5 X Friday: BA Alumnus Mark Mishek

"There continues to be a large segment of the population that believes overcoming addiction is a matter of willpower," says Mark Mishek (summa cum laude BA 1974; JD with honors 1977), CEO and President of the recently merged Hazelden and Betty Ford Foundations. The former, which he's led since 2008, has of course been a pioneer for 65 years in defining addiction not as a crime or character flaw but as a disease. Changing minds is still difficult. "The thing that's helped right now in a sad sort of way," Mishek notes, "is that with the opioid crises affecting young males more than any other population, more parents are realizing that it's not a matter of willpower, it's not a matter of more education, more self-knowledge, and so on. While that stuff's important, it can't get you well in and of itself." How did Mishek come to lead the nation's largest nonprofit addiction treatment provider? Two words: liberal arts. Read more.

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.

5 X Friday: PhD Alum Sarah Wadsworth

Marquette University professor Sarah Wadsworth (PhD 2000) takes the mic in this week's installment of 5 X Friday, in which we pose five questions to Department of English alumnae/i, faculty, and students. Wadsworth recently published Right Here I See My Own Books with library scholar Wayne A. Wiegand, about an amazing 8000-volume library of women's writing gathered by women from all over the globe for the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. More . . .

5 X Friday: PhD Alum Gerald Jay Goldberg

Today we initiate a new weekly series, 5 X Friday: quick interviews with Department of English alumnae/i, faculty, students, and staff. Yes, there are five questions. And interviews will be posted on Fridays. Easy! Email sutt0063@umn.edu if you have comments. Our first subject is Gerald Jay Goldberg (PhD 1958), who published his first book in 1962, and followed with eight more titles. In this his 83rd year, he authored a suspense/adventure novel with Nan Talese/Doubleday. We caught up him with him via email. More . . .

New Creative Writing Program Newsletter

Check out the Spring 2012 Alumni Newsletter from the Creative Writing Program for news and features about alumni, current students, and faculty. The issue features interviews with Director Julie Schumacher, about her new book for young adults, The Unbearable Book Club for Unsinkable Girls, and with Professor Charles Baxter, recent winner of the Rea Award for the Short Story. Finally, congratulations to this spring's graduates of the MFA program, who defended their creative theses earlier this month (photo left): Elizabeth Abbot, Lucas de Lima, Sarah Fox, Alex Grant, Amir Hussain, Chris Keimig, David Malley, Wahida Omar, Claire Stanford, Molly Sutton Kiefer, and Andrea Uptmor.

Alumna Monica Nassif Wins Carlson Honor

Monica Nassif (BA 1982) was named 2011 University of Minnesota Entrepreneur of the Year at a McNamara Alumni Center reception September 8. Nassif is the founder of Caldrea, a luxury cleaning products line, and its offshoot the Mrs. Meyers' Clean Day brand. Her success, she says in an interview, grew out of an internship with Dayton-Hudson which her English adviser helped her acquire. After almost two decades as a brand-builder for prominent retailers and consumer product firms, she started a marketing communications business in Minneapolis, then initiated Caldrea in 1999.

Alumna Joyce Sutphen Is Minnesota Poet Laureate

Governor Mark Dayton announced that Joyce Sutphen (English BA 1982, MA in English & Creative Writing 1993, English PhD 1996) will serve as the Poet Laureate for the State of Minnesota, following inaugural state Poet Laureate Robert Bly. In this role, Sutphen will promote and support poetry in Minnesota. "Joyce Sutphen is a talented writer and teacher who will be a great voice for poetry in Minnesota," Governor Dayton said. Sutphen won a Minnesota Book Award in Poetry for her third collection of poetry, Naming the Stars (Holy Cow! Press, 2004). Her latest collection is First Words (Red Dragonfly Press, 2010). She teaches literature and creative writing at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter.

Alumnus Reports from Japan

English alumnus Nate Olson (BA 2010), who has been teaching English in Japan with the JET program, weathered the March earthquake in Hanamaki in the Iwate prefecture, 50 miles away from some of the worst tsunami damage. "A couple days prior to the quake," he writes us, "there was a magnitude 5 tremor which was the biggest earthquake I'd ever experienced. Everyone else at my school hardly batted an eye. . . . Then the big quake came [a magnitude 9]. The walls and light fixtures shook violently, books toppled off the shelves, and I said ten 'Hail Marys' and five 'Our Fathers' while waiting for the floor to collapse beneath me." The quake lasted six minutes. Olson marveled at the Japanese people's selfless and ordered response, observing that the teachers at his school visited each of their students' homes ("on spring vacation, no less!") to check on their well-being. "As an outsider, I was completely taken aback by the care I received from neighbors, coworkers, and even complete strangers following the quake."

Olson works as an ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) at two high schools, teaching a class ("Oral Communication") to 10th graders with little to no experience speaking English. At one high school, his students are university-bound with an "encyclopedic" understanding of English grammar; at the other, they know very little about the language. The difference in comprehension can be daunting: "In a given week," he describes, "I am by turns a fully-fledged teacher expected to design lesson plans around the intricacies of native English speech, and a glorified human tape recorder expected to entertain students with my 'foreignness.'" Yet the community spirit he witnessed after the quake and tsunami inspired him, and he plans to continue in the JET program, his teaching augmented with such activities as running an English club and helping a student prepare for a national English speech contest. Meanwhile, the ground shakes: amid the aftershocks was a magnitude 7 that knocked him out of bed. His thoughts are for those who have lost everything and still must stand on unsteady ground "constantly reminded of the cause of their misfortune."

Alumnus Sam Kean Writes a Periodic Table Bestseller

BA alumnus Sam Kean's The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the Periodic Table of the Elements, just released in paperback, was publishing's sleeper hit of 2010: a science history that surprised its author as much as anyone by making the New York Times Bestseller List, primarily via word of mouth. But South Dakota native Kean, a 2002 summa cum laude double major in English and Physics, has fashioned a ridiculously readable collection of anecdotes about the elements, from hydrogen to ununbium. "I really think that the human mind works best through stories," notes Kean in an interview. More. . .

MFA Alumnus Wins Thom Gunn Award

MFA alumnus (and Department of English course coordinator) Michael Walsh (2006) won the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry for his debut collection The Dirt Riddles (University of Arkansas Press, 2010). Congratulations!

BA Alumnae Launch Paper Darts #3

The co-editors of Twin Cities-based literary and art magazine Paper Darts met in the English editing class that creates the University's literary journal Ivory Tower. All English majors, Jamie Millard, Regan Smith, and Meghan Suszynski have published three issues now of Paper Darts since graduating in 2009. A launch for the third takes place Saturday, March 5 from 7-10 pm at Honey in NE Minneapolis, featuring readings by local writers John Jodzio, Matt Mauch, Michele Campbell, and Robert Voedisch, live music by local trio The Chord and the Fawn, and a digital art slideshow. The Star Tribune featured Paper Darts this Thursday.

Alumnus and Alumna Win Literary Awards

Peter Geye (BA 2000) has won the inaugural Independent Literary Award for fiction, a prize given by literary bloggers, for his novel Safe From the Sea. (The runner-up was Great House by Nicole Krauss.) "I'm bowled over," said Geye in an interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune. . . . MFA alumna Swati Avasthi won a CYBILS Award for Young Adult Fiction for her debut novel Split (Knopf). The CYBILS Children and Young Adult Bloggers' Literary Awards are given each year by bloggers for the year's best children's and young adult titles. Congratulations!

New Books from PhD Alumni/ae

Three recent graduates of the PhD program published first books this past fall: Adam Barrows (PhD '06), The Cosmic Time of Empire: Modern Britain and World Literature (University of California Press), Marcela Kostihova (PhD '04), Shakespeare in Transition: Political Appropriations in the Postcommunist Czech Republic (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), and Anca Parvulescu (PhD '06), Laughter: Notes on a Passion (Short Circuit/MIT Press, 2010). Parvulescu is featured in the Washington University in St. Louis Newsroom. Congratulations to all!

Minnesota Book Award Finalists

Four Department of English alums are finalists for Minnesota Book Awards: William Reichard (poetry, Sin Eater), Lightsey Darst (poetry, Find the Girl), Swati Avasthi (young people's literature, Split), and Matt Burgess (novel and short story, Dogfight, a Love Story). Winners will be announced at the 23rd Annual Minnesota Book Awards Gala on Saturday, April 16, in Saint Paul.