Graduate Writing

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New Faculty
We are delighted to announce the hiring of Sarah Shun-lien Bynum as assistant chair of Graduate Writing. In addition to her administrative duties, Bynum will be teaching courses in both Graduate Writing and in the undergraduate writing minor, as part of Otis's Liberal Arts and Sciences curriculum.

Bynum completed her undergraduate work at Brown University and her graduate studies at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her first book, Madeline Is Sleeping, was published by Harcourt in 2004 and was a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize. Her second novel, Ms. Hempel Chronicles, also from Harcourt, was published in fall 2008 and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award in 2009. In 2010, Bynum was named one of the New Yorker magazine's top "20 Under 40" fiction writers.

Bynum joins Otis from the University of California, San Diego, where she was the director of the MFA Program in Writing, and Professor of Writing and Literature. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter.

Paul Vangelisti, Chair of the Graduate Writing Program

"Too often the study of contemporary poetry and fiction has been left to the English Department or to other disciplines that fail to consider the primary and complex practice of writing as a verbal art. Otis is uniquely positioned to introduce a comprehensive approach to the graduate writing degree. In asking "Why Otis?" it is important to view our MFA program as not only distinctive in the institutional market but also as an extension of Otis's historical mission to bring innovative arts education to the Los Angeles Basin. Our multi-disciplinary approach—writing, literature, criticism, publishing and translation—is the ideal complement to the program's international emphasis, providing a singular opportunity to look at American writing in relation to other contemporary world literatures. We prepare verbal artists to make their way in a profession that increasingly involves teaching or other institutional affiliations (publishing, arts organizations, museums, etc.), along with the more traditional, individualized role of the creative writer. As a writer, specifically a California writer, I find that where I live grows daily more curious and fascinating: what is of and in the world speaks with an eloquence beyond any voice I can imagine."

Announcing the publication of 7, the literary tabloid and publication project of the Otis Graduate Writing program, featuring poetry, fiction, translations, essays, reviews and visual art, from the U.S., Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia. This issue includes an international array of prose and poetry by Giovanna Sandra, Laura Mullen, Gabriel Magaña, Francis Jammes, Owen Hill, Amelia Rosselli, Michael Joyce, Stephen Kessler, Jessica Young, Luigi Ballerini, Allyssa Wolf, Barbara Maloutas, Douglas Messerli, Amy Allara, Elizabeth Robinson, Dennis Phillips, Suzanne Jill Levine and Ray DiPalma ; with visuals by Giuliano Della Casa, Michael C. McMillen and Gianluca Rizzo.

Past issues from 2008 to the present contain new work and translations by Solar Abdoh, Adonis, Jorge Amado, Amiri Baraka, Guy Bennett, Brian Blanchfield, Nani Cagnone, Giorgio Caproni, Gilian Conoley, Bob Crosson, Mohammed Dib, Dolores Dorantes, Ben Ehrenreich, Gilad Elbom, Marco Giovenale, Jen Hofer, Ko Un, Rainer Kunze, John Latta, Laura Moriarty, Ryan Murphy, Raymond Queneau, Elizabeth Robinson, Giovanna Sandri, Standard Schaefer, Ersi Sotiropoulos, Adriano Spatola, Dominic Stansberry,
Nathaniel Tarn, Frederic Tuten and Valentino Zeichen, among others.

is free-of-charge, published in an edition of 5,000 copies, and is distributed internationally to individuals, institutions and bookstores. To be added to our mailing list, or to contact us, please contact the editor: pvangel@otis.edu.

Otis Books/Seismicity Editions Recent publications include: Erik Anderson's The Poetics of Trespass; Bruce Bégout's Common Place. The American Motel; Guy Bennett's Self-Evident Poems, Ari Martin Samsky's The Capricious Critic & Adriano Spatola's The Porthole.

Slated for publication in 2012 are two remarkable translations: Antonio Porta's Piercing the Page: Selected Poems, 1965-1989, edited with an introduction by Gian Maria Annovi, with an essay by Umberto Eco; and Invoking Luxurius: a Duet for Sitar and Trombone, Art Beck's translation of the complete surviving poems of the 6th-century Roman poet. Both are bilingual editions.

Out now are Robert Crosson's innovative, book-length poem, Daybook, and Dennis Phillips, Navigation: Selected Poems, 1985-2010.

To see the titles selected for publication in Fall 2011, please visit the Seismicity page! Or check out our blog.

To join the mailing list and receive our new catalog, contact us.