The Writer's Loft: Loft Members in the Press

Loft mentors, students, and alumni have enjoyed another year of literary home runs. Please join us in saluting the following writers and accomplishments:

Charlotte Rains Dixon (Mentor and Program Director) attended the inaugural Mayborne Literary Nonfiction Writers Conference of the Southwest in Dallas in July, 2005. She will be returning to the conference this year to lead a book manuscript workshop. In addition, her short story, “It Goes By So Fast,” was a finalist in the Salem College of Women creative writing contest. Ellen Gilchrist judged. The same story, along with the first chapter of her novel, “Language of Trees,” won her a fellowship for the Summer Literary Seminars contest. Margaret Atwood was that contest’s final judge.

Peggy Smith Duke (Alumna) is a staff writer for the Tennessee Writers Alliance quarterly newsletter, with articles appearing in the Summer and Winter 2005 issues. In Fall 2005, Peggy attended the Southern Women Writers Conference at Berry College, where she attended a workshop conducted by poet Sidney Wade and participated in a public reading at a Rome, Georgia downtown restaurant. In addition, her work is enjoying success in contests and appearing in both online and traditional paper venues. In July, she received a Citation Award for “Shirt Factory” from the Montgomery Branch of the National League of American Pen Women in their 2005 Poetry Contest, and one month later, her poem "Calibration" received Honorable Mention in the Writer's Workshop 2005 Poetry Contest. Online, three of her poems were accepted by the online journal Muscadine Lines: A Southern Journal, and New Verse News (a journal of poetry on current issues and events) published her poems in July and September of 2005. In paper, Sidney Wade has accepted one of Peggy's poems, "Hen Party," for inclusion in the new journal, Subtropics, published in May 2006 out of the University of Florida; and she has two more poems under contract for publication: "Jet Cars" for Southern Arts Journal (May, 2006) and "Executive Privilege" for Main Street Rag (March, 2007).

River Jordan (Mentor) announced the publication of her novel The Messenger of Magnolia Street in January of 2006 with HarperSanFrancisco Publishers. On Thursday, January 28 at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville, she read from her novel in front of a large crowd of supporters, including Loft mentors, alumni, students, and administrators Lance Ikard, R. L. Burkhead, Terry Price, Charlotte Rains Dixon, Denise Mitchell, Melinda Medlin, and Janelle Lipscomb Rodgers. In addition to Nashville, River continued to tour and support her novel throughout 2006 in Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Georgia.

Alvin Knox (Mentor) is currently acting as the judge in the annual poetry contest for Eplore Monthly, an Upper-Cumberland arts magazine, and in late March he attended the Meacham Writers' Conference.

Denise Mitchell’s (Alumna) daughter Amelia (6) won an honorable mention in the NPT Reading Rainbow Young Writers and Illustrators contest for her story, "The Mouse and the Moose." More than 550 children entered the contest. Reading Rainbow is an award-winning half-hour PBS series starting LaVar Burton.

Randy O'Brien (Mentor) is an award-winning journalist and world-class reader. He has a dozen completed screenplays and two novels. He continues to do reviews for AudioFile, the only magazine devoted to audiobooks. One of his most recent highlights was an interview with Novelist John Irving. For the third year in a row, he acted as a judge for the Audies competition. Each year, the Audio Publishers Association (APA) honors the best titles in audio publishing. A former MTSU student recently optioned one of Randy's scripts "Night Train to Nashville" for his USC thesis in the Peter Stark Producers program. (This is probably the hardest program to get into, and it usually leads to jobs in the industry. The script will be developed...from marketing to production.) Randy's novel Judge Fogg, was recently published by literary road. Visit http://www.literaryroad.com/new_catalog.php
to read a sample of Randy's excellent novel, or to download your own copy of Judge Fogg.

Linda Busby Parker (Mentor) and Charlotte Rains Dixon (Mentor and Program Director) traveled to MTSU’s campus in March to network and attend a viewing of the photographs of Margaretta (Gretta) K. Mitchell. Entitled “THE FACE OF POETRY,” the National Women’s History Month sponsored the exhibit, which appeared in the Baldwin Photographic Gallery on campus.

Linda Busby Parker’s (Mentor) novel Seven Laurels has been adopted by Spartanburg, South Carolina as part of their required high school summer reading program. The students will read the book this summer, and Linda will travel there for the first few school days to visit with the students and to discuss the book. In addition, Linda taught a writing workship for the Baldwin County Writers (in Alabama) in April.

David Pierce (Mentor) has been in touch with his feminine side this year. He has written a foreword to his wife’s (Christian Comedian Chonda Pierce) new book, Road Kill on the Highway to Heaven. In addition, the women’s magazine Connection asked David to write an article for the May/June issue on what it’s like to be married to a comedian.

Gregory Plemmons's (Alumnus) fiction appears in the anthology Best New American Voices (2006), edited by Jane Smiley, John Kulka, Natalie Danford, which features outstanding fiction by participants in the country's 370-plus college and university writing programs. He is currently an MFA candidate in Writing and Literature at Bennington College, Vermont.

Michael Potts (Alumnus) his poem "Dying" was published in the June 8, 2005 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association. In addition, he won the Mary Belle Campbell Poetry Book Award of the North Carolina Writers' Network for his chapbook From Field to Thicket, which is scheduled for publication in August, 2006. And he won the Rose Post Creative Nonfiction Award of the North Carolina Writers' Network for his essay "Haunted," and it appeared in an issue of the Writers' Network News. Michael’s poem "Chambers of the Heart" was a finalist for the Poet Laureate Award of the North Carolina Poetry Society, and his poem "Watching Death" won an Honorable Mention for the Thomas H. McDill Award of the North Carolina Poetry Society. It was published in Pinesong Awards 2006.

Terry Price (Alumnus and Program Director) completed his MFA in Writing (fiction genre) at Spalding University in May, 2006. In addition to being an alumnus of The Writer’s Loft, Terry became a mentor in January 2006. He is a staff writer for the Tennessee Writers Alliance quarterly newsletter, and he published a nonfiction piece (Jazz saxophonist Rahsaan Barber: Speaking the language of music) in New Southerner.com. The piece will also be included in the print anthology, Best of The New Southerner set to be released summer of 2006. His piece Eminent Domain was nominated for a 2007 Pushcart Prize.

Rebecca Rutledge (Alumna) announced that she has a book contract with Kensington Publishers. Entitled Using Southern Belle Charm to Win the Man of Your Dreams, the book is scheduled to be published in the spring or summer of 2007.

Nashville Writers Walt and Sue Schaefer sponsored a literary night in their home in April, 2006 in celebration of the arrival of Loft Mentor Charlotte Rains Dixon. (Charlotte came to Nashville for a weeklong writing sabbatical.) Loft mentors, students, and alumni present were Charlotte Rains Dixon, Melinda Medlin, R. L. Burkhead, Terry Price, and Susie Brown.

R. L. Burkhead (editor, the Trunk) published the Summer 2006 issue of the Trunk. In addition, Roy helped the Paris bookstore Shakespeare and Company promote their Summer 2006 Travel Writing Festival by writing the store’s press release, publicizing the event to United States Internet and media outlets, and working with event participants to write a feature story on the event, which he is shopping around to American magazines. On June 9 & 10 at Cumberland University, Roy attended the Tennessee Writers Alliance’s inaugural Writers’ Conference. And finally, Roy attended a photography exhibit at MTSU’s Baldwin Photographic Gallery entitled, The Face of Poetry. In 2006, Roy left MTSU and returned to a corporate writing career as a Technical Writer with American Standard/TRANE in Clarksville, Tenn.