{"id":28736,"date":"2024-11-15T14:36:34","date_gmt":"2024-11-15T19:36:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www3.tusculum.edu\/news\/?p=28736"},"modified":"2024-11-15T14:36:34","modified_gmt":"2024-11-15T19:36:34","slug":"event-to-highlight-launch-of-the-tusculum-review-20th-edition-present-readings-from-prize-winning-chapbook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www3.tusculum.edu\/news\/news\/2024\/event-to-highlight-launch-of-the-tusculum-review-20th-edition-present-readings-from-prize-winning-chapbook\/","title":{"rendered":"Event to highlight launch of The Tusculum Review 20th edition, present readings from prize-winning chapbook"},"content":{"rendered":"

GREENEVILLE<\/strong> \u2013 Now enjoying its 20th anniversary, Tusculum University<\/a>\u2019s international literary journal is back with a new edition that presents more high-quality work from globally acclaimed authors who have collaborated with Tusculum students to produce another can\u2019t-miss read.<\/p>\n

\"This

This is the cover for the newest edition of The Tusculum Review.<\/p><\/div>\n

Meanwhile, editors of that journal, The Tusculum Review<\/a>, are also introducing its prize-winning nonfiction chapbook for this year, \u201cThe Nature of Alaska: An Introduction to Familiar Plants, Animals and Outstanding Natural Attractions,\u201d written by Mirela Musi\u0107.<\/p>\n

Community members are invited Wednesday, Nov. 20, at 7 p.m. to Behan Arena Theatre, where Musi\u0107 will read excerpts from the chapbook, answer questions facilitated by Tusculum students Zach Mitchell and Zoey Seay, sign copies and participate in a reception. The event will also celebrate the upcoming launch of The Tusculum Review\u2019s 20th volume and provide attendees with the opportunity to preorder copies. Kevin Bradley, an artist and letterpress printer who designed the journal\u2019s cover, will attend and sell prints of that cover as well as his other artwork.<\/p>\n

“This moment\u00a0is the culmination of 20 years of work by\u00a0dedicated students and editors,\u201d said Kelsey Trom, The Tusculum Review\u2019s editor and an associate professor of English<\/a> at the university. \u201cWe’re thrilled to share this issue, filled with vital work by distinguished and emerging writers,\u00a0with the community. We take great pride in evaluating and selecting a wide range of\u00a0thoughtful, well-crafted writing for every volume.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis issue is thicker than usual, so there’s something here for every reader: war, motherhood, manhood, self-portraits, fertility, the natural world, historical fiction,\u00a0testosterone, aging, connection. The work we do with our ambitious, meticulous and alert student editors\u00a0honors our tradition of excellence in creative writing at Tusculum. We’re certain community members will enjoy spending time with our visiting writer and artist at this anniversary event, hosted by our capable students.”<\/p>\n

\"Mirela

Mirela Musi\u0107<\/p><\/div>\n

Musi\u0107 is a writer and director based in Brooklyn. After receiving her Master of Fine Arts in creative nonfiction from the University of Montana, she continues to work on the intersection of identity and place through film and essay. \u201cPony Girl,\u201d her first professional short film, is in post-production.<\/p>\n

Dr. Josh Martin, assistant professor of English, said Musi\u0107 wrestles with themes of survival and acceptance in \u201cThe Nature of Alaska.\u201d The chapbook begins on a salmon fishing boat in Alaska, and she navigates as a woman an ultra-masculine \u2013\u00a0 and often toxic \u2013 environment. She reflects on bad behavior her father exhibited, and at the same time, she works for a salmon transportation captain who acts nice at first but then shows a nefarious side.<\/p>\n

Mary Cappello, who Trom calls the matriarch of creative nonfiction, served as the judge for all 100 chapbook entries and chose Musi\u0107. As the winner, Musi\u0107 received $1,000, and \u201cThe Nature of Alaska\u201d will also be published in The Tusculum Review.<\/p>\n

\u201cAesthetically speaking, \u2018The Nature of Alaska\u2019 shows an extraordinary command of movement across place and time,\u201d Cappello said of the entry. \u201cThe sinuous possibilities of sentences, the profoundly sensory \u2018rightness\u2019 and originality of words well-chosen, of phrases that resound, and of paragraphs, whose riffs, lyrical tempos, and subtle juxtapositions animate an understanding of the forces that roil beneath our daily lives but that often go unnamed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an essay about the precariousness of sleep, the indefinable nature of home and the power of place to hold us or eject us. It\u2019s about finding family or fleeing family. It\u2019s a wrangling with the terms by which we accept our own oppression. The first time I read this writing, I was rapt and deeply moved. The second time, caught in the undertow of its final sentence, I wept. Have I read this writer before? I don\u2019t think so. I can\u2019t wait to read more.\u201d<\/p>\n

The chapbook contains illustrations by Ayla Bramblett that Trom calls \u201cpsychologically astute.\u201d Bramblett is an undergraduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University who is studying communication arts. In addition to her work in the chapbook, Tusculum will feature her self-portraits in The Tusculum Review.<\/p>\n

\"Dr.

Dr. Josh Martin<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Kelsey

Kelsey Trom<\/p><\/div>\n

This volume of The Tusculum Review will contain 28 authors across the globe, including New Zealand, the Netherlands and Manitoba, Canada outside the United States and Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Chicago and the coast of Washington in the country. A team of editors for The Tusculum Review combed through about 1,200 entrees, meaning the acceptance rate was 2.3%.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is really competitive to appear in our journal,\u201d Dr. Martin said.<\/p>\n

In examining this newest edition, Dr. Martin said highlights include the nostalgia associated with this being the 20th anniversary of The Tusculum Review. He said the journal\u2019s contents properly honor that legacy, calling the selected poems top-notch and the nonfiction outstanding. Trom said The Tusculum Review includes more nonfiction this year than ever before, an intentional move because the chapbook features a nonfiction essay. There were also a lot of nonfiction submissions for The Tusculum Review.<\/p>\n

The Tusculum Review publishes work in four genres \u2013 drama, fiction, nonfiction and poetry.<\/p>\n

Dr. Martin said the newest edition touches on reclaiming the writing space from artificial intelligence and literature as a means to connect and unify people. In addition, the journal will publish the sequel to Karen Fisher\u2019s prize-winning 2005 historical fiction novel, \u201cA Sudden Country.\u201d The work includes the voices of a surveyor and Civil War veteran and an indigenous woman.<\/p>\n

One of the journal\u2019s strengths this year is it cannot be pigeon-holed into one category, Trom and Dr. Martin said. Subjects include being gender nonbinary as well as poems from working-class writers that speak about the working class and poets exploring form in different ways. The Tusculum Review also has a play, which is not common in literary journals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis edition speaks to everything that is on people\u2019s minds,\u201d Trom said. \u201cIt is of its moment. It\u2019s representative of a wide variety of voices, which is super important.\u201d<\/p>\n

The editors for this year\u2019s edition of The Tusculum Review are:<\/p>\n