Life as an ABD Student

....is actually not too different from life before exams.  If anything, it's busier (or at least, so far), because you are catching up on all the grading that you put off during that last week before exams as you tried to fit in every last book, author, and plot detail into your head as the clock ticked away...

The newest issue of Grist: The Journal for Writers was also in the last stages of production during exam week, so that added another level of craziness, but the new issue of Grist is now finished and officially out into the world!

Still warm from the printers!

I'm so happy to finally be able to share what the editors and I have been working on all year.  We have an amazing line-up and now that the issue is out, I can share here.

Fiction:

Meagan Cass

Lisa Locascio

Delaney Nolan

Suzannah Windsor

Poetry:

Sherman Alexie

Paula Bohince

Dexter L. Booth

Michael Collier

Jesse Damiani

Tarfia Faizullah

Lauren Hilger

Natalia Holtzman

Rochelle Hurt

Richard Jackson

Stephanie Kartalopoulos

Elizabeth Langemak

Oliver de la Paz

Al Maginnes

Stephen S. Mills

Tara Mae Mulroy

Brent Newsom

Matt Moore

Dan Pinkerton

Jeffrey Pthybridge

Colin Pope

Blake Lee Stephens

Jamie Thomas

Jeff Tigchelaar

Pamela Uschuk

Andrew Wessels

Nonfiction:

Celia Lisset Alvarez

Rebecca Cook

Becca Hall

Mary Quade

William Pitt Poot

Matthew Vollmer

Barbara Zimmerman

Interviews and Conversations:

Chantel Acevedo and Jeanne McDonald

Cathy Chung and Pam Redmond

Michael C. Peterson and Carl Phillips

Peter Trachtenberg and Eileen Myles

Be sure to get your copy, because you don't want to miss this issue!  If you are at AWP, you can pick up issues at table A15.  You can also order through the Grist website.

If you like the issue (which I hope you do!), check our website for new developments soon.  We will be posting our interviews and supplemental stories/poems from our emerging writers soon.  Lisa Locascio is our emerging writer in fiction this year and has a story "Sasha" in our print issue, but we will be posting another story by her, "The Past Perfect" very soon on our website. 

Whew, a lot of big things happening in the last week, but the dust is starting to settle now.  Grist work is done (and our new editorial board will be announced soon--which sadly means the end of Grist duties for me).  Papers are graded.  Class plans are done.

No exams to study for...which means that it's time for relaxation? Fun reading?  Luckily, I have Catching Fire already ready to go on my Kindle and with the weather quickly turning stormy out, it looks like a good night as any to get started.

Of course, I still have my dissertation prospectus to write, but the deadline for that isn't for another five weeks.  I think I can handle that :)