SOUL BONE℠ LITERARY FESTIVAL
and MIU MFA Residency Showcase
Aug. 18 - 31, Fall 2025

“I’m in Soul Bone heaven!”
— Festival Guest

Our online Soul Bone℠ Literary Festival pairs writing and craft with creative process, consciousness, discussion of the more ineffable aspects of the creative life such as the role of intuition in writing, and the intersection of writing with personal transformation and healing. It promotes the kind of writing and creative work that comes from duende, the unspeakable energies that arise from the soles of our feet and run through our spines; that make us feel physically as if the tops of our heads were taken off when we read or write (Emily Dickinson); that connect heart and mind and senses or marry body and spirit; that culture empathy; that reconnect us to earth and nature and each other; that spark the mystical soul and give life to our writing, yet that also include death and shadow.

“What an incredible week of workshops and people! I am just enriched by it all. I think the word ‘magical’ just sums it up!”
— Catherine Ronan, Irish poet, author of Elemental Skin

The festival is co-sponsored by the MIU MFA in Creative Writing’s residencies and the Soul Bone℠ Literary Center. Below we list our public events that are included in our Soul Bone℠ Literary Festival. You can register for our Fall 2025 Festival via our Eventbrite page, which will be linked in here and below shortly. Events are free, online, and open to the public, but donations are encouraged via our Eventbrite page. We will use any donations to help sponsor future festivals so we can pay our writers as well as possible and continue offering our events free of charge. You can contact us at soulboneliterary@gmail.com. You can also contact us at npassi@miu.edu.

 

Spring 2025 Festival - MIU MFA Showcase Event List

Welcome to our Soul Bone℠ Literary Festival for Fall ‘25, which is an MIU MFA Showcase. Please join us for this co-collaboration between Soul Bone℠ and the MIU MFA in Creative Writing, both founded and directed by Nynke Passi. Our festivals are free, online, and open to the public. Donations are very much appreciated and warmly welcomed! The event registration pages in Eventbrite include a donation option. We will use all donations to pay our writers and sponsor and make possible more free events in the future. We hope to see you soon!

FREE ZOOM REGISTRATION VIA EVENTBRITE
Aug. 18 - 31, 2025

TIME ZONE CONVERTER if you need it. All events are in Central Time.

 
 

MONDAY, Aug. 18, 2025

Tonight we’ll open our MIU MFA Showcase with a reading by Eileen Espinoza, who teaches full-time in the MFA, and Dylene Cymraes, who will be teaching some of our consciousness-based education courses this Fall. Nynke Passi, the MFA director, will read later on in the festival, as will our Fall ‘25 mentors.

Eileen Elizabeth Espinoza is a full-time faculty in MIU’s MFA program and a frequent mentor in various genres. She’s a queer essayist and poet, the co-founder of Boshemia Magazine, and the recipient of the 2021 McQuern Award in Nonfiction. Her essays have been published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Bellevue Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her poetry has been selected by both Dorothy Allison and bell hooks for collections such as The Anthology of Appalachian Writers and Appalachian Review. She earned her MFA in Nonfiction from the University of California, Riverside, and her first book, Carrying the Bones: Rituals for a Dying World, is forthcoming from University Press of Kentucky (2026).

Dylene Cymraes is an author, writing mentor, editor, and facilitator. She has edited and contributed to more than fifty screenplays, published five novels and two non-fiction books. Her work appears in the American Journal of Poetry, the Telepoem Booth Project, and Sink Hollow, among other places She holds a graduate in Communication and Storytelling Studies at East Tennessee State University.

 

TUESDAY, Aug. 19

In this generative session, author and MIU English department faculty Craig Deininger explores voice in poetry and the difference between the eye and the “I” of a poem’s speaker.

Craig Deininger received his MFA in Poetry from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He also received an MA and PhD in Mythological Studies and Jungian Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute in California. He currently teaches creative writing at Maharishi International University. His writing has appeared in The Iowa Review and he is a regularly featured for the Joseph Campbell Foundation. Together with Patrick Slattery, he published a volume of poetry called Leaves from the World Tree: Selected Poems (Mandorla Books) in 2018.

 

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 20

We are excited to present our featured residency and festival guest, Kristina Marie Darling. Today, she’ll host a master class and workshop on memory and the lyric essay. Scholar Rebecca Hussey defines the lyric essay as a "hybrid genre that combines essay and poetry."  In this workshop, we will consider the different shapes that this hybridity can take, ranging from literary collage to nonlinear narratives.  We will discuss examples by Julie Marie Wade, Elisa Gabbert, Jenny Boully, Claudia Rankine, Maggie Nelson, and other writers as determined by student interests.  From there, we will launch into a series of writing prompts that will embolden participants to integrate these newly gained techniques into their own projects.  

Kristina Marie Darling is the author of over thirty books, which include recent releases from Bloomsbury, Dzanc, Persea, and Penguin Canada. A twice-awarded Fulbright Scholar, Dr. Darling’s work has also been recognized with multiple endowed residences at Yaddo, a Villa Lena Foundation Fellowship, fourteen juried residencies at the American Academy in Rome, where she previously served as an ambassador for recruitment, and a nomination for the Distinguished Visitor Fellowship at the American Academy in Berlin. A prolific educator and public speaker with the Ovation Agency, she has held academic appointments at the American University of Rome, the University of Zadar in Croatia, the Universidade do Porto, the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, the European Law and Governance School, the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis, the University of Cambridge, the American Research Center in Sofia, the Leysin American School in Switzerland, and the Ionion Center for the Arts and Culture, where she is now permanent faculty.  Dr. Darling has also lectured at Yale University, Columbia University in the City of New York, the New School, Istanbul University, the University of Bangka Belitung in Indonesia, the University of Cyprus, the San Miguel Writers Conference & Literary Festival, the Leopardi Writers Conference in Recanati Italy, the United States Embassy in Togo, and many other distinguished venues in the U.S. and abroad.  Dr. Darling lives in Croatia, spends her summers teaching in Greece, on the islands of Kefalonia and Andros respectively, and her winters in San Michele on the Amalfi Coast.    

 

MIU MFA graduate Jessica Elliott will be teaching a master class and workshop this afternoon. In "Ink That Breathes: A Sensory Writing Masterclass" led by Jessica Elliott (Jessi Oyana), we will explore the craft technique of imagery. With sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste as our guides, we will perform close readings of literary examples from various genres, including poetry and music lyrics. Although encouraged, participation in the guided writing prompts during the lesson is not required. There will be time for breaks, open discussions, and sharing throughout the session.  

Jessica Elliott (Jessi Oyana) is a poet and performer exploring intimacy through themes of selfhood, relationship, grief, ritual, embodiment, and energy. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Maharishi International University in June 2025. Her chapbook Go Deeper: A Sensitive Freak’s Exploration of Intimacy is in preparation for submissions, alongside poetry and hybrid works. Her writing on the topic of holistic health appears in Energy Magazine Online Jan/Feb 2022 issue, and her creative expressions—spanning spoken word, music, and live performance—have reached audiences since 2014. With over a decade in wellness and creativity, she weaves personal insight into each project and collaboration. 

 

MFA graduate Dominque Feloss will be reading from her thesis manuscript, the fantasy novel Crystalline.

Dominque Feloss is a full-time philanthropic professional located in Atlanta, GA.  She was the 2024 John Lewis Writing Grant recipient for fiction, and her background is in community impact work;  she has served the community through her work with the University of Georgia Extension Services, the Clayton County Library System, grassroots nonprofit organization Alternate ROOTS, The Clarke Street Fund, and most notably and currently supporting the Income, Wealth, and Arts portfolios at the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta. Dominque has a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Maharishi International University.

 

THURSDAY, Aug. 21

  • MASTER CLASS and WORKSHOP
    The Writer as Hero: Literary Citizenship and Activism
    with Kristina Marie Darling
    Time: 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM CT
    Free Eventbrite registration here

In today’s workshop, author and chief editor at Tupelo Press, Kristina Darling, will talk about the writer as hero: literary citizenship and activism. In the masterclass “The Writer as Hero,” we will consider the ways that our participation in the larger literary community is politically charged. Questions we will address include:  How can book reviews and other forms of literary journalism create a more diverse and representative arts community? What unique opportunities for social justice and advocacy are afforded by editorial work? How can we use our writing and insights to empower others? After a presentation and a lively discussion, you will leave the masterclass with a packet of resources for getting involved in their respective arts communities with these ideas in mind.

Kristina Marie Darling is the author of over thirty books, which include recent releases from Bloomsbury, Dzanc, Persea, and Penguin Canada. A twice-awarded Fulbright Scholar, Dr. Darling’s work has also been recognized with multiple endowed residences at Yaddo, a Villa Lena Foundation Fellowship, fourteen juried residencies at the American Academy in Rome, where she previously served as an ambassador for recruitment, and a nomination for the Distinguished Visitor Fellowship at the American Academy in Berlin. A prolific educator and public speaker with the Ovation Agency, she has held academic appointments at the American University of Rome, the University of Zadar in Croatia, the Universidade do Porto, the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, the European Law and Governance School, the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis, the University of Cambridge, the American Research Center in Sofia, the Leysin American School in Switzerland, and the Ionion Center for the Arts and Culture, where she is now permanent faculty.  Dr. Darling has also lectured at Yale University, Columbia University in the City of New York, the New School, Istanbul University, the University of Bangka Belitung in Indonesia, the University of Cyprus, the San Miguel Writers Conference & Literary Festival, the Leopardi Writers Conference in Recanati Italy, the United States Embassy in Togo, and many other distinguished venues in the U.S. and abroad.  Dr. Darling lives in Croatia, spends her summers teaching in Greece, on the islands of Kefalonia and Andros respectively, and her winters in San Michele on the Amalfi Coast.    

 
 
 
“Just to be clear, I don’t want to get out without a broken heart. I intend to leave this life so shattered there’s gonna have to be a thousand separate heavens for all of my flying parts.”
— Andrea Gibson

  • GENERATIVE WORKSHOP
    A Thousand Separate Heavens: An Homage to Andrea Gibson
    with Jennifer Espinoza and Eileen Espinoza
    Time: 7:30 - 9:30 PM CT
    Free Eventbrite registration here

We all love Andrea Gibson and have been rejoicing in their words while mourning their passing. Tonight we will pay homage to Andrea’s words and works in the kind of generative workshop only Jennifer and Eileen Espinoza can offer - an honoring, an opening, a reconnecting, and a celebration of an amazing life well-lived and loved in every moment, the grief and pain as welcome as the deep joy.

Andrea Gibson (they/them) was a celebrated American poet and activist known for their powerful spoken word performances and writing that explored themes of love, loss, gender, and social justice. They were the author of several poetry collections, including Lord of the Butterflies, Take Me With You, and You Better Be Lightning. Gibson served as the Poet Laureate of Colorado from 2023 to 2025. You can hear Andrea Gibson’s performances and find their books here: https://andreagibson.org/

“I know most people try hard
to do good and find out too late
they should have tried softer.”
— Andrea Gibson

Jennifer Espinoza has been a long-time faculty in our MFA and currently is an adjunct mentor in poetry. Her work has been featured in Poetry, Denver Quarterly, American Poetry Review, Poem-a-Day, Lambda Literary, PEN America, The Offing, and elsewhere. Her full-length collection THERE SHOULD BE FLOWERS was published by Civil Coping Mechanisms in 2016. She also is the author of  I’m Alive / It Hurts / I Love It (Big Lucks 2019) and I Don’t Want to Be Understood (Alice James Books, 2024). She holds an MFA in creative writing from University of California, Riverside.

Eileen Elizabeth Espinoza is a full-time faculty in our MFA program and mentors our students in various genres. She’s a queer essayist and poet, the co-founder of Boshemia Magazine, and the recipient of the 2021 McQuern Award in Nonfiction. Her essays have been published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Bellevue Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her poetry has been selected by both Dorothy Allison and bell hooks for collections such as The Anthology of Appalachian Writers and Appalachian Review. She earned her MFA in Nonfiction from the University of California, Riverside, and her first book, Carrying the Bones: Rituals for a Dying World, is forthcoming from University Press of Kentucky (2026). 

“Cause I don’t wanna be a witness to this life,
I want to be charged and convicted,
ear lifted to her song like a bouquet of yes
because my heart is a parachute that has never opened in time
and I wanna fuck up that pattern,
leave a hole where the cold comes in and fill it every day with her sun,
‘cause anyone who has ever sat in lotus for more than a few seconds
knows it takes a hell of a lot more muscle to stay than to go”
— Andrea Gibson, Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns
 
 
 

FRIDAY, Aug. 22

As writers, we live for stories. Using the power of oral story tradition, in a time-honored method called Story Circles, we have a chance to be heard, listen deeply, and share perspectives. Story Circles can be a place of inspiration, empowerment, and connection. Learning to use this method can open enormous potential for a writer to discover and develop personal narratives. In Stories in the Round: Awakening Personal Narratives, participants will get an introduction to Story Circles.

“There is no greater power on Earth than Story.”
— Libba Bray

Dylene Cymraes is an author, writing mentor, editor, and facilitator. She has edited and contributed to more than fifty screenplays, published five novels and two non-fiction books. Her work appears in the American Journal of Poetry, the Telepoem Booth Project, and Sink Hollow, among other places She holds a graduate in Communication and Storytelling Studies at East Tennessee State University.

 

Dialogue is not just what people say, it is what people don’t say. In this workshop, MFA faculty Clint Martin will unpack dialogue, helping you understand its complexity and layers.

Clint Martin received his MFA from Spalding University in the spring of 2020. Since then, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in several literary journals and magazines such as Sycamore Review, Sheepshead Review, Binary Review, Motherwell Magazine, and The Bluebird Word. Clint has been a reader for The Louisville Review and been the faculty advisor for The Midway Muse. Currently, Clint is a full-time faculty member of MIU's English department and will also be teaching two MFA courses for us this coming school year.

 

Tonight, two English dept. faculty will read for you: Craig Deininger (poetry) and Clint Martin (his essay “Cardinal Math,” which is published in the Kenyon Review).

Clint Martin received his MFA from Spalding University in the spring of 2020. Since then, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in several literary journals and magazines such as Sycamore Review, Sheepshead Review, Binary Review, Motherwell Magazine, and The Bluebird Word. Clint has been a reader for The Louisville Review and been the faculty advisor for The Midway Muse. Currently, Clint is a full-time faculty member of MIU's English department and will also be teaching two MFA courses for us this coming school year.

Craig Deininger received his MFA in Poetry from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He also received an MA and PhD in Mythological Studies and Jungian Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute in California. He currently teaches creative writing at Maharishi International University. His writing has appeared in The Iowa Review and he is a regularly featured for the Joseph Campbell Foundation. Together with Patrick Slattery, he published a volume of poetry called Leaves from the World Tree: Selected Poems (Mandorla Books) in 2018.

 

MONDAY, Aug. 25

MFA faculty Dylene Cymraes will do another story circle focusing on the senses as a gateway to narrative. As writers, we live for stories. Using the power of oral story tradition, in a time-honored method called Story Circles, we have a chance to be heard, listen deeply, and share perspectives. Story Circles can be a place of inspiration, empowerment, and connection. Learning to use this method can open enormous potential for a writer to discover and develop personal narratives. In Stories in the Round: Awakening Personal Narratives, participants will get an introduction to Story Circles.

Dylene Cymraes is an author, writing mentor, editor, and facilitator. She has edited and contributed to more than fifty screenplays, published five novels and two non-fiction books. Her work appears in the American Journal of Poetry, the Telepoem Booth Project, and Sink Hollow, among other places She holds a graduate in Communication and Storytelling Studies at East Tennessee State University.

 

In this workshop, Eileen will offer you an MFA Toolkit: What do you need to know about craft, critique, and research to be a successful MFA student and writer?

Please note that this workshop starts at 2:30 PM instead of our usual 1:30 PM Central Time!

Eileen Elizabeth Espinoza is our Fall ‘25 creative nonfiction mentor. She’s a full-time faculty in our MFA program and a frequent mentor in various genres. She’s a queer essayist and poet, the co-founder of Boshemia Magazine, and the recipient of the 2021 McQuern Award in Nonfiction. Her essays have been published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Bellevue Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her poetry has been selected by both Dorothy Allison and bell hooks for collections such as The Anthology of Appalachian Writers and Appalachian Review. She earned her MFA in Nonfiction from the University of California, Riverside, and her first book, Carrying the Bones: Rituals for a Dying World, is forthcoming from University Press of Kentucky (2026).

 

Tonight we present our Fall ‘25 mentors: Jennifer Espinoza (poetry), Eric Boyd (fiction), and Eileen Espinoza (creative nonfiction) - all established and beloved mentors in our MFA!

Jennifer Espinoza is our Fall ‘25 poetry mentor. Her work has been featured in Poetry, Denver Quarterly, American Poetry Review, Poem-a-Day, Lambda Literary, PEN America, The Offing, and elsewhere. Her full-length collection THERE SHOULD BE FLOWERS was published by Civil Coping Mechanisms in 2016. She also is the author of  I’m Alive / It Hurts / I Love It (Big Lucks 2019) and I Don’t Want to Be Understood (Alice James Books, 2024). She holds an MFA in creative writing from University of California, Riverside. For several years she was a full-time faculty in MIU’s MFA in Creative Writing and now she is a frequent guest at our festivals and residencies, plus an adjunct mentor in our MFA.

Eric Boyd is our Fall ‘25 fiction mentor. He is a winner of the PEN Prison Writing Award and Slice Magazine's Bridging the Gap Award. His writing has appeared in Joyland, Hobart, Guernica, and The Offing, as well as the anthologies Prison Noir (Akashic Books) edited by Joyce Carol Oates, and Words Without Walls (Trinity University Press). He is the editor of The Pittsburgh Anthology (Belt Publishing) and holds an MFA from The Writer's Foundry in New York City.

Eileen Elizabeth Espinoza is our Fall ‘25 creative nonfiction mentor. She’s a full-time faculty in our MFA program and a frequent mentor in various genres. She’s a queer essayist and poet, the co-founder of Boshemia Magazine, and the recipient of the 2021 McQuern Award in Nonfiction. Her essays have been published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Bellevue Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her poetry has been selected by both Dorothy Allison and bell hooks for collections such as The Anthology of Appalachian Writers and Appalachian Review. She earned her MFA in Nonfiction from the University of California, Riverside, and her first book, Carrying the Bones: Rituals for a Dying World, is forthcoming from University Press of Kentucky (2026).

 

TUESDAY, Aug. 26

By student request, we offer this workshop on careers in editing and publishing. The workshop is offered to us by our featured guest, Kristina Marie Darling, chief editor at Tupelo Press and author of over thirty books. She will cover not only editing and publishing but also bookreviewing and her own extensive experience in the publishing field.

The seminar “Careers in Editing & Publishing” offers inside tips and advice for breaking into a competitive publishing marketplace. Questions we will consider include: How can book reviews, author interviews, and other forms of literary journalism offer a way to network with magazine editors and publishers? Can volunteer opportunities be leveraged for paid work and even careers? How can one make their application for publishing jobs stand out? After a presentation and lively Q&A, you will leave the workshop with a packet of resources for getting started as an editor in the independent press.  

Kristina Marie Darling is the author of over thirty books, which include recent releases from Bloomsbury, Dzanc, Persea, and Penguin Canada. A twice-awarded Fulbright Scholar, Dr. Darling’s work has also been recognized with multiple endowed residences at Yaddo, a Villa Lena Foundation Fellowship, fourteen juried residencies at the American Academy in Rome, where she previously served as an ambassador for recruitment, and a nomination for the Distinguished Visitor Fellowship at the American Academy in Berlin. A prolific educator and public speaker with the Ovation Agency, she has held academic appointments at the American University of Rome, the University of Zadar in Croatia, the Universidade do Porto, the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, the European Law and Governance School, the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis, the University of Cambridge, the American Research Center in Sofia, the Leysin American School in Switzerland, and the Ionion Center for the Arts and Culture, where she is now permanent faculty.  Dr. Darling has also lectured at Yale University, Columbia University in the City of New York, the New School, Istanbul University, the University of Bangka Belitung in Indonesia, the University of Cyprus, the San Miguel Writers Conference & Literary Festival, the Leopardi Writers Conference in Recanati Italy, the United States Embassy in Togo, and many other distinguished venues in the U.S. and abroad.  Dr. Darling lives in Croatia, spends her summers teaching in Greece, on the islands of Kefalonia and Andros respectively, and her winters in San Michele on the Amalfi Coast.    

 

Eileen Espinoza will take you on a journey of mapping the self: an introduction to life writing in this exploratory generative workshop and guided presentation.

Eileen Elizabeth Espinoza is our Fall ‘25 creative nonfiction mentor. She’s a full-time faculty in our MFA program and a frequent mentor in various genres. She’s a queer essayist and poet, the co-founder of Boshemia Magazine, and the recipient of the 2021 McQuern Award in Nonfiction. Her essays have been published in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Bellevue Literary Review, and elsewhere. Her poetry has been selected by both Dorothy Allison and bell hooks for collections such as The Anthology of Appalachian Writers and Appalachian Review. She earned her MFA in Nonfiction from the University of California, Riverside, and her first book, Carrying the Bones: Rituals for a Dying World, is forthcoming from University Press of Kentucky (2026).

 

Tonight we host a reading with two poets who will also join us later this week for “StarWound and Interiors,” a vision of intercultural connection through poetry and song. StarWound, a Greek Anglophone sophisti-pop band, has been on tour in the US in collaboration with prominent poets from various universities. On Friday morning, August. 29, the band StarWound will present and poets who participated in the Interiors project will read their work. Tonight, Kendall Dunkelberg and Amy Ash will read from new books.

Amy Ash is the author of The Open Mouth of the Vase, winner of the Cider Press Review Book Award and the Etchings Press Whirling Prize post-publication book award. Her poems, prose, and collaborative work have been published in various journals and anthologies. Recent poems can be found in Erase the Patriarchy: An Anthology of Erasure Poetry, Remington Review, and I-70 Review. She is an assistant professor of English and Creative Writing at Indiana State University, where she directs the Creative Writing Program. 

Kendall Dunkelberg directs the low-residency MFA in Creative Writing and the Eudora Welty Writers’ Symposium at Mississippi University for Women. He is editor of Poetry South and has published four collections of poetry, Tree Fall with Birdsong, Barrier Island Suite, Time Capsules, and Landscapes and Architectures, as well as the creative writing textbook, A Writer’s Craft: Multi-genre Creative Writing. His poems have recently appeared in Delta Poetry Review, Tar River Poetry, Birmingham Poetry Review, Juke Joint, River Mouth Review, Peauxdunque Review, and Salvation South, and he has poems featured in Attached to the Living World: A New Ecopoetry Anthology and Southern Voices: Fifty Contemporary Poets.

 

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 27

MFA faculty Clint Martin will talk about sound devices and the power of sound in writing - a subject we’ve not yet covered.

Clint Martin received his MFA from Spalding University in the spring of 2020. Since then, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in several literary journals and magazines such as Sycamore Review, Sheepshead Review, Binary Review, Motherwell Magazine, Kenyon Review, and The Bluebird Word. Clint has been a reader for The Louisville Review and been the faculty advisor for The Midway Muse. Currently, Clint is a full-time faculty member of MIU's English department and will also be teaching two MFA courses for us this coming school year.

 

In this intimate reading, poet Nynke Passi will share work from various periods of her life, telling personal stories through poems. This reading includes a Q&A with the poet.

Nynke Salverda Passi is the director of MIU's MFA in Creative Writing and co-chair of MIU’s English dept. She is also the founder of the Soul Bone℠ Literary Center and Festival. She was born and raised in the Netherlands. Her work has been published in CALYX, Gulf Coast, Poetry Breakfast, Life & Legends, and more. Her poetry has been anthologized in Pandemic Puzzle Pieces and River of Earth & Sky (Blue Light Press), Carrying the Branch (Glass Lyre Press), and Oxygen: Parables of the Pandemic (River Paw Press). Together with Rustin Larson and Christine Schrum, she edited the poetry collection Leaves by Night, Flowers by Day. She was a finalist in the Jeffrey E. Smith Editor’s prize of The Missouri Review in both ‘14 and ‘22.

 

MIU MFA graduate Dominque Feloss will be teaching a master class on the topic of world building in speculative fiction.

Dominque Feloss is a full-time philanthropic professional located in Atlanta, GA. She was the 2024 John Lewis Writing Grant recipient for fiction, and her background is in community impact work;  she has served the community through her work with the University of Georgia Extension Services, the Clayton County Library System, grassroots nonprofit organization Alternate ROOTS, The Clarke Street Fund, and most notably and currently supporting the Income, Wealth, and Arts portfolios at the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta. Dominque has a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Maharishi International University.

 

THURSDAY, Aug. 28

In this class, MIU English dept. faculty Melanie McCuin, who is our undergraduate program director, will share a wealth of information about grant writing. Writing grants can open the doors to opportunities and successes that previously seemed out of reach. This class is highly recommended for anyone embarking on the writing life.

Melanie McCuin received her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Northern Arizona University in 2014. She currently teaches composition and creative writing at Maharishi International University where she is our new undergraduate program director. Her writing has appeared in The Salt River Review, The Gila River Review, The Blue Guitar, and Unstrung. Her most recent work can be viewed in the June 2022 issue of Salamander and at howweare.org, a website devoted to the reflections of musicians, artists, and writers during the Covid-19 pandemic. Melanie also creates video poems.

 

In this generative workshop and master class, Clint Martin will explore different possibilities of writing flash prose in any genre.

Clint Martin received his MFA from Spalding University in the spring of 2020. Since then, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in several literary journals and magazines such as Sycamore Review, Sheepshead Review, Binary Review, Kenyon Review, Motherwell Magazine, and The Bluebird Word. Clint has been a reader for The Louisville Review and been the faculty advisor for The Midway Muse. Currently, Clint is a full-time faculty member of MIU's English department and will also be teaching two MFA courses for us this coming school year.

 

The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon is one of the greatest works of Japanese literature. It occupies in the field of nonfiction the preeminent place of its contemporary, The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu, holds in the novel. It is extraordinary that, in a part of the world noted for male ascendancy, both these masterpieces should have been written by women.

Sei Shonagon was born a little over a thousand years ago (965 is a likely date). She was a Court Lady and lady-in-waiting to Empress Sadako during the last decade of the tenth century. This was at the very height of the Heian culture. Her father was a provincial official but best known as a scholar and poet. Otherwise not much is known about her family.

The Pillow Book is the first of a typically Japanese form of writing, which includes some of the country’s most valued literature. It is a beautiful form for a record of Court life: an anecdote here, a prescription for conduct there, a lilting roll call of names, rivers, flowers, a subtle comment on some custom or formal observance—all the things on would set down in a daybook ‘kept in a pillow’ if one were a lady of great powers of observation and also a dreamer. In this generative workshop, we’ll read some of Sei Shonagon work and use her lists as a leaping off point to examine our own lives and experiences with a fresh eye.

Nynke Salverda Passi is the director of MIU's MFA in Creative Writing and co-chair of MIU’s English dept. She is also the founder of the Soul Bone℠ Literary Center and Festival. She was born and raised in the Netherlands. Her work has been published in CALYX, Gulf Coast, Poetry Breakfast, Life & Legends, and more. Her poetry has been anthologized in Pandemic Puzzle Pieces and River of Earth & Sky (Blue Light Press), Carrying the Branch (Glass Lyre Press), and Oxygen: Parables of the Pandemic (River Paw Press). Together with Rustin Larson and Christine Schrum, she edited the poetry collection Leaves by Night, Flowers by Day. She was a finalist in the Jeffrey E. Smith Editor’s prize of The Missouri Review in both ‘14 and ‘22.

 
 
 

FRIDAY, Aug. 29

  • READING
    StarWound and Interiors – a Vision of Intercultural Connection through Song and Poetry
    with StarWound and Poets from various US Universities Participating in INTERIORS
    Time: 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM CT
    Free Eventbrite registration here

StarWound is an Anglophone sophisti-pop trio based in Athens, Greece made up of three members: Konstantina Stavropoulou, Petros Bouras, and Dimitris Azorakos. Their music fuses a cabaret ambience with elements of EDM and synth rock genres. StarWound has been on tour in the US in collaboration with prominent poets from various universities. The goal is to provide musical accompaniment to original poetic compositions provided by each of the collaborating institutions and to present these songs in a multifaceted and multi-institutional concert program based on the thematic concept of “Interiors.” 

The first tour of “Interiors” included five US universities in four different States of the Southeast in October 2023. More specifically, StarWound performed in UWF (FL), GSU and Berry College (GA), MUW (MS) and Miles College (AL) and they collaborated with professors/poets like Sandra Meek, Kendall Dunkelberg and Jonathan Fink. On their latest tour, they performed in six cities in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin and Iowa, working with poems from professors and poets Amy Ash, Carmella Braninger, Brenda Cardenas, Chris Forhan, Jennifer Moore and Nynke Passi. At the heart of the INTERIORS tours is an acknowledgment of our communal interior spaces and isolation during the recent pandemic years and a vision of fostering intercultural connection through song and poetry.

Since its debut, StarWound has performed in various Festivals including the following: Eurosonic (Netherlands), CLAE Festival (Luxembourg), Colora (Belgium), Culturescapes (Switzerland), "River Party” and “Aisxyleia” (Greece). In addition, the group has appeared in many cities in Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, North Macedonia and Luxembourg, and has given concerts at important music venues such as the “Sounds Jazz Club”, “Jazzcafe Dizzy”, “Jamboree” and “Blues-Sphere”.Many of StarWound’s songs have been featured on various major FM radio stations in Greece, and elsewhere in Europe,  including: “Pepper Radio” (Greece), “World Radio” (Switzerland) “Ara City” (Luxembourg) and “Alma Radio” (Belgium).  StarWound was ranked among the top 150 bands at the "YourBand" contest sponsored by the National Greek Radio and Television Company (ERT).

In 2018, the band released its 2nd studio album, “So Wrong,” in collaboration with the internationally renowed mezzo-soprano, Alexandra Gravas. This album included eight new songs.

In 2021, StarWound released their latest single, “Rose,” which received significant airplay on the radio. One month later, they collaborated with the Ballet of the Greek National Opera in “Dancing Cloud”, a video inspired by the sudden loss of the Company’s principal dancer, Sasha Neskov. In October 2023, they made their first tour in the USA, performing their project ‘Interiors’ and in January 2024, StarWound released its third album under the title “What do you see?”, which was produced by Ted Gaier and the first single ‘Insane’, was the reason for their return on the major radio stations in Greece.

Below bios of a few of the poets who participated in INTERIORS:

Amy Ash is the author of The Open Mouth of the Vase, winner of the Cider Press Review Book Award and Etchings Press Whirling Prize, and co-editor of Imaginative Teaching through Creative Writing. Her poems, prose, and collaborative work have been published in various journals and anthologies, including Rogue Agent, River Heron Review, SWWIM, The Journal, Remington Review, and I-70 Review, and Erase the Patriarchy: An Anthology of Erasure Poetry. She is Professor of English at Indiana State University.  

Dr. Carmella J. Braniger’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Sycamore Review; MARGIE: The American Journal of Poetry; Modern English Tanka; Altas Poetica: A Journal of Poetry of Place in Contemporary Tanka; Ribbons; Chrysanthemums; red lights; Magnapoet; and Eucalypt. Her chapbook, No One May Follow, was published by Pudding House Publications in 2009. More recently, her research and artistic achievement energies have focused on Brill|Sense’s Critical Storytelling series, which provides a platform for marginalized voices to tell stories about and advocate equal access and opportunity for excluded identities. Contributing to this venture has allowed her to integrate issues of diversity and inclusivity into her scholarly efforts. She recently served as the Distinguished Warren F. Hardy Professor of English during which she spent two years researching narrative testimony and poetry of witness as genres for processing and sharing our traumatic pasts.

Current Wisconsin Poet Laureate Brenda Cárdenas has authored Trace (Red Hen Press), winner of the 2023 Society of Midland Authors Award for Poetry and silver winner of Foreword Review’s Indie Poetry Prize; Boomerang (Bilingual Press); and three chapbooks. She also co-edited Resist Much/Obey Little: Inaugural Poems to the Resistance and Between the Heart and the Land: Latina Poets in the Midwest. Her poems and essays have appeared in many literary journals and anthologies, including Best of the Net Anthology (2024) Latino Poetry: The Library of America Anthology, Poetry, Prairie Schooner, Braving the Body, Latinx Poetics: The Art of Poetry, and Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Anthology, among others. In 2024, her poem “Para los Tin-Tun-Teros,” set to choral music by Daniel Afonso, was performed by the National Concert Chorus at Carnegie Hall. Cárdenas is Professor Emerita of English at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. You can find her at brendacardenas.net. 

Kendall Dunkelberg directs the low-residency MFA in Creative Writing and the Eudora Welty Writers’ Symposium at Mississippi University for Women. He is editor of Poetry South and has published four collections of poetry, Tree Fall with Birdsong, Barrier Island Suite, Time Capsules, and Landscapes and Architectures, as well as the creative writing textbook, A Writer’s Craft: Multi-genre Creative Writing. His poems have recently appeared in Delta Poetry Review, Tar River Poetry, Birmingham Poetry Review, Juke Joint, River Mouth Review, Peauxdunque Review, and Salvation South, and he has poems featured in Attached to the Living World: A New Ecopoetry Anthology and Southern Voices: Fifty Contemporary Poets.

Chris Forhan is a poet, memoirist, and essayist whose most recent book is A Mind Full of Music: Essays on Imagination and Popular Song. He is also the author of the memoir My Father Before Me as well as four books of poetry: the forthcoming The Ghost Won’t Go; Black Leapt In, winner of the Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize; The Actual Moon, The Actual Stars, winner of the Morse Poetry Prize and a Washington State Book Award; and Forgive Us Our Happiness, winner of the Bakeless Prize. He has won a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and three Pushcart Prizes. He lives in Indianapolis, where he teaches at Butler University. For more: www.chrisforhan.com.

Jennifer Moore was born and raised in Seattle. She is the author of two collections of poetry, Easy Does It and The Veronica Maneuver, both from the University of Akron Press, and a chapbook of centos, Smaller Ghosts (Seven Kitchens Press). Poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Bennington Review, Ploughshares, Tupelo Quarterly, The Cincinnati Review, and elsewhere. She is a professor of creative writing at Ohio Northern University and lives in Bowling Green, Ohio.

Nynke Salverda Passi is the director of MIU’s MFA program and co-chair of MIU’s English dept, plus the founder of the Soul Bone℠ Literary Center and Festival. She was born and raised in the Netherlands. Her work has been published in CALYX, Gulf Coast, Poetry Breakfast, Life & Legends, and more. Her poetry has been anthologized in Pandemic Puzzle Pieces and River of Earth & Sky (Blue Light Press), Carrying the Branch (Glass Lyre Press), and Oxygen: Parables of the Pandemic (River Paw Press). and more. She was a finalist in the Jeffrey E. Smith Editor’s Prize of The Missouri Review in both ‘14 and ‘22.

 
 
 

  • MASTER CLASS and WORKSHOP
    Assembling the Collection: Finding Ways for Pieces to Talk to Each Other
    with Clint Martin
    Time: 1:30 - 3:30 PM CT
    Free Eventbrite registration here

Writing is not just about generating work, but also about publishing books. In this informative workshop, MFA faculty Clint Martin gives an overview of different ways in which you can assemble a manuscript in any genre. How do you organize or assemble your work? How do you find ways for pieces to talk to each other?

Clint Martin received his MFA from Spalding University in the spring of 2020. Since then, his work has appeared or is forthcoming in several literary journals and magazines such as Sycamore Review, Sheepshead Review, Binary Review, Motherwell Magazine, and The Bluebird Word. Clint has been a reader for The Louisville Review and been the faculty advisor for The Midway Muse. Currently, Clint is a full-time faculty member of MIU's English department and will also be teaching two MFA courses for us this coming school year.

 

MIU MFA graduates Jessica Elliott and Cheryl Michie will be reading their thesis work.

Jessica Elliott (Jessi Oyana) is a poet and performer exploring intimacy through themes of selfhood, relationship, grief, ritual, embodiment, and energy. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Maharishi International University in June 2025. Her chapbook Go Deeper: A Sensitive Freak’s Exploration of Intimacy is in preparation for submissions, alongside poetry and hybrid works. Her writing on the topic of holistic health appears in Energy Magazine Online Jan/Feb 2022 issue, and her creative expressions—spanning spoken word, music, and live performance—have reached audiences since 2014. With over a decade in wellness and creativity, she weaves personal insight into each project and collaboration. 

Cheryl Michie is a poet and artist from the heart and from the heart of the Midwest. Her branches find roots in Indiana and Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia. She currently spends her time in Wisconsin and Iowa. Cheryl’s work explores motherhood and family, loss and grief, nature and renewal. In June, she completed her MFA in Creative Writing at Maharishi International University. Her thesis manuscript, The Silence Between Seasons, examines the cycles of loss and renewal through the lyric form. Cheryl treasures the creative exchanges that were fostered in her MFA program through her mentors and fellow writers. She is preparing individual poems, a chapbook, and a full-length collection for submission.