, and deepen the reader’s experience with the material therein.

This ability to deepen and diversify a project is just one example of Jacob’s talents as an artist and thinker. He presents us with a line (of ink, of words, of string, of thought) and, before our eyes, as a magician with a scarf, he extends the line. Bends it, breaks it, shapes it, knots it and untangles it, ad infinitum. The transformation and exploration at Jacob’s hands occur simultaneously, and we, the viewers of his alchemical artistry, are not only witness but participant in this collective uncovering.

Jacob considers both his curatorial practice and his own art-making as vital elements to his artistic life—both present opportunities for expression and creation. He says, “In their creative dimensions, curating exhibitions and making artworks can allow us (makers and viewers) to experience certain tensions and contradictions that expression tends to overlook.”

Jacob’s personal artistic practice involving borderlines and blurred definitions also combines both form and fiction. His current work centers around two poles or, as he calls it, “two allegorical figures”: the tangled garden and the vacant lot. “Where one vision sees a rich proliferation of forms of life, another vision looks around as only seeing something lacking. I’m interested in considering how artists navigate between these two poles—these two different ways of narrating their own localized experience.”

Earlier this year, Jacob presented a two-part solo exhibition of his linework in Toronto. The first part, entitled Borderline Cases: One in the Hand, was shown at Pumice Raft, an independent space operated by Parker Kay. The second part, Borderline Cases: Two in the Bush, occurred at a commercial gallery called Patel Brown. Both of Jacob’s Borderline Cases reveal an “autobiography of line work, mark making, and gesture” through a collection of pieces that coalesce three decades of his work. The

energetically flinging vortices paired with the stiff and regimented checkerboard patterns continue the constant dilemma Jacob wrestles with as a resident of Toronto, the city he loves and that he must also acknowledge as both virtuous and vicious. “I see the world crosseyed,” Jacob says. “Where there is a single figure, I see it paired, split in two.”

Over the last two decades, Jacob’s staggering and destabilizing painting, video, installation, and photography have graced the halls of such international giants as the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Generali Foundation in Vienna. Critics have lauded Jacob as an artist who “nurtures an awareness of the process of seeing.” As Core Faculty at VCFA, as well as an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto, Jacob brings this same boundless energy and passion for the act of seeing and re-seeing to the visual art classroom.

In his conversations with his MFA students, he says, “I often find myself asking about what an artwork means when we read it between the lines. The things that artists say about their own work are, of course, very important. But often it is what is said between the lines that is the most resonant thing—and this may even contradict what artists themselves say about their work.”

Unfolding the layers to get “in between” is the throughline of Jacob’s passion for both making and teaching art. In order to start creating between the lines, Jacob advises his students to “go see as much art as possible; talk to as many artists as you can; approach those with whom you sense a connection; plan projects together when there’s a good vibe. It’s not a matter of ‘networking.’ It’s a matter of being actively involved as an artist, and seeing your work in relation to a context beyond your immediate situation. Embarking on a Master’s degree involves many conversations with people who offer different perspectives on what we do and different ways to experience the things we make. Exposing and exploring our work in this way is priceless!”

The things that artists say about their own work are, of course, very important. But often it is what is said between the lines that is the most resonant thing.”

faculty news

WILLIAM ALEXANDER (WCYA) published three short stories in 2022: “A Body in Motion” (science fiction) in Sunday Morning Transport, “My First Word” (fantasy) in Speculative Fiction for Dreamers: A Latinx Anthology, and “The Tip of My Tongue” (science fiction) in Tasting Light: Ten Science Fiction Stories to Rewire Your Perceptions

KATHI APPELT (WCYA) published the middle grade adventure novel Once Upon a Camel with Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books in 2021.

In 2022, MARTHA BROCKENBROUGH (WCYA) published Frank and the Bad Surprise, book one of the Frank and the Puppy series, with Levine Querido. In 2023, Brockenbrough’s middle grade novel, To Catch a Thief, will be coming out with Scholastic, and Brockenbrough’s young adult novel, Artificial Intelligence, will be coming out with Macmillan/Feiwel & Friends. Brockenbrough’s I Am an American, co-written with Grace Lin and illustrated by Julia Quo, won the Carter G. Woodson Award from the National Council for Social Studies.

A. R. CAPETTA (WCYA; ’12 WCYA) co-edited the young adult collection Tasting Light: Ten Science Fiction Stories to Rewire Your Perceptions. The project was published in 2022 with Candlewick/ MITeen. Capetta won the Lambda Literary Award for The Heartbreak Bakery.

SHEELA CHARI (WCYA) published the middle grade novel Karthik Delivers with Abrams, and the third book in the Mars Patel series, The Extradimensional Reappearance of Mars Patel (Candlewick/Walker US, in collaboration with Gen Z Media), both in 2022.

MICHAEL CROLEY (W) published the opinion piece “The March Madness shot that broke our hearts and the real tragedy that followed” with CNN.

MELANIE CROWDER (WCYA; ’11 WCYA) published the young adult novel Mazie with Philomel in 2021 and the young adult novel Jumper with Viking in 2022.

LAINIE FEFFERMAN (MC) took part in the Carrier Records Flash Crash + Remixes album release party in June 2022.

HARRISON CANDELARÍA FLETCHER (W; ’06 W) is a recipient of this year’s NEA Creative Writing Fellowship in Prose. Additionally, Fletcher published the essay collection Finding Querencia: Essays From In-Between with Mad Creek Books in 2022.

FERNANDO A. FLORES (W) published the fantastical story collection Valleyesque: Stories with MCD x FSG Originals in 2022.

LOREE GRIFFIN BURNS (WCYA) published the nonfiction picture book, Honeybee Rescue: A Backyard Drama, in 2022 with Charlesbridge. Also in 2022, Griffin Burns published the nonfiction piece “The Hours of the Moths” in Yankee Magazine. Griffin Burns has two projects forthcoming: the picture book Come on a Dragon Hunt: Studying Your Insect Neighbors with Charlesbridge and the middle grade nonfiction project One Long Line: Curious People, Unusual Caterpillars, and a Story They Told Together with MITKids/ Candlewick.

In 2022, LOUISE HAWES (WCYA) published the middle grade book Big Rig with Peachtree Publishers/Penguin.

COREY ANN HAYDU (WCYA) published the young adult novel-inverse Lawless Spaces with Simon Pulse in 2022. Haydu’s middle grade novel, Tree, is forthcoming in 2023 with Katherine Tegen Books.

LIZ GARTON SCANLON (WCYA) published two picture books in 2022: Would You Come, Too with Beach Lane Books/Simon & Schuster and Frances in the Country with Neal Porter Books/ Holiday House. Additionally in 2022, Garton Scanlon published the middle grade novel Lolo’s Light with Chronicle and was a contributor to Imperfect II: Poems about Perspective: An Anthology for Middle Schoolers with History House.

K.A. HOLT (WCYA) published the middle grade novel This is Not a Drill with Scholastic in 2022. Holt has two more middle grade books forthcoming in the The Kids Under the Stairs series with Chronicle Books, slated for 2023 and 2024.

In 2021, JONATHAN BAILEY HOLLAND (MC) was named a Brother Thomas Fellow by the Boston Foundation. This year, he was awarded a 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship. Lastly, he started a new position as the Jack G. Buncher Chair and the new head of the School of Music at Carnegie Mellon University.

In 2021, RICHARD JACKSON (W) published the poetry collection Where the Wind Comes From with Kelsay Brooks Press and the chapbook Those Shadowy Reflections: Prose Poems with Foundlings Press. Jackson’s publications in 2022 include The Heart as Framed: New and Select Poems with Press 53 and Dispatches: Prose Poems with Wet Cement Press.

In 2022, VARIAN JOHNSON (WCYA; ’09 WCYA) published the graphic novel Mister Miracle: The Great Escape with DC Comics. Additionally, Johnson was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters.

The Sierra Club honored BARBARA HURD (W) as one of 18 “Female Phenoms of Nature Writing.” The recognition includes praise for “Hurd’s personal, meditative prose, which draws parallels between her own sphere and the natural world, offering up rich explorations of literature, family, science, place, and the waning phenomenon of attentiveness itself.” In 2021, Hurd published The Epilogues: Afterwords on the Planet with Standing Stones Books.

CARLA KIHLSTEDT (MC) and collaborators released Necessary Monsters, a digital album with nine tracks inspired by nine monsters, in late 2021.

A.S. KING’S (WCYA) novel Attack of the Black Rectangles, which takes on censorship and intolerance, was published with Scholastic on September 6, 2022. King also published the short story “The Feelings Shed” with Cricket Magazine in 2021 and the young adult short story “Smile River” in the YA collection Tasting Light: Ten Science Fiction Stories to Rewire Your Perceptions with MIT/Candlewick Press in 2022. King was recognized with the illustrious Margaret A. Edwards Award from YALSA for her lasting contribution to the field of young adult literature.

CYNTHIA LEITICH SMITH (WCYA) is set to co-write The Blue Star graphic novel series with Kekla Magoon for Candlewick Press. The first book will be published in 2023. In 2021, Leitich Smith edited the middle grade anthology Ancestor Approved: Intertribal Stories for Kids for Heartdrum. In 2022, Leitich Smith was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters.

BRIAN LEUNG’S (W) latest novel, All I Should Not Tell, was released in 2022 with C&R Press.

SAMUEL KỌ́LÁWỌLÉ’S (W; ’19 WP) debut novel, The Road to Salt Sea, is forthcoming in 2022 with Amistad/HarperCollins.

JANE KURTZ (WCYA) published the picture book Chickens on the Loose with West Margin Press in 2021. The international Board of Books for Young People awarded Kurtz the IBBY iRead Outstanding Reading Promoter Award for her creative and generous work and leadership with Ethiopia Reads and the Ready Set Go books.

MARTINE LEAVITT (WCYA) has been named the endowed Katherine Paterson Chair for the Writing for Children & Young Adults program, an honor she’ll hold for the next two years.

class news

faculty news

KEKLA MAGOON (WCYA; ’05 WCYA) was a finalist in the Creative Nonfiction category at the 2022 Vermont Book Awards for her book Revolution in Our Time: The Black Panther Party’s Promise to the People (Candlewick Press, November 2021). The book also was awarded both a Coretta Scott King Honor and a Printz Honor. Magoon is set to co-write The Blue Star graphic novel series with Cynthia Leitich Smith for Candlewick Press. The first book will be published in 2023.

JOHN MALLIA (MC) took part in the New England Conservatory’s Composers’ Series in early 2022 at Jordan Hall. The concert was later available via streaming.

In 2022, CORY MCCARTHY (WCYA; ’11 WCYA) published the young adult novel Man O’ War with Dutton/Penguin, the picture book Hope Is an Arrow: The Story of Lebanese American Poet Kahlil Gibran with Candlewick, and Under Pressure, the third book in the B.E.S.T. World series, with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

CLINT MCCOWN (W) published Mr. Potato Head vs. Freud: Lessons on the Craft of Writing Fiction, a collection of 10 essays on writing, with Press 53 in 2021.

TOMÁS Q. MORÍN (W) is a recipient of a 2022 Guggenheim Fellowship and an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship in Prose. Morín published Machete: Poems with Knopf in 2021 and Let Me Count the Ways, a memoir, with University of Nebraska Press in 2022.

ANICA MROSE RISSI’S (WCYA) middle grade novel, Wishing Season, is forthcoming in 2023 with HarperCollins/Quill Tree Books.

MARY QUATTLEBAUM

(WCYA) published two nonfiction books with National Geographic in 2022: Adorable Animals and Hedgehogs

In 2022, DEBORAH MARCERO (WCYA) published the picture book Out of a Jar with Putnam.

ANNA-MARIE MCLEMORE (WCYA) published two young adult novels in 2022 with Feiwel & Friends/Macmillan: Self-Made Boys and Lakelore. In 2022, McLemore published multiple short stories, including “Reign of Diamonds” in Reclaim the Stars, “La Sirena y La Bruja” in Eternally Yours, “Liberty” in Serendipity, and “Sugarplum” in At Midnight.

ADAM MCOMBER’S (W) latest collection, Fantasy Kit, was published with Black Lawrence Press in June 2022.

In 2021, WANJIKU WA NGUGIĪ (W) published Seasons in Hippoland, a magical-realist novel, with Seagull Books.

SARA RYAN (WCYA) published the piece “Finger Puppet” in Lost Objects: 50 Stories About the Things We Miss & Why They Matter in 2022 with Hat & Beard Press. With hilobrow.com, Ryan published the piece “KICK YOUR ENTHUSIASM (3): Swift Wind.” In 2021, Ryan published the mini comic Shift, with art by Val Wise.

NATASHA SAJÉ’S (W) next work, The Future Will Call You Something Else, is set to publish with Tupelo Press in 2023.

In 2022, EMILY X.R. PAN (WCYA) published the young adult novel An Arrow to the Moon with Little, Brown.

In 2022, LAURA SHOVAN (WCYA) published The Power of the Pause with Wising Up Press. Shovan also was a contributor to Imperfect II: Poems About Perspective: An Anthology for Middle Schoolers with History House and Coming of Age: 13 B’Nai Mitzvah Stories with Albert Whitman.

JASMINE WARGA (WCYA) published A Rover’s Story with Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins Children’s Books in late 2022.

SJ SINDU (W) was selected as a finalist at the 34th Annual Lambda Literary Awards. In 2021, Sindu published Blue-Skinned Gods with Legend Press, and in 2022 Sindu published Dominant Genes with Black Lawrence Press. Lastly, Sindu’s debut middle grade graphic novel, Shakti, is forthcoming with HarperCollins in 2023.

HASANTHIKA SIRISENA (W) was selected as a finalist at the 34th Annual Lambda Literary Awards. In 2021, Sirisena published the essay collection Dark Tourist: Essays with Mad Creek Books.

In 2021, IRA SUKRUNGRUANG (W) saw the publication of This Jade World with University of Nebraska Press.

SHELLEY TANAKA (WCYA) translated three books in 2021: Do Animals Fall in Love? by Katharina von der Gathen, My Body in Pieces by Marie-Noëlle Hébert, and Do You Know Where the Animals Live? by Peter Wohlleben.

FRAN WILDE (WCYA) published the novella The Book of Gems with Tor in 2022. In 2021, Wilde published The Ship of Stolen Words with Abrams and Clock, Star, Rose, Spine: Poems with Lanternfish Press.

David Peacock (GD) received a 2021 American Graphic Design Award from Graphic Design USA. The winning piece was a gorgeous 22” x 32.5” poster printed split fountain with two spot PMS colors and satin varnish by Villanti Printers in Milton, Vermont, with copywriting by fellow faculty member Ian Lynam.

SUE WILLIAM SILVERMAN’S (W; ’88 W) latest poetry collection, Crayon Colors for Serial Killers, was published in June 2022 with Finishing Line Press.

ROGER ZAHAB (MC) has been commissioned to write a new flute concerto for the flutist Lindsey Goodman in collaboration with the Ashland University Band and its director, Joseph Lewis. The work will be conceived with flexible instrumentation. The world premiere performance is scheduled for March 19, 2023, in Ashland, Ohio. Additionally, Zahab gave the first performance of Julia Perry’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (composed between 1963 and ’65) on February 23, 2022, with the University of Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, with Cullyn D. Murphy conducting.

In 2022, JENNIFER ZIEGLER (WCYA) published the middle grade novel Worser with Margaret Ferguson Books. Ziegler was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters, as well.

Ann Dávila Cardinal (’07 W) The Stories That Never Leave Us

Some stories come to you all at once. And some stories take you seventeen years to write. At least, that was the case for Ann Dávila Cardinal—author, VCFA Director of Recruitment, and class of 2007 Writing alumnx—and her latest novel, The Storyteller’s Death.

The Storyteller’s Death follows Isla Larsen Sanchez, a young woman whose life is marked by her Puerto Rican family, death, and stories. “I wanted to honor that Puerto Rican side of myself,” Cardinal explains of the story. “It’s sort of like my love letter to my family and to the culture.” Cardinal’s narrative also explores themes of racism, generational trauma, the power of family, and the power of our stories.

The book found its roots as a short story for a VCFA workshop. “I had been accepted to the program and I was trying to figure out what to workshop because I hadn’t written a lot of fiction,” explains Cardinal. After a conversation with friends about care for the elderly, she said to her friends that, “in Puerto Rico, there was no old age home. There was always some old woman dying in the backroom of my childhood.” In that conversation, she found the first line of her story.

After seeing the potential for a novel, Cardinal worked on the manuscript for the next two years while finishing her MFA. Near the end of the program, she felt she hadn’t quite found her footing with the project. She shelved the book, but the stories of her life and family continued to haunt her. As Cardinal started to write and publish her YA novels—such as Five Midnights (Tor Teen, 2019) and Category Five (Macmillan, 2020)—she worked on The Storyteller’s Death in the background for years, picking it up and putting it down again. “I am a stubborn woman,” Cardinal says. “I refused to give up on it.”

Finally, five years ago, she brought the novel to the VCFA Postgraduate Writers’ Conference. There, Cardinal says, faculty member Andre Dubus III “had me rewrite a section in third person, and I did it just to prove him wrong. I read from it during the workshop, and it opened up the whole novel for me.”

Seventeen years later, The Storyteller’s Death came out with Sourcebooks on October 4, 2022. To Cardinal, the wait was worth it. “I feel like it needed those 17 years,” says Cardinal.

Without VCFA and her community, Cardinal explains “[The Storyteller’s Death] wouldn’t exist. That’s why I have the [VCFA] logo tattooed on my arm, because this is part of who I am. I talk to alum friends and faculty friends every day about their work, and I graduated years ago. I still have that support system.”

“It is true [that writing] is a hard field,” Cardinal says. But, in Cardinal’s words, perseverance is sometimes exactly what you need to help push you through. “Whatever field you’re creating in, don’t give up. Use your community and come back to VCFA. If you’ve moved away from the community, try to come back and see if that breaks things loose—because sometimes, that’s all you need.”

Find Cardinal’s books at anndavilacardinal.com

life after the mfa

“This is the closest thing to my story.”

Dawn Clement (’15 MC)

The Connective Power of Music

For many performers, the start of the COVID-19 pandemic had an insulating effect, moving music from the stage to basements, living rooms, and morning showers. When stuck on her own island, pianist, composer, vocalist, and 2015 Music Composition alumnx Dawn Clement started to reflect.

“Early COVID was challenging,” Clement recalls. “As society withdrew inward, I felt the isolation deeply and started to question the meaning of continuing to make music.” But after attending a collection of live streamed concerts and events, Clement found herself reconnecting with her craft, using the time to improve on her songwriting skills and learn technologies that could open new creative gateways.

In the fall of 2020, Clement started to write her latest album, Islands. A contemporary album with 10 tracks— featuring songs such as “Pretending,” “Watercolor Worlds,” and the titular “Islands”—Clement’s album was created entirely from home, with all collaborations and recordings happening virtually.

“The process of making Islands allowed the opportunity to explore themes of isolation, obsession, conflict, and healing. As weird as it may sound, this album is as much for me as it is for anyone else,” says Clement. “It was personally a very therapeutic artistic endeavor. I felt healing with the creation of each new song, and eventually along the way, as the songs developed, their meaning deepened and changed.”

Clement explains that this recording was “a different process compositionally” but allowed for new voices to be added and reached due virtual accessibility. The musicians Clement collaborated with “were all eager and willing and in the same boat—trying to find outlets for making music remotely.”

Despite distance, music still found the same way of speaking to its artists. “Music: It’s the healing balm to what ails ya. It is a constant and loyal friend, a neverending teacher, and the relationship that keeps giving,” explains Clement. “When I am making or writing music, a big word that comes up for me is connectivity. Music opens up connections between our mind and our heart and allows us to communicate on multiple levels.”

In the spring of 2021, Clement took virtual musical collaboration one step further with her new band, Esthesis Quartet. Composed of Clement, flutist Elsa Nilsson, bassist Emma Dayhuff, and drummer Tina Raymond, the band started as a “musical support group” over Zoom. Soon, the four started working together remotely, notating compositions and layering tracks. Finally, when it was safe to gather, the group met in person in August of 2021. Together they played two shows and recorded two full-length albums, the first of which, Ethesis Quartet, came out in May 2022 with Orenda Records. To help support her work on the album, Clement was awarded a grant from Chamber Music of America’s Performance Plus program.

“COVID provided a beautiful opportunity to push past the boundaries and limitations of having to keep things local and showed us that collaboration is possible with people from all over the globe,” says Clement.

And in each experience, no matter what island she was on, Clement still found her community through the connective power of music—a power that speaks to us all.

“Community is everything,” Clement explains. “Music is a social call. It is the universal language and currency. It not only brings people together but enhances shared experiences in a meaningful way and propels communication to be its most honest and generous form. It also allows one to reflect and relate in ways that are highly validating. Music changes lives.”

Learn more about Islands and Esthesis Quartet at dawnclement.com

life after the mfa

“Be willing to try things and make your voice and ideas heard.”

‘Segun Olude (’14 GD) Creating Your Taxonomy

“I think it was age five—my dad came back home from work one day with a pile of papers all stapled together and gave me a pencil. It was like heaven that day. That was how I started my love for art,” recalls ‘Segun Olude.

Olude has had an expansive journey in the art world. As a designer, photographer, storyteller, educator, humanitarian, and class of 2014 Graphic Design alumnx, Olude started his professional design life at age 17. Right out of high school, Olude worked as a graphic design assistant before attending college. He would eventually move from Nigeria to Canada, start his own design studio, and pursue academia.

“I ended up at Syracuse University for my Master’s. That led to what I now call a life work,” explains Olude, “of basically collecting stories, collecting motifs, and ideas from my Yorùbá culture, curating them, and then using them in design or creating design that would help others see what the beauty of the language is, or help them learn the language, or help them preserve their own histories.”

Eventually, when pursuing his MFA in Graphic Design at VCFA, Olude received the advice to study narrative for a semester. Olude originally hesitated at the advice, saying “I don’t know, I came here for graphic design.” But, sooner rather than later, Olude says he was “so thankful for that advice,” as it led him to his thesis project, culminating in a 220-page photographic book, Ìtàn ati Àsà Ìbíle Yorùbá: The Yorùbá Narrative in Words and Images.

He began to study his culture, researching the Yorùbá alphabet and interviewing Yorùbá people from all walks of life. Originally, he was supposed to speak to just a few people, but then the stories started to come in—stories of ways of life, food, music, and so much more. A few interviews turned into a deep exploration of each aspect of Yorùbá culture. By engaging with storytelling, Olude explains, “It made me more aware of my surroundings— made me more aware of the culture. Now everything that I looked at, I tried to find the cultural meaning.”

“One thing that’s always at the back of my mind is authenticity,” says Olude. “If I’m going to be authentic, then I’ll go to that community and talk to them and find out what is the whole rather than my own imagination. I was shocked that I didn’t know so much, where I had assumed that I knew a lot.” The resulting book—and a working typeface complete with accents and diacritics— became a digital and physical preservation of Yorùbá oral tradition.

For anyone looking to dive into their culture and document its history, Olude’s advice is to “try and be authentic first, to recognize the whole and how they fit into it.” He adds, “I would advise anyone who’s going to do this kind of study to come up with some kind of taxonomy... The personal is universal. And universal is personal. So if it’s happening to you, or you’re thinking it, it’s happening to somebody else, and if it’s happening to somebody else, it’s universal. So be authentic, do the research. Come up with a taxonomy so you know who you’re talking about.”

Olude’s final piece of advice? Seek out and explore. “I think, as designers and artists, we must not wait for contracts and employment. If we wait, we will never do the things that we were meant to do in this lifetime. We must find a way to see every opportunity that we have.”

Learn more about Olude’s work at segunolude.com.

life after the mfa

“The personal is universal. And universal is personal.”

Industry and Me

Since 2021, in Zoom rooms across the country, Industry and Me Advisory Committee members have met to discuss growth, community concerns, and most importantly, how we can best serve and support BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) students and alumnx. Vermont College of Fine Arts deeply recognizes the impact of race and systemic racism on BIPOC communities and their unique experiences navigating the arts industry. Industry and Me, a BIPOC empowerment series, thus focuses on BIPOC artists within our academic programs and provides an environment for BIPOC students and alumnx to learn from each other’s experiences, build industry relationships, and foster a greater sense of community and support.

While still in its early stages, Industry and Me aims to highlight the voices and needs of BIPOC students and alumnx and seeks to create a program in complete collaboration with the very community it strives to support. In this spirit, the Advisory Committee helps to guide staff in the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Institutional Advancement. The formation of Industry and Me’s Advisory Committee remains critical to the program’s development, and the group ensures that a wide variety of voices are heard and represented.

The Advisory Committee inaugural members are JAMES CURRY (’17 F), BASMAH SAKRANI (’20 W), PHILLIP GARCIA (’13 W), TANYA AYDELOTT (’19 WCYA), BRAD BAILEY (’22 F), ATHENA HERNANDEZ (’16 WCYA), and Chair JULIET WAY-HENTHORNE (’22 W)

Above all, Industry and Me seeks to ensure that historically marginalized voices are heard. We want BIPOC students and alumnx to know that there is a place for them in their industry of choice, and we are committed to walking alongside them as they make their way down a path that is often uneven. Industry and Me as an organization, and the Advisory Committee as a team, offer our sincerest, most active support and a variety of resources as we enter our next phase. Our commitment to BIPOC students and alumnx is paramount, as we believe that relationships between individuals and communities have the power to guide, heal, and transform.

We want to hear your voices so that we can best serve you. To subscribe to Industry and Me’s mailing list, or if you are interested in sharing your experience, insights, and knowledge as a BIPOC artist working in the arts industry, please reach out to diversity@vcfa.edu to connect with program staff.

Juliet

Advisory Committee Chair, Industry and Me

Artwork by Chris Hardy (‘22 GD)

Way-Henthorne (’22 W)

Slow Residency

Finding My Graphic Design Community One Visit at a Time

BY Angela Paladino, Graphic Design 2021

In November 2021, after selling my sweet little house in Barre, Vermont, I took off on a sevenand-a-half-month camper trip around the country. I was avoiding the beastly Vermont winter, scratching my travel itch after COVID lockdown, and celebrating the completion of my MFA in Graphic Design from VCFA.

As an October 2021 graduate, I experienced the greatest possible number of remote residencies, including my graduation. I had spent a few residencies on campus before the pandemic, and I knew how magical that experience could be. The switch to Zoom, Slack, and Google Workspace was jarring, and the loss still pierces. One of the parts I missed the most was in-person contact with my fellow students, as well as beloved faculty and visiting alumnx.

Somewhere along the line, it hit me: on my tour around the country, I could visit many of my beloved VCFA friends! I created my very own “slow residency,” reviving myself a little bit more with every student, alum, and faculty member I saw. From Massachusetts to New Mexico, Texas to Tennessee, California to Colorado, and in Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, and Washington, I reconnected with old friends and met some in 3-D for the very first time.

I had coffee with Christopher Swift (’21) in western Massachusetts, ice cream with Jasmine Platt (’21) in Jacksonville, and home-brewed beer with Aaron Winey (’21) in Indiana. I shared good conversation with three faculty in California and Washington: Silas Munro, Lorena Howard Sheridan, and Dave Peacock—my outstanding thesis advisor. I spent a long weekend in central Texas hiking Enchanted Rock, watching couples two-step to a local country band, eating barbecue, and walking dogs with Owen Cassidy (’20). I spent a week of wining, dining, and making resin art with Tristen Click (’19) in Washington, and I wished I had more time with Ryan Slone (’21) and Leslie Parker (’19) in Arkansas.

Delightful surprises were guaranteed each time I got to hang out with a student I’d only known on Zoom before: Vic Rodriguez Tang (’22) in Austin, Jessi Blackham (’22) in Utah, Monique Ortman (’22) in Oklahoma City, and Leah Chutz (’23) in Denver. I also got to spend time with two of the brilliant, powerful women who hold the whole world together, Lorilee Rager (’21) in Tennessee and longtime MFA in Graphic Design exhibition coordinator Mary Hanrahan (’13) in New Mexico—twice! (Side note: to experience some of that magic for yourself, check out Lorilee’s podcast, Ground & Gratitude, at lorileerager. com/podcast.) And that long list includes just a few of the dear friends I’ve made through this program.

Slow Residency

My trip didn’t include as many museums as I had hoped, because of persistent COVID restrictions particularly on the East Coast, but I did make time to see the enormous “Personnages Oiseaux (Bird People)” mosaic mural by Joan Miró in Wichita (of all places!); the Museum of Craft + Design and the Tauba Auerbach solo exhibition S / Z at the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles; the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle; Hatch Show Print and the Parthenon in Nashville; and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. I also visited Marfa, Texas, the tiny town Donald Judd turned into an unexpected haven for art and artists. (If you haven’t been, it’s essentially the halfway point between a cowboy movie and a Wes Anderson set.)

Along the way, I hand bound additional copies of my thesis book, Unfinished: Communicating Grief and Healing Through Handmade Textiles, kept a travel blog, and collaborated with Aaron Winey (’21) on a glazed ceramic tablet as part of his Found Creations project (instagram. com/foundcreations).

I had deep conversations about graphic design—but also about death, love, and all the other big stuff—at kitchen tables, on dog walks, and over drinks throughout 29 states, over 20,300 miles, during nearly two-thirds of a year.

In the end, I knew within my core that the people I love, the people that make VCFA’s MFA in Graphic Design as brilliant and life changing as it is, are everywhere. Some are even farther away, in Japan, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, and elsewhere. Sadly, my van doesn’t navigate oceans very well, but I’m confident that my love for the VCFA Graphic Design community will bring me on many more journeys of reconnection, education, and collaboration throughout the rest of my life. When everything else is stripped away, we are what we love. Let’s treasure that.

class news

1983

Nadell Fishman’s (W) poetry collection, Traveling, Traveling, is set for publication with Finishing Line press in November 2022.

Dale Kushner’s (W) new collection, M, was published with 3: A Taos Press at the start of 2022. Kushner writes a monthly column for Psychology Today, has finished work on a second novel, and is studying Indigenous and Kabbalistic modalities of healing intergenerational/ancestral wounds.

1986

Submissions gathered from July 2021 to June 2022.

Rustin Larson’s (W) book of poems, To See the Bonnards, has been issued by l’Orangerie Press. Additionally, Larson’s chapbook, The Cottage on the Hill, came out in April 2022. Lastly, Larson is working on a novella called Joe Palooka

Suzanne Rhodenbaugh’s (W) book of poetry, The Girl Who Quit at Leviticus, came out in March 2022 with Homestead Lighthouse Press. Rhodenbaugh just finished a short prose piece on writers’ homes and land she visited, from Mississippi to Moscow, old England to New England. Rhodenbaugh also says, “At age 77, I’m still writing, still publishing, still reading like a bandit, and also helping raise a grandson. Still gardening, still keeping a three-story house, still loving lots of friends, still dancing in the kitchen, still raising political hell occasionally.”

1989

1990

Valerie Wohlfeld (W) had two poems published in The Christian Century : “My Cross to Bear” (March 23, 2022) and “Fear Like Love and Death and Beauty” (October 25, 2021). Her poem “The Heart’s Weather” is set for publication in late 2023 by Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality

1984

Michael Carrino (W) published the poetry collection In No Hurry with Kelsay Books in September 2021.

1987

Jesse Arthur Stone (W) received the First Prize at the 2021 White Mice Poetry Contest for his poem “Flora.” Stone’s poem “Welcoming the Light,” originally published in Nimrod, will be reprinted in Tolsun Books’s Life After Death Anthology later this year.

Dianna Henning’s (W) new book, Camaraderie of the Marvelous, was published in the fall of 2021 with Kelsay Books. Henning’s other recent publications include works in Artemis Journal, The Adirondack Review (which nominated her for a Pushcart), MacQueen’s Quinterly, Memoir Magazine, and The Plague Papers (edited by Robbi Nester). She currently runs the Thompson Peak Writers’ Workshop. She recently read in Diamond Springs, CA, with Lara Gularte, the poet Laureate of El Dorado. She also participated in “Poetry Out Loud” for Lassen County, California.

1991

William Walsh (W), author of several books, published his debut novel, Lakewood, with Touch Point Press in 2022. Called a “stunning success” in recent reviews, the novel took 39 years to complete. Walsh has also recently finished a new novel, Haircuts for the Dead Walsh was just named Teacher of the Year at Reinhardt University and recently edited an anthology of 60+ poets, Why I Wrote This Poem (McFarland & Co), which will be published in the fall.

1992

Lou Mathews (W) saw the publication of his book Shaky Town with Tiger Van Books in August 2021. Shaky Town was featured in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Lit Hub, Chicago Tribune, and more. Mathews was also profiled in the LA Times following the release of his book.

Susan Aizenberg’s (W) third full-length collection of poetry, A Walk With Frank O’Hara and Other Poems, is forthcoming from the University of New Mexico Press’s Mary Burritt Christiansen Poetry Series in spring 2024. Poems from the collection recently appeared or are forthcoming in Plume, North American Review, On the Seawall, South Florida Poetry Journal, The American Journal of Poetry, Blackbird, and other journals.

Barbara Siegel Carlson (W) published the poetry chapbook Between the Hours with Finishing Line Press in 2022.

Jan Groft (W) published a new paperback edition of As We Grieve: Discoveries of Grace in Sorrow in early 2022 with Graham House Books. While Groft was completing revisions for the new edition, her sister Marge—a Pied Piper on the dance floor, a quick friend to anyone within earshot, and her lifelong cheerleader—died. It was Groft’s honor to pay tribute to her sister in the newly written prologue.

Laurie Kuntz (W) published her poetry collection The Moon Over My Mother’s House with Finishing Line Press in August 2021. Kuntz’s new chapbook, Talking Me Off the Roof, is forthcoming with Kelsay Books at the end of 2022. Her poetry was exhibited in the Perez Museum during National Poetry Month in collaboration with the O, Miami Poetry Festival project Portrait at 34. She has poems in Verse Virtual, One Art, and Crowstep. Her book review of alumnx Dale Kushner’s (’83 W) poetry collection M was published in Compulsive Reader and Raven’s Perch Literary Magazine

Eleanor Morse’s (W) fourth novel, Margreete’s Harbor, won the 2022 Maine Literary Award for Fiction. Morse is currently working on another novel.

1993

Millicent Borges Accardi (W) published her poetry collection Through a Grainy Landscape in October 2021 with New Meridian Arts Literary Press. Her collection explores “what heritage means to those descended from immigrants long established in the place of their dreams.”

Jane Pincus (VA), back in the 1970s before Roe v. Wade, made the film ABORTION AND WOMEN’S RIGHTS 1970 with her fellow filmmakers. They documented real stories sent to them from across the United States on abortion, the need for legal and safe abortions, and reproductive justice for all. Today the film has been made free and available for all to watch at abortionandwomensrights1970.com

Myra Shapiro’s (W) latest poetry collection, When The World Walks Towards You, was published in September 2021 with Kelsay Books.

1994

Ellen Cassedy’s (W) book, Working 9 to 5: Women’s Movement, a Labor Union, and the Iconic Movie (foreword by Jane Fonda), was published with the Chicago Review Press in September 2022. Cassedy was a founding member and leader of the 9 to 5 movement. This book is her first-person account of the movement.

1995

Brad Davis (W) published Trespassing on the Mount of Olives: Poems in Conversation with the Gospels with Cascade Books in the fall of 2021. Trespassing is the follow-up to Davis’s Opening King David: Poems in Conversation with the Psalms. Together, they represent his interaction with the sacred texts of his childhood—texts he became further involved with before and during his 25 years as an Episcopal priest. His poems have appeared recently in Vallum, Spiritus, Here, Presence, Crosswinds, and the Willimantic Chronicle. This year, he read/presented at the Five Ponds Creative Writing Festival and at The Abbey in Worcester, MA. He directs the Putnam (CT) Library Author Series and leads a poetry workshop at Westview Commons, an independent and assisted living community. He recently performed an artist residency at The Edwin Way Teale Artists in Residence Program.

Allison Adelle Hedge Coke (W) was awarded the 2021 George Garrett Award for Outstanding Community Service in Literature, inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters, and named a Legacy Artist Fellow/grant recipient by the California Arts Council. Hedge Coke’s latest publication, Look at This Blue, was published with Coffee House Press in March 2022.

1996

Deborah Cornell (VA) participated in the ongoing online exhibition The Earth Our Home with the piece “Eclipse/Phase.” The piece invokes the complex interferences between human acts and natural forces, and proposes phases of climatic transformation of increasing intensity. The physical work is a digital mural 9” x 13” with single channel video and sound design by Richard Cornell.

1997

Evelyn Armstrong’s (VA) piece “Art Activism and the Environment” was published in the 2021 anthology Contemporary Ecotheology, Climate Justice and Environmental Stewardship in World Religions.

Allison Adelle Hedge Coke

class news

Lourdes Heuer (W) published the illustrated chapter book Esme’s Birthday Conga Line with Tundra Books/Penguin Random House in 2022. Heuer’s debut picture book, On This Airplane, is set to publish in October 2022 with Penguin Random House.

Joyce Ray (WCYA), during a 12day virtual pilgrimage, gave a virtual presentation of the writing process for her YA historical novel Feathers & Trumpets: A Story of Hildegard of Bingen. She joined 20 other writers, artists, and musicians who have been inspired by Saint Hildegard.

Tanya Whiton’s (W) flash fiction series “Regulars/Before” was published in Beer & Weed magazine from May 2021 to October 2021.

2002

Katy Martin (VA) held a solo exhibition and performance at the Fergus McCaffrey Gallery in New York. A Super 8mm film Martin made about Jasper Johns (HANAFUDA/ JASPER JOHNS, 1981) was shown continuously at the Philadelphia Museum of Art during the Johns retrospective. Martin’s new 45-minute video was projected at the Vision Festival during a performance by the Matthew Shipp Quartet in June 2022 at Roulette in Brooklyn, NY.

1998

1999

Kevin McLellan’s (W) short video, DICK, appeared at the Berlin Short Film Festival under the experimental category, the Vancouver Queer Film Festival, Academy Award Qualifying, BAFTA Qualifying, and Flickers’ Rhode Island International Film Festival. McLellan also hosted the exhibition Wojnarowicz in Cambridge, a series of photographic portraits composed in response to David Wojnarowicz’s Rimbaud in New York series, in which the artist was photographed wearing a mask of the transgressive French poet Arthur Rimbaud. Wojnarowicz in Cambridge brings queer visibility into the public sphere, inviting viewers to consider identity—as something constructed, as something fluid and changeable—so that the current dialogue (and debate) about identity politics becomes more nuanced, more inclusive, more representative.

Bruce Black (WCYA) published three poems exploring the multifaceted holiday of Passover in JewThink. Black published “Poems on Peace” in The B-Zine and “Imagining Passover’’ in The Lehrhaus

2000

Deb Hall (VA) received Best in Show at the 10th Annual Juried Exhibition of artists in upstate New York.

Ellie Bryant (W) in 2021 had two of her sonnets selected by the Connecticut Shakespeare Festival Sonnet Contest to be featured in the Connecticut Shakespeare Festival Poetry Anthology. In early 2022, her eighth book, the historical novel Beside the Long River, was published with Black Rose Writing.

Lynn Levin (W) won the Bucks County 2021 Short Fiction Prize for her short story, “Tell Us About Your Experience.” Lynn’s other new short story, “Student Rebellion,” was published by the online magazine The Satirist in December 2021.

2001

Maggie Kast’s (W) essay, “Flesh and Blood Ideas in J. M. Coetzee’s Elizabeth Costello,” was published in Craft Literary

Jennifer Sweeney (W) recently published Foxlogic, Fireweed The book won the Backwaters Prize from Backwaters Press/University of Nebraska.

Sarah Maclay’s (W) five poems, selected by Katerina Zacharia from across books and manuscripts, have been set to music by composer Kostas Rekleitis as an album of art songs, Identity Had Gone. Maclay’s full-length manuscript, Nightfall Marginalia, will be out in fall of 2023 with What Books Press.

2003

Jillian Barnet (W) published the poetry chapbook Falling Bodies with Finishing Line Press in July 2022. Barnet additionally started work on a memoir.

Collette V. Fournier (VA) began securing funding for Queen Mother of Progress, a documentation of an African American woman, Nana Alexandreena Dixon, who is the Executive Director of Chiku Awali African Arts and Culture based in Rockland County, NY. Fournier’s photography exhibition, See, Observe, Think, Reflect, Internalize, was on display at the Rockland Center for the Arts in April 2022. She also hosted the virtual talk “In Search of My African Roots” in May 2022.

Katy Martin

Deb Hall

Collette V. Fournier

Ayaz Pirani (W) published How Beautiful People Are with Gordon Hill Press in the spring of 2022. Pirani was named a Scholar at the summer 2022 Sewanee Writers’ Conference.

2005

René Colato Laínez (WCYA) published Let’s Be Friends/ Seamos Amigos with Holiday House in late 2021.

Shelagh Connor Shapiro (W) had the honor of serving as a fiction judge for the 2021 Vermont Book Award. She is part of a group bringing a new book gathering to Burlington called The Green Mountain Book Festival. She’s working on a revision of her newest novel and has a nonfiction craft book proposal, Write the Book: Conversations on Craft, out for submission. Write the Book draws on interviews from her radio show and podcast of the same name.

2004

Kathie Giorgio (W) published her 12th book, All Told, and a new poetry collection in 2022.

pj lyons (WCYA) published All God’s Critters Sing Allelu with Beaming Books in March 2022.

2006

Maureen Alsop (W) released a new book of poetry, Pyre, with What Books Press in late 2021.

Ann Dávila Cardinal’s (’07 W) adult debut novel, The Storyteller’s Death, came out October 4 from Sourcebooks. It was her creative thesis in the program. She also had stories in two anthologies: Other Terrors: An Inclusive Anthology (7/19/22) from William Morrow (along with new MFAW faculty member Gabino Iglesias), and young adult anthology Our Shadows Have Claws (9/6/22), edited by fellow alum Yamile Saied Méndez (’17 WCYA), published by Algonquin Young Readers. She was also a 2021 recipient of a Vermont Arts Council Creation Grant.

Jennifer Gennari’s (WCYA) Muffled is one of 10 finalists for grades 4–5 for the 2023 Georgia Children’s Book Awards. Gennari is teaching again at the Highlights Foundation in the fall of 2022.

Jodi Hays (VA) had her first solo exhibition with Night Gallery in Los Angeles, CA, in June 2022.

Barbara Krasner (WCYA) published Ethel’s Song: Ethel Rosenberg’s Life in Poems, a novel-in-verse about Ethel Rosenberg, with Calkins Creek/Astra Books for Young Readers in late 2022. Krasner is contracted for another young adult historical novel-in-verse, Camp Nordland, with Calkins Creek for 2023.

class news

Robin Oliveira’s (W) latest novel (title TBD) is slated for publication with Putnam in late 2023 or early 2024. The novel is described as “an epic love story set in 19th-century Scotland and Seattle.”

2007

Kelly Bennett’s (WCYA) picture book, The House that Ruth Built, is set to publish in the spring of 2023 with Familius/Workman.

2008

Liz Chang’s (W) poetry chapbook, Museum of Things, was a semifinalist in the Black River chapbook competition (from Black Lawrence Press in 2022) and is now under contract with Finishing Line Press, due out in early 2023. Chang has begun working on a hybrid manuscript that examines her family’s provable connections to the Titanic disaster.

Dianne White (WCYA) published LOOK and LISTEN: Who’s in the Garden, Meadow, Brook? with Margaret Ferguson Books/Holiday House in May 2022.

2009

Lynda Graham-Barber’s (WCYA) picture book, A Unicorn on a Unicycle, was published with Penguin Random House in March 2022.

Jennifer Wolf Kam (WCYA) released her debut picture book, Until The Blueberries Grow, in the spring of 2022 with PJ Library. The book follows young Ben as he tries to convince his great-grandfather to stay in his house just a little longer as the two celebrate a yearly cycle of Jewish holidays together.

Jen White’s (WCYA) middle grade novel, A Thousand Minutes to Sunlight, was published with Macmillan in 2021.

Zachary Kopp (W) has multiple projects in development, including his hybrid memoir Radios: Intuition, Inspiration, Chaos & the Rachel Archelaus Case, a novel called All About Angles, and a short story sampler called Customers

Michele Regenold (WCYA) started a book coaching business focused on experienced writers in the areas of middle grade fiction and YA fiction. Interested writers can learn more at her website, micheleregenold.com

Ginny Lowe Connors (W) published her poetry collection Without Goodbyes: From Puritan Deerfield to Mohawk Kahnawake in late 2021 with Turning Point Books. Lowe Connors describes the collection as a lyric history: a narrative inspired by a real historical event, but containing many poems that are lyrical in nature.

Madelyn Roehrig (VA) selfpublished, with in-kind support from the Warhol Museum, Andy Can You Hear Us? Winter Season, the latest in Roehrig’s pop culture book series surveying 10 years of an ongoing art project in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Created and maintained by Roehrig since 2009, the book explores the afterlife of Andy Warhol—who is buried outside of Pittsburgh—and his community of gravesite visitors.

Marcy Pope (VA) received, in collaboration with Craig Roach, a commission to design and install a mural in Keene, NH, at Central Square Terrace, a housing complex of apartments for persons with disabilities or 62 years of age and over. The project was completed in June 2022. Pope also received a $6000 grant from the NH State Council on the Arts to implement a pottery program at Farmsteads of New England. Farmsteads provides supportive day and residential services in a farm environment to adults who have developmental disabilities.

Adam Tavel (W) had two collections of poetry published in the first half of 2022: Sum Ledger with Measure Press and Green Regalia with Stephen F. Austin State University Press.

2010

Renee Couture (VA) was awarded an artist residency at Pine Meadow Ranch Center for Arts & Agriculture in 2021. During her residency, she explored how her new role as mother connects her to the surrounding landscape and the future in a new way.

Karyn Wergland (W) released the novel Silverman with Leviathan Books in 2022. The novel is a Booklife Editor’s Pick.

Emily Lanctot (VA) curated the exhibition Still Life in March 2022 at the DeVos Art Museums in Marquette, MI. Steven Heller interviewed Lanctot about the Illustration Collection at the art museum at Northern Michigan University for The Daily Heller Lanctot also participated in the artist residency at Monte Castello di Vibio. The residency culminated in a group exhibition, as well as the exhibition robin, dove, swallow, thrush (curated by Michelle Grabner). Several of Lanctot’s recipe-and food-based drawings were included in Summer Breeze, an exhibition curated by Breehan James at the CCAC in Bath, ME, in 2022. Finally, several formal collage studies, part of a daily studio practice, were featured in a group exhibition that centers on Matisse’s practice. The exhibition was curated by Cynthia Coté and took place in June 2022 at The Copper Country Arts Center, in Hancock, MI.

Adi Rule’s (WCYA) YA psychological thriller, Why Would I Lie?, was published in April 2022 with Scholastic.

Susa Silvermarie (WCYA) published Poems for Flourishing in the summer of 2020.

Nora Shalaway Carpenter (’12 WCYA) edited Rural Voices, a YALSA 2022 Best Fiction for Young Adults selection. The anthology also recently was chosen for South Dakota’s statewide community reading program. The multi-genre book features 16 stories, including work by Shalaway Carpenter and fellow alumnx Rob Costello (’12), Yamile Saied Méndez (’17), Veeda Bybee (’18), Estelle Laure (’14), Tirzah Price (’15), Shae Carys (’14), and Monica Roe (’15), and WCYA faculty member David Macinnis Gill. Shalaway Carpenter’s next anthology, Absolutely Normal, co-edited with alumnx Rocky Callen (’19), is forthcoming spring 2023 from Candlewick Press. Her next novel is forthcoming fall 2023 from Running Press.

Cheryl Wilder’s (W) debut collection, Anything That Happens, was published with Press 53 in early 2021. Anything That Happens was named Second Finalist in the 2022 Poetry Society of Virginia North American Book Award. Wilder is currently working on a second collection.

2011

Jodi Paloni (W) published the short story “An End to It” in North by Northeast II: New Short Fiction by Maine Writers (also a finalist for the 2022 Maine Book Award), a follow up to “Rest Stop,” a short story published in North by Northeast

Blair Vaughn-Gruler (VA) participated in Modus Operandi, a group exhibition of process-based work by select gallery artists at Walker Fine Art in Denver in 2022.

Anna Jordan (WCYA) published This Pup Steps Up! with Rockridge Press in 2021. This Pup Steps Up! is a preschool rhyming romp through the world of dogs, full of cute and colorful photos to help little ones learn more about their four-legged friends.

Emily Lanctot

Blair Vaughn-Gruler

class news

Gwen Mullins’s (W) story “Violent Devotion” was chosen for the Best Mystery Stories of the Year: 2022 by series editor Otto Penzler and guest editor Sara Paretsky. Additionally, her story “Brood X” was published in Cleaver Magazine in March 2022.

2012

Cynthia Newberry Martin’s (W) novel Tidal Flats, the 2020 IPPY Award Winner for Literary Fiction and the 2020 NIEA Winner for General Fiction, was released in paperback in June 2022. Newberry Martin’s second novel, Love Like This, will be published on April 4, 2023.

Laurie Easter (W) published her essay collection, All The Leavings, with Oregon State University Press in late 2021. The collection was featured by The Rumpus, and an essay from the collection, “Searching for Gwen,” appeared in A Harp in the Stars: An Anthology of Lyric Essays (published by University of Nebraska Press). All the Leavings won a 2022 Next Generation Indie Book Award for Memoir (Personal Struggle/Health Issues) and placed as a finalist in the category of Women’s Literature (Nonfiction).

Lyn Miller-Lachmann’s (WCYA) middle grade novel-inverse, Moonwalking (co-authored by Zetta Elliott), was published by FSG in April 2022. Miller-Lachmann additionally published She Persisted: Temple Grandin as a part of the critically acclaimed She Persisted chapter book series from Philomel.

Laurie Morrison (WCYA) published her novel Coming Up Short with Abrams/Amulet Books in June 2022. Coming Up Short is a heartfelt novel about a softball-loving girl coming to terms with her parents’ humanity after a scandal sends shock waves through her town.

Rachel Smoka-Richardson (WCYA) published three books in 2022: Cinderelliot (Running Press Kids), Cheer Fears (Capstone Press), and Track and Field Trick (Capstone Press).

Andrea Taylor (’14 VA) was a part of a threeperson exhibition, We Can Only Hint at This With Words, at the Gordon Smith Gallery of Canadian Art. An accompanying zine was developed for the exhibition, created by fellow alumnx Margery Theroux (’14).

Shari Swanson’s (WCYA) Honey, The Dog Who Saved Abe Lincoln won the Kentucky Bluegrass Award from the Kentucky Association of School Libraries. Swanson’s book Gertie, The Darling Duck of WWII is set for publication with Sleeping Bear Press in 2023.

2013

Jason Malli (MC) received the Experiential Summer Learning Grant from the Fund for Teachers. In the summer of 2022, he traveled to three distinct workshops, including the World Music Pedagogy Workshop at West Virginia University; Teaching Guitar Workshop in Nashville, Tennessee; and the Sound Healing Certification Retreat in Salem, New Hampshire. In addition, he became an adjunct professor at Goodwin University in the Humanities Department. He is currently teaching “Introduction to Humanities.” His work, “streams {if glimmers were beacons cast meandering},” from his Immersive Mindfulness collection of multimedia compositions was included in the Earth Day Art Model 2022 Telematic Festival.

2014

Katie Crawford (W) was awarded a 2022 Pinesong Award by the North Carolina Poetry Society for her poem “Litchfield Beach.” The poem was published in the 2022 Pinesong Awards Anthology In addition, Crawford has finished a second historical novel and is working on a nonfiction book project with three other writers, including a fellow VCFA alumnx.

Julia Dixon (VA) was awarded an Artist Fellowship in Painting from the Mass Cultural Council in May 2022. Dixon’s first solo exhibition, Memento Mori, was on view at the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, MA, from June 4 to September 11, 2022. She was awarded best in show at the museum’s second biennial Art of the Hills: Narrative in 2020.

Gail Hanlon (W) published Mirabilia (poetry) with Dancing Girl Press in the spring of 2022.

Miranda Jane Houng’s (WCYA) picture book, Asian Elephant Art, was published with SingTao Publishing Ltd in 2022. This picture book tells the story of a traumatized elephant in Thailand who comes to terms with loss by painting.

Julia Dixon

Jess Rinker (WCYA) published The Hike to Home with FSG/ Macmillan in 2022, a middle grade adventure about a young girl and her two new friends braving the wilderness to find a castle, prove a local legend, and discover the true meaning of home. Rinker also recently started working at a glass-blowing studio, which she says “has been incredibly fun and a wonderful departure from the sedentary act of writing. Glass blowing is physically hard, requires intense mindfulness, and yet you can go home with a functioning (albeit not necessarily pretty) piece.”

Ann Huang’s (W) poem-film, IN THE DESERT OF ETERNITY (written and directed by Huang), was screened at the Marina del Rey Film Festival in 2022 as part of the ANN HUANG PRESENTS short film limited series.

Robin Kirk (WCYA) published her nonfiction book Righting Wrongs: 20 Human Rights Heroes

Around the World in June 2022 with Chicago Review Press. The Mother’s Wheel—the third book in Kirk’s The Bond Trilogy with Far Eek Books—is set to release in September 2022. She is also starting to plan Volume 2 of Righting Wrongs (featuring 20 more fascinating human rights heroes) and is digging into a new space opera.

Shawn Tolley (MC) was selected to be a Fund for Teachers Fellow. The fellowship allowed him to travel to Hawaii and other Pacific Islands to study music and culture. With the help of island residents, Tolley compiled music, dances, and cultural information to create materials for elementary music teachers to provide authentic learning opportunities from these cultures.

Robin Ward McLaurin (VA) became the Laguna Madre Field Station Artist-in-Residence. Ward McLaurin extracted salt from Laguna Madre water to create a photographic emulsion. The emulsion was then applied to paper to create an image called a Salt Print. The exhibits were held in September 2022 at the Art Center of Corpus Christi and in October 2022 at the Texas A&M Corpus Christi Bell Library.

2015

Tziporah Cohen (WCYA), author of No Vacancy, won the 2021 Jean Little First-Novel Award (presented by the Canadian Children’s Book Center). Established in 2021, the Jean Little FirstNovel Award is intended to recognize the achievements of a first-time Canadian children’s middle grade novelist.

Samantha M. Eckert (VA) hosted her multimedia solo exhibition of sculpture and paintings, Besieged by Wonder, at the AVA Gallery and Art Center in New Hampshire in April 2022.

Daniel Godsil (MC) accepted an offer for the tenure-track Music Professor position at Columbia College in Sonora, CA. Godsil will be teaching music theory, sight-singing, electronic music and recording, keyboard, and composition, as well as directing various performing ensembles at the school. Additionally, Godsil’s dissertation composition was published in SCI Journal of Music Scores, Volume 62–63 A movement of Godsil’s dissertation composition (a string quartet written for Spektral Quartet) will be published in the Society of Composers, Inc., Journal of Scores

Marjorie Halloran (MC) released the second installment in her “Pandemic Sessions” EP series. This latest release, Portrait of a Disappointment, features chamber pop songs discussing mental illnesses (and fallout), that one ex you haven’t spoken to in 10 years, and the fate of an adorable raccoon who eats too much. Halloran premiered two new choral pieces in 2022, “Our First April” at the I Belong to You multimedia concert in Texas, and a setting of Langston Hughes’s “April Rain Song” performed by the New Jersey Gay Men’s Chorus at their spring concerts in New Jersey.

Emilie Upczak’s (’15 F) short narrative film, SILT (produced by alumnx John Otterbacher [’15]), received the Special Jury Award at the Independent Film Festival Boston.

Robin Ward McLaurin

Samantha M. Eckert

Marjorie Halloran

class news

Monica Lee Copeland (W) recently joined the Children’s Bureau of Southern California team as the new Chief Development Officer.

Rachel Sarrano’s (MC) most recent composition, “The 5 Stages of Grief,” was written for upright bass and voice. The piece grapples with the emotional fallout surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. It premiered online as part of “Bass Works @ Home ’21,” featuring bassist Kimberly Parillo.

Abigail Hing Wen (WCYA) published Loveboat Reunion—the much anticipated follow-up to her bestselling book, Loveboat, Taipei with HarperTeen at the start of 2022.

Jude Ford’s (W) memoir of modern medicine and magic, Fever of Unknown Origin, is set to publish (date TBD) with Wipe and Stock. She is currently working on a poetry chapbook and an essay collection.

Tirzah Price (WCYA) published her latest YA reimagining of Jane Austen, Sense and SecondDegree Murder, with HarperCollins in April 2022.

Kenneth Raimondi (F) and his team embedded with five trainees as they endured Air Force Basic Training from October 2019 to January 2020. His eight-episode long-form documentary, BASIC, is now available to watch on YouTube.

Joni Sensel (WCYA) published her memoir, Feeling Fate: A Memoir of Love, Intuition, and Spirit, with She Writes Press in April 2022. Additionally, she recently became a certified grief educator and hospice volunteer who uses writing and other creative explorations to help others deal with loss and grief. Lastly, Sensel recently sold her latest YA historical fantasy, A Curse on the Wind, to Wild Rose, with publication set for later this year or early next year.

Nicole Troxell’s (W) screenplay, THE STRATHMOOR, won the Hollywood Just4Shorts official award for Best Short Screenplay in the summer of 2021.

Alison Wisdom’s (W) novel, The Burning Season, was published with HarperCollins in July 2022.

Aaron Wyanski’s (MC) song cycle, “Three Benedictions,” premiered at Carnegie Hall in April 2022 with vocalist Yoon Sun Choi and pianist Jacob Sacks.

2016

Paula Allen (F) has launched a new initiative, The Planet Turtle Community Art Project, funded by the Gobioff Foundation. Through this project, kids in coastal areas of the USA and in India are coming together to create animations and visual art with themes bringing attention to how we can help save sea turtle populations.

Lenore Appelhans (WCYA) published the picture book The Family Business with HarperChildrens in 2022.

Katch Campbell (W) has started writing poetry reviews for Mad Poets Society. Her goal is to feature VCFA poets. June’s blog features Bruce Arlen Wasserman’s (’17) forthcoming chapbook. August features faculty member Sue William Silverman’s (’88) forthcoming poetry collection. If you have a collection coming out, or recently published and want exposure in a solid East Coast market, please send her a note at katchcampbell@ gmail.com. Additionally, Campbell is still on the board and faculty of River Pretty Writers Retreat, a biannual, low-cost, high-quality writing retreat in the Ozarks. The retreat takes place between VCFA residencies so that writers can get a mid-semester boost and work with a wide variety of published authors. Learn more at riverprettywritersretreat.org

Jennifer Lang’s (W) book, Places We Left Behind, is set to publish in late 2023 with Vine Leaves press.

Emily Young’s (WCYA) short story, “What Olivia Knew,” won first place in the Middle Grade category of the Hunger Mountain Review 2021 Katherine Paterson contest.

Laurie Wallmark (WCYA) published her picture book, Dino Pajama Party, in the fall of 2021.

Monica Roe (WCYA) published her middle grade novel, AIR, with Macmillan in early 2022.

Beth Bacon (WCYA) published the picture book Helping the World Get Well: Covid Vaccines with Blair Press in November 2021. This book explains to kids how vaccines will help rid the world of COVID-19, and how kids have a role to play in that mission.

Paige Garwood (MC) has been working on the Americana EP Looking Back (working title) with five of Garwood’s favorite songs from the ’70s, plus a favorite hymn. Garwood has been hired to record an audiobook with original compositions included.

2017

Jenn Bailey’s (WCYA) picture book A Friend for Henry was named a 2021–2022 Virginia Reads selection. In 2021, she published The Ghostly Tales of Newport with Arcadia Children’s Books. In 2022, she published her picture book, This is the Boat that Ben Built, with Pajama Press. Finally, she has had the following book deals announced: Henry, Like Always (Chronicle, 2023), another Henry book with title TBD (Chronicle, 2024), and The 12 Hours of Christmas (Little, Brown, 2023).

Tyler Friend’s (WP) collection of poems, Him or Her or Whatever, came out with Alternating Current Press in March 2022.

Lori Victor (’17 VA) showed the installation “Roots” at Corridor 45/75 in Ottawa, Canada, from July 15 to November 7, 2021. Exploring the subject of migration, “Roots” consisted of two parts: an installation and photographs of “roots” made from repurposed paintings. Victor is currently continuing her artistic work in migration issues, creating a collaborative work with another woman artist.

2018

Donny Broussard’s (F) two films by Donny as producer, THE SHELTER and SUNDAY GIRL, became available on streaming platforms for different territories around the world.

Amber Rose Crowtree (W) published her memoir-in-poems, The Inviolable Hours, with Finishing Line Press in late 2021. Her poem “Lamentation of the ButterflyEnvelopes” was published among the finalists for the 2022 James Hearst Poetry Prize in North American Review

Anita Pazner (WCYA) published The Topsy-Turvy Bus with Lerner Publishing in early 2022. Pazner is currently creating a science-based novel series with a companion card game, and a social justice-focused nonfiction literary picture book for upper elementary students focusing on how our words linger long after they are spoken or written.

Suma Subramaniam (WCYA) published two books, Fairies and Centaurs, with Capstone Publishing in August 2021.

Diane Telgen (WCYA) published The Ghostly Tales of the Midwest with Arcadia Children’s Books in 2022. Adapted from the bestselling adult series, Arcadia Children’s Books is bringing the ghoulishly gruesome stories of our nation’s undead souls to a middle grade audience.

Megan Vered (W) published “An Abandoned Immigrant Finds Her Voice: An Interview with Allison Hong Merrill” in The Writer’s Chronicle Vered is currently working on another interview for The Writer’s Chronicle and exploring more opportunities for collaborative writing. Vered had two essays published in Kveller: “Scattering My Mother’s Ashes Felt More Jewish Than I Thought It Would” and “Paying Off The Torah Dealer Was My Father’s Final Act of Redemption.” Vered continues to teach intimate weekly writing groups.

Amanda West Lewis (WCYA) published These Are Not the Words, a semi-autobiographical novel based on events and people in her own childhood growing up in New York City in the 1960s, in April 2022 with Groundwood Books. Lewis is currently editing a book of poetry, The Planet Poems (Kids Can Press, 2023), where each planet is explored in a different poetic form. Lewis is also editing a new novel called Focus, Click, Wind (Groundwood Books, 2023).

Jay Whistler’s (WCYA) chapter book, The Ghostly Tales of PutIn-Bay, was published with Arcadia Publishing in May 2022. Whistler is also working on her freelance editing business and her contemporary YA novel.

Allison Hong Merrill (W) received numerous honors in 2021 and 2022: the 2021 Millennium Book Award Grand Prize (UK); 2022 London Book Festival; 2022 Book Excellence Awards; 2021 Readers’ Favorite International Book Award Gold Medal; 2021 Literary Titan Book Award Gold Medal; 2022 The Book Fest Book Award First Place; 2021 IAN Outstanding Non-Fiction Award; 2021 IAN Book of the Year; 2021 The Zibby Awards; 2021 International Impact Book Awards; 2021 Firebird Book Award; 2022 Feathered Quill Book Awards; 2021–2022 Reader Views Literary Awards; 2022 Selfies Book Awards (shortlisted finalist); 2022 The Eric Hoffer Book Award Grand Prize (shortlisted finalist); 2022 The Eric Hoffer Book Award First Horizon Award (finalis); and the 2022 The Eric Hoffer Book Award (honorable mention). She is currently working on a piece of memoir, Ninety-Nine Lost Fathers, and an upmarket fiction, Six Sage Society

Jennifer Kathleen Gibbons’s (WP) essay, “The Big Dead Rat,” was featured in the anthology Chicken Soup for the Soul: Your 10 Keys to Happiness: 101 Real-Life Stories That Will Show You How to Improve Your Life in July 2022. She is also continuing to work on her narrative nonfiction book about how she helped solve the cold case of Suzanne Bombardier.

class news

Melissa McClung’s (F) film, ALL THE MARBLES, opened the All Ages Shorts program at the Maryland Film Festival and closed the All Ages program at the Easthampton Film Festival in Easthampton, MA, in 2022.

Jason Fowler (GD) was named the 2021–2022 Alpha Chi Teacher of the Year, as voted by the student body at Chowan University.

Evan Griffith’s (WCYA) middle grade book, Manatee Summer (a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection), was published in 2022 with Quill Tree/HarperCollins. Griffith also has two more middle grade novels forthcoming from Quill Tree/ HarperCollins in 2024 and 2025, as well as a new picture book biography forthcoming from Sleeping Bear Press in 2024.

Linda Murphy Marshall (W) published Ivy Lodge: A Memoir of Translation and Discovery in June 2022 with She Writes Press. She is currently putting the final touches on a second memoir, Through the Window of Languages: A Memoir

Marcie Roman’s (W) debut middle grade novel, Journey to the Parallels, was published in May 2022 by Fitzroy Books.

2019

Sara Backer (W) published poems in Land Luck Review, White Wall Review, Coastal Shelf, Eye to the Telescope, Turtle Island Quarterly, and Lake Effect, with more to be published in Muddy River Review, Vincent Brothers Review, Wood Cat, Penumbric, The Comstock Review, Bamboo Ridge, and Poetry Northwest Backer is additionally sending out her second book manuscript, Impossible White Goat. Lastly, she is writing more poems and attempting to get into translation.

Sue Ganz-Schmitt (WCYA) received various awards this year for her books. The picture book Now I’m a Bird received the Story Monsters Approved Book of the Year Award for 2022; Mom’s Choice Award for 2021; and Firebird Book Awards: Juvenile Fiction (First Place), Picture Book for All Ages (First Place) for 2021. The picture book That Monster on the Block received the 2021 Hindi’s Females of Fiction Literary Award; Royal Dragonfly Awards for 2021: Humor (2nd Place), Picture Books 5 and Younger (Honorable Mention); Firebird Book Awards 2021: Children’s Humor (First Place), Children’s Picture Book Ages 4–8 (2nd Place), Children’s Illustration (First Place), Juvenile Fiction (3rd Place); Kid’s Book Choice Awards 2021: Best Picture Book Ages 3–8 (Nominee); and Missouri Show Me Award 2021 (Nominee, Recommended Reading List Title). The middle grade fantasy Twice Cursed was the Sue Alexander Award 2021 runner-up. Schmitt is currently developing TV/ streaming series pitches based on two picture books written during her time at VCFA .

Paul Gilliland (MC) published his first book of poetry, Hindsights of 2020. In July 2021, he had 10 sonnets selected for inclusion in Sonnet Sanctuary: Anthology Volume 1 and has had poems published in the last four volumes of the Open Skies Quarterly, including a poem featured as a winner in the Narrative Approach challenge. He has also become a regular contributor to the Raven Cage and Dark Poetry Society e-zines. His next two books of poetry are The Journey of the Fool and Tales from a Southwest Inn

Brad Heck’s (F) film SISTERS RISING re-aired on PBS through America Reframed/World Channel in late 2021.

Sarah Leamy (W) published G’dog—a collection of vignettes set in the animal world and inspired by a few anonymous Russian fables of the early 20th century—with Finishing Line Press in March 2022.

Tamara Perkins’s (F) latest film, CLARISSA’S BATTLE, had its world premiere in 2022 at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival in New York.

Anne McGrath (W) placed essays in Creative Nonfiction and Under the Sun; interviews in The Millions, BOMB Magazine, and The Writer’s Chronicle; and art/ visual poetry in Ilanot Review, The Indianapolis Review, The American Journal of Poetry, Ethel Zine, and Thrush Poetry Journal. In addition to her publications, McGrath recently took a job as the Executive Assistant to the EIC of Monkfish Publishing, a press specializing in spiritual/religious books of all genres. She encourages VCFA students and alumnx to send literary manuscripts for consideration.

Shruthi Manjula Balakrishna (GD) started North Carolina State University’s Doctor of Design program, continuing her research work on design and behavioral psychology around influence and persuasion pre and post pandemic.

2020

Jena Burchick’s (F) shortform documentary, THE LOCAL OYSTER STOUT, was the recipient of a Capital Emmy Award in the summer of 2021. The award represents the “Chesapeake Heritage - Short Form Content” category of the National Capital Chesapeake Bay Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. In addition, Burchick’s film, MOM & M, was one of 11 documentary features chosen to screen and participate in the 2021 Geena Davis Bentonville Film Festival Documentary Competition.

Laura Obuobi’s (‘21 WCYA) poetic picture book that celebrates Black children, Black Gold, is set to publish in October 2022 with HarperCollins. Additionally, in 2021, four BIPOC writers from the WCYA program connected as a way to begin to build community among the BIPOC writers in the program.

Kayleigh Marinelli (WP) published her YA book, The Fantastic Fabricated Life of Lyle Farker, in late 2021 with Atmosphere Press.

J. Scott Price’s (W) poem “Spring Thaw” was chosen as the grand prize winner at the Cuddy Family Foundation for Veterans & Military Writers Society of America Poetry & Short Story Contest 2022.

Soren Sorensen’s (F) film WITH DAD was streamed with GBH on World Alzheimer’s Day in September 2021.

John Valadez’s (F) VCFA thesis film, AMERICAN EXILE, had a primetime national television broadcast on PBS in November 2021.

Caleb Curtiss (W) received the Individual Artist Fellowship from the Delaware Division of the Arts. Delaware’s Individual Artist Fellowships recognize artists for their outstanding quality of work and provide monetary awards.

Julian Gerstin (MC) recorded music for Sandglass Theater’s new production, Flushing, set to release in September 2022.

Obuobi says, “In 2022, the need for a WCYA BIPOC Writers Group continues to grow against a backdrop of continued hostility toward BIPOC creatives in the form of book bans and Critical Race Theory-based agendas. Our voices and stories are needed more than ever. We invite current students and alumnx who are Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, or racially different from white folks to join us. Please email us at wcyabipocwriters@ vcfa.edu for more information on how we’re trying to stay connected and build community or if you want to join our very low-stakes Slack channel.”

Felice Gittelman (VA) hosted her exhibition Grass + Roots: Peekskill to Poughkeepsie at the A. Eric Arctander Gallery at the Belle Levine Art Center in the fall of 2021. In the past year, she became a founding member of a nonprofit initiative to create an arts-and-crafts thrift store to support recycling and reuse of art materials—a proactive method of diverting waste from the landfill. Retake-Remake: Art Thriftshop launched in February 2022.

Tracy Haught’s (WP) story, “Puking by the Sea: An Ode to Slim and a Bic Pen,” was a finalist in the Spring 2021 Lumiere Review Fiction Contest. Haught’s CNF piece, “Rainbows and Widows: Broke-down in Dodge City,” was published in SLAB Magazine in October 2021.

Felice Gittelman

class news

Aileen Johnson’s (WCYA) first publication, “Multiply By One,” was featured in The Quiet Ones—a queer-centered triannual e-zine—in early 2022.

Lakita Wilson (WCYA) published the contemporary middle grade novel Be Real, Macy Weaver with Viking Children’s/Penguin Random House in 2022. Wilson is currently working on her debut young adult novel, which will be out spring 2023, and a second middle grade novel, which will be out fall 2023.

Arthur Jordan’s (F) film THE STARTER MARRIAGE is now widely available to watch on platforms such as iTunes, AppleTV, Amazon, Google Play, and YouTube.

Sidura Ludwig’s (WCYA) debut picture book, Rising, is set to publish in May 2024 with Candlewick. The book chronicles the story of a girl learning how to bake challah with her mother, a staple of Jewish families and community gatherings for generations.

Karen Krossing’s (WCYA) debut picture book, Sour Cakes, was selected as an Ontario Library Association Top Ten Best Bet for 2021. Krossing is proud to share this honor with illustrator Anna Kwan and publisher Owlkids Books. Krossing’s next book, One Tiny Bubble: The Story of Our Last Universal Common Ancestor, icame out in September 2022 with Owlkids Books. Lastly, her picture book titled My Street Remembers is forthcoming with Groundwood Books (spring 2023), and her middle grade fantasy novel titled Monster vs. Boy is forthcoming with Charlesbridge Publishing (fall 2023).

Miles Liss (W) was a winner of the 2021 AWP Kurt Brown Prize for Poetry. He plans on using the prize money to attend the Porches Retreat in Virginia.

Henry Simonds (VA) helped launch the inaugural Pedantic Arts Residency. Pedantic is a month-long residential program in Pittsburgh for one artist, one curator, and one writer who live together and engage with the local arts and creative communities. In addition to this project, Simonds has begun to make new work that explores issues around male body image and dysmorphia.

Mary Warren Foulk’s (W) chapbook If I Could Write You a Happier Ending was selected by Dancing Girl Press (2021) for their annual series featuring women poets. Her manuscript Erasures of My Coming Out (Letter) won first place in The Poetry Box’s 2021 chapbook contest. Her manuscript Self-Portrait with Erosion was a finalist for the 2021 Gival Press Poetry Award.

2021

Christina Bell’s (W) short story “Mama” was published in the Spring 2022 issue of Witness Magazine: Missed Connections. Bell read part of the story at the Black Mountain Institute Wave In Festival.

Pernille AEgidius Dake’s (W) short story “Uphill” appeared in The Write Launch in 2022. Earlier versions were finalists for Glimmer Train Press New Writer Award, as well as the Curt Johnson Prose Award. Dake’s story “Meaning” was published with On the Run Fiction in early 2022.

Yerania Del Orbe’s (F) short film LA SANTERA won Best Short Film (the top prize) at the Katra Film Festival. Del Orbe won Best Actress at the International Film Festival for her role in the film.

Antonio Forte (MC) was commissioned by the American University Dance Company to compose a new piece of music for the 2022 AU DANCEWORKS. As the INTERFERENCE New Music Collective’s Emerging Composer Fellow, Forte premiered a new composition, “Diptych,” in 2021. Forte is currently collaborating with visual artist Taleen Batalian and choreographer/dancer Heidi Henderson on an installation/performance piece titled “Tender Cargo.”

Mitu Malhotra’s (WCYA) short story “Toxins” was acquired by CommonLit, an education technology nonprofit that used the short story for its original content English Language Arts curriculum for grades 6–10. The story highlights an Indian immigrant girl’s struggle to straddle two worlds and encourages young readers to seek sustainable food practices in a time of waste and global food shortage.

Anne Myles’s (W) poem “Bane” was co-winner of the 2022 ellipsis... Award, judged by Carolyn Forché.

Mony Nation (GD) was one of 40 winners for LensCulture Critics’ Choice ’22. The image chosen was from Nation’s recent MFA thesis, Discovering Deloach. Additionally in 2022, Nation was a part of the Happy Little Trees exhibition with the Islip Arts Council Gallery, and had an image exhibited at the Montgomery Photo Festival for one week in August. The image then continued to Troy University for one month. Lastly, Nation self-published a travel photo book in the summer of 2022.

Chris Tomlinson (F) received Honorable Mentions at the 2021 Azure Lorica Fan Film Festival and the 2021 Violette Film Festival, and was selected for the 2021 Bitesize Film Festival, all for the short film GHOSTBUSTERS: GENERATIONS

2022

Kevin Cornwell (MC) was honored as a “Composer of the Week” on the curated website movingclassics. tv, located in Munich. Cornwell is currently working on two string quartets: “Temporal Geometry,” that honors the life and death of Cornwell’s father, and “Sonata,” that expresses the exuberance of astronomical discovery.

Jehanne Dubrow’s (W) book Taste: A Book of Small Bites was published with Columbia University Press in August 2022. Dubrow is also in the process of finishing a new poetry manuscript, Civilians. The book will function as the final book in her groundbreaking military spouse trilogy, concluding the work of her earlier collections, Stateside (Northwestern University Press, 2010) and Dots & Dashes (Southern Illinois University Press, 2017).

Christine Lavosky (W) published her hybrid fiction/nonfiction piece, “4 AM // Self-Avatar Thought Experiment,” with Queen Mob’s Teahouse at the start of 2022.

Nadia Martinez (VA) hosted a solo exhibition, The Promise of Sweetness, in 2022 with the Stamford Art Association. In this body of work, by using sugar and its derivatives as her material, she embraced process as a new aesthetic form, creating the conditions for contemplation, discovery, and generosity.

Gaea Schell (MC) received the Chamber Music America Performance Plus Grant in 2022. Support from CMA and IntermusicSF will enable recording of a new CD, Gaea Schell Qt & guests, featuring original compositions and arrangements.

Diana Norma Szokolyai (W) was selected as a Center for Arts + Social Justice Fellow at VCFA. The Center for Arts + Social Justice Fellowship supported her book of Romani poetry in translation.

Yvonne Ventresca’s (WCYA) 2014 debut novel, Pandemic, was released as a new edition by Sky Pony Press, with updated resources and backmatter.

Kwame Daniels (W) had a book of poetry, Light Spun, released in August 2022 with Perennial Press. The collection spans about three years of the development of the relationship the body has with itself, love, the world, and Black American spirituality.

Erica George’s (WCYA) novel The Edge of Summer was published in June 2022 with Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.

LiAnne Yu (W) placed first in the 2022 Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards poetry category for four poems she submitted. As part of the award, Yu was invited to read at the festival in March as well as participate in a masters workshop.

IN MEMORIAM

Gail Meehan (’70 VTCOLL) passed in December of 2021. She was passionate about genealogy research and connecting with her family from around the world.

Susan Robertson (‘87 W)— author, educator, history and antiques lover, and dedicated community member—passed away in September of 2021.

David Howard (‘00 W) passed in July of 2021. He was a prolific short story writer and journalist. He served in the United States Army in Vietnam from 1966-1969.

Vivian Dorsel (‘06 W), a committed and deeply involved writer and editor, passed away in December of 2021. She founded Ledgetop Publishing and was an editor at upstreet journal. You can read more about her life-long generosity, giving, and the scholarship she founded at VCFA on page 43.

CURRENT STUDENTS*

Katie Andrews Potter (WCYA) started offering online creative classes for adults and kids in May 2022. For more information, visit writebackwhen.online/classes

Timothy Hastings’s (F) script, JUST ONE OF THE GIRLS, was a Finalist at the Bigfoot Script Challenge at the Seattle International Film Festival in 2022. An earlier version of the script was a Quarter Finalist at the Atlanta Screenplay Awards.

Jen Malia’s (WCYA) chapter book series, The Infinity Rainbow Club, has been acquired by Andrea Hall at Beaming Books in a three-book deal. The first story follows an autistic boy competing in a brick-builder challenge with a partner when he’s used to working alone. Publication starts in fall 2023.

Sarah-Lizz Myers’s (W) first published piece, “Robotic Pancreas,” was published in the 83rd issue of Kaleidoscope Magazine by UDS in July 2021.

Jacquetta Nammar Feldman (WCYA) published her middle grade novel, Wishing Upon the Same Stars, with HarperCollins in early 2022. The novel is a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection. Feldman’s next middle grade novel, The Puttermans Are in the House, is due out from HarperCollins in winter 2023.

Bruce Tindall (‘02 W) of San Diego, CA, died on July 17, 2021. He was born in Baton Rouge, LA, on April 23, 1956 to George Brown Tindall, a historian of the American South, and Blossom Carliss McGarrity Tindall. He had a BS in math from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, an MA in Liberal Studies from Duke University and an MFA in poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts. He worked in computer programming in Cary, NC, for two decades, then began work as an editor, copy editor and indexer of Sinological studies from 2000 onward. Bruce was the coauthor of two books: Did Mohawks Wear Mohawks? and How Does Olive Oil Lose Its Virginity? He was the loving husband of historian Sarah Schneewind and loving father of Leonora Tindall.

Mark Karlins (Faculty, WCYA), author and poet, passed away in January of 2022. Mark Karlins was the author of six children’s picture books, his last picture book being Kiyoshi’s Walk, illustrated by Nicole Wong (Lee & Low, March 2021). He will be remembered as a devoted educator and advisor known for his endless encouragement, thoughtfulness, and joy. The VCFA community will forever be touched by his legacy. Here are a few words from Uma Krishnaswami, WCYA Faculty: “Mark was funny, big-hearted, an insightful reader, a walking clearinghouse of obscure literary information. I knew him from his eccentric, quirky picture books before I ever met him. I was privileged to be his workshop partner and VCFA colleague and thrilled when he joined a critique group I’d been part of for years. I miss his friendship, his laughter, and his magical picture book mind.”

*News items in this column reflect the graduation status of the submitter at the time the original news submission was collected.

Investing in People and Programs

This year, we have solidified our fundraising priorities to directly support VCFA’s four strategic initiatives and focus our resources toward our commitment to equity and empowerment, increasing access to our academic programs, providing life-long commitment to our alumnx, and recognizing the impact of art as a tool for change through the Center for Arts + Social Justice.

More than 70% of students at VCFA rely on scholarships to meet the cost of tuition. Scholarship support profoundly impacts our ability to serve emerging artists and empower more students to seek creative expression through the arts, providing them with the means to develop their passions, expand their practices, strengthen their networks, and transform their work and careers.

The Artists Development Fund is VCFA’s primary scholarships fund, supporting diversity and program scholarships that benefit a range of students in all six of our

Ways to Give

graduate programs. Additionally, Program Scholarships provide vital support to new and returning VCFA students based on need and merit, and they can be directed toward particular programs.

The VCFA Annual Fund is one of the most powerful ways to invest in our community and the future of the college. The VCFA Fund directly supports academic program operations, development and retention of VCFA’s outstanding faculty, financial aid for students, the resources and technology needed to deliver our unique and innovative educational experience, and professional development and career support for students and alumnx.

Gifts designated to VCFA’s new Center for Arts + Social Justice directly support the Center’s public event series, Center-sponsored residency guests, and the Center’s Academic Fellowship program—a program established to provide support for students whose work shows a commitment to social justice, to celebrate and highlight that work, and to create a networking opportunity for recipients.

There are many ways to show your commitment to Vermont College of Fine Arts by investing in the people and community that are at the core of what we do and who we are. Whether you choose to support scholarships that keep arts education affordable, the programs and faculty that transformed your own life and creative practices, or new initiatives like our Center for Arts + Social Justice, your gift helps VCFA move into its next chapter as a thriving arts college and sustains us well into the future. We welcome your support at any level, in any way that feels meaningful to you.

MFA Society

Established in 2019, VCFA’s MFA Society was formed to expand the traditional idea of giving and offer flexible, personalized donation opportunities for alumnx who want to give back. As a Monthly Funder of the A rts (MFA), alumnx can establish easy, automatic monthly gifts with the college and create a system of giving that works for them. Every monthly gift allows the College to better fund scholarships, invest in faculty development, and bring visiting artists and scholars to VCFA each year. Joining the MFA Society is as easy as making an online donation and setting up a monthly payment option

Legacy Society

Planned gifts are a wonderful way to support VCFA and our students now and well into the future. Create a legacy of support for the arts by remembering VCFA in your will. Planned gifts can include estate gifts, bequests, gifts of real estate, and more. If you’d like to learn more about the Legacy Society, you can reach out to the Office of Institutional Advancement directly at advancement@vcfa.edu

To become a Monthly Fund of the Arts, or to give an annual gift in support scholarships or the Annual Fund, please visit vcfa.edu/donate

Visit

Meet a Few of our Alumnx Donors

The generosity and consideration of our alumnx donors continues to open doors and create new, vital opportunities for our entire VCFA community. Hear from a few of our alumnx donors on why they give.

Athena Hernandez, (’16 WCYA) on giving to The Rita Williams-Garcia Scholarship Fund*

“As a BIPOC writer and graduate of the VCFA WCYA program, it was the presence of Rita Williams-Garcia that led me to VCFA, and her guidance as my very first advisor that gave me the confidence to pursue my dreams and the fortitude to do the work. For me—and other students like me—she is a waymaker. She has pushed open doors and widened tables to make space for BIPOC writers to be in the room with a seat at the table. And I’m thrilled to see her name once again attached to the WCYA program—a name and a presence that made all the difference for me.”

*The Rita Williams-Garcia Scholarship Fund has been established as a restricted endowment to provide tuition support for BIPOC writers (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) in the MFA in Writing for Children & Young Adults.

Lorilee Rager, (’21 GD) in support of VCFA’s Graphic Design Program Scholarships

“I am not only a better designer, but a better human because of all that VCFA taught me. The community and support from all over the world of incredibly caring and talented alumnx, faculty, and staff is not something I could ever put a price tag on. I try to give back each year because I want to support such a wonderful institution that gave me so very much in both advancing my career as well as helping my own mental health. I’ll carry the goodness of VCFA for the rest of my life and always support them.”

Remembering Vivian Dorsel

Vivian Packard Dorsel (‘06 W), editor and publisher, died in the Charlotte, NC area on Wednesday, December 22, 2021.

Vivian had a great passion for the literary community and helping writers of all ages. She was managing editor of The Berkshire Review from 1997-2004. She founded Ledgetop Publishing and was editor of upstreet, a literary journal with national scope, from 2005 until her passing. She has taught writing workshops in many venues, including at Taconic High School in Pittsfield, where she was a consultant to the student literary magazine, The Double Edged Sword, for seven years. She was also a writing tutor at Word Street in Pittsfield, MA.

As a beloved member of VCFA’s writing community, Vivian was a true champion of writers, with a natural gift for empowering those around her. She was a supporter of the MFA in Writing program and the Postgraduate Writers’ Conference, and so many of our students and emerging writers benefited from both her spirit and generosity.

In honor of Vivian and her legacy, many thoughtful memorial donations from our community have been made to VCFA’s upstreet Scholarship Fund. Created by Vivian and upstreet magazine, the upsteet Scholarship Fund supports writers entering the MFA in Writing program who might not otherwise be able to attend VCFA without scholarship support.

If you’d like to make a donation to the upstreet Scholarship Fund in Vivian’s honor, please visit vcfa.edu/donate

a community gives

The Alumnx Commons

The Office of Institutional Advancement is excited to announce the launch of the Alumnx Commons. Designed to support and supplement our existing Program Commons sites, the Alumnx Commons was created exclusively for the continued use of our entire alumnx community. After months of development, we welcomed the first round of VCFA graduates to the Alumnx Commons in the fall of 2022.

On the Commons site, all users have access to:

• The Alumnx Directory, a voluntary listing of our alumnx network that allows users to connect and collaborate with one another.

• The Career Services page, a lexicon of job boards, grant and fellowship listings, conferences to be aware of, VCFA professional development opportunities, and our ever-expanding Video Gallery full of industry-specific panels and workshops.

• The Connect page and the News & Events page, two resources full of ways to stay in touch with all things VCFA.

This is only the beginning for the Alumnx Commons. The site will continue to grow as new users join daily, as we regularly upload videos, and as we roll out updated features in 2023 and beyond.

We want to take this opportunity to thank our amazing Wordpress Developer Mary Rath for her incredible work on the Commons, our beta testers for their early feedback, and the alumnx who have already joined and engaged with the site. If you have not yet joined this dynamic virtual space, we encourage you to visit alum.vcfa.edu, or to scan the QR code below.

We cannot wait for you to explore the Commons, and we look forward to connecting with you on this still expanding platform. If you have any questions about the Alumnx Commons, please contact the IA team at alumnx@vcfa.edu.

Connect with Alumnx

Welcome to VCFA

This year VCFA welcomed two new trustees to its distinguished Board of Trustees

WCYA)

Kate Hosford grew up in Waitsfield, Vermont, and attended Amherst College. After Amherst, she studied at the University of Göttingen in Germany on a Rotary scholarship. In 1990, she began her career as a foster care worker in Brooklyn, and later became an elementary school teacher at schools in New York, San Francisco, and Hong Kong. After completing a two-year illustration degree at Pratt, Kate eventually decided that she would rather paint pictures with words, and turned her focus to picture books.

In 2011, Kate completed her MFA in Writing for Children & Young Adults at VCFA. Since then, she has published five picture books and two poetry collections on topics such as circus chefs, the meaning of infinity, and the science behind how animals sleep. Her books have been published in seven languages and have won numerous awards and honors, including a Junior Library Guild selection, an American Library Association Notable Book winner, a New York Times Best Illustrated Book winner, and a Bank Street Best Book of the Year award. She lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn, with her husband and two sons.

“VCFA was a life-changing experience for me and for every other VCFA graduate I know. I am excited and honored to join the board and look forward to working together with board members and other VCFA constituents as we enter this new chapter in our school’s history.”

–Kate Hosford

Barry Johnson is the Chairman and Founder of BeDoWin360 Capital, a purpose-driven investment platform that directs monetary, creative, and relationship capital into funds and companies that prioritize maximizing ROI and social outcomes in serially excluded communities.

With over 30 years of intersectional work experience in Family Offices, Wall Street, top-level offices of Corporate America and the White House, Barry offers a deep knowledge of new business development and expansion, public-private partnerships, and uncommon collaborations that are key to addressing the complex opportunities and challenges of times. Having earned his undergraduate degree from Yale University and his MBA from Harvard Business School, he has provided strategic leadership for iconic brands like Credit Suisse, Disney, Sony, and Microsoft as well as family offices, advising them on global access, impact investment, nextgen guidance, and transformative philanthropy. Appointed by the President in 2009 as a Senior Economic Development advisor and in 2011 as the White House’s founding Executive Director of SelectUSA, Barry served as the nation’s first chief foreign direct investment official to attract both entrepreneurs and large corporations to the USA for growth and expansion.

Barry founded BeDoWin360 in the summer of 2020 when his extensive experience across business, corporate, and entrepreneurial sectors along with his people-centric leadership style intersected with a growing cultural awareness of the opportunity gap in our country for marginalized. BeDoWin partners with private wealth to direct capital into opportunities across America to realize the strong financial returns and social impacts of inclusion and diversity and to manifest entrepreneurs’ dreams.

Kate Hosford (’11

Barry Johnson

Annual Report of Gifts

With deepest gratitude we acknowledge the following donors— alumnx, students, faculty, trustees, staff, and other friends—whose generosity supports the entire VCFA community. The list below represents donors who made gifts to VCFA from July 1, 2020, to June 30, 2021. We have made every effort to be sure our list is comprehensive and accurate.

Please accept our apologies for any errors or omissions, and contact advancement@vcfa.edu to make any corrections.

Irene Abraham ‘06

Jennifer Adams ‘22

Pernille AEgidius Dake ’21

Pamela Ahlen ‘07

Carol Allen ’09 in memory of Leah Chase

Diane Allenberg ‘88

Kumkum Amin ‘05

Joseph Anson ‘21

Kathi Appelt ‘82

Victoria Arms ‘19

Evelyn Armstrong ‘97

Rafael Attias ‘15

Pamela Ayres ‘19

Beth Bacon ‘16

Mary Bailey ‘99

Monica Baker ‘15

Catharine Barber ‘13

Jenn Bishop ‘14

Kathi Baron ‘04

T.A. Barron

Kathleen Bartlett ‘15

Deanne Battle ‘22

Mary Beath ‘20

Carol Beatty ‘90

Elizabeth Bedell ‘19

Kelly Bennett ’07 in memory of April

Pulley Sayer

Jeffrey Bernstein

Bonnie Berry LaMon ‘12

Sarah Cassell ‘14

Bruce Black ’99 in memory of Norma

Fox Mazer

Lisa Blackburn ’18

Lou Blackwell ‘’00

Jo Ann Block ‘11

Elizabeth Booker ‘16

Beth Brody ‘17

Meg Payson ‘93

Tanisha Brown ‘22

Heather Bryant ‘06

Elizabeth Buchanan ‘98

Jane Buchanan ‘05

Catherine Buni ‘13

Jamieson Bunn ‘15

Charles Bunting

Emilie Burack ‘19

Ann Cardinal ‘07

Patricia Carey ‘ 16 in memory of Clare McLaughlin

Barbara Carlson ‘90

Caroline Carlson ‘11

John Carpi ‘22

Catherine Carvelli ‘21

David Celone ’14 in honor of Natasha Sajė

Maureen Charles ‘19

Susan Cheatham ‘22

Peter Christie

Martha Christina ’84 in honor of Louise Crowley

Daniel Clark ‘93

Joan Cohen ‘04

S. Cohen ‘15

Sheri Cohen ‘22

Elizabeth J. Coleman ‘12

Hal Colston

Willard Cook ’93

Amy Coombs ‘15

Anna Craig ‘15

Keith Craig ‘05

Patty Cane ’04 & Tim Crane

Sarah Crow ‘20

Elizabeth Curry ‘24

Danielle Dahline ‘01

Meredith Hadaway ‘03

John Davis

Meredith Davis ‘11

Heather Demetrios ‘14

Sara Desmond ‘10

Jessica Dils ’10 in honor of Leda Schubert

Elena Dodd ’05 in honor of Laurie Alberts

Eugenie Doyle ‘95

Pete Driessen ‘98

Amy Dryansky ‘93

Jehanne Dubrow ‘22

Karen Edmunds ‘05

Gregory Ellis ‘94

Alexandra Enders ‘00

Jamie Evans ‘22

Jill Ewald ‘95

Jessie Ewing ‘22

Cynthia Faughnan ‘07

Katherine Ferguson ‘16

Mary Fillmore ‘05

Esther Fine ’03 in memory of Vivian Dorsel

Melissa Fisher ‘14

Natasha Fisher ‘21

Judith Ford ’16 in honor of VCFA faculty

Chuck Forester ‘04

Janet Fox ‘10

Abby Frucht in memory of Vivian Dorsel

Robin Galbraith ‘17

Pamela Galvani ‘14

Stephen Geller ‘18

Julian Gerstin ‘20 and L. Carlene Raper

Chandler Gilman ‘96

Anne Gimm ‘19

Miriam Glassman ‘07

Dean Gloster ‘17

Joan Goldfeder ’95

Michael Goldstein

Daniel Gonzalez ‘12

Dean Goodermote ‘22

Rima Grad ‘17

Sondra Graff ’15 in memory of A-Z while welcoming E

Judith Gravitz ‘23

Barbara Gray ‘20

Kate Gray ‘15

Carol Grellas ‘22

Joyce Griffin ’06 in memory of Vivian Dorsel

Harry Groome ‘00

Joan Grubin ’03

Katie Gustafson

Caitlin Gutheil ‘’022

Hunter Hague ‘20

Joan Hanley ‘01

Marilyn Hart

Jillian Haviland

Lyn Hawks ‘22

Alastair Hayes

Eloise Healy ‘88

Helen Hemphill ‘04

Evelyn Hendrix ‘22

Julie Herman ‘22

Athena Hernandez ‘16

Ellen Hersh ‘94

Nancy Hewitt ’02 in memory of Ralph Angel

William Higgins ‘21

Dwight Hilson ‘15

Michael Hogan

Kari Anne Holt

M. Denise Hoover ‘15

Andrew Hordes ‘18

Katherine Hosford ’11

Christene Houston ‘22

Anna Jordan ‘11

Rachel Josephson ’16

Jennifer Kam ‘07

Helen Kampion ‘07

Maggie Kast ‘01

Kim Kaufman ‘20

Leslie Kaufman ‘95

Talley Kayser ‘22

Jeffrey Kellar

Tori Kelley ‘22

Mildred KennedyStirling ’12 in memory of Janet Kaplan

Sarah Ketchersid

Susan Kingsley ‘98

Robin Kirk ’14 in memory of Rebecca Dikes

Rebecca Kirshenbaum ‘18

Kimberly Klement ’03 in memory of Vivian Dorsel

Karmen Kooyers ‘05

Ann Kordahl ’07 in memory of Frances Lee Hall

Kathleen Koster ‘15 in Memory of Richard Koster

Jennifer Kraar ‘23

Amy Kramer ‘22

Emma Kress ‘20

Uma Krishnaswami in memory of Frances Hall

Elizabeth Kuelbs ’12

Wally Lamb ’84

Jerome Lane ‘16

Lindsey Lane ‘10

Sue LaNeve ‘09

Martine Leavitt ‘03

Jeffrey Leong ‘14

Brian Leung

Nancy Levine ‘13

Andrea Levinger ‘24

Corrinne Lewis ‘07

Meredith Lewis ‘12

Patricia Lewis ’99

Jacqueline Lipton ‘16

Miles Liss ‘20

Lory Lockwood ‘00

Mary Lord ‘16

Janice Lower ‘14

Thomas MacLeay

Sarah Madru

Casper Martin ’12

The Martin Foundation

Cynthia Newberry

Martin ‘12

John and Sharon Mason

Katie Mather ‘07

Jody Maunsell

Heather McClelland ‘09

Margaret McGlynn ‘18

Anne McGrath ‘19

Shawn McSweeney ’20

Fleming Meeks ‘22

David Meyer ‘98

Craig Milewski ‘13

Callie Miller ‘14

Cheryl Miller

Rebecca Million ‘94

Wendy Mnookin ’91

Hannah Moderow ‘11

Matthew Monk

David Mook ‘02

Linda Murphy Marshall ‘18

Anne Myles ‘21

Tam Neville ‘89

New England Federal Credit Union

Susan Newbold ‘00

Jim Nolte

Claire O’Brien ‘22

Robert O’Connor ‘06

Rebecca Olander ‘15

Edward and Helen Oppenheimer Foundation

Judith Padow ‘16

Amy Parks ‘22

Jericho Parms ‘12

Stephanie Parsley

Ledyard ‘07

Katherine Paterson

Annie Penfield ‘11

Dorothy Pensky ‘99

Catherine Petter ‘20

Jane Pincus ‘93 in memory of G. Roy Levin

Sarah Plimpton ‘22

Wendy Powell ‘15

Linda Pratt

Donna Pressman ‘88

Michele Prestininzi ‘17

Linda Presto ‘20

Marjorie Priebe ‘21

Carol Purcell ‘03

Helen Pyne ‘11

Katherine Quimby

Johnson ‘14

Lorilee Rager ‘21

Andrew Ramsammy

Katherine Randall ‘22

Erik Rasmussen

Joyce Ray ‘01 in memory of Audrey Daniels

Shirley Reid ‘47

Renee S. Reiner and Michael F. DeSanto

Nancy Reynolds ‘08

Mary Ross-Dolen ‘22

Andrea Rothman ‘13

Alex Sanchez

Wendy Sanford ‘03

Susan Schmitt ‘19

Keri Schneider ‘18

Linda Schneider ‘02

Kate Schoedinger ‘20

Bill Schubart

Colleen Sexton in honor of Kathleen Tibbetts

Myra Shapiro ‘93

Michael Sherman

Joan Sidney ‘08

Sue William Silverman ‘88

Isabelle Smith

Meghan Smith ‘19

Peter Smith

Suzanne Smith ‘10

Tamara Smith ‘07

Teresa Smith ‘07

Duston Spear ‘22

Stephanie Spong ‘20

S Stephanie ‘97

Deborah Stewart ‘93

Sally Stiles ‘93

Linda Stillman ‘03

Maura Stokes ‘03

Anne-Marie Strohman ‘20

Sarah Sullivan ‘05 in memory of Ellen Levine

Diana Norma Szokolyai ‘22

Eliza Nash Taylor ‘18

Hannah Teachout ‘22

Diane Telgen ‘17

John Thelin ‘95 in memory of Lynda Hull

Nicole Thomas ‘22

Fredrika Thompson ‘06

Sarah Tomp ‘07

Heidi Tringe ‘21

Marilyn Underwood ‘20

Amie Valore-Caplan ‘19

Katie Van Ark ‘16

Yvonne Ventresca ‘22

Megan Thygeson ‘17

Bridget Verhaaren ‘22

Vermont Arts Council

Ashley Walker ‘18

Elsa Waller ‘94

Dana Walrath ‘10

Leslie Ward ‘16

David Warner ‘17

Donna Warwick

Valerie Wells ‘83

Abigail Wen ‘15

Dianne White ‘08

Erin White ‘24

Thomas & Margaret Whitford

Matthew Whitney ‘12

Jeff Wiggins ‘09

Kathleen Wilson ‘11

Victoria Wilson in memory of Vivian Dorsel

Jocelyn Winn ‘22

Rachel Winograd ‘15

Nat Winthrop

Vicki Wittenstein ‘06

Gretchen Woelfle ‘00

Zuzana Woods ‘18

Mary-Walker Wright ‘16

Ellen Yeomans ‘04

Roger Zahab

Ryder Ziebarth ‘16

Elisa Zied ‘20

Rosamond Zimmermann ‘16

Kenneth Zink ‘19

Stanley Zumbiel ‘08

We are also grateful for 21 anonymous donations, including two made in honor of William Schubart and Richard Jackson.

The spring 2022 MFA in Graphic Design current students and faculty gathered together for one of their first in-person residencies since 2020.