UCF Alumna Named First Orlando Poet Laureate
October 31, 2017 Susan Lilley ’75 ‘80MA has been chosen as Orlando’s first poet laureate after a five month search. Lilley, an English major for both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees and formerly a UCF faculty member for 12 years, was chosen from forty-nine applicants. The three award-winning finalists were all UCF Alumni:...
English Professor’s Prize Winning Book of ‘Harrowing’ Poems
August 29, 2017 Terry Ann Thaxton, a professor in the Department of English, won Truman State University Press’ 2017 T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry for her third book of poems, Mud Song. Each year, TSUP receives about 500 manuscripts that are screened and judged by a nationally known poet. Kevin Prufer, author of...
Student's Comic Book Dream Becomes Reality
August 15, 2017 UCF senior Branden Hall hopes that one day Zeek St. Cloud finds his true purpose in life – but he knows that’s going to take thousands of years. Hall, who is majoring in creative writing and advertising/public relations, and his brother Horacio are enabling Zeek on his journey, and recently...
T&T Students Interview Dr. Kirk St.Amant about Technical Communication
June 21, 2017 Dr. Kirk St.Amant, Professor and the Eunice C. Williamson Endowed Chair in Technical Communication at Louisiana Technical University, visited the University of Central Florida (UCF) campus on April 11, 2017, to speak with students and faculty in the Texts and Technology Doctoral Program, as well as to perform other on-site...
Dr. Kevin Meehan Receives Fulbright Award
April 13, 2017 Dr. Kevin Meehan of the English Department has received a Fulbright Award for a research project based at the Clarence Fitzroy Bryant College in St. Kitts. Kevin will be developing educational resources on non-traditional agricultural systems for Caribbean schools, completing a textbook on hydroponics for climate change adaptation, and teaching...
Creative Writing professor Ephraim Scott Sommers releases his first book The Night We Set the Dead Kid on Fire
March 13, 2017 UCF Creative Writing professor Ephraim Scott Sommers has released his first book, a collection of poetry entitled The Night We Set the Dead Kid on Fire, this month through Tebot Bach Press. The Night We Set the Dead Kid on Fire focuses on the underrepresented—the convicts, the grave-diggers, the addicts—the...
Five UCF First-Year Composition Students' Writing Featured in New Issue of Stylus
December 15, 2016 Congratulations to UCF students Kristina Abicca, Dana Mikkelsen, Taylor Rayfield, Amber Steward, and Shravan Yandra, all of whom have had work they produced in their first-year composition classes published in the latest issue of Stylus: A Journal of First-Year Writing. The subjects of their individual articles vary—from considerations of writing...
If Our Gatekeepers Can't Function Properly, We Are Doomed
June 23, 2016 Andrew Wakefield, a British doctor who lost his medical license in 2010, falsely claimed in a 1998 scientific paper published in The Lancet that measles, mumps and rubella vaccines cause autism and Crohn’s disease. His claims, though bogus, were widely reported and led to a decline in vaccination rates and...
New Chapbook Reno Published by Florida Review
April 12, 2016 Reno, by Memphis author Nat Akin, has been published by Florida Review Publications as the fourth in a new series of chapbooks. The chapbook project was started by former editor Jocelyn Bartkevicius in honor of previous editor Jeanne Leiby, who had gone on from UCF to become the first female...
Censorship Is Not All Bad
March 09, 2016 Censorship is not all bad! Free-speech idealists argue that the solution to bad speech (misinformation, lies, abusive language, etc.) is not censorship but more speech. But bad speech can, and often does, drown out the good. A classic form of bad speech is hate speech. Jeremy Waldron, a law professor...
Students Selected for University's Highest Honor
February 16, 2016 Congratulations to Michael Scimeca, Gabriela Wolk and Amy Maitner, recipients of the 2016 Order of Pegasus Award. Michael Scimeca is a part of the Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences and College of Arts and Humanities, and majoring in biomedical sciences and the Spanish language. He is a member of The...
'The Big Read' at UCF to Focus on Zora Neale Hurston
December 22, 2015 UCF’s College of Arts & Humanities has been awarded one of 75 grants from the National Endowment for the Arts to participate in “The Big Read,” a nationwide program created to revitalize the role of literature in American culture and encourage reading for pleasure and enlightenment. Grant recipients around the...
UCF Grads to Show Work for Art in Odd Places
September 18, 2015 Bright green geometric shapes made out of plastic drinking straws juxtaposed against street medians. Groups of participants knitting in unison to create musical sounds. A live art installation consisting of an X-ray camper parked in a city lot. These are just some of the sights that passers-by can expect to...
New Chair of English Department
August 08, 2015 After serving his five-year term, Dr. Patrick Murphy is stepping down as chair of the Department of English. Though Dr. Murphy will be greatly missed, we wish him well on his future endeavors. The department warmly welcomes Dr. Trey Philpotts as our new chair. He is joining us from the...
Milanés Recognized for Anthology Contribution
April 30, 2015 Cecilia Rodríguez Milanés is part of a group that has been recognized at the International Latino Book Awards. Milanés’ contributions to the anthology Wise Latinas: Writers on Higher Education were acknowledged in the Most Inspirational Nonfiction Books in English category. Wise Latinas is a collection of personal essays addressing the...
Milanés' Short Stories Make The Top 10 Books About Cuba
March 02, 2015 Two short story collections by Cecilia Rodríguez Milanés have been listed on the Top 10 Books About Cuba by The Guardian coming in at number four and five. The short stories, “Marielitos, Balseros, and other Exiles” and “Oye What I’m Gonna Tell You,” aim to show a different side of...
Dutmers Receives 2015 Order of Pegasus Award
February 16, 2015 Congratulations to Jill Dutmers, a recipient of the 2015 Order of Pegasus Award. Jill Dutmers is an undergraduate major in English/Literature and is currently deciding which law school to attend. She has been accepted to seven schools. The Order of Pegasus is the highest honor the university gives to students....
The Guardian Features New Book by Milanés
January 20, 2015 A new book by Cecilia Rodríguez Milanés has been called a “must read” by The Guardian, one of the world’s most widely-read newspapers. Oye, What I’m Gonna Tell You is a collection of short stories chronicling the lives of Cuban Americans from WWII-era Havana to contemporary times in “el norte.”...
Authors to Read from Works, Discuss Writing
October 21, 2014 Two authors will visit UCF to read from their works and talk about the writing process. Jim Ray Daniels, who has published poetry and fiction about the rust-belt working class, will be on campus Tuesday, Oct. 21. He is the prize-winning author/editor of more than 30 books as well as...
Creative Writing Alum Published in AWP National Magazine
August 25, 2014 An article by Sean Ironman (Creative Writing M.F.A. ’14) was recently published in The Writer’s Chronicle, the national magazine from the Association of Writers & Writing Programs. “Writing the Z-Axis: Reflection and the Nonfiction Workshop” appears in the September 2014 issue. For over four decades, The Writer’s Chronicle has served...