Please join us for the MFA Student Thesis Reading on Thursday, April 28th. Readers will include graduating MFAs: Mary Dwyer, Jillian Fantin, Naïma Msechu, Phillip Spinella, and Austyn Wohlers.
For registration and Zoom link, click HERE
Mary Dwyer is a poet from the Jersey Shore with recent work published in Guesthouse. She draws thematic and aesthetic inspiration from the poetry of medieval romance, 20th century nursery rhymes and folk songs, gardening manuals, and art. Her poems seek to transform wounds via the linguistic imagination and address a number of topics, including: femme sexuality under Patriarchal religion; a longing to bridge the sacred and the sensual; white working class masculinity and drug addiction; and the cyclicality of grief.
Jillian A. Fantin is a poet with roots in Sheffield, Dallas, and Birmingham. Their poetry tends towards shenanigans, masculinities, and decadence. Jillian is the recipient of a 2021 Poet Fellowship from the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing and a regular collaborator with Chicago-based mixed media artist Kate Luther. Their work is published in or forthcoming from The American Journal of Poetry, TIMBER, Barrelhouse, The Daily Drunk, Harpur Palate, Dream Pop, Homology Lit, and elsewhere, and they credit David Bowie, Val Kilmer, and Bob Dylan for a great deal of their current manuscript-in-progress.
Naïma Msechu received her B.A. in Literary Arts from Brown University in 2017. Her writing has appeared in the minnesota review, Thin Noon, Wigleaf, and The Masters Review: Volume VIII (an anthology of stories and essays selected by Kate Bernheimer), among others. “Diners,” her flash fiction piece, was nominated by the minnesota review for the Pushcart Prize XLVII, and her short story, “Other Whale,” was named a semi-finalist for American Short Fiction’s 2020 Halifax Ranch Fiction Prize, and a finalist for Arkansas International’s 2020 Emerging Writer’s Prize in Fiction. She spends her time between the United States and Germany, both of which she calls home.
Phillip Spinella is a prose writer. He graduated from Georgetown University some time ago with a BA in English and Philosophy. Shortly after undergrad he attended Cornell Law school and then toiled as an attorney for six years. Then: this. Next: time will tell.
Austyn Wohlers is a writer from Atlanta, Georgia. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Massachusetts Review, The Florida Review, The Cincinnati Review, The Columbia Review, The Kenyon Review, Asymptote, and elsewhere, and has been highlighted by The Poetry Foundation. She is also a musician, with releases on the labels Cloud Recordings, Final Plane, and Ramp Local.
