Creative Writers Make Waves — Our creative writing faculty members have been making waves this summer. Here are some of the most recent developments that have come to my attention. Bryn Chancellor’s debut novel, Sycamore, has been officially accepted by Harper Books (HarperCollins) and is scheduled to be published in May 2017. Chris Davis has recently had a string of poems accepted for publication by some of the leading creative writing journals, including Bennington Review, Cimmaron Review, Hawaii Review, Bloom, and New Madrid Review. Andrew Hartley’s new YA novel, Steeplejack, has just been published by Tor Teen. Paula Matinac has just had her story titled “Eds and Meds” accepted for publication in Main Street Rag. I congratulate all of these fine writers on their latest successes.
Sam Shapiro’s Film Fame — Sam Shapiro regularly teaches film studies courses in the English Department as a part-time faculty member, but his full-time job is with the Charlotte Mecklenburg Public Library, where he runs the library’s film programming. This summer Sam has organized a film series titled “Hollywood Shoots Itself: Eleven Movies about Movies.” Here is a link with more information about this film series: https://www.cmlibrary.org/blog/hollywood-shoots-itself-film-series.
Sam’s film series often get great publicity, but his latest film series is getting such positive press coverage that even Sam has been pleasantly surprised. In the past week, Creative Loafing ran a cover story about the film series: http://clclt.com/charlotte/hollywood-turns-the-camera-on-itself-in-new-film-series/Content?oid=3759731 Lawrence Toppman from The Charlotte Observer also ran a very positive article about Sam and his latest film series: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/entertainment/ent-columns-blogs/lawrence-toppman/article85844997.html
As the aforementioned articles make clear, Sam is a major player in Charlotte’s film scene, and we are fortunate that he shares his expertise with our students.
Quirky Quiz Question — The title of Bryn Chancellor’s debut novel is Sycamore. This title reminds me of the following line from a song recorded by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong: “Birds singing in a sycamore tree.” Does anybody know the name of this classic song?
Last week’s answer: Westminster Abbey
In coming up with today’s Quirky Quiz Question, I tried to think of a connection between Lewis Carroll and Boyd Davis. Here’s what came to mind: In addition to teaching linguistics courses, Boyd Davis has also taught courses on Geoffrey Chaucer. Both Chaucer and Lewis Carroll are memorialized in a place called Poets’ Corner. In what building is Poets’ Corner located?