5 X Friday: BA Alum Mary Nyquist

For BA alumna Mary Nyquist, entry level lecture classes at the U were large, yes, but also liberating: This small town native experienced anonymity as a refreshing freedom. But she wasn't anonymous for long. Encouraged by her professors, Nyquist went on to graduate school and ultimately became a literature professor at the University of Toronto. There she made a name for herself as a fearless scholar of Milton. These days she thinking and publishing about tyranny through the lens of literature and philosophy, among other interdisciplinary explorations. Read more.

5th Annual English Undergrad Conference

On Thursday and Friday, April 3 and 4, the Department of English is pleased to present the fifth iteration of a conference celebrating our undergraduates' creative and critical work. This year, there will be papers on everything from Shakespeare to the video game Mass Effect, along with poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Actor and BA alumna Naomi Ko, who has a featured role in the new independent film Dear White People, will speak at the top of a panel on fiction, identity, and desire Thursday evening at 7 pm. A panel of alumni discusses employment and the road out from English on Friday morning at 8:50 am. Plus much more! Free and open to University students, faculty, and friends.

5 X Friday: BA Alum Nadia Hasan

Nadia B. Hasan (BA 2002; JD 2006) braved her father's disappointment when she chose to major in English; he preferred pre-med or engineering. But her degree prepared her for the reading and analytic rigor of the University of Minnesota Law School and nine years thus far of law practice, first with Johnson & Condon, then Hinshaw & Culbertson, and since last summer in the Minneapolis office of Cozen O'Connor. These days, she notes with amusement, her dad claims he was the one who suggested English. Read more.

5 X Friday: BA Alumna Naomi Ko

How many first-time screen actors get to go to Sundance Film Festival with one of the buzziest films in competition? Naomi Ko (BA 2011) was busy January in Park City, Utah, with press interviews, brunches, luncheons, and parties around the acclaimed feature Dear White People (which was filmed on the U campus). Since graduating, Ko has acted and written for such local theaters as Mixed Blood, Theatre in the Round, Mu Performing Arts, and Bedlam. Last August, Ko heard from a theater producer she'd worked with, Jamil Jude, about movie auditions taking place the next day. Ko went, and she was the only cast member to win a principal role without an agent. The film follows four African American students at an East Coast private college. According to its director, Justin Simien, the film is "about the difference between how the mass culture responds to a person because of their race and who they understand themselves to truly be." Though the Asian American experience has been well-represented in theater, says Ko, there's as yet no Asian American film equivalent to DWP. "I'm working on one," she promises. Read more.

5 X Friday: BA Alum Shae Moloney

When Shae Moloney (BA) graduated in 2012, she was aiming for a career as an editor and writer, but she hadn't explored where she might find such work. Within three months she had secured a job that included editing and writing. The field was unexpected: human resources. She admits to nervously anticipating beastly labor-management brawls. But these days you can find her waxing cheerfully (and knowledgeably) about Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) policy, surrounded by snarling and growling beasts of the actual, not figurative sort. Read more.

Two BA Alumnae Win Bush Grant

When Jamie Millard (right) and Meghan Murphy (both BA 2009) joined Lars Leafblad in publishing his civic-minded, leadership-promoting newsletter Pollen in 2012, they already had a great history of networking across borders with their celebrated art and literary magazine Paper Darts and its intensely attended local music and literature events. Millard and Murphy took Leafblad's digital newsletter and made it bloom on a colorful new website, bepollen.com. The website and bi-monthly newsletter draw on the stories, ideas, and job listings of members to "create positive impact and personal and professional growth." Beginning last spring, Leafblad left Pollen in the two women's capable hands. And this fall, they received a substantial grant from the Bush Foundation to combine their digital platform with the regional organization OTA's event series and create a network of "individuals, organizations, communities, and ideas" to transform Minnesota and the two Dakotas. Read more.

Dominick Washington, spokesman for the Bush Foundation, told Twin Cities Business: "I would say that this is consistent with our work to really help develop more leaders who are better-connected and better-networked. We invest in great ideas and the people who power them."
The group envisions concrete accomplishments: conferences and smaller conversation events in out-state towns and Dakotan cities; the continuing work of sharing stories, job connections, and mentorship via bepollen.com. But they also have ambitions to change lives and communities: small business owners in Bismark connecting with (in their words) "the designer, the accountant, and the community development professional who can take their ideas to the next level"; non-profit executives around the region finding "mentors in other community settings to elevate and accelerate similar objectives"; and freelance writers having "an outlet that values story-driven journalism more than advertising dollars."
"When we talk about storytelling," Millard told MinnPost, "what we're talking about is a community-building effort, a capacity-building nonprofit that goes throughout Minnesota, South Dakota and North Dakota to find transformational individuals who live in those communities. Whether it's metro or rural, we want to spark inspiration to show individuals in other communities how 'someone like me' can also create change."
Millard and Murphy met in 2008 in the year-long course Literary Magazine Production Lab, an English class in which students learn about the diverse functions of publishing and create the University of Minnesota undergraduate art and literary magazine Ivory Tower. "Working on Ivory Tower honed my skills in management, budgeting, grant-writing, sponsorship solicitation, design, editing, marketing, and organizational development," remembers Millard. "Most of all, that class gave me the real-world confidence to believe in myself."
Buoyed by that experience, Millard and Murphy co-founded Paper Darts, with another Ivory Tower-ite and English graduate, Regan Smith. The magazine quickly grew (even while Smith exited): four years later, they've published five issues, as well as a book of short stories. And Paper Darts began collaborating on events with local and national arts entities, from the Minneapolis Institute of Arts to Literary Death Match. Last summer, the organization partnered with SooLOCAL, a division of the Soo Visual Arts Center, for a six-week pop-up residency that brought together writers, sculptors, publishers, magazines, improvisers, video game experts, comic artists, musicians, poets, GIF artists, and stage actors.
"If you're really driven and have an idea of a tangible product that you're ready to create, don't ask anyone else for permission," stresses Millard. "Just go out and start creating that thing on your own."
The Bush grant serves as a reward for that initiative and hard work, but it also represents a substantial challenge. Again, Murphy and Millard seem more than ready. "I'm just so excited," Murphy told MinnPost, "to take what we've learned at Paper Darts magazine and pull it deeper into OTA-Pollen."

English Alum Interviewed on U Home Page

"The [English] major provided for a deep analysis of written work for every detail, from words to punctuation," declares English honors alum Sukanya Momsen (BA '13), in an interview featured on the University of Minnesota home web page. "This will be especially helpful to me in law school," she continues. Momsen is entering the University of Minnesota Law School this fall, after completing her BA in two years. Her favorite place on campus? Yup, Lind Hall.

BA Alum Logue Serializes Novel

Charles Dickens did it. And last year Jennifer "Goon Squad" Egan gave it a modern spin by presenting a short story via The New Yorker's fiction Twitter feed. Fiction serialization lives again this summer, thanks to BA alumna Mary Logue, who agreed to have her novel Giving Up the Ghost printed in chunks by The Star Tribune every day from June 9 to July 28 (it's also available as an e-book). "I just wanted to write a ghost story," Logue notes in an interview with Star Tribune books editor Laurie Hertzel. Logue is a Minnesota Book Award-winning author of mysteries, young adult fiction, and poetry.

5 X Friday: BA Alum Ellen Boschwitz

Ellen Boschwitz may have taken the long road to a BA in English, starting out at Brown University, with stops at Barnard in New York City and Lawrence in Wisconsin, but she met an important deadline: She earned her degree before any of her four kids got to college (in 1976, the same year her oldest graduated from high school). Her favorite teacher at the U? Political science professor Mulford Q. Sibley, a controversial pacifist and socialist--and a surprising choice for the wife of former U.S. Senator (and Republican) Rudy Boschwitz. But Ellen has led an extraordinary life: from World War II refugee to early activist for children with learning disabilities to business manager and marketer. Read on . . . .

5 X Friday: BA Alum Reina del Cid

Reina del Cid (BA '10) and the Cidizens are a folk rock band in the Twin Cities whose debut album, blueprints, plans, made radio station the Current's "Top 20 Local Releases of 2012." Reina (yes, her stage name) began her musical career while an English major at the U, posting YouTube videos popular enough to draw the interest of a major record label. As she told the Star Tribune, sticking to her studies felt right then, and now she's bringing literature influences to the music she makes with her bandmates. Or as she puts it, "I bring the words, and they bring the groove." More . . .

5 X Friday: BA Alum Esther Porter

Here's our second installment of 5 X Friday: quick interviews with Department of English alumnae/i, faculty, students, and staff. Five questions (with answers!) posted on Fridays. Email sutt0063@umn.edu if you have comments. This week's subject is Esther Porter (BA summa cum laude, 2005), a former publicist for Coffee House Press who is now freelance editing. This fall she helped launch a new literary magazine, Revolver. More . . .