Seeta Chaganti, a professor of English, recently received a prize from the Modern Language Association of America (MLS) for her book exploring the complex relationship between medieval dance and medieval poetry.
Chris Ransick (M.A., English/creative writing, ’90), author of six books of poetry and fiction and Denver’s Poet Laureate from 2006 to 2010, died in early November. He last book, mummer prisoner scavenger thief, was published this year not long after he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Ransick, 57, taught English and writing at Arapahoe Community College near Denver for 25 years and for 15 years taught at the Lighthouse Writers Workshop.
Best-selling author John Lescroart says it took winning a prestigious award early in his career to “believe I could be a writer.” The Maurice Prize for Fiction at UC Davis, now in its 14th year, is Lescroart’s way of paying it forward. A UC Berkeley graduate and resident of Davis, Lescroart established the Maurice Prize, named for his father, to encourage UC Davis alumni writers. Peter Shahrokh (English, M.A. ’75, Ph.D. ’83; MBA ’99) won the 2019 prize for his manuscript, "A Wind Will Come."
Debut novel captures Afghan American coming of age story.
When Jamil Jan Kochai was 12, his family traveled from their West Sacramento home to their native Afghanistan. During that 2004 trip, Kochai was attacked by the family dog, witnessed what the U.S. invasion had wrought, and soaked up stories of the distant and recent past. A decade later, he brought a short story inspired by that trip to his first graduate writing workshop at UC Davis.
The UC Davis Department of English Creative Writing Reading Series starts Nov. 18 with Jos Charles, whose poetry collection feeld was a 2019 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and longlisted for a National Book Award. The series, co-sponsored by the UC Davis Library, continues in 2020 with a wide range of writers, including poets who are also visual artists, novelists and non-fiction writers exploring immigration, race, love, pop culture and language.
In June, the UC Davis College of Letters and Science awarded four faculty with its annual Distinguished Teaching Awards, which recognize excellence in teaching and mentoring across the disciplines.
Stephen McFeely (M.A. English, ’96) was co-writer, with Christopher Markus (M.A., English, ’96), of the just-released movie "Avengers: Endgame.” The two met at UC Davis in the creative writing program. They've written scripts for the "Captain America" films, the "Chronicles of Narnia" movie franchise, and won an Emmy for their screenplay of HBO movie, "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers."
Gina Bloom, UC Davis English professor, will give the 2019 Shakespeare Birthday Lecture at the Folger Shakespeare Library. Her talk, “Rough Magic: Performing Shakespeare With Gaming Technology,” will take place April 22 at the Folger Theatre in Washington, D.C. The birthday lecture has been held nearly every year since 1932.
Two UC Davis College of Letters and Science faculty members have been awarded 2019 Guggenheim Fellowships. History professor Ari Kelman and English professor Elizbeth Carolyn Miller will receive the prestigious awards. They are among 173 winners in the U.S. and Canada selected from 3,000 applicants.
The debut novel by Maria Kuznetsova (M.A., English, '11) was published in March 2019 by Spiegel & Grau/Random House. OKSANA, BEHAVE! is a coming-of-age story about a young woman whose family has emigrated from Ukraine to Florida. Kuznetsova, a native of Ukraine, also received an M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her writing has been published in The Threepenny Review, The Normal School,The Bennington Review, The Iowa Review and Indiana Review.
