in residence // 2024 VCFA Annual Magazine

FAC U LT Y V I E W

49 49

2024

in residence

annual magazine

F E AT U R E S

08 12 14

a p e e k b e h i n d t h e c u rta i n :

The Graduates Supporting Residency

co m m u n i t y o p p o rt u n i t y :

The Center for Arts + Social Justice on Its Fourth Year

fac u lt y v i e w

Alex Sanchez

COMMUNITY FOCUS

20

reflections on art

22

life after the mfa

50 52

Tia McCarthy

Patricia Spears Jones (W ’91) Rick Heffner (GD ’23) Martha Gregory (F ’16) Suma Subramaniam (WCYA ’17) Quincy Davis (MC ’19) Molly Gambardella (VA ’23)

w h at w i l l yo u d o w i t h yo u r d e g r e e ?

02 03 04

president ’ s letter

writing more :

in residence Gets an Updatee

s u m m e r 2024 h i g h l i g h t : Graphic Design & Visual Art Graduating Gallery

An Alumnx Business Highlight

16

faculty news

f ro m t h e a rc h i v e s

34

c l as s n e ws

54 56

n e ws , u p d at e s

& g i v i n g at VCFA

report of gifts

2 p r e s i d e n t ’s l e t t e r

*

Dear VCFA Community, I am delighted to extend a heartfelt welcome to all of you through this edition of our in residence magazine, which, for the first time, now reaches every member of our vibrant VCFA family: staff, faculty, students, alumnx, and dedicated supporters. This moment is not just a new chapter in our publication’s history but a significant milestone in our shared journey.

Reflecting on my personal experiences in the arts and education, I recall how my professional path was shaped by the powerful encounters and exchanges with alumnx, staff, faculty, students, and supporters in varying venues, events, and social platforms. These interactions were more than just networking opportunities; they were moments of inspiration and connection, bridging the gap between the past and the future of our creative community.

As we look forward, I believe that the community experience at VCFA begins from the very moment of inquiry. From day one, each individual who steps into our world becomes an integral part of our family. Together, we have the privilege and responsibility to define what it means to belong to VCFA. This inclusive and evolving definition of community access is what makes our institution unique and strong.

Our journey takes on an even more exciting dimension as we embark on a new path with CalArts as an affiliate. This affiliation marks a convergence of artistic legacies, where we can celebrate our rich history while also pioneering new traditions. It’s a metamorphosis, much like art itself—transformative, dynamic, and full of potential.

I welcome each and every one of you to this era of transformation. Your engagement, creativity, and support are what will propel us forward. Let us embrace this new chapter with open hearts and minds, fostering an environment where every voice is heard, every talent is nurtured, and every dream is realized.

Carry with you the principles of VCFA’s progressive education: curiosity, collaboration, and the courage to take risks. Go forth with optimism, knowing that you have the power to make a difference.

Thank you for being part of this extraordinary community. Together, we will continue to shape the future of VCFA, celebrating our shared legacy and the new traditions we will create. with warm regards,

Andrew Ramsammy Interim President, Vermont College of Fine Arts

* contributors

editor, writer

Grace Safford (WCYA ’25) writer,

fa c t - c h e c k e r Sarah Madru art director

Aldrena Hicks (GD ’16)

designer

Sarah Flood-Baumann (GD ’16)

photographers

Joliet Morrill John Robson Jesse Weiner (WCYA '23), Inksational Editorial writers

Valentyn Smith (W ’20) Karis Rogerson (WCYA ’24) Sammi LaBue Hatch (W ’17) guest writer

Tia McCarthy copy editor

Jessica Manley

in residence Vol 12* No 1 *2024 Vermont College of Fine Arts 36 College Street Montpelier, VT 05602 alumnx@vcfa.edu vcfa.edu

* cover art

front cover

Dannell MacIlwraith (GD ’17) Susan Aizenberg (W ’92) Sereina Rothenberger (GD) Sue William Silverman (W ’88) Nora Shalaway Carpenter (WCYA ’12) Rick Baitz (MC) Blair Vaughn-Gruler (VA ’10) Uma Krishnaswami (WCYA) Don Swartzentruber (VA ’00) Daniel Levin (VA ’07) Mark Cox (W ’85) Tamara Smith (WCYA ’07) Leah Byck (VA ’22) Anne Myles (W ’21) Jennifer Lang (W ’16) Shanta Lee (W ’21) Robin Oliveira (W ’06) Lisa Mezzacappa (MC) Hassan Alshiyoukh (WP ’21) inside front cover

Linda Murphy Marshall (W ’18) Ann Dávila Cardinal (W ’07) James Long (VA ’02) Jennifer McGaha (W ’17) Mary Bailey (W ’99) Karen Krossing (WCYA ’20) Pernille AEgidius Dake (W ’21) Dianne White (WCYA ’07) Christopher Soden (W ’05)

Note: In order to make the cover collage, some art has been flipped, cropped, resized, and otherwise incorporated.

writing more:

i n r es i d e n c e g e ts a n u p dat e The VCFA community is closer than ever thanks to our unified academic calendar, college-wide residencies, and opportunities for cross-disciplinary engagement.

Simply put, “connection” is a familiar word newly embraced here at VCFA, and the in residence staff wants to be a part of embracing this connection. So we’ve made a decision: Our yearly alumnx magazine will now be for our entire VCFA community.

The alumnx magazine is now the annual magazine, and we are sending it to every VCFA constituent, from alumnx to staff to faculty to current students. The magazine will continue to earnestly support and uplift our alumnx network while introducing current students and their work to the broader VCFA community. Every issue, we’ll continue to share Class News, Faculty News, profiles, updates, and more, while adding some exciting new features as we look forward to 2025 and beyond.

So, if you’re new here, welcome to in residence. On these pages, we hold space to honor the new projects, ideas, and accomplishments of our community. Our readers can use the VCFA Share Your News form at vcfa.edu/share-your-news/ so that we can make sure to celebrate you and your news in our magazine.

Thank you for reading in residence 2024.

With gratitude and excitement,

Grace Safford (WCYA ’25)

Sarah Madru

p u b l i c at i o n s &

director of alumnx

editorial manager

& community engagement

4

IN RESIDENCE 2024

Summer 2024 Highlight:

Graphic Design & Visual Art Graduating Student Gallery With all six VCFA programs in residence together twice a year, VCFA artists across disciplines get to enjoy and experience the graduating exhibitions of our Graphic Design and Visual Art students. Walking through the exhibitions is a residency highlight, and in the summer of 2024, five graduating students showcased their work.

EMMA

meet our summer 2024 graphic

BERG

design and visual art graduates , and their art , in our in residence graduating student gallery .

2024

Summer Graduates Tim Murray (GD ’24) Kevin Auer (GD ’24) Emma Berg (GD ’24) Daniel Brophy (VA ’24) Amy Berenz (VA ’24)

*

ST U D E N T GA L L E RY

5

KEVIN

AUER

*

6

IN RESIDENCE 2024

MURRAY

TIM

* DANIEL BROPHY

*

ST U D E N T GA L L E RY

AMY

BERENZ

*

7

8

IN RESIDENCE 2024

A Peek B

ehind the

The Gra

*

Curtain:

S u p p le m e n ta l p h p rov id e o to s d by p h o to g ra p Je s s e W her e in e r ( W C YA ’2 3 ), In ks ati o n a l E d it o ri a l

duates Suppor ting Re sidency

If you’ve been to a VCFA residency, whether in-person or in the cloud, then you know just how much it takes to pull one off. Every winter and summer, the college squeezes as many performances, lectures, readings, workshops, exhibitions, screenings, and showcases as it can into a nine-day period. And simply none of it could happen without returning VCFA graduates.

VCFA alumnx have been returning to residencies as Graduate Assistants (GAs) for as long as anyone at VCFA can remember.

“Graduate Assistants are absolutely indispensable to residencies,” says Music Composition Program Director Carol Beatty, who has worked on campus in various roles for decades. “Their work helping to facilitate myriad events and activities is essential to the success of these incredibly intensive weeks, and their role in building and supporting program and college community makes a huge difference. Plus, it’s just wonderful to have alums around!”

Even some VCFA staff and faculty who are also graduates of our program first returned to VCFA as GAs before taking on their new roles—such as Writing for Children & Young Adult Program Director and MFA in Writing alumnx brandon brown (W ’23). Brown was a GA at

*

TARYN HAAS (WCYA ’22)

the summer 2023 residency before becoming a Program Director in late 2023. As brown recalls of their experience as a GA: “It’s a role that offers a lot of support to people who are coming into a pretty intense experience. It kind of lays down some foundations, and can be like a sounding board.”

At residency, all of us have bumped into GAs daily, whether it’s someone like Amy

Braun (W ’17)—a tech GA sitting in on a reading with her backpack full of extra cords

and batteries—or a lead GA like Jenn Bailey (WCYA ’17) making announcements and running from event to event. You might have even seen Zach Thomas (F ’22) in the Film program taking the time to guide new students through their first residency.

GAs attend residency to support nearly every aspect of the week, from setting up and tearing down exhibitions, running tech for presentations and lectures, supporting the stay of visiting lecturers and artists, organizing their own events, or even checking in regularly with new and returning students. in-the-life A typical daympus might of a GA on ca mething like: look a little so

9

*

KALYN HAREWOOD (MC ’24)

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A WCYA GRADUATE ASSISTANT

b y j e n n b a i l e y (WCYA ’17)

vis

11:00

buy am gif itin t f g a or illu uthor / st r at o r

11:27am

h ea d to t a ir p o r up to p ic k g v is it in / au t h o r at o r il lu s t r

9am

am 6:3 :30

6

ze oo n sn o hit butt

h p et t u te ge sh d u e b br nd ke ma ss a the e o r t d ce ic ra l e t … h o at d t l fie

0am

7:0

in ed ol im er ho t c y s in mm l ly fa ’ s a a s t vc am to r y t b e w …g eball ndre kl t a pic iden es pr

ga

me eti ng ga wit p ro s; b ra h a ll t n g ra am h m d don b urb row e wcy ire an, gas cto a n, w wc rev r ; an c ya ya iew d l t h e fa c u l ind t a a d y c nd res ay ’ hai d ide s s r. ncy iscus che the s a pa g — f r o ll t dule to m p e (p p ro hin oet gs op) per to ry p sig pla off n a g r e pa r nn the ing at i e o all - i m p a g h o n ca m o n “ca st pus ort n w to u a e m r t ake nt qu o e a b st i on utt , on for it? ”

9:30

12:45pm

ff d ro p o ge and lu g g a ver hand o g v is it in r/ au t h o r at o r il lu s t c u lt y fa o t

12:57pm

a ll w at c h fe t er ia t h e ca s ’ fa c es w o r k er ou le a s y crumb to eat s li p in ore ju s t b ef lu n c h lo s e t h ey c

1:30pm 8:15

am

8:30

m

a e th ab er ys w e gr o k sh er ck e! st lo tim ma d un the l an al hop s rk ms wa wo ro o t c h am all ca f e the fa c t e r i a wo es cru rke yo u rs ’ mb sli le bre p in as akf to ast bef e at ore jus t the y c los e

8:56

re y le c t u fa c u lt m is r e ro o u s e k ma and r o p er ly p p u s et t u ip m en eq it t t es ts u o d n ut ha hand o r fo r c h at m o n it o ns q u es t io c lo u d fo r r ro o m m o n it o s es t io n u q s u ca m p d ea h r o v er m o n it o fo r r to c p r o je oke and sm fl a m es

10

*

AMY BRAUN (W ’17)

3:00pm

ures lect u at e ds a r g ra d g sure u ly make w tr ! o h y are know e the e d ib l in c r is ro o m d sure ly a n make oper r p p nt e m set u u ip it e q t e st s dout t han u o hand or h at f or c ns m o n it e s t io u q d c lo u for ro o m io n s and u e st q s u ca m p

BRANDON BROWN (W ’23)

ma

11:2

7

ke

su re pm th to e to se n mo all t hin d rr ow gs em ail

gs e a d in ga r e for c n e a a ch shar a s to the g k wor t h e ir

9:00

pm n juv time en al wc ia y gh a aft ? os er t da da t o n r ur ? p k? d & c e pa d d op rt ? y? ve nt ur e? fu

8:00

ic h r wh d in n e n de: a u l c r m ay in d in n e y it in a f f in k in g c e h c e n ts st u d h w it h in w it g in k chec in in g s jo a g r in e ot h e e ‘n d oodl to the d in g in d a e h cos ta b l e o r ta f n tow

fa c pm u lt re y ad ing ch s ec fo k i r h t c lo y b r id ud ca a n d mp fa c u br u lt s ing y. yo kn ur itt ing !

11:57pm

teeth brush e bed 0a m unmak o r 6 :3 arm f set al

Of course, when asked what the role of a GA is at residency, almost every GA agreed that their support goes far beyond testing presentation setups and updating calendars. What an alumnx can do best for a current student at residency on campus or in the cloud is to be their mentor.

4:30pm

6:0, 0pm

*

“The GAs are kind of a bridge, spanning the before and after of the MFA,” explains Jenn Bailey. “They carry institutional knowledge yet have a less official, more approachable position and have the flexibility to get certain things done. It really is a support position. We are there, without an agenda, so that everyone else—students, faculty, staff—can focus on what they need to do. I like to think the GAs are the cool aunt and uncle you get to visit during school holidays.”

Zach Thomas echoed Bailey, saying: “As a GA, I feel like you’re the bridge. ... GAs act as this wealth of knowledge on how to make the most of your time in this program. ...When you have a GA who is [at residency] and who graduated from your program, they can often provide that guidance that is needed for an incoming student.”

“The role of the GA is just to say, I’ve got this. I’ll take care of it for you. I’m here for you,” adds Amy Braun.

As for why alumnx come back time and time again to residency, the answer is clear: to be a part of the VCFA community.

11

s A G e h t k n i h t o t d n e k a i t n “I l u a l o o c e t h i t s i e r v a o t t e g u o y .” e l s c y a un d i l o h l o o h c s g durin BAILEY JENN ’ 17) ( WCYA

“The thing that I walked away [from VCFA] feeling most was just being really delighted and humbled to be part “I feel like I’ve been able to build of this community—to be a part of the that alumnx connection by coming to residency and participating as a GA,” says extended conversation and discourse and achievement that we all represent,” Thomas. “We’re able to connect outside says brown. “Talk to your cohort, of our vcfa.edu address.” stay connected, because the point of [VCFA] is really to hone your craft …

“I love the community and delight in but it’s also about fostering community. cheering on all the students—seeing I really genuinely believe that [VCFA how their craft has flourished over the is] about finding your people, sticking semesters,” adds Bailey. “[The WCYA] with them, and helping them every program truly helped me realize my step of the way that you can.” dreams, and I like being a part of others having a similar experience. I want to pay No matter how alumnx get involved— it forward.” whether in person or virtually—the college is always grateful to welcome During the summer residency itself, alumnx back.

Braun said “Today, I sat with somebody at lunch that I had never met, and today I sat at breakfast with somebody else that I “VCFA is what it is because of you,” concludes Bailey, “and the more never met. ... It’s a wonderful opportunity people who take part in it, the better.” to just keep meeting artists.”

There are so many ways for VCFA alumnx to stay involved with VCFA post graduation, from something as big as participating in residency as a GA, or something as key as attending virtual events, becoming an alumnx ambassador, sharing your VCFA experience with your creative network, or exchanging work with your VCFA peers.

*

ZACH THOMAS (F ’22)

*

NAOMIE LAURENT (WCYA ’16)

12

IN RESIDENCE 2024

3.

Community Opportunity:

The Center for Arts + Social Justice on Its Fourth Year

4.

5.

Established in 2019 and with its first charter of programming announced in mid-2021, the Center for Arts + Social Justice at VCFA exists, as written in its mission statement, to “support, equip, Included in the Center’s programming is the Fellowship program, a yearlong, grantbased opportunity that seeks to bring together artists across disciplines, all of whom are and elevate the working to enact social change in their communities. In 2024, the Center selected nine impact of emerging Fellows were each awarded a grant and attended monthly meetings to present their work artists in their to each other and learn from one another. The 2024 Fellows were Alexis Powell (WCYA communities for ’24), B.K. Zervigón (MC ’24), Beste Filiz (WCYA ’25), Chris Lange (GD ’24), Christine social good.”

Hartman Derr (WCYA ’24), Hannah Ban (WCYA ’24), Jonathan Jackson (Film ’24), Joor Baruah (Film ’24), and Shannon Cleere (VA ’24).

1.

Cleere is using the Fellowship to explore the devaluation of domestic labor and the oppression that leads to. At the same time, Jackson is telling stories of Black life in the antebellum South from a point of view that explores not just trauma but also love and hope, and Ban is writing a novel that explores the stigmatization of single parenthood in Korean culture. Though the topics of the projects vary widely in scope and subject, each one is centered on furthering social justice.

2.

In 2021 and 2022, the Center offered two types of individual grants through the Fellowship program, one awarded to support a thesis project and the other to support non-thesis projects within each program. In 2024, the Center expanded and now offers three different grants. Students can apply for the Individual Fellowship, which awards $2,000 to each Fellow to support their work on their own project; Cross-Disciplinary Fellowships of $4,000 are awarded to two or more students in different disciplines; and Community-Engaged Fellowships of $5,000 support students who are collaborating with an existing, unaffiliated partner.

Mary-Kim Arnold (W ’16), Dean of Faculty & Academic Affairs at VCFA, is directing

the Fellowship program this year. She says the Center Fellowships exists “to call out the importance of that kind of work, and to give it a sort of articulation and to kind of highlight it. That can be really empowering for artists, to just have it be recognized.”

*

6.

CA S J

13

1. Chris Lange (GD ’24) 2. Alexis Powell (WCYA ’24) 3. Hannah Ban (WCYA ’24) 4. B.K. Zervigón (MC ’24)

8.

5. Beste Filiz (WCYA ’25) 6. Christine Hartman Derr (WCYA ’24) 7. Joor Baruah (Film ’24) 8. Jonathan Jackson (Film ’24) 9. Shannon Cleere (VA ’24)

In addition to recognizing the value of art that seeks to enact social change, the Fellowship aims to provide a community for the Fellows and to offer practical support as each Fellow pursues their project.

LiAnne Yu is a current Writing student who plans to graduate in summer 2025 and was a 2022 Center Fellow for her work on a book that draws upon Yu’s experience in anthropology and follows two Asian American anthropology students. The novel touches on the tokenization of students of color in fields dominated by white professionals.

Yu says she had been aware of the Center even before she began at VCFA and was intrigued by the intersection between arts and social justice that it promised. She added that writing and getting her MFA is a “third act” of sorts, following a career in anthropology and one in Silicon Valley.

“I loved the idea of art being something that wasn’t just navel-gazing,” Yu says.

“We have this perception of art as being a very elite, cloistered world. Sometimes

7.

it feels not accessible. What’s more accessible than the fight for social justice?

I love that intersection.”

Thanks to the $2,000 individual grant she was awarded through the Center, Yu was able to take time off and step away from day-to-day life for a writing retreat.

“Having financial support is always so critical for writing,” Yu says. “It allows me some breathing room to be able to get away and write. Well-meaning friends and family assume that if you have an hour free or half an hour, you can just squeeze in your writing, as if it were a chore like doing laundry. That’s not the case! For me, writing requires time and space.”

Yu says that as a self-proclaimed “older writer” in her 50s, she found through the Fellowship program a great joy in connecting with other artists, not just in different disciplines but of different generations as well.

“I think it’s really great to have these kinds of connections where we can cross-

9.

generationally share as well,” she says. “I’d love to see more of that.”

Although the Center is still new and its mission is fledgling, Arnold spoke of big dreams for its impact: “In the big vision of it, [we will] build a powerful and coherent community of artists—among the faculty, among the students, among Fellows, among prospective students, the general public—to really highlight the potential impact of individual artists to move a conversation forward.”

As for the impact of the Center and specifically the Fellowship, both Arnold and Yu were excited about the potential for it to be life-changing, not just for the Fellows but for their communities as well.

“The potential of it is extraordinary,” Yu says. “This was my one touch point with people in other disciplines at VCFA. That is a fantastic opportunity for this program. Being in community with other artists like that helped me claim myself as an artist as well. It is so humbling to hear how they engage in social justice themes and issues, reverberated back to me.”

The Center hopes to continue to grow and welcome even more students into the 2025 Fellowship cohort, furthering its impact not just on the students, their programs, and VCFA, but on communities across the world where these artists are working toward social change.

14

IN RESIDENCE 2024

fa c u lt y v i e w

Telling

Revolutionary Queer Stories Since he joined the faculty of VCFA’s Writing for Children & Young Adults program in July 2021, author Alex Sanchez has had the opportunity to work with over a dozen graduate students.

When it comes to working one-on-one with students, Sanchez says he endeavors to identify and call out areas where writers are already strong.

A Conversation with Alex Sanchez, MFA in Writing for Children & Young Adults

“In terms of creative work, it’s so easy to be critical,” Sanchez says. “And we need some of that, but I think it’s much more important to understand what our strengths are. And when we can communicate those, then [students] become much more open to then saying … what [are] areas that could be improved? My philosophy definitely is on building on strengths.”

In addition to building out students’ strengths, Sanchez believes in the power of each writer finding their individual voice and uncovering the stories they want to tell.

“What is sounding like them? As opposed to what are they trying to do because ‘it’s marketable’ or ‘this idea will really sell,’” he says. “What’s coming out of who they are as individuals?”

Sanchez, author of 10 novels for young readers, got his start in writing when he was introduced to the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

He had previously audited an MFA class and found the experience deeply

dissatisfying, but his time at the workshops put on by the Fine Arts Work Center was the polar opposite.

“It was just so encouraging and nurturing, a wonderful, real sense of a community, [and] a very positive environment,” Sanchez says, reflecting on his experience in various workshops, during which he had the opportunity to study with a bevy of teachers.

After signing with his agent in 1999, Sanchez, who is a queer man, published his first book, Rainbow Boys. First released in October 2001, Rainbow Boys follows three boys “coming of age and out of the closet,” according to the book’s description. The book launched not just Sanchez’s career but also a trilogy, and was well received by critics and audiences alike, having been named a “Best Book for Young Adults” by the American Library Association (ALA), among other honors.

Rainbow Boys was considered revolutionary at publication, as it was among the first mainstream novels for young adults that showcased LGBTQ+

FAC U LT Y V I E W

15

teens in a positive light and allowed them to have happy endings rather than being cautionary tales. Throughout his more than 20-year career, Sanchez has consistently brought queer stories to young readers in various mediums.

In 2019, Sanchez released his first graphic novel, You Brought Me the Ocean, illustrated

by Jul Maroh, author of Blue Is the Warmest Color (2010). Sanchez's novel follows Jake, a teenager grappling with grief, coming out, and nascent superpowers.

It was Sanchez’s first foray into the world of graphic novels, though he loved comics growing up and had written screenplays before. He was approached by DC Comics to write a gay superhero story. Sanchez said he had a breakthrough in the story when he realized that there are parallels between being queer and being a superhero.

“You know, it’s having this secret identity, like a superhero, or this double life where we can be out to some people, but we’re not out to other people,” Sanchez says. “And then we have this, you know, super villain that we have to constantly be facing, which is, you know, homophobia, transphobia, biphobia. … And when we finally can claim our authentic self being queer, it’s like, well, that’s our superpower. You know, it frees us up to face the world being truly who we are.”

He describes the process of creating the graphic novel as “wonderfully collaborative,” as he partnered with Maroh, who is based in France, and his editor, and together they crafted the story and illustrations.

engagement with other people in their creative projects [is great.]”

“I didn’t always want to be a writer,” Sanchez says about his decades-long career. “But I had a creative mom; she always encouraged my creativity and my friends’ creativity. And I love stories.”

Sanchez joined the faculty at VCFA because he had discovered a love of teaching through doing so at various conferences, libraries, and other events.

He describes the packet system of working with students as a process that renews his excitement for his own work.

“It’s wonderful to watch a student grow during the course of the semester. I find it energizes my own writing, working with students, because [writing is] such a lonely process … to be having that

Overall, Sanchez says he has loved being a part of the VCFA community in his three years as a faculty member. “The community in general, I’ve found, is so supportive—both faculty and students,” he says. “And so much of what students love about VCFA is that community.” His advice to VCFA alumnx from all programs is to find ways to carry that community forward in their postgrad lives.

“Y’all can continue to encourage each other in your projects,” Sanchez says. “And then to constantly keep learning, whether it’s through other workshops, through the internet, or community workshops.” support sanchez ’ s work at www . alexsanchez . com

*

16

IN RESIDENCE 2024

*

Faculty News Sheela Chari (WCYA) was

interviewed for “Episode 89” of The Indian Edit by Nitasha Manchanda on the craft of children’s literature.

Marya Cohn (F) mentored

screenwriters at the Nostos Screenwriting Retreat in Italy in the summer of 2024. She is currently developing the screenplay HURRICANE SEASON with Gina Resnick at Variant Entertainment. *Mark Cox’s (W) seventh

*

volume of poetry, Knowing, released with Press 53 in April of 2024.

*Rick Baitz (MC) released

the album River of January.

Several members of the VCFA family perform on this album, including Geoffrey Burleson, Jennifer Choi, Yves Dharamraj, David Cossin, and Cornelius Dufallo. Available everywhere music is sold and streamed, from iTunes to Amazon to Bandcamp to Spotify. Baitz performed

River of January with an ensemble of stellar South African musicians in Cape Town on December 1, 2023, as part of the ISCM (International Society of Contemporary Music) World New Music Days festival.

17 2024 was Tarfia Faizullah’s (W) first year in a tenuretrack position as an assistant professor in creative writing at UNT. *Miciah Bay Gault’s (W) *Caleb Curtiss (W)

published his debut fulllength collection, Age of Forgiveness, with Sundress Publications in late 2023.

Curtiss’s collection faces the sudden death of his sister as he recounts the traumatic childhood they shared together. In 33 lyrically charged poems and five visual erasures, Age of Forgiveness documents a familial apocalypse from its onset to its aftermath.

*

story “Greta,” originally published in Switchyard magazine in December 2023, was turned into a short film by writer and director Benjamin Font. The film premiered in 2024, and Filmatic called the film a “strange and stylish ghost story.” *Evan Griffith (WCYA)

published the middle grade novel The Strange Wonders of Roots with HarperCollins in 2024. The Strange Wonders of Roots was selected as a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection.

*

*Damon Davis’s (F) space

opera Ligeia Mare: The Radio Opera (Episode Four), was performed at Carnegie Hall in New York City in March of 2024. The story follows Cosmo, an awkward adolescent with the gift of astral projection while dreaming, and explores themes of self-empowerment, familial relationships, and the Black imagination.

*

*

* *Samuel Kolawole’s (W)

Some of *Lorena HowardSheridan’s (GD) lettering work was included in Slanted Yearbook of Lettering, 2024, next to the work of other type designers, letterers, calligraphers, and visual artists.

novel The Road to the Salt Sea was published with HarperCollins in July of 2024.

*

Natalia Ilyin (GD) received a

2024 Fulbright Grant from the U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. Ilyin will complete a project at Brno University of Technology in the Czech Republic that aims to exchange knowledge and establish partnerships benefiting participants, institutions, and communities both in the U.S. and overseas through a variety of educational and training activities within American (U.S.) Studies.

Ilyin will be working with architecture students, giving them ideas about how to get their words out of the brain and onto the page.

*Uma Krishnaswami (WCYA) published Look!

Look!, the companion to the creator’s much-loved Out of the Way! Out of the Way!, with Groundwood in 2024. Krishnaswami’s 2004 novel Naming Maya is the 2024 winner of the Phoenix Award through the Children’s Literature Association. The Phoenix Award is given to the author, or the estate of the author, of a book for children first published 20 years earlier that did not win a major award at the time of its publication but which, from the perspective of time, is deemed worthy of special attention. Krishnaswami spoke on a panel about the Phoenix Award at the ChLA conference.

18

IN RESIDENCE 2024

Faculty News

* In 2024, John Mallia (MC) performed an interactive, audio-only version of his sci-fi inspired work “Blear” at the Bleep/ Blorp Festival of Synthesizer Music, and his six-channel acousmatic work, “Transference,” was performed as part of ElectroWave: The Rocky Mountain Electronic Music Festival.

*

*Jane Kurtz (WCYA)

published two nonfiction picture books about dinosaurs in 2023, The Clues Are in the Poo and The Bone Wars: The True Story of an Epic Battle to Find Dinosaur Fossils. Kurtz currently has another nonfiction picture book under contract that shines a light on a woman who was involved in studying the very first named dinosaur, and also a picture book coming out in 2025 about a rhinoceros who was part of the scientific revolution. *Martine Leavitt (WCYA)

published Buffalo Flats with Margaret Ferguson Books in 2023. Leavitt’s next book is a young adult novel-in-verse about two boys in juvenile detention. Told from the perspective of one boy, Clem, the boys struggle to survive five days in administrative segregation, which is a euphemism for solitary confinement in the juvenile justice system.

*

*

*Ian Lynam (GD) in 2024

published War with Myself: Essays on Design, Culture & Violence with Set Margins. War with Myself is a wide-ranging collection of essays spanning design, authenticity, Empire, decolonization, and history.

The book is an urgent and impassioned examination of the contemporary condition.

In 2024, Lynam designed Ruth’s Recipe, a custom display font created for Nestlé Toll House as part of the rebranding for the company that is credited with popularizing the chocolate chip cookie. Lynam and his collaborators released 13 new type families over the past year.

*Lisa Mezzacappa (MC)

*

released her nine-episode audio opera, The Electronic Lover, on Innova Records in May of 2024. The serial story, created with writer Beth Lisick, follows a group of tech-savvy women who connect in chat rooms at the dawn of the internet. The music is available for streaming and digital download.

*

*Anica Mrose Rissi’s (WCYA) middle grade

novel Wishing Season (HarperCollins 2023) is a co-winner of the 2024 Paterson Prize for Books for Young People, which The Poetry Center at PCCC awards annually to “the most outstanding book for young people published in the previous year.” Wishing Season was also a Horn Book Fanfare Best Books of 2023 selection and a CCBC Choices 2024 best-of-the-year list selection, and garnered starred reviews from The Horn Book, School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and Kirkus.

FAC U LT Y N E WS

*Silas Munro (GD) was

awarded an MIT Grant Program for Diverse Voices in 2024 through MIT Press. Additionally in 2024, Lesley University College of Art and Design presented “Black Grids Redux,” a solo exhibition in its Raizes Gallery in the Lunder Arts Center of new work by Silas Munro documenting his search for a “Black Grid.”

The exhibition was on view from February 15 to March 8, 2024, with an artist talk co-sponsored by EDIJ, Lesley Design, and AIGA Boston. *Erica S. Perl (WCYA)

*Matt Phelan’s (WCYA)

*

*Liz Scanlon (WCYA)

fourth book in the Plum series, Plum to the Rescue!, released in 2024 with HarperCollins/Greenwillow Books. He is currently finishing the fifth and final Plum book, illustrating a new novel from National Book Award winner Jeanne Birdsall, and sketching his fifth picture book, Bartleby the Toddler (FSG/Macmillan 2026).

*

released Whale and the Mystery Mango—the next installment in her early reader series Whale, Quail, Snail—in August of 2024 with Simon & Schuster.

Perl is currently working on a fourth book in the Whale, Quail, Snail early reader series, as well as other projects.

*

*Sereina Rothenberger (GD)

*

19

and David Schatz (GD) of the graphic design studio Hammer co-edited and designed the book Pathé’O. Pathé’O was published in 2023 and traces the extraordinary journey of Pathé’O and his brand. In 2024, the book was longlisted for the 39th edition of the Kraszna-Krausz Book Awards in the UK; exhibited at Photo London Fair in London, May 16–19; selected by the 35th edition of the Tokyo Type Directors Club Award in the category Editorial / Book Design and deemed “Prize Nominee Work”; and was exhibited at the TDC 2024 Exhibition at the Ginza graphic gallery in Tokyo, April 1–May 15.

Natasha Saje (W) released

The Future Will Call You Something Else with Tupelo Press in September of 2023.

published the picture book Everyone Starts Small with Candlewick Press in early 2024. Scanlon’s Bibsy Cross chapter book series launched with books one and two (Bibsy Cross & the Bad Apple and Bibsy Cross & the Bike-a-Thon) in June of 2024. The Bad Apple received a starred review in Publishers Weekly and both books are Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selections.

Finally, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library will feature Scanlon’s picture book Full Moon Pups (illustrated by Chuck Groenink) in its 2024 fall program.

In late 2023, Sue William Silverman (W) was elected co-chair of the MFA in Writing program, to serve with Adam McOmber (W). The program thanks Connie May Fowler (W), the outgoing co-chair, for her three years of dedicated service. In early 2024, Silverman published Acetylene Torch Songs: Writing True Stories to Ignite the Soul with University of Nebraska Press.

Silverman published two new essays in 2024 in the Pinch Journal and the Jabberwock Review. In August of 2024, Silverman taught a five-day creative nonfiction workshop in Rockport, Maine.

Roger Zahab’s (MC) Wild

Woods, a concerto for flute and concert band, was premiered by the fabulous flutist Lindsey Goodman with the Ashland (Ohio) Symphonic Band in 2024.

20

reflections on art

The Creative Practice of Living b y t i a m cc a r t h y

In this recurring segment, we ask VCFA staff members to offer their thoughts on topics such as creative practice, pedagogy, influence, voice, and any ruminations on the current moment we face as artists and members of a global community.

This issue, VCFA’s Associate Library Director, Tia McCarthy, lends us her voice through her essay “The Creative Practice of Living.”

I am not an artist. At least, I would never use that word to describe myself. When I was asked to contribute this piece, it was because through the library I’ve gotten to work with people who do and should describe themselves that way. But I don’t have much opportunity in my daily work to see our artists in practice. I get to see the culmination of their artistic journeys at our residencies and when we add alumnx work to the library collections, but not much of what it took to get there.

My own artistic efforts tend to wander from project to craft to genre, and if I’m on any kind of journey, the destination is distant. Ten years ago I wouldn’t have used this language, but thanks to my time with the students and faculty here at VCFA, I’ve come to understand that so many moments in my daily life—my walks in the woods, time in the garden, even the moments after dinner with my hands in the sudsy sink—are all part of what it turns out is the deliberative element of an art practice.

I knit, I cook and garden, I mend, I play with paint. I hope to have time for ceramics again someday. I don’t have a studio. I have a messy dining room table and a living room couch and stuff scrounged from yard sales and free piles and the woods. I’ve been a magpie of objects my whole life, and of ways of making

since my grandmother taught me to knit at seven. Every day I hike with my dog, Frida, my brain mulling and noticing, and so I surround myself with things that maybe could become … something.

It may not be particularly revelatory to anyone in the arts community to understand that the time taken away from creating a particular piece is as valuable as the time spent in direct dialogue with the creative process. But I find reassurance in understanding that the brain doesn’t stop tinkering with ideas, even when it’s hard to notice, even when I haven’t thrown a bowl or knitted in years. The mulling

REFLECTIONS ON ART

never stops. Those simmering ideas will be there when there is time.

A podcast I occasionally listen to, Spark & Fire, describes the process of making art as a hero’s journey. That strikes me as a lot of pressure and puts so much emphasis on the challenge and transformation, missing something important about any journey: it often consists of long stretches of waiting for things to happen. It’s the rare depiction of an adventure that also shows how very long journeys actually take, and the amount of time the hero probably spends looking for a clean bathroom and something not too disappointing to eat. That’s been my experience with the artistic process, anyway.

Long stretches of mundane life punctuated by the rarest flashes of inspiration.

What I’m working on now is learning how to recognize and hold onto those flashes. When I was a kid, I read Roald Dahl’s description of the small notebook he always carried to jot down ideas. Once, he found himself driving down a dusty road when he was hit by an idea. He didn’t have his notebook with him, so he pulled over and used his finger to write ELEVATOR in the dirt on his windshield, which was enough to tether the thought until he returned home to begin to write Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator.

When I come home from my walks in the woods, it’s often with a phone full of ideas, captured like Dahl on the roadside, waiting to be transformed when I am ready to take on the challenge, when I make the time. Maybe that’s what we’re all doing as we live our lives: keeping an eye out for the flashes, catching them when we can, and sharing them when we’re ready. And I can’t wait to see what you’re all ready to share with us next.

21

22

IN RESIDENCE 2024

l i f e a f t e r t h e m fa

Patricia Spears Jones (W ’91)

A Poetry Icon on Writing as a Career

Rachel Eliza Griffiths

When asked why she writes, poet Patricia Spears Jones (W ’91) says simply, “Because I have to. I don’t sing, I’m not a scientist, I am not an adventurer, I write poems. And I do a damn good job with it.”

Jones published several poetry collections over the several decades she has been a part of the New York City literary community, including her 1995 collection, The Weather That Kills and her latest, The Beloved Community, as well as many chapbooks and anthologies. She has been listed as one of “40 Poets They Love” by Essence, was awarded The Jackson Poetry Prize, and has won a Pushcart Prize for poetry, among many other accomplishments.

She was recently named the New York State Poet and consequently received the Walt Whitman Citation of Merit for Poetry in the state. The two-year program includes doing three readings, and Jones says she has ideas percolating about how she can make an impact even after her time ends.

“One of the joys of being a poet and artist is that you have no idea what rooms you’re gonna enter,” Jones says.

“But you’re prepared to be there.”

Jones’s most recent publication is The Beloved Community (Copper Canyon Press 2023), a collection that was inspired by a real-life moment of shared grief in a laundromat, which led to her reflecting on shared experiences with strangers, especially in urban centers.

“I wanted to talk about the issue of community,” Jones says. “How do we come together, and what are the things that tear us apart?”

In 1988, when she began her MFA studies at VCFA, Jones had already been working as a poet and playwright for several years. She graduated in 1991 after taking a

L I F E A F T E R M FA

leave of absence due to finances part way through her degree.

Jones spoke highly of the “amazing cohort of teachers” she worked with at VCFA and added that, as someone who joined the program after already being a working writer, she found it beneficial in affirming her talents.

“I had already been writing for years when I went and got my MFA,” Jones says. “I was not a newbie. What it did for me was confirm that I had a very serious voice, really great things to say in language, and that I was getting the kind of information I needed to make all of those happen better. [It was] more about craft than anything else.”

In reflecting on her expansive creative life, Jones says that she’s always been a writer but hasn’t always thought of writing as a profession.

“I didn’t think of writing as a career until my first book really came out,” she says. “But I always wrote, always performed, and since I moved to New York, I was writing as a poet.”

Jones adds that she has witnessed firsthand the way writing has been devalued in the last several years, noting that when outlets like The Huff ington Post began offering for writers to publish

with them for no pay, it was “the beginning of the end of a certain way in which writers were treated.”

“I am a professional,” Jones says, “but to make money, I have been everything from a director of development to a communications officer in a nonprofit to a teacher.”

As a writer with decades of experience, Jones is honest about the difficulties of making a career as an artist. But to our VCFA community, she counsels that the best thing to do is to find a definition of success that works for you—one that isn’t just about the big wins but the little victories that color every day.

“If you don’t wanna do it anymore, don’t worry about it!”

Jones says. “If you wanna do it, give it 100 percent.”

*

stay up to date with patricia spears jones at www . psjones . com .

23

“... I don’t sing, I’m not a scientist, I am not an adventurer, I write poems.

And I do a damn good job with it.”

Patricia Spears Jones

24

IN RESIDENCE 2024

l i f e a f t e r t h e m fa

Rick Heffner

(GD �23)

Unboxing History

Rick Heffner (GD ’23) decided

to enroll in VCFA’s MFA in Graphic Design program because, after decades of being a working artist, he discovered a love for teaching others.

Although he was adjunct teaching at George Mason University and already had an MA, he says he eventually realized that he would need an MFA in order to be on equal footing with the rest of the faculty he worked with.

“I had no intention of going back to school,” Heffner admits, then adds that “the program [at VCFA] seemed to fit me because of my schedule.

Like there was no way I could move and live in a dorm for two years. There’s no way.”

“I sent a first batch; it sold out. I sent a second batch; it sold out. Now I’m out of print,” Heffner says of CRUIS’N. “There seems to be a market [for this].”

The project was born, in part, out of struggles Heffner experienced adapting to the creative environment of the MFA in Graphic Design program after years working in corporate design. “I was still stuck in like, well, I’m gonna Heffner graduated from VCFA do a brand identity or I’m going to do an ad campaign,” he says. He struggled during his first semester but in July 2023, and his thesis, eventually had a breakthrough.

“CRUIS’N: Uncovering Gay Design History Through “I wanted to do something that was, I don’t know, gay Collecting,” is available related, but I didn’t quite know how much I wanted through Printed Matter, Inc., to put out there about me,” he says. Together with his a nonprofit that helps artists advisors, he says they “went through a bunch of different disseminate their work. The ideas about identity and masking and all that kind of project collects and showcases stuff. I’m not the kind of person that puts it out there. the ways that gay culture I’m not a big marcher or flag waver.” was shared among gay men in the 20th century through Eventually, an advisor told him about the podcast Bad magazines, books, and other Gays. An episode featuring Eugen Sandow, a German printed media, and how these efforts brought gay culture into bodybuilder who developed a gay cult following, sparked the mainstream consciousness. Heffner’s creativity, sending him down a research rabbit

L I F E A F T E R M FA

25

Heffner says. “I’m definitely better in the classroom after that experience. I feel like I have a little more command of the classroom. I have brought some practices into my classroom that have been given to us through the faculty.”

In reflecting on the conclusion of his time at VCFA, Heffner adds that he feels he has learned to practice more curiosity and improved his listening skills, and that working with his advisors—and fellow students— opened his mind to the wealth of avenues creativity can take.

hole that culminated in his thesis. “[CRUIS’N] just became this big research book and storytelling book, basically,” he says.

Heffner was surprised by how much the research for the project excited him as he continued to work on it. He went down various roads, focusing on the postwar era. He highlighted gay men and their modes of communication with each other—how they survived and thrived in a society that would have preferred them silenced.

As an established designer before he attended VCFA, Heffner also notes how his studies have impacted his work outside of the program, including in the classroom and for his design firm, Fuszion.

“I feel I can talk about my work better now. Not just a little more eloquently, but just from a conceptual standpoint, I feel like I can present myself better,”

*

“We tend to put things in boxes,” he says, “and that doesn’t work for … art.”

learn more about rick heffner and his design firm , fuszion , at www . fuszion . com .

26

IN RESIDENCE 2024

l i f e a f t e r t h e m fa

Martha Gregory

(F ’16)

Filmmakers Supporting Filmmakers

There is nothing quite like the magic that occurs between a mentor and a mentee, and that relationship is a guiding force behind producer, educator, and VCFA MFA in Film alumnx Martha Gregory’s (F ’16) latest project, the Untitled Filmmaker Organization (UFO).

Co-directed and co-created

by Gregory and her partners, Arno Mokros and Sean Weiner, UFO is, as Gregory explains, “a filmmaker support organization. We provide time, space, and money to filmmakers at under-resourced career stages.” UFO offers multiple opportunities to its mentees, including microgrants and subsidized film equipment rentals; a one-month residency in Woodstock, New York, that offers filmmaking teams with space and support in the development, pre-production, or post-production stage of their current project; and an 18-month film lab that provides cohort members with mentorship, weekly in-person workshops, funding for short film production, and festival submission guidance.

UFO felt like the natural next step in Gregory’s career.

In the past few years, she has been a producer on projects such as FACING THE SURGE (2016), GOTTA GET DOWN TO IT (2019), THE TASTE OF MANGO (2023), and FRYBREAD FACE AND ME (2023), and has taught at institutions such as Kenyon College, School of Visual Arts, and Fashion Institute of Technology.

Through production and education, Gregory found an appreciation for the creative passion that is born out of community collaboration and generosity.

“I moved back to New York right before the pandemic— like a month before the pandemic,” Gregory explains.

“And I was at the time already starting to move into producing. … I was stepping away from directing and leading my own projects. At the time I was also kind of looking for ways to just help other artists. I think the pandemic threw into sharp relief how important it is to try to just help people.”

L I F E A F T E R M FA

Filmmakers from a previous iteration of the organization—a program run by Gregory and Weiner a few years prior to the official launch of UFO—have gone on to screen their works at major film festivals. This success has only further driven the UFO team to continue their work and support their current cohort of filmmakers. In this current UFO cohort, Gregory says she’s seen the artists in the program form their own micro community, and that watching them support one another throughout the filmmaking process has been profound to say the least.

The harsh realities of the pandemic shuttered multiple arts organizations, especially within the independent filmmaking space. As grant opportunities and film labs and workshops began to dwindle in number for underrepresented and under-resourced filmmakers, Gregory and her co-directors knew they urgently needed to champion an organization like UFO. “The film industry suffers from homogeneity,” Gregory says. “One of the best things we can do to help just grow and be better is to bring more diverse perspectives into it. To support underrepresented storytelling and underrepresented storytellers is, I think, to help the industry as a whole.”

27

“I would really like to believe that the best pieces of work are the ones that come from the strongest communities behind them,” says Gregory. “In filmmaking, I think every film is a community.”

*

VCFA alumnx looking to uplift independent filmmakers and films can learn more about UFO, its artists, and its growing list of opportunities at www.untitledfilmmaker.org.

28

IN RESIDENCE 2024

l i f e a f t e r t h e m fa

Suma Subramaniam Stories to Empower

(WCYA ’17)

Suma Subramaniam (WCYA '17) is having a busy

2024. The author and VCFA Writing for Children & Young Adults class of 2017 graduate is publishing three books this year.

Subramaniam, who was born and raised in India before immigrating to the U.S. in the early 2000s, says she often feels as though she is “embedded in both cultures,” and has seen children “from India and the diaspora struggle with complex dichotomies like identity and issues related to adolescence and becoming multifaceted personalities. When I ask myself how I can help them, the answer takes a clear shape, and it is to write impactful and empowering children’s books.”

As a result, Subramaniam’s stories aim to evoke a sense of community that allow her young readers to see themselves and their lived realities reflected on the page. “I want to provide hope and support for children to show them how fun it can be when cultures are blended together,” she says.

The first of Subramaniam’s 2024 releases, A Bindi Can Be, came out May 7 from Kids Can Press and is about a young girl learning that a bindi is “more than just a dot,” Subramaniam says. The book idea was sparked by a school visit in Northern California, where several children asked her about her own bindi. Subramaniam acknowledged the wealth of information about the bindi that already exists, and said her book is more about empowering readers to understand the heart behind the bindi.

“This is more of a heartfelt invitation to engage with young readers about the bindi and reflect on its cultural significance and respect the symbolism that comes with it, because it dates back thousands of years,” explains Subramaniam. “And when they do all of that, they will not be treating it like an accessory. They will really value the knowledge and empathy that they have, through the book.”

On May 28, Penguin Workshop published Subramaniam’s second book of the year, a picture book titled My Name Is Long as a River, which comes from a very personal place for the author, who has had her own name disrespected over the years by people who couldn’t pronounce it, or spell it, or wouldn’t take the time to learn to do either.

L I F E A F T E R M FA

*

keep up with suma subramaniam ’ s books at www . sumasubramaniam . com .

In addition to her books, Subramaniam has been involved in the kidlit community through volunteer work: She’s a founding member of Diverse Verse, an intern at Cynsations (an online publication run

by WCYA’s very own faculty member Cynthia Leitich Smith), and a member of the Internship Grants Committee at We Need Diverse Books.

Being involved in these various roles has allowed Subramaniam to truly appreciate the kidlit community; she says that when she gets to celebrate other authors’ wins through her work she feels “like I’m celebrating my success.”

It makes sense that she is a part of these organizations that have a heart for diversifying literature for children and teens, because Subramaniam explains that, at the end of the day, she writes stories so children can see their experiences reflected and foresee a bright future for themselves.

“I really hope that if there’s anyone out there who has a name as long as a river or has a name that is difficult to say, they realize that names have power. … It’s also about the strength and joy of embracing them,” she says.

Finally, V. Malar: Greatest Host of All Time comes out this November and is an early middle grade novel about “a strong Brown female protagonist who has a wild imagination, and she can rally to become anything she wants,” Subramaniam says.

“I’d really like for all children to tap into their inner abilities and not just accept but celebrate and cherish being a strong protagonist of color, or just being a protagonist themselves and how their radical representation in books like mine can help build a better future for all of us.”

29

30 I N R E S I D E N C E 2 0 2 4 l i f e a f t e r t h e m fa

Quincy Davis

(MC �19)

The Beat of Music Education

“I come from a very musical family and music was always around me growing up,” recalls Quincy Davis (MC ’19). “I started on the piano, taking lessons from my mother, but had more of a fascination for ‘hitting things.’ My parents bought me my first snare drum and enrolled me in drum lessons, and that was it for me.”

A musician, performer, educator, and VCFA Music Composition alumnx, Davis has had an electric career specializing in the drum set with an emphasis in jazz. He started out studying under legendary jazz drummer Billy Hart before he and his drums went on to become one of the sought after “young cats” on the New York jazz scene in the early 2000s. He played at famous jazz venues including Village Vanguard, Blue Note, Smalls, Jazz Standard, Birdland, Iridium, Dizzy’s Coca-Cola Club, and Smoke. Davis even toured with musicians such as Frank Wess, Ernestine Anderson, Cecile McLorin-Salvant, Russell Malone, Eric Reed, Paquito D’Rivera, Kurt Elling, Christian McBride, Buster Williams, and many more.

Through it all, one of the most present aspects of Davis’s career has been his involvement in music education.

In addition to coming from a musical family, Davis comes from a family of educators. “Both of my parents are wonderful music educators, both of whom I either studied with or observed. I learned how to teach from them,” explains Davis. “Coincidentally, both of my siblings are also teachers. I enjoy sharing and helping those trying to learn more about music and jazz. I’ve been teaching at the university level for 14 years.”

Davis is currently a professor of the jazz drum set and the chair of the drum set department at the University of North Texas. As a performer and educator, he champions the importance of music education in America. “I think music education in America is essential because it enhances students’ cognitive development, fosters creativity, improves academic performance, and promotes social and emotional well-being,” explains Davis.

As a teacher, Davis tries to foster in his students a love for the history of music and emphasizes the importance of researching the origins and traditions of the music his students play. Though it is a memory of one student that exemplifies what he hopes his students will take away from working with him.

L I F E A F T E R M FA

“I always talk about the memory of working with an extremely talented student who would always be drenched in sweat by the time they finish a set because they played with so much heart and soul,” recalls Davis.

“But after a year of studying with me, I noticed after a particular set, he wasn’t his usual drenched self. And I told him, ‘You sound good, but you’re not sweating.’ He knew what I was trying to say. I don’t want my students to learn so much that they forget who they are and lose themselves. I always want them to be their authentic self.”

And Davis doesn’t just teach in the university space.

Anyone from the VCFA community can “study” with Davis on his free-to-access YouTube channel, jazz drum Qtips, where he posts lessons on jazz drumming and interviews with master drummers.

At the end of the day, no matter how or where or when he does it, it’s a guarantee that Davis will continue to use his career to push forward the conversation on music education.

“Jazz education in America is important,” concludes Davis, “because it preserves cultural heritage, teaches collaboration and creativity, deepens understanding of history, and provides opportunities for personal growth and community engagement.”

*

explore quincy davis ’ s work at www . quincydavisjazz . com .

31

32

IN RESIDENCE 2024 3

l i f e a f t e r t h e m fa

Molly Gambardella (VA ’23)

Patterns in Bloom

Nature as metaphor came to Gambardella through two pivotal experiences in her youth. Due to a misunderstanding with a psychologist at the age of 17, Gambardella was subjected to an involuntary stay at a psych ward in New England. “This surreal episode, evoking One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, highlighted for me the significant impact of misinterpretations and the intricate power dynamics within health care systems,” Gambardella says.

Gambardella’s second motivating experience was when she was accepted into a pre-college program at RISD but rejected from its BFA program. “Observing my peers on social media, I recognized a pattern where If you attended VCFA with sculpture and college acceptances appeared more correlated with installation artist Molly Gambardella financial backgrounds than with the merit of one’s (VA ’23) or have seen her installation work, underscoring the profound influence of societal work displayed at venues such as MoCA, and political structures on individual opportunities,” Yellowstone National Park, and the New Gambardella recalls. “These moments influenced the England Botanic Garden, then you know way I interacted with the world. For example, the more the natural world is a frequent visitor in I learned and explored lichens, [the more] I saw them her work. Yet, as Gambardella explains, “I as metaphors for human existence. I examined how often turn to lichens, horseshoe crabs, aster different environments influence their (and, by extension, flowers, orchids, and more, not merely as our) well-being. This exploration has informed various subjects but as metaphors that bridge the projects, including studying the decline of horseshoe natural world with human experiences.” crab populations due to legislative and biopharmaceutical

L I F E A F T E R M FA

33

To Gambardella, there are connections and nuanced relationships all around us—if one is willing to find these patterns in bloom. For anyone looking to deepen their practice and broaden their creative fire, Gambardella has five key pieces of advice (which have been edited down into excerpts for this article): “One: Maintain momentum.

Keeping the creative energy flowing is vital. If you find yourself in a productive phase, do your best to sustain it. Two: Foster curiosity. If something piques your interest, chances are it will captivate others too.

Three: Stand by your integrity.

In a world bombarded with constant information and societal pressures, knowing who you are and what you value can help you stay focused and true to your vision. Four: Hold onto humility. Believing you have all

impacts, contrasting flower bulbs’ growth cycles to human-created time, and finding commonalities between pollinator ecosystems and humans’ created spaces.”

the answers can stifle creativity.

Five: Embrace stubbornness.

Failure is a part of the creative process, but the ability to persist

Gambardella’s most recent exhibition, “Patterns in Bloom,” which took place at the New England Botanic Garden in 2024, is a key example of her investigation into the complex relationships between biological, social, and political systems. The sprawling installation featured 60 unique orchid-inspired sculptures set in and amongst 2,000 living orchids, trees, plants, and vines.

through adversity is what can ultimately strengthen and refine your practice.”

“My most recent installation at New England Botanic Garden, which celebrated the diversity of orchids, was developed during a time marked by war, turmoil, and violence, all rooted in intolerance of ‘the other,’” explains Gambardella. “Diversity, as seen in the variety of orchids, is not just about beauty; it’s crucial for survival. … This reflects the human world, where diversity could be celebrated and seen as a strength, not a cause for division.”

*

“Embarking on a creative journey, particularly one that intertwines with the themes of nature and life, is both a personal and professional exploration,” says Gambardella. “By staying true to yourself, nurturing your curiosity, and embracing the challenges that come your way, you can develop a practice that not only fulfills you but also resonates with others.” follow molly gambardella ’ s work at www . mollygambardella . com .

34 I N R E S I D E N C E 2 0 2 4

Class News

*

This issue of in residence reflects the news submitted by our community from late June 2023 to early June 2024.

To have your recent news showcased in the 2025 edition of in residence, use the Share Your News form today: vcfa.edu/share-your-news.

*

1983

Valerie Wells (W) has had poems

recently published in The Bennington Review (“Rushes”), Commonweal (“Baptism”), Spiritus (“The Heart’s Weather”), and the Jewish Literary Journal (“New England House”).

Her poem “Two Forces I Have Known” is forthcoming in The Christian Century.

1985

Mark Fleckenstein’s (W) sixth full-

1992

*Susan Aizenberg’s (W) third

full-length collection, A Walk with Frank O’Hara: Poems, was published in the University of New Mexico Press’s Mary Burritt Christiansen Series on August 15, 2024. She launched the book with a reading and celebration at Prairie Lights Books in Iowa City. She is currently working on new poems and arranging for additional readings.

Laurie Kuntz’s (W) sixth poetry

collection, That Infinite Roar, was published by Gyroscope Press at the end of 2023.

*

length poetry collection—Wherever You Go, There You Are—will be released with Unsolicited Press in June of 2026.

1986 1993 *Rustin Larson’s (W) Northern

Vermont and Other Poems was reissued with New Chicago Press in late 2023.

*Sally Stiles’s (W) ninth book,

Across the Covered Bridge, is a novel in nine linked stories which, include a Cezanne painting, a poem scribbled on a baseball glove, a stained-glass window that comes to life, and more.

The book was released in 2024 with Pale Horse Books.

1995

C L A S S N E WS

*

1999

*Joan Connor (W) published

The Corner of East and Dreams, a collection of off-kilter short stories, with Running Wild Press in early 2024. Connor is working on short John Thelin (W) released Those stories and is trying to complete a Last Few Moments of Light: Poems comic novel. of the Dead Boy with Slipstream Press in the autumn of 2023. The In 2024, *Brad Davis (W) published manuscript won the 2023 36th the collection On the Way to Putnam: Annual Chapbook Competition.

New, Selected, & Early Poems with Thelin’s chapbook manuscript, Grayson Books. Davis is currently Eating Out: Cafe Chronicles, was a working on a translation project. finalist in Concrete Wolf ’s 2023 Chapbook Award.

* *Roberta Gates (W) published

Number 12 Rue Sainte-Catherine and Other Stories with Running Wild Press in the fall of 2024. Gates is currently working on a novel.

Allison Hedge Coke (W) was

awarded the Thomas Wolfe Prize by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill/Thomas Wolfe Association. Established in 1999 with an endowed gift to the Department of English, the program recognizes contemporary writers with distinguished bodies of work.

1996

Jeri Theriault (W) was awarded

the 2023 Literary Arts Fellowship by the Maine Arts Commission.

Additionally in 2023, Theriault published the collection SelfPortrait as Homestead with Deerbrook Editions.

1997

Daniel Jaffe (W) published the

short story collection Domestic Affairs: Tales of American Males with Rattling Good Yarns Press in early 2024.

*

35

*Mary Bailey’s (W) short story

1998

*Pete Driessen’s (VA) exhibition

“Zumbro Bend/Three Desiring Bodies” was installed at three abstracted forks in the river ecosystem that winds around the Rochester Art Center in Rochester, Minnesota. The exhibition was held from November 2023 to March 2024.

Additionally, Driessen was the recipient of the Next Step Grant through the Metropolitan Regional Arts Council, St. Paul, Minnesota. Driessen will receive funding to create, curate, and present a solo sculpture-based exhibit, “VectorSector,” a sitespecific sculpture and installation project at the NE Sculpture Gallery, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

*

“Lost” was published in the 2023 Connecticut Literary Anthology by Woodhall Press and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Bailey is currently working on a collection of short stories. Between stories, Bailey is out in the studio working on a new series of wall-relief sculptures that combine word and image.

*

Jody Lisberger (W) was named

as a finalist for her short story “Sleeping With Skunk” in the 2023 American Literary Review contest. Her story “Hurricane Bob”

36 I N R E S I D E N C E 2 0 2 4

was published by The Louisville Review. Lisberger is currently circulating a story collection called Hand Me Up, Hand Me Down and revising a novel called You Don’t Know the Half of It.

*

Kevin McLellan (W) won the

2024 Granite State Poetry Prize.

McLellan’s collection Sky. Pond.

Mouth. was selected by the New Hampshire Poet Laureate, Alexandria Peary, and was released at the Nossrat Yassini Poetry Festival on April 13, 2024, with YAS Press.

*

*Don Swartzentruber, (VA) as a

follow-up to an Indiana Individual Artists Grant, published 25 videos that give the backstories for his paintings and drawings. The series is on YouTube under his channel, Don Swartzentruber, and is called “PopMennonite: art, culture and faith.” *Gretchen Woelfle (WCYA)

2000

The second edition of *Louella Bryant’s (W) 2008 Vietnam-era biography, While in Darkness There is Light, winner of the Southwest Writers Nonfiction Prize, is now available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook downloadable from Amazon, Barnes & Noble Nook, Spotify, Libro, Google Play, Kobo Walmart, and other platforms.

Her prohibition novel, Rum Running Queen: A Story of Bootleg Whiskey Driver Willie Carter Sharpe, is forthcoming with Black Rose Writing in 2025. She is also polishing a story collection and beginning work on a nonfiction book about PTSD and TBI among vets.

published How Benjamin Franklin Became a Revolutionary in Seven (Not-So-Easy) Steps with Astra Publications/Calkins Creek in the fall of 2023. She is currently researching and writing a young adult book about the first large-scale women’s organization that is still going strong today 170 years later.

*

2001 2002 *Sabrina Fadial (VA) is the new

Executive Director of the TW Wood Gallery: a Museum of American Art. She continues to teach in the School of Architecture + Art at Norwich University and has a thriving studio practice.

*

*James Long (VA) digitized the

extensive archive of videotapes that were previously tucked away on the fourth floor of VCFA’s College Hall in Montpelier, Vermont.

Long has donated 140 DVDs and streaming files to VCFA. It is an

C L A S S N E WS

unbelievable collection that includes the very first public lecture from the first residency in the summer of 1991. Any alumnx who might have a graduation or lecture tape in their collection should contact Long, the program, or the library as there are a few gaps in the current archive.

Outside of this project for VCFA, Long is wrapping up a photographic project called “Lift Ride Up–Slide Ride Down: The Rise and Fall of the Mt. Tom Ski Area.”

Amanda Passmore-Ott’s (W)

Alexis Lathem (W) was awarded

a fellowship in Creative Writing by the National Endowment for the Arts. She is currently working on a series of lyric essays on ecological themes.

of the exhibition “11 Women of Spirit Part 8,” a satellite fair of the Armory Show, at Salon Zurcher in New York City.

*

“Wild nature taught me to be still” in The Boston Globe in November of 2023. In April 2023, Townsend was offered membership in the IUCN Species Survival Commission Iguana Specialist Group and spoke at the annual conference in late 2023.

Townsend is currently working on a memoir manuscript.

*

new chapbook, Human Wilderness, released with Finishing Line Press in early 2024. She is currently working on a collection of haibun, a prosimetric form that combines lyric narrative and haiku. In the meantime, she continues to teach undergraduate writing classes at Pennsylvania State University.

2005 2004 * Elizabeth Bisbing (VA) was a part

Wendy Townsend (WCYA) published

37

2003

A reprint of Wendy Carlisle’s (W) first book, Reading Berryman to the Dog, was recently released in 2023 with Belle Point Press. Carlisle is currently working on a fifth fulllength collection. *Shelagh Connor Shapiro (W)

was the 2023 President of the Green Mountain Book Festival in Burlington, Vermont, which took place at the beginning of Banned Books Week. After 15 years, Connor Shapiro closed her radio show and podcast, “Write the Book: Conversations on Craft.”

The final guest was Bill McKibben, author and Vermont environmental activist. She is currently revising her latest novel.

*Patty Crane’s (W) latest

book of translations, The Blue House: Collected Works of Tomas Tranströmer, released with Copper Canyon Press in October of 2023. Crane’s translation is the first American translation of the Swedish Nobel laureate poet’s complete works, including his prose. In addition to this book, Crane is in the final phases of editing a full-length collection of poems, Movable Orchard, written during the years she lived in Sweden. Lastly, she has been awarded a four-week Hedgebrook residency for spring 2024 to work on a new poetry collection.

In 2024, Anne de Marcken (W) published the novel It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over with New Directions. Anne de Marcken is Editor and Publisher of The 3rd Thing. In its fifth year, the press is pleased to present its 2023 Cohort: Sift, a novel by Alissa Hattman; Boomhouse, a poetry collection by Summer J. Hart; Cane: a New Critical Edition in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Jean Toomer’s classic; and the press’s first time-based publication, Good Symptom: A Serial Anthology of Time-Based Disturbances.

* *Christopher Soden (W) published Gusher with Queer Mojo, Soden’s journey as a queer American male born in 1958, in Dallas, documented by poetry. Soden additionally published Tempting God with Luchador Press in early 2024.

38 I N R E S I D E N C E 2 0 2 4 *Marcia LeBeau’s (W) debut

*

2006 Maureen Alsop (W) published

Arbor Vitae, a book-length pastoral poem, with Nauset Press in late 2023. Additionally in 2023, Alsop published a collection of visual poems, Tender to Empress. In 2024, Alsop published a chapbook with Ravenna Press (Triple Series), a debut short story with South Dakota Review, a new poem with Missouri Review (weekly feature), and fiction (from a hybrid-fiction work in progress) with The Lincoln Review.

*

poetry collection, A Curious Hunger, released with Broadstone Books in 2024. Along with her collection, LeBeau is the founding Director of The Write Space, a coworking and literary event space for creative writers in the Valley Arts District of Orange, New Jersey. She is also an artist-in-residence at several elementary schools where she teaches and produces poetry performances with students.

She recently read several poems on sexual assault from her new book for a benefit concert against sexual assault put on by New York Philharmonic musicians. She looks forward to partnering with them on more awareness and fundraising events dealing with this important social justice issue.

*Daniel Levin’s (VA) book Violins of

Hope: From the Holocaust to Symphony Hall was awarded the 2022 Independent Publisher’s National Book of the Year for History: coffee table scale. Levin’s sister exhibition of the same name had installations at New York’s Streicker Center, in Memphis, Pittsburgh, Phoenix, and San Francisco. In June of 2024, the exhibition was shipped to Tokyo. Additionally, four years into the creation of his self-portrait tableau series, Kindness Repeated: an Examination of the Present in the Context of the Past, Levin will make his ninth tableau in Florida this winter, where he will portray Anthony Comstock feeding a bonfire of books on a beach at sunset. To date, tableaus have been

*Robin Oliveira (W) published the

novel A Wild and Heavenly Place with G.P. Putnam’s Sons in early 2024. Set in the 19th century, the story is an ode to a love so powerful it endures beyond distance.

2007 *Ann Dávila Cardinal (W)

published two projects in 2024: the middle grade biography Hispanic Star: Bad Bunny (Macmillan 2024) and the adult novel We Need No Wings (Sourcebooks 2024).

Jay Kauffmann (W) is anticipating

the release of The Mexican Messiah and Other Stories with Cornerstone Press (The Legacy Series) in the spring of 2025.

*

made in Georgia, Montana, New York, Ohio, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. Exhibitions began in 2024.

C L A S S N E WS

*

*

In 2023, *Tamara Smith (WCYA) published the picture book Grief Is an Elephant with Chronicle Books.

In addition to this publication, she received a grant from the Vermont Arts Council to attend a Whale Rock Workshops mentor program, where she plans on finishing a draft of her new middle grade novel.

For the 2023–2024 academic calendar, Michelle Mishaan (VA) accepted a new job for the University of Alaska in Anchorage at UAA Matanuska-Susitna College as the Term Assistant Professor of Fine Arts. She was in charge of the Mat-Su College Art Festival in the spring of 2024 and is working on a series of new textile paintings and installations.

In 2024, *Erin E. Moulton (WCYA) released The Beginner’s Guide to Cemetery Sleuthing: Scavenger Hunt and Workbook with Moulton & Casket. She is currently thinking about the first human cannonball and working on her picture book biography.

Sherry Shahan (WCYA) was

*Dianne White (WCYA) published

two books in 2024: Finding Grateful (Chronicle Books) and It’s Your Time to Shine (Little Simon).

*

*

nominated for a Pushcart Prize in poetry and was the featured poet in The Mud Season Review. Her middle grade novel Death Mountain was on America’s “Battle of the Books” list.

Her art appears in Flora Fiction, Santa Fe Literary Review, and on the cover of Press Pause Press literary journal.

39

2008

*Julie Berry (WCYA) in 2024 joined

the production of JITTERBUG—a Hollywood film focused on Lindy Hop swing dance, Hip-Hop dance, and Black jazz heritage—as Executive Producer. In 2025, Berry’s novel If Looks Could Kill will be released with Simon & Schuster.

Berry is currently working on Deep Cut, a historical novel for which she received a NYSCA grant.

The Department of the Interior and National Park Service selected Vanessa Blakeslee (W) to serve as a Writer for the 2024 Acadia National Park Artist-in-Residence Program. She was in residence at Acadia NP in October 2024 and led a public outreach activity for park visitors and the community during her stay. Subsequent to the residency, she will complete a work of writing about her experience. Blakeslee has been working on a series of essays about the wilderness, including a recent essay, “Tree Knocks and T-shirts: A Day at the ‘Great Florida Bigfoot Conference,’” published at The Smart Set.

* Daniel Butterfass’s (W) debut

book of poetry, Aerie, released with Shipwreckt Books in April of 2024.

Butterfass’s second book of poetry, The Green Cradle, is already written and due out in 2024 or 2025. A third book of prose poems and short stories is currently in progress.

40

*

*Zachary Kopp (W) published

Uneasy World with Camp Elasticity Productions in late 2023. He is currently finishing a cut-up/collagestyle novella-length piece written from inside and around a modern apartment complex inside a gated community.

*

*Michelle Knudsen (WCYA)

*

published the picture book Luigi, The Spider Who Wanted to Be a Kitten with Candlewick Press in March of 2024.

In 2024, *Blair Vaughn-Gruler (VA) and two business partners opened a new gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, called Materiality. The work in the gallery circles around artwork that is informed by the media (material) it’s made from.

In June of 2024, *Shawn Stout (WCYA) released the middle grade novel Anatomy of Lost Things with Peachtree Publishing.

*

2010

*

Renee Couture (VA) in early

In late 2023, *Rebecca Van Slyke (WCYA) released The Power of Yeti with Nancy Paulson Books.

2009

*Denise Karabinus (VA) recently

became the Executive Director of the Honolulu Printmakers, the oldest community print studio in the United States. In addition, she was invited to speak on a panel about the work of contemporary Japanese printmaker Takayanagi Yutaka at the Honolulu Museum of Art in November of 2023.

*

2024 exhibited her work at Carnation Contemporary in a two-person exhibition, “Covered Up in Dailiness.”

Nora Ericson (WCYA) published

the picture book Too Early with Abrams. Too Early was named an ALA Notable Book, a Bank Street College Best Book of the Year, a CBC Best Children’s Book of the Year, was an Amazon Editor’s Pick, and received the Margaret Wise Brown Prize Honor, specifically given for a picture book’s text.

Ericson recently signed on to do another picture book with Too Early’s illustrator, Elly MacKay, which will be published by Abrams and is scheduled for fall 2025.

* 2011 *Caroline Carlson (WCYA)

published Wicked Marigold with Candlewick Press in July of 2024. In addition to this publication, Carlson is currently writing a monthly column for Literary Hub about new children’s book releases from picture books through YA literature.

Meredith Davis (WCYA) published

the novel The Minor Miracle: The Amazing Adventure of Noah Minor with Waterbrook in May of 2024. *Kate Hosford (WCYA) released the picture book You’ll Always Be My Chickadee with Chronicle Books in April of 2024.

Martin Lucas (VA) published the

essay “SDSS 2023: What Do We Share?” in the Korean Art Foundation’s exhibition catalog Shared Dialogue, Shared Space. Lucas is additionally working on a longterm experimental documentary, IN THE TULES, about loss and the landscapes of California.

C L A S S N E WS

*

2012 *Nora Shalaway Carpenter

(WCYA) published her YA novel

Fault Lines with Running Press Kids / Hachette in 2023. She is currently editing an anthology scheduled for publication in 2025. *Rob Costello (WCYA) in 2024

published the debut collection The Dancing Bears: Queer Fables for the End Times with Lethe Press.

Additionally in 2024, he edited the YA anthology We Mostly Come Out at Night: 15 Queer Tales of Monsters, Angels & Other Creatures with Running Press Kids. Finally back in 2023, he formed R(ev)ise and Shine! with Lesa Cline-Ransome, Jo Knowles, Jennifer Richard Jacobson. While R(ev)ise and Shine! offers a suite of critique

41

*Laurie Morrison (WCYA) published

*

the novel Keeping Pace with Abrams Books in April of 2024.

In 2023, *Jennifer Nelson (W) published Teaching with Heart: Lessons Learned in a Classroom with She Writes Press. Additionally, Nelson started the business Your Stories, a service that helps to interview and write the stories of our seniors and publish them in keepsake books for their loved ones.

services for writers at every stage of their careers, their larger aim is to build a thriving writing community through online learning, one-on-one coaching, writing retreats, and new forums for conversation, support, encouragement, and imagination.

Learn more at revise-and-shine. com.

*

*

*Lyn Miller-Lachmann’s (WCYA)

translation of the YA graphic novel Pardalita by Joana Estrela and published by Levine Querido was named a 2024 Mildred L. Batchelder Honor Book. MillerLachmann’s verse novel set in Portugal in 1967, Eyes Open, was published by Carolrhoda Lab/ Lerner on May 7, 2024.

**

In 2024, *Sandra Nickel (WCYA) published the picture book Bear’s Big Idea with Lerner Publishing.

Nickel will have three more picture books coming out in 2025: Seven, A Most Remarkable Pigeon (Candlewick, spring 2025), The True Ugly Duckling: How Hans

*

Christian Andersen Became a Swan (Levine Querido, spring 2025), and Making Light Bloom: Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany Lamps (Peachtree, summer 2025).

42

* David Pratt (W) recently published

his short story “Reset” with Out There Literary Magazine.

Pamela Taylor (W) had the

poem “How to Get Emotional Distance When Voodoo is Not an Option” selected by Kwame Alexander for This Is the Honey: An Anthology of Contemporary Black Poets, an important anthology showcasing the depth and range of contemporary Black poets. The poem was first published in Atlas + Alice in December 2018.

*Leah Kaminsky (W) published

Doll’s Eye with Penguin Books Australia in late 2023. Kaminsky is currently researching a new novel and has a new poetry book forthcoming.

2013 * Cathy Barber (W) published the

poetry collection Once: A Golden Shovel Collection with Kelsay Books in July of 2023.

Mathieu Cailler (W) published Forest

for the Trees & Other Stories, a diverse collection of 15 shorts, with Hidden Peak Press in December of 2023.

*Lisa Gutta (VA) recently organized

a community-based project which involved her elementary students, high schoolers, local small businesses, a nonprofit outreach program, and the local public library. The end result was an interactive and fun “Monster Hunt” that explored the city of Gloversville, New York, and highlighted student art. Gutta additionally appeared on AHA: A House for Arts.

Jane Houng (WCYA) published

the middle grade novel Under Lion Rock with Commercial Press Hong Kong in mid-2023.

Ann Huang’s (W) films,

2015

DIAMOND DUST and THE PINES OF SPRING, were finalists at the 15th Annual Taste Awards in their respective categories: Best Green or Organic Program and Series or Film.

Huang and her team are currently pre-producing their seventh film, WHITE SAILS.

Partridge Boswell (W) was a

*Jessica Rinker (WCYA)

2014

Megan Benedict’s (WCYA) debut

picture book, Great Gusts: Winds of the World and the Science Behind Them, released with MIT Kids Press on March 19, 2024. Her second picture book, Sea Wolves: Keepers of the Rainforest, released with Astra Young Readers on July 23, 2024.

Both books were co-authored with faculty member fellow alumnx Melanie Crowder (WCYA ’11).

published the novel Monolith with Wandering Moth Press in March of 2024. Rinker has been traditionally published several times, and working with Wandering Moth Press is her first experience publishing with an indie press.

winner of the 2023 Fool for Poetry International Chapbook Competition awarded by the Munster Literature Centre, Cork, Ireland. Copies of his winning collection, Levis Corner House, can be obtained through the Munster Literature Center.

*

*

C L A S S N E WS

Ani Kachbalian (W) published

the short story “Horsethief Lake” with Pioneertown in July of 2023.

Kachbalian wrote “Horsethief Lake” while attending VCFA.

43

*

*David Kutz (VA), as the

President of Arts Gowanus, helped to negotiate and launch the organization’s first highly subsidized artist studios. The studios will be coming online in the next few months, and the community art center is under construction with completion most likely in 2026. Lastly, Kutz had a show, “Retro Redux,” at Soho Photo Gallery in 2024.

*

In 2024, *Laurie Wallmark (WCYA) released the picture book Journey to the Stars: Kalpana Chawla, Astronaut with Beaming Books.

*Jennifer Lang (W) published

*Kate Gray’s (GD) exhibition

“Discovering the New Next: the creative process of letting go of stress” was held from October 5 to October 28, 2023, at Orr Street Studios. The installation was designed to create a life-size sketchbook for the viewer to experience.

*

*Karen Kane (WCYA) co-authored

and published Alphabuddies: G Is First! with Beth Bacon (WCYA ’16) in 2023.

*Dana Rau (WCYA) published

the picture book Sense of Play with Capstone Editions in August of 2023.

2016

*Beth Bacon (WCYA) published the

picture book The Grandmother Effect with Histria Kids in March of 2024.

In 2023, Martha Gregory (F) became the Co-Director of the new filmmaker support organization called UFO (Untitled Filmmaker Org). UFO runs a short film lab at BAM in Brooklyn and residencies in the Catskills.

*

Places We Left Behind: a memoir-inminiature with Vine Leaves Press in 2023. In 2024, Lang released Landed: A yogi’s memoir in pieces & poses with Vine Leaves Press.

Judith Padow’s (W) essay, “Prequel,”

was a finalist in the nonfiction essay contest of Dogwood, a literary journal of Fairfield University, and appeared in its Spring 2024 issue.

*

*

44 I N R E S I D E N C E 2 0 2 4

2017 * Samantha LaBue Hatch’s (W)

poem “Talking to my imaginary friend about feeling sad” was chosen as the winner of the 2024 Penn Review Poetry Prize. She additionally just completed a memoir written in collaboration with her mother. She is also the founder of Fledgling Writing Workshops, which hosts writing events in person in Brooklyn, online, and through The Nest, an ongoing writing community you can join at fledgling.substack.com.

*

*

2018 Madeline Franklin (WCYA)

published her YA debut, The Wilderness of Girls, with Zando Young Readers in June of 2024.

Franklin is currently working on a sophomore novel with Zando Young Readers.

*Jennifer McGaha (W) published

The Joy Document: Creating a Midlife of Surprise and Delight— which includes 50 rollicking and often humorous essays exploring the art of joy—with Broadleaf Books in late 2024.

In 2023, *Suma Subramaniam (WCYA) published The Runaway Dosa with Little Bee Books. In 2024, Subramaniam published A Bindi Can Be… (Kids Can Press), My Name Is Long as a River (Penguin Workshop), and V. Malar: Greatest Host of All Time (Candlewick Press). Subramaniam’s debut early MG/ chapter book releases in November.

*Jay Whistler (WCYA) saw the

publication of her postapocalyptic, feminist horror short story, “Seeking Bad Boys for Fun and Adventure,” with The Quiet Ones in late 2023.

*

* *Allison Hong Merrill (W) was

the STEAM book A Planet Is a Poem with Kids Can Press in May of 2024. In addition to this book, she has finished edits for her first graphic novel, Izaac and the Doctor, about the Polish pediatrician Dr. Janusz Korczak.

the Creative Nonfiction First Place winner in the 2023 AWP Kurt Brown Prizes (formally known as the WC&C Scholarship Competition). Hong Merrill is currently working on three projects: a middle grade fantasy with Chinese historical elements, an adult contemporary fiction with book club appeal, and a memoir that’s a hundred-year Chinese family saga and explores the theme of identity.

*Dannell MacIlwraith (GD) had work

Katie Krcmarik (GD) in 2023

*Amanda Lewis (WCYA) published

featured in For the Love of Collage: An International Collection for World Collage Day. The publication has been hosting an international call for collage art for four years, and this year’s publication is the largest and most intricate to date.

Jennifer Mann (WCYA) published

the accessible and comprehensive YA history book Shift Happens: The History of Labor in the United States with HarperCollins Children’s in June of 2024.

*

presented at the Design History Society Conference in Matosinhos, Portugal. Her presentation was titled “Beyond the Utopian Promise: A Comparative Analysis of the Failed Gender Equality in the Federal Art Project and the Bauhaus.” Krcmarik additionally presented at the AIGA National Conference in New York in October of 2023. Her Education Design Dialogue was titled “Mental Health Amidst Constant Evaluation.”

C L A S S N E WS

Amy Mackin (W) is set to release her

book Henry’s Classroom in the spring of 2025 with Apprentice House Press.

*

*Linda Murphy Marshall’s (W)

second memoir, Immersion: A Linguist’s Memoir, released with She Writes Press in September of 2024. Murphy Marshall is currently compiling 25-plus essays she’s published, plus other essays and stories, to submit for publication.

In 2024, Aruán Ortiz (MC) was awarded a distinguished Guggenheim Fellowship in Music Composition. The fellowship was in support of Je renais de mes cendres, a 45-minute pocket opera about the first and only Queen of Haiti, Marie-Louise Christophe.

Rhonda Zimlich (W) received the

Steel Toe Books 2023 Book Award from Steel Toe Books for her novel manuscript Raising Panic. The novel will receive publication in the fall of 2024. Zimlich is currently completing a memoir manuscript about chronic illness, multiple sclerosis, and running marathons.

She is also marketing a short story collection.

*

2019

*Susan Ayres (W) released the

prose poems and lyric verse collection Walk Like the Bird Flies with Finishing Line Press in late 2023.

Jimmy Henderson (GD) recently

received the Nielsen Center Fellowship (Early-Career Faculty at Small Liberal Arts Colleges) through Nielsen Center for the Liberal Arts at Eckerd College.

Henderson is currently writing/ editing a short book/series of articles on the application process for pursuing teaching positions in higher education coming from the graphic design industry.

Sarah LeMieux’s (MC) piece

“Monday and the Winter Moon” was accepted for performance in the New Music Concert held as part of the Canadian University

Music Society annual conference, in conjunction with Canadian Network for Musician’s Health and Wellness and the EckhardtGramatté National Music Competition. The conference was held in May of 2024. As a part of LeMieux’s PhD in Interdisciplinary Music Studies at the University of Ottawa, LeMieux is researching music and postpartum depression.

Lastly, LeMieux recently released the jazz single “A Bitter Chill” on all platforms.

2020

Luke Anspach (GD) was recognized

by The Design Kids (TDK) and voted by students as a Top 30 Lecturer Worldwide in 2024.

Anspach has been teaching at the South Carolina School of the Arts as a design professor.

*

*Sue Schmitt (WCYA) released the

STEAM picture book Skybound with Calkins Creek in April of 2024. Schmitt began work on this picture book during a VCFA Picture Book Intensive.

Additionally, Schmitt’s sequel to That Monster on the Block, titled Party Monsters on the Block, released with Two Lions Publishing in the fall of 2024. Schmitt is currently developing TV/streaming projects based on her books.

*

Meghan Smith (W) became the

Dr. Claudia Ford (W) received the

Fulbright Scholar award for faculty 2024–25: Austria. Dr. Ford will be teaching environmental literature in the American Studies department of the University of Klagenfurt. *Karen Krossing’s (WCYA) One

Tiny Bubble: The Story of Our Last Universal Common Ancestor won the 2023 SCBWI Crystal Kite Award for Canada. This is a peer-selected award, voted on by members of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Additionally in 2023, Krossing and VCFA faculty Laura Shovan co-taught a workshop on social-emotional writing in fantastic literature through Whale Rock Workshops.

inaugural Dean of Teaching and Learning at Miss Hall’s School in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

In late 2023, *Ashley Wilda (WCYA) published their debut novel, The Night Fox, with Penguin Young Readers.

45

*

46 I N R E S I D E N C E 2 0 2 4

Catherine Masud’s (F) film A

DOUBLE LIFE, which was Masud’s MFA project while at VCFA, premiered in October of 2023 at the Mill Valley Film Festival. The film received standing ovations and was honored with an Audience Favorite Award. It has gone on to successfully screen at a number of other festivals and venues since then. Masud would like to say this: “Thanks to my faculty mentors who nurtured the project in its infancy during my time at VCFA!”

*

*

Susan Matherne (GD) was

appointed as the Executive Director of UCDA in the fall of 2023.

Frances Nadel (WCYA) published

the short story “Momma’s Rocking Chair” with Hektoen International in late 2023.

Basmah Sakrani (W) was

shortlisted for two awards: the 2023 CRAFT Short Fiction Award and the 2023 Kinder/Crump Short Fiction Award. In 2024, Sakrani was named a 2024 Anthony Veasna So Scholar in Fiction by The Adroit Journal. Sakrani is working on a debut novel and attended a residency at SAFTA in May of 2024.

In late 2023, *Dayton Shafer (WP) published Homeslice—part documentation, part performance, part poetry—with Alternating Current Press. Shafer is currently working on a new scattershot theater piece. *Anne-Marie Strohman’s (WCYA)

YA short story, “What You Don’t Know Now,” written for her VCFA graduate reading, was published in Black Fox Literary Magazine in 2023.

In October of 2023, she taught a workshop for teens on writing flash fiction at the Central Coast Writers’ Conference in San Luis Obispo, California, and presented a session titled “Making Emotions Concrete” for SCBWI SF North and East Bay’s regional Oktoberfest conference. Strohman continues to write and curate articles on writing craft at kidlitcraft.com.

Marlena Williams’s (W) collection

of personal and critical essays exploring the historical legacy of the 1973 horror classic THE EXORCIST, Night Mother: A Personal and Cultural History of the Exorcist, was published with Ohio State University Press in October of 2023. Williams is currently working on a novel and is a contributing writer for Sentient Media, an online news outlet focused on animal agriculture and the food system.

2021 Hassan Alshiyoukh (WP)

published the chapbook of poetry Home After the Maple with Bookleaf Publishing in 2023. He additionally launched Polyphony Edits, where he offers editing services, a book club, and writing workshops. *Julia Alter’s (W) full-length

collection Some Dark Familiar was selected by Matthew Olzmann as the winner of the 2023 Sundog Poetry Book Award. It was published in April of 2024 by Green Writers Press.

In 2024, Kamau Bilal (F) received an inaugural Disney x Sundance Muslim Artist Fellowship to support the development of his featurelength script, BRICK THIEVES.

*

*

This past year, *Renee Bouchard (VA) was chosen to receive a Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant of $20,000. Since receiving the grant, she has been preoccupied with the idea of renovating a 40-foot-long shipping container for her studio. *Pernille AEgidius Dake (W) had the

flash fiction story “In the Face Of(f )” published with Aesthetica magazine’s Creative Writing Award 2024.

AEgidius is currently working on a novel and a short story collection.

*

C L A S S N E WS

In 2023, Antonio Forte (MC) spent the month of August as an Artist-in-Residence at the Museum of Loss and Renewal in Collemacchia, Italy, researching the pre-Roman civilization of the Samnites. The museum is located in what was once Ancient Samnium, modern-day Molise, where Forte’s great-grandparents emigrated from over a century ago. To further illuminate this seemingly lost culture, and to help tell the stories of their fragmentary archaeological and literary record, he has been composing a body of work encompassing field recordings, electroacoustic instrumental music, and vocal pieces written in their “dead” Oscan language. While at the museum, Forte gave a series of lecture-recitals presenting his ongoing research and works in progress.

*

* *

Susan Foster (W) was awarded the

Utah State Poetry Society Poet of the Year Award by the Utah State Poetry Society. As part of the award, Foster’s poetry book, The Falling Water Calls It Grief, was designated as The Book of the Year and was published in late 2023.

*

Lorilee Rager (GD) was on the

panel “Forging Their Path: Inspiring Stories of Designers with Rural Roots” at AIGA 2023.

Susan Holcomb’s (W) chapbook,

Wolfbaby, a collection of flash fiction, won the 2023 Cupboard Pamphlet Chapbook Contest, judged by Kathy Fish. Wolfbaby was published in the spring of 2024.

*Shanta Lee (W) and *Damon

Honeycutt (MC ’16) collaborated

on the multimedia exhibition “Dark Goddess: Sacroprofanity.”

Held from April 27–August 11, 2024, at the Bennington Museum in Bennington, Vermont, “Dark Goddess: Sacroprofanity” features photography by Lee and sonic elements by Honeycutt in response to and exploration of the guiding question What does it mean to embody the Dark Goddess?

In May of 2024, *Sidura Ludwig (WCYA) published the picture book Rising with Candlewick Press, a quiet, joyful story celebrating a Jewish mother’s tradition of making challah with her child. Ludwig’s middle grade novel, Swan, came out with Nimbus Publishing in September of 2024. Swan was her creative thesis when she was at VCFA. Ludwig has two more picture books under contract and is currently working on another middle grade and a collaborative nonfiction project with another writer.

47

*Anne Myles’s (W) poetry

*

collection and winner of Sappho’s Prize in Poetry from Headmistress Press, Late Epistle, was released in 2023 with Headmistress Press. *Mony Nation (GD) was recently

awarded second place in the Advertising/Fashion NonProfessional category at the International Photography Awards. Nation submitted images from a South African photography excursion. One of the images from the same series was selected through the Atlanta Photography Group’s Airport 2023 open call and was on display in the Main Atrium from September 2023 to January 2024.

In late 2023, *Annika Paradise (WCYA) published Wonder Year: A Guide to Long-Term Family Travel and Worldschooling with Wonderwell. Since graduating from VCFA, Paradise has been finishing this co-authored book on worldschooling, drafting a book on teens and vinyl collecting, and teaching at Front Range Community College in Longmont, Colorado.

*

* 2022

*Leah Byck (VA), under the name

Waring, released their majority solo album eight years in the making: Communication at 3–4am. Byck is currently working on new project plans for visual art, is performing in drag in NYC and Long island, and is playing solo shows and with their band, rotary ghost.

48 I N R E S I D E N C E 2 0 2 4 Katharine Gripp (WCYA) attended

an international artist and writers residency hosted at the Chateau d’Orquevaux in the French countryside of ChampagneArdenne. Gripp was the recipient of both the Denis Diderot Artist Grant and the Emerging Artist Grant for the residency.

Monique Ortman (GD) was a judge

for the 100th year anniversary of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) global Student Design Award competition.

Additionally, Ortman has expanded her garden and will be contributing her seeds from the harvest to a Cherokee Community Cultural seed exchange program. Lastly, she will be expanding on the two typefaces she started during her VCFA MFA. In 2024, Duston Spear (W) published the book Higher Education in the Carceral State with Routledge Press, the fiction story “Visiting Artist: The Queen of the Mist” in Stone Canoe Review, and the essay “Writing About Art” with Routledge Press.

Katie Randall’s (WCYA)

speculative fiction short story, “Primeval,” was published in the inaugural issue of Hearth Stories.

Yvonne Ventresca’s (WCYA) adult

short story, “Justice for Jaynie,” was selected for inclusion in The Second Black Beacon Book of Mystery anthology in 2023. In 2024, her weird-epistolary-crime-flash fiction was published online at Shotgun Honey.

2023

Amy Asay (W) was awarded an

Honorable Mention in the 2024 Gutsy Great Novelist Chapter One Prize.

Robert Atwood (W) is set to

publish Paper Pajamas: Memoir of a Schizophrenic with University of Hell Press in 2025.

Laurie Babcock (W) presented a

paper at the Southern Humanities Conference in Savannah, Georgia, in February 2024 on the theme of (Em)Body/Environment. Her paper, “Double the Trouble: The Dual and Dueling Femmes Fatales in ‘Laura’ and ‘Rebecca,’” originated with her VCFA lecture (summer 2023), “Here Comes Trouble: Depictions of the Alternative Femme Fatale in Literature.” At Florida Gulf Coast University she works as a writer in the marketing department and serves as an adjunct instructor through the journalism department.

Through the American Prize, Tamara Cashour’s (MC) choral piece “Forbearance” (for SATB voices, bird callers, and minimal electronics) won two awards—2nd Place: Music-Social-Justicerelated and 3rd Place: Professional Choral Composition, short form.

Cashour’s instrumental chamber work Queens Suite (for violin, viola, cello, and harp) was a finalist in the Instrumental Chamber Music category. Cashour is currently working on garnering more exposure for their compositions.

*

Micah Pick’s (MC) thesis project, *Molly Gambardella’s (VA)

exhibition “Patterns in Bloom” was hosted at the New England Botanic Garden in Boylston, Massachusetts, from February 2024 to March 2024.

Gambardella’s next installation was an outdoor installation for the Biennial of Soncino in Italy in August 2024. Gambardella additionally participated in a group show from her time as an artist-inresidence at Yellowstone National Park in late 2023. Finally, she recently accepted teaching positions at Capital Community College and the University of New Haven.

Rick Heffner (GD) was the keynote

speaker and reviewed portfolios at the 2023 DC Design Week, sponsored by AIGA DC. Heffner’s VCFA thesis, “CRUIS’N: Uncovering Gay Design History Through Collecting,” is now available through Print Matter.

Lastly, Heffner is designing two exhibitions. The first is “Japanese War Brides: Across A Wide Divide” for the Smithsonian, and the second is “Nothing Personal” for the Baldwin100 initiative at George Mason University. Both open in late 2024.

Stephanie LaRose (W) had the

nonfiction short story “Turn Away” recently published in The Normal School Literary Magazine.

Lauren Myers-Hinkle (W) had an

interview with poet A. Van Jordan (F ’16) published in the April 2024 issue of the Writer’s Chronicle.

Matt Nilsen (W) released a debut

album of folk music, On the Breeze.

Nilsen wrote all 10 songs while in the Writing program at VCFA.

an album of pieces for piano and electronics, was released on April 13, 2024, on Audiobulb records.

Pick attended the Splice Residency and composed a new electro acoustic work for solo saxophone in June of 2024.

Anthony Robles (W) published

the poetry collection Thrift Store Metamorphosis with Redhawk Publications in September of 2023. In 2024, Robles was hired as a member of the Lenoir-Rhyne University faculty in Hickory, North Carolina. Lastly, Robles recently completed a poetry manuscript titled Where the Warehouse Things Are. Anna M. Warrock (W) attended a

writing residency at the Vermont Studio Center for three weeks in February of 2024. Conduit #33 published Warrock’s story “Self-Portrait with Recycling,” and Ibbetson Street #54 published “(what I once called) Handling It.” In 2024, Warrock opened her writing studio in the Washington Street Art Center in Somerville, Massachusetts, as part of Somerville Open Studios May 2024.

2024

Jen Breach (WCYA) released the

picture book Solstice: Around the World on the Longest, Shortest Day with What on Earth Books in May of 2024. Solstice: Around the World on the Longest, Shortest Day explores 14 children and their stories from around the world on June 21st.

Each story is illustrated by an artist who represents their home country.

C L A S S N E WS

*

*Monique Duncan’s (WCYA) picture

book, Freedom Braids, was published with Lantana Publishing in October of 2024. In collaboration with the University of São Paulo and The Afro-Latin American Research Institute at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research, Harvard University, Duncan presented at the ALARI Third Continental Conference on Afro-Latin American Studies in 2024 in Brazil. Her presentation included the history, preservation, and ingenuity of African hair braiding, highlighting themes of resistance and resilience across the diaspora, as well as a read aloud of her picture book, Freedom Braids.

In March of 2024, Emilie McDonald (F) was honored with the High Scribe Screenwriting Award at the 2024 Sun Valley Film Festival for her script AMAN AND FLOR AGAINST THE MOTHERFUCKING WORLD. McDonald worked on AMAN AND FLOR as her VCFA MFA in Film thesis project.

C. Rizleris (W) published with

Tupelo Quarterly “The Art of Unpredictability: It’s fun to be a person I don’t know by Chachi D. Hauser, Reviewed by C. Rizleris”—a book review for Chachi Hauser’s (W ’20) It’s fun to be a person I don’t know—in early 2024.

* In 2024, *Christopher Wiersema (F) was awarded the Vermont Public Award for Best Documentary at the Made Here Film Festival in Burlington, Vermont. Wiersema is currently working on his VCFA MFA in Film thesis.

In Memoriam

49

*

Current Students Alex Brown (WCYA) published

the YA novel Damned If You Do with Page Street in late 2023.

Additionally in late 2023, she co-edited a YA horror anthology, Night of the Living Queers, that was published by Wednesday Books.

Jamie Li (W) was selected to

join the 2024 VONA summer workshop. VONA is a literary arts org for writers of color. Li participated in Contemporary Humor Writing with Damon Young. Li additionally writes a weekly newsletter called Creative Juice. Subscribers get a writing prompt and can submit their responses to the prompt to see what everyone else wrote. Select

submissions are published in a monthly highlight newsletter. Learn more at bit.ly/get-creative-juice. *Jen Malia (WCYA) published

two books as part of the Infinity Rainbow Club series in 2023 with Beaming Books: Violet and the Jurassic Land Exhibit and Nick and the Brick Builder Challenge.

LiAnne Yu (W) had three poems—

”What you really need right now,” “What the grapes know,” and “This one goes out to our immigrant moms”—published as a suite in the literary anthology, F(r)iction. Yu is still working on her novel, Chasing Margaret Mead, and a collection of prose poems called For Gen X, For Us.

Teresa Politano (W ’21) passed away on January 24, 2024. She was

accomplished artist and poet. The burgeoning women’s movement led her to join the Arlington Street Women’s Caucus in the 1970s. The Caucus, a women’s singing group, performed throughout the area with Ruth, a non-singer, reciting her poetry between songs.

an award-winning author, editor, and university professor. She wrote Celebrity Chefs of New Jersey: Their Stories, Recipes and Secrets, and she won the International Association of Culinary Professionals 2022 award for personal essays/memoir writing for Don’t Forget the Tomatoes for My Funeral. Her book, Reflections on the Pandemic: COVID and Social Crises in the Year Everything Changed, was released in January 2024.

Pamela Harrison (W ’83) passed away on June 17, 2024. Pamela pub-

John Schartung (VA ’22) passed away October 12, 2023. After years of

Ruth Evans (W ’09) passed away on November 15, 2023. She was an

lished six books under various imprints of WordTech—Stereopticon, Okie Chronicles, Glory Bush and Green Banana, Out of Silence, What to Make of It, and Whirligig—and two chapbooks. Her poems appeared in Poetry, The Georgia Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Green Mountains Review, Yankee, Cimarron Review, and many other magazines.

working to support his family as a carpenter, draftsman, and photographer, John was able to follow his dream of having a career in fine art.

He was also a passionate teacher who adored his students and inspired them to become artists, educators, and art administrators, just as his own professors had inspired him.

50 I N R E S I D E N C E 2 0 2 4 by sammi labue

(W’17)

“What will you do with your degree?”

In this featured essay, former Alumnx Advisory Council member, writer, and business owner Sammi LaBue (W ’17) offers her wisdom on using your MFA degree to start your own creative business.

VCFA alumnx business owners answer the looming question their way When I graduated from VCFA in January of 2017 my (now) husband offered me a rain stick as a graduation present so that I could emulate VCFA MFA in Writing faculty Ellen Lesser (who used one to alert that writing time was dwindling at residencies) when I led classes for my just formed business, Fledgling Writing Workshops.

My undergrad mentor, writer Aubrey Hirsch, once gave me advice about earning an MFA, urging me to consider funding and affordability when choosing a program: “At the end of the Before this, among my first five years in New York City, I explored any day, you won’t be a doctor or vaguely literary field I could think of to supplement my writer’s life. lawyer, you will still be a writer.”

Copywriting, publishing, curriculum writing, blog writing, ghostwriting, As the junk I considered and more. Once the work day was over though, story ideas for my packet paramount to the success of my eluded me. When I was young, anything I stumbled upon might become fuel business gently clanked against for my art. An image, a smell, a sound. But with less freedom to stumble, I my back, I had to laugh at how found myself starved for any glint of inspiration. Looking around the subway true of a warning that was. platform, I wondered if everyone else on the way to their 9 to 5 might be Lugging throwaway crap to a missing those idea-sparking moments of happenstance, too, and if maybe I rented conference room is not could create those moments on purpose for myself and for others. what one imagines climbing the corporate ladder looks SAMMI LABUE (W ’17) In the beginning, I would walk 20 minutes from my apartment like. That’s because an artist’s Fledgling Writing through Brooklyn to a coworking space with a backpack full of crystals, job pipeline is often clogged, Workshops wrinkled old photos, postcards, objects from garage sales, cookies, meandering, and unpredictable.

LaBue is the founder notebooks, and my rain stick in hand. By the time I arrived to lead my and workshop leader of Fledgling Writing first generative workshop that I hoped would promote an approachable Of course, we all come to Workshops (FWW), a playfulness, my shoulders were sore, I’d worked up a sweat, and I had VCFA to develop as artists, community of writers who received several unamused looks on the sidewalk. but many hope to be led toward write together in person in Brooklyn and online a job, too. During the MFA from anywhere. FWW journey the question what will offers workshops, private you do with your degree? lingers.

Lisa Papademetriou (WCYA ’14) coaching, and ongoing

*

writing events through fledgling.substack.com.

*

*

Bookflow Papademetriou is the creator of Bookflow, a cloud-based tool for writers that helps them stay organized, inspired, and energized during the writing process.

JESSICA COLLADO (MC ’14) Nizco Music Collado and her NIZCO MUSIC are in the business of helping musicians compose their careers to their own B.E.A.T. (Business, Education, Artist Development, and Technology) by filling in their gaps and teaching them how to establish a portfolio career.

*

Matt White (GD ’14) Playwatch Kids White is the co-creator of Playwatch Kids, an educational streaming platform that centers and celebrates diverse kids content.

VC FA A L U M N X B U S I N E S S O W N E R S

Teaching often seems the logical option for directly applying your investment in a master’s degree to a paid gig. But even if teaching is what you hope for, traditional routes to these positions often come with a long queue of other fabulous artists willing to fill that role.

Amidst my third semester at VCFA, my business presented itself like a poem: an idea eager with potential and with a unique kind of music that I thought others might like the sound of. Perhaps I wasn’t a doctor or a lawyer, but my MFA taught me to listen to my instincts and understand my creativity. As Sarah FloodBaumann (GD ’16), owner of her own freelance graphic design business, put it, “My time at VCFA was a crash course in learning about myself, almost more so than actual graphic design.” Her art and business “are rooted in the same soil.”

Like Sarah and me, many VCFA alumnx have found a way to translate their artistic purpose from their portfolios to business plans, starting projects like kei slaughter’s (MC ’12) S O U L F O L K Sounds (a music therapy and wellness practice), Lisa Papademetriou’s (WCYA ’14) Bookflow (an app that helps writers stay focused), and Matt White’s (GD ’14) Playwatch Kids (an educational streaming service).

As artists, creating meaningful work for ourselves is perhaps not a part of our craft but a part of our calling. Julie Berry (WCYA ’08), author and owner of the bookstore Author’s Note, shared: “I’m not just here to put Julie Berry books out into the world and get people reading them. … Julie Berry books could only do so much.

Julie Berry books multiplied by Author’s Note can do a lot more.”

Our businesses allow us to show up for and as ourselves in the world while staying connected to our craft in a unique way.

Jessica Collado (MC ’14), owner of Nizco Music, which helps musicians develop career portfolios, says, “Running my own business forces me to stay up to date with music industry trends,” and Ruth Underhill (W ’19) points out that while her project Tongass Mist Writing, which runs retreats and workshops, can distract from her art it “helps me to remember, even in the early stages of my own writing, how we are as writers.”

*

RUTH UNDERHILL (W ’19) Tongass Mist Writing Underhill formed Tongass Mist Writing with the simple aim of gathering creative writers in community to be inspired and influenced by the power and sacredness of the Tongass National Forest. Through Tongass Mist, she offers creative writing workshops, retreats, and resources.

I remember walking home from one of those early workshops. It had rained during our writing session as if we had conjured it by turning the rain stick, and now the neighborhood basketball court was swathed in a silver puddle the creamsicle sunset was reflected in. I felt that I was exactly where I needed to be, doing exactly what I needed to do. I still get the same buzz when someone reads something in one of my workshops that croons with their own distinct and wondrous voice; when one of the over 1,500 writers I’ve worked with finishes a book, wins a contest, or simply speaks a truth which had never been uttered before.

51

For us, starting a business isn’t just about using our MFAs to make money. To find true success as an artist is to speak to a larger purpose. Earning an MFA led us to know our voices and ultimately to find our purpose in and outside of our art.

What will you do with your degree? The letters MFA don’t stand for doctor, but they do mean “maker.” Our VCFA experience gives us the unique opportunity to make whatever we want to see in the world, whether that be on the page, in the studio, or as a business. So, the question is more what can’t you do with your singular point of view?

*

kei slaughter (MC ’12) S O U L F O L K Sounds slaughter is the owner and operator of S O U L F O L K Sounds, a radical community music and wellness practice focused on serving LGBTQIA2S+ communities and Queer and Trans BIPOC communities.

*

JULIE BERRY (WCYA ’08) Author’s Note Berry owns Author’s Note, the destination independent bookstore of Western New York.

* SARAH FLOOD-BAUMANN(GD ’16) Sarah Flood-Baumann Design Flood-Baumann runs a freelance graphic design business that specializes in editorial projects—such as this very magazine!

* 52

IN RESIDENCE 2024

Our “From the Archives” series enters its second year as we celebrate the origins of the Vermont College of Fine Arts and the efforts that have gone into preserving our archival history. Thanks to the dedication of the library staff, as of 2024, the archives have been moved to their new home in College Hall at VCFA’s Montpelier, Vermont, administrative campus. During the move, new stories were brought to light, and with them, new opportunities to celebrate the nooks and crannies of our treasured beginnings.

Do you have the answers to any of these mysteries?

Where is the missing fountain piece? Who wore the two rings? Do you know a Winter Carnival Queen?

Does Anna exist?

Write to alumnx@vcfa.edu and let us know!

b y va l e n t y n s m i t h

(W '20)

From the Archives VCFA Mysteries No artifact here in the VCFA archives could disprove the belief that objects carry a distinct spirit.

Each piece of history collected in the archives has a presence, from the 1819 brass Norwich University key chain inscribed with the motto “I Will Try” found on the library table to the undated photographs beside it of a fountain flowing on the college green in spring. Certain archival materials offer stories and questions, others offer clues that would inspire any sleuth.

In the second issue of “From the Archives,” we investigate some of the mysteries dug up from the campus’s nearly 200-year-old history, and we focus on items from the archive that have an unfinished story, more questions than answers, and mysterious origins. As we play detective, help us crack these four cases by offering any leads on the evidence gathered through the years.

Box C13 Winter Carnival Queen Vermont Junior College and Vermont College hosted a Winter Carnival that culminated with the coronation of a Winter Carnival Queen, whose slogan, “I Did It,” sounds like a confession. Winter Queens were selected after completing skating and skiing events. Downhill course competitions occurred at the ski tow on Sabin’s Pasture. Since the slope opened in 1945, the tow figured into student life until ceasing operation in the early ’80s.

Yearbook photos reveal groups of gal pals to the lone humdinger skiing in Sabin’s Pasture, oversize photographs of the Winter Queen and her court, as well as event programs with themes such as “The Crystal Capers,” “Northern Lights,” and “Fairy Tales.” The Winter Carnivals lasted from the ’40s through the ’60s before disappearing with the tow closure. Yet the origins of this tradition remain a mystery. So, whodunnit: How did the winter tradition begin at the college? What other Winter Carnival rituals have yet to be uncovered? What do you suspect the slogan “I Did It” means?

FROM THE ARCHIVES

53

Box B3 Missing Fountain Piece Within Vermont College’s 1984 commemorative book Celebrate Our Past, Join Our Future, there is a photograph of the original Montpelier, Vermont, campus fountain from the 1800s with its two tiers topped by a cherub, which is nowhere to be seen today. So, where is the missing fountain piece? Rumor has it that the cadets at Norwich University—a military academy in Northfield, VT—might have “stolen” half of the fountain. But do the whispers hold water?

In the archives, there may be potential evidence of this alleged theft. After the 1920s, no photographs document the fountain in its original form. Clues of this unfinished story led to uncovering the dating history between Norwich University and Vermont College.

Given their proximity, there were deep ties between the student pools at Norwich and Vermont College (1958–1972). The Norwich cadets and Vermont College students would date and often marry, which explains the boxes of marriage announcements collected in the archives but still leaves the fountain matter unresolved. If the missing fountain piece’s theft was a prank or casualty of competing school spirit, was it lost?

Box (pending) Two Rings (Pending) Former VCFA Library staff member Juliet Stephens discovered two high school class rings in a paper pouch while sorting through the archives collection. Neither the paper pouch nor the rings contain names or dates, but the library professional had a hunch. School names were inscribed on each ring: NY’s Mamaroneck and Middlebury’s Union High School. Based on the shape and size of the gold rings, it is possible that they once belonged to a couple who met at Vermont College and became sweethearts. But how did the rings arrive in the archives among scrapbooks, files, and other ephemera? Stephens explained that graduates donate their possessions to the college, which leaves more questions than answers: What was the story behind this romance? Who were the ring bearers? What has become of them?

There could be a link to the missing fountain piece and a Victorianera fountain mysteriously appearing in the green square Common of Northfield, where Norwich University is located. Suppose the cadets had taken the fountain’s top and “forgot” to return it, would the town have made do with the VCFA fountain piece?

Box F6 Hometown Paranormal Throughout the college’s years, visitors have experienced encounters with resident ghost Anna, including a paranormal help team. Broken clocks, moved furniture, and unexplainable eeriness have long been attributed to Anna, who is said to dwell in the tower of College Hall. The client copy of Case 201101-00-C includes audio clips, EMF reports, and a transcript recording contact with Anna from 2011 when four investigators explored the building. Despite the investigation being found inconclusive, the file’s conclusions note that Hometown Paranormal was not able to prove or disprove any activity, adding: “We are in no way stating that the activity reported did not occur.” What are your Anna stories? Could you offer proof that ghosts haunt College Hall?

54 I N R E S I D E N C E 2 0 2 4

Alumnx Readers: Keep Up With Your Benefits

VCFA News & Updates Looking Forward to Winter: CalArts Starting in the winter of 2025, VCFA will host our first residency on the campus of California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in Southern California. The summer of 2024 marked our last residency on the Colorado College campus, and CalArts will be VCFA’s new, permanent residency home. The college would like to thank both Colorado College and Susquehanna University for generously hosting our communities in 2023 and 2024. Keep up to date with your email to learn more about our journey to CalArts!

All VCFA graduates, no matter your program, have access to a plethora of exclusive benefits, including continued access to your VCFA email and the VCFA Library, professional development workshops and opportunities, postgraduate study, a free membership to CreativeStudy (an online learning platform for artists), and more. Scan the QR code to read more about how to utilize your postgraduate benefits.

VCFA Library Update As of 2024, the VCFA Library has fully moved into its new, permanent home in College Hall at VCFA’s administrative campus in Montpelier, Vermont. The library is excited to continue to serve our students and alumnx community. Alumnx, don’t forget—you maintain your access to the VCFA Library post-graduation!

Access the VCFA Library today at www.vcfa.edu/library.

Visit VCFA’s Bookshop.org Did you know VCFA has its own Bookshop. org page? At bookshop.org/shop/vcfa, you can find lists of faculty, alumnx, and student publications across genres. In addition to supporting your VCFA community, Bookshop sends part of its proceeds to independent bookstores in need. Visit our page at bookshop.org/shop/vcfa, and get your recent or upcoming publication listed on our virtual bookstore by telling us about your book at the VCFA Share Your News form at vcfa.edu/share-your-news.

55

Giving to Community Championing VCFA’s artists around the world As VCFA continues to strengthen our unified academic calendar, broaden our cross-disciplinary opportunities, and prepare for our upcoming move to our permanent residency home at the California Institute of the Arts, community support takes on a deeper meaning. The transformative experiences found at VCFA are made possible each and every day thanks to the generosity of students, staff, faculty, and alumnx. Your gift of any amount supports the people and programs that define VCFA. Visit vcfa.edu/donate or scan the QR codes to make your donation today.

*

Ways to Give The VCFA Annual Fund

Contributions to the Annual Fund directly support academic program operations, outstanding faculty, financial aid for students, and the resources and technology needed to deliver our unique and innovative educational experience. The VCFA Annual Fund is one of the most impactful ways you can give to the VCFA community, and you can make your gift at the QR code.

Center for Arts + Social Justice Gifts designated for the Center for Arts + Social Justice directly support the Center’s public event series, Center-sponsored residency guests, and the Center’s Fellowship program.

In particular, the Fellowship program was established to provide support for students whose work shows a commitment to social justice, to celebrate and highlight that work, and to create a networking opportunity for recipients. Support the Center and our Fellows at the QR code.

Program Scholarships VCFA offers a range of programspecific scholarships that are supported and sustained by the generosity of alumnx and friends of the college. Gifts to program scholarships provide vital support to new and returning VCFA students based on need and merit. If you’d like to direct your giving toward a specific program, you can use the QR code to begin your donation.

56 56 IINN RREESSIIDDEENNCCEE 22002244

*

Annual Report of Gifts

With deepest gratitude we

acknowledge the following

Pamela Ahlen ’07 Diane Allenberg ’88 American Online Giving Foundation, Inc Diego Antoni Loaeza ’23 Victoria Arms ’19 Mary-Kim Arnold ’16 Pamela Ayres ’19 Mary Bailey ’99 Kathi Baron ’04

Jessica Collado ’14 Patty & Tim Crane ’04 Meredith Davis ’11

T.A. Barron

Edward and Helen Oppenheimer Foundation

Carol Beatty ’90

Jill Ewald ’95

Elizabeth Bedell ’19

donors—alumnx, students, faculty,

Jeffrey Bernstein

trustees, staff, and other friends—

Heather Bryant ’06

whose generosity supports the

Elizabeth Buchanan ’98

entire VCFA community. The list

Jamieson Bunn ’15

below represents donors who made

Emilie Burack ’19

gifts to VCFA from July 1, 2023 to

Barbara Carlson ’90

June 30, 2024.

Caroline Carlson ’11

We have made every effort to make sure our list is comprehensive and accurate.

Please accept our apology for any errors or omissions, and contact advancement@ vcfa.edu to make any corrections.

Joan Cohen ’04

Catherine Carvelli Central Vermont Memorial Civic

Judith Ford ’16 in memory of Richard McCann Stephen Geller ’18 Paula Gillam ’99 Anne Gimm ’19 Dean Gloster ’17 Beneth Goldschmidt-Sauer ’23 Sondra Graff ’15 Barbara Gray ’20 Joan Grubin ’03 Katie Gustafson Caitlin Gutheil ’23 Ellen Hersh ’94 Nancy Hewitt ’02 in memory of Moira Linehan

We are also grateful for the eight anonymous donations received this year.

Dwight Hilson ’15

57

REPORT OF GIFTS

Craig Milewski ’13 Wendy Mnookin ’91 Hannah Moderow ’11 Matthew Monk Lauren Myers-Hinkle ’23 Anne Myles ’21 Susan Newbold ’00

The VCFA Annual Fund

Rebecca Olander ’15

Make your gift using the QR code above.

Olusegun Olude ’14 Jericho Parms ’12 Stephanie Parsley Ledyard ’07 Katherine Paterson Michael Hogan

Trinity Peacock-Broyles ’07 in honor of Anne Broyles

Andrew Hordes ’18

Kyle Pederson ’17

Katherine Hosford ’11

Annie Penfield ’11

Barry Johnson in memory of Eugene Johnson

Linda Pratt

Terry Johnson ’05 Leslie Kaufman ’95 Julie Kay Susan Kingsley ’98 Dale Kushner ’83

Donna Pressman ’188 Marjorie Priebe ’21 Andrew Ramsammy Joanna Rankin Erik Rasmussen

Joyce Ray ’01

Marilyn Underwood ’20

Sharon Reynolds ’98

Katie Van Ark ’16

Alex Rigopulos

Ashley Walker ’18

C. Rizleris ’24

Dana Walrath ’10

Carl Rosenstock ’82

David Warner ’17

Samantha Schmidt ’23

Dianne White ’07

Keri Schneider ’18

Margaret & Thomas Whitford

Myra Shapiro ’93 Shelagh Shapiro ’03 Anne Sheffield ’02 Sue William Silverman ’88 Isabelle Smith

Jerome Lane ’16

Suzanne Smith ’10

Lindsey Lane ’10

Jep Streit ’23

Jeffrey Leong ’14

Anne-Marie Strohman ’20

Corrinne Lewis ’07 Dana Markwardt ’18 Sarah Madru Casper Martin ’12 Jody Maunsell Anne McGrath ’19 David Meyer ’98

*

Robert O’Connor ’06

Sarah Sullivan ’05 in memory of Ellen Levine Suzanne Swanson John Thelin ’95 Paul Tonnes ’13 and David John Poston Heidi Tringe

Jeff Wiggins ’09 Nat Winthrop Vicki Wittenstein ’06 Gretchen Woelfle ’00 in memory of Phyllis Harris and April Pulley Sayre Elisa Zied ’20 Kenneth Zink ’19 Stanley Zumbiel ’08

NONPROFIT ORG U.S. POSTAGE PAID VILLANTI MAILED FROM 05401

36 College Street Montpelier, VT 05602 vcfa.edu

*

Connect With Us! Share the #VCFAlove!

Find VCFA across social media platforms and share with the VCFA community what you’ve been creating.

*

@vcfaedu

@VCFAvideos

@vcfaedu

@school/vcfaedu

Share your news with VCFA at vcfa.edu/share-your-news!