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News from the 91´ŤĂ˝ MFA Community

Degree Awarded MFA
Credential Type Graduate
Delivery Method Hybrid
College of Study College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences

Winter 2026

MFA alum Asha Dore wrote for LitHub and has in The Washington Post.

MFA director Nick Neely recently for Orion.

MFA student Jan Rubin has in the “Careful/Care-full Collaboration” issue of 91´ŤĂ˝ Place Journal.

MFA faculty member Joe Wilkins’s fifth poetry collection was named a finalist for the Oregon Book Award in Poetry.

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Fall 2025

MFA faculty member Claire Boyles‘s has a publication date: August 4, 2026!

MFA student Lindsay Costello among other recent writing for Portland Mercury.

MFA faculty member Laura Da’ has a new book of poems out, .

MFA alum Christopher Densmore recently finished his season as the on the Rogue River.

MFA alum Amelia DĂ­az Ettinger was selected as 2025 Oregon Literary Fellow. See about the award.

MFA alum Kristi Helgeson had three ekphrastic poems published by the Bainbridge Island Poet Laureate Program to accompany art at the Bainbridge Public Library: “,” “,” and “.”

MFA faculty member Christopher Kondrich has a new poem .

MFA faculty member Molly Reid has a story “The Dans” in the fall issue of the New Ohio Review.

MFA alum Chelsey Waters has a story .

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Fall 2024

MFA alum Christopher Densmore‘s essay part of his MFA thesis, was just published in Iowa State’s Flyway: Journal of Writing & Environment.

MFA Alum Amelia DĂ­az Ettinger has a out in Tiny Seed Literary Journal. Her most recent collection These Hollowed Bones was also .

MFA alum Russell James‘s feature article “Hearts Wide Open: Autistic angling and the guide experience” was published recently in Trout Unlimited’s .

MFA faculty member Melissa Matthewson‘s second essay collection the The Fire Trees will be out from in 2026. Stay tuned for the pub date. She also recently became an Assistant Nonfiction Editor for .

MFA director Nick Neely has in the November/December issue of the travel magazine .

MFA alum Alex Ortega has started in the English PhD program with a specialization in Creative Writing at the University of Utah.

MFA student Janice Rubin recently had four poems that she drafted in program accepted for the anthology All the Women Came & Sangfrom Wyld Syde Press.

MFA faculty member Eliot Treichel‘s story was published last year in Unearthed.

MFA alum Chelsey Waters‘s story “Second Chances” was short-listed for the last year.

MFA faculty member Joe Wilkins has new stories and poems in The Missouri Review, The Florida Review, and the anthology A Literary Field Guide to Northern Appalachia. But the big news is his fifth poetry collection is available for pre-order from River River Books. Congrats, Joe!

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Spring 2023

MFA alum Amelia Díaz Ettinger has a new poem “Time Allows” in and .

MFA faculty member Christopher Kondrich has a new poem, “Explosives, Once Signaled,” .

MFA student Russell James just had a story, “The Cape,” accepted by the environmental literary magazine .

MFA faculty member Melissa Matthewson has about the queer ecology of Nan Shepherd’s book The Living Mountain.

MFA faculty member Kathryn Miles recently inked another deal with Algonquin for her next book, Tangled: The Battle to Save the Planet’s Most Endangered Species. Bravo!

MFA alum Alexander Ortega has a new piece “La Llorona Got Wise” in Volume 29 of .

MFA faculty member Joe Wilkins is teaching a one-day virtual workshop on May 14 for Hugo House called Check it out!

The 91´ŤĂ˝ MFA Program really showed up in force at AWP in Seattle in March.

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Winter 2023

MFA faculty member Claire Boyles has a short essay ” in Sierra Magazine and a longer one, in Asterix Journal.

MFA alum Phil Carson‘s poem was published in Half and One.

MFA student Christopher Densmore was the recipient of the MFA program’s Thomas Madden Scholarship.

MFA alum Amelia DĂ­az Ettinger has three poems (and spoken recordings of them) in the February issue of the .

MFA alum Leah Hedberg has in the journal Bright Wall / Dark Room. She drafted the piece in MFA faculty member Christoper Kondrich’s class, “Films of Ecology & Place” and sends thanks to him and the class.

MFA student Russell James has an essay was published by The College Contemporary. He drafted it in MFA faculty member Melissa Matthewson’s fall class.

MFA faculty member Melissa Matthewson has a new short essay in the journal Sweet: A Literary Confection.

MFA faculty member Nick Neely has a short piece on the Cassia crossbill in the new anthology .

MFA faculty member Kathryn Miles broke a story about a discovered plot to overthrow Queen Elizabeth I (subscribers only), and also has a feature in Downeast magazine about .

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Fall 2022

MFA faculty member Claire Boyles‘s story collection, Site Fidelity, recently in Fiction.

MFA faculty member Christopher Kondrich has a poem in The New York Review of Books.

MFA faculty member Kathryrn Miles‘s book Trailed was listed by Slate as one of and by The New York Times as among ”: “Miles not only solves the case, she shines a light on the crime rate in the country’s national parks. ‘Although the F.B.I. does not keep statistics on gender and backcountry crime, my own archival research finds that the majority of reported murder and rape victims in our national wilderness areas are female,’ Miles writes. It’s an important finding, one that raises a much bigger question: Who gets to enjoy nature in safety?”

MFA alum Colette Marie has a searing new poem, in The Sun.

MFA faculty member Melissa Matthewson just signed a contract with for her second essay collection, The Fire Trees, which will explore sense experience, queer ecology, intimacy, sexuality, and bodies through autobiography, archival collage, and reimagined histories. She anticipates it will be out in 2024.

MFA Alum Alex Ortega taught a four-week “Framing Flash Fiction” workshop for Fishtrap.

MFA Alum Chelsey Waters‘s story was published in The Hopper (with a nice illustration of a sturgeon) and nominated for inclusion in the “Best of the Net” anthology.

MFA faculty member Jodi Varon‘s book Your Eyes Will Be My Window was accepted by the University of Georgia Press for its Crux Series in Literary Nonfiction, with an expected publication date in 2023. 91´ŤĂ˝ the book: “Twice erased in the wreckage of WWII Ukraine, the search for Esta Plat creates a road-map to a vanished world. Weighing faith against skepticism, reportage against memory, Your Eyes Will Be My Window is one woman’s attempt to reimagine the legacy of genocide.”

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Spring 2022

We warmly welcome incoming MFA students Charley Agron, Shelley Baumgarten, Janel Crouch, Brittney Heitz-Garcia, Christina O’Bryan, Russell James, and August Stadtfield! We look forward to listing your successes here in the future.

MFA faculty member Claire Boyles is the Maggie Nelson had this to say, in part, about Claire’s work at the ceremony in New York City on April 6: “A deep anthropologist and a finely restrained rhetorician, Boyles captures the affinities and frictions between those who have been made by that once, and still sometimes, wild place [the American West].” Site Fidelity was also named a finalist for the 2022 Colorado Book Awards in Fiction.

MFA faculty member James Crews was just profiled, along with his new anthology The Path to Kindness: Poems of Connection and Joy,.

MFA alum Amelia DĂ­az Ettinger and MFA faculty member Joe Wilkins‘s latest books were for a National Poetry Month feature.

MFA faculty member Megan Kruse recently completed an inaugural residency at the Carolyn Moore House, a program hosted by Portland Community College.

MFA faculty member Kathyrn Miles published Trailed: One Woman’s Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders. Trailed has received great reviews in places includiing, , and (starred review). Check out this. She also published.

MFA student Alexander Ortega‘s lyric short story “Maroons” was a finalist for the Iowa Review Award in Fiction.

MFA student Chelsey Waters‘s essay “Betweenness” and appeared in the print magazine. She originally drafted a version of the piece in a workshop with MFA faculty member Nick Neely. Chelsey also represented the MFA program in the Regional MFA Reading at the Get Lit! Festival, reading an excerpt from her novel-in-progress, and you can (MFA faculty member Claire Boyles introduces her at the 28-minute mark).

MFA faculty member Joe Wilkins has, “The Great Fact Was the Land Itself,” in Juxtaprose; a recent essay, “Old Friend”; and at Lewis-Clark State College.


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Winter 2022

MFA faculty member Jennifer Boyden‘s poetry manuscript We Can’t Tell If the Constellations Love Us was. It will be published in 2023.

MFA faculty member Claire Boyles‘s for Debut Short Story Collections, and was also recently recommended by Michelle Nijhuis. Claire also co-wrote two movies that aired as part of the Hallmark Channel’s Countdown to Christmas line-up: which premiered on December 5; and, which premiered December 12.

MFA faculty member Abigail Chabitnoy‘s second book of poetry, In the Current Where Drowning Is Beautiful, will be published by Wesleyan University Press in Fall 2022.

MFA Alum Amelia Díaz Ettinger has a story, “You Look Pretty With Your Mouth Shut,” in, and recent poems like in The Amethyst Review, Somos en Escrito,, and Her latest book Learning to Love a Western Sky was also.

MFA alum Liz Asch Greenhill taught a two-part class at Corporeal Writing in February, “.”

MFA student Alexander Ortega was selected as.

MFA faculty member Kathyrn Miles‘s forthcoming book,, due out May 3, was optioned by Muse Entertainment for a streaming series.

MFA faculty member Nick Neely was selected for the 2022 Artist-in-Residency in Idaho along with his wife, the painter Sarah Bird.

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FALL 2021

Susan Kay Anderson, MFA ’17, has a new poem “Digression”.

MFA faculty member Claire Boyles’s debut book Site Fidelity was included on

MFA faculty member Abigail Chabitnoy’s first book of Allison Adelle Hedge Coke’s new book Look at this Blue in a poetry feature for National Native American Heritage Month.

MFA faculty member James Crews’s anthology made the American Booksellers Association in September, keeping company with the likes of Mary Oliver, Rupi Kaur, and Natalie Diaz. Also check out his appearances and in, a podcast about the creative process.

MFA faculty member Melissa Matthewson has a new essay in LitHub, “It might help MFA students!” she writes. “I know it helped me to write it.” Dare we say this piece will help you whoever and wherever you are. She also for The Rumpus and has a new short essay in Oregon Humanities.

MFA faculty member Nick Neely’s was included in the just-out anthology: Environmental Writing from The Georgia Review.

MFA student Alexander Ortega is on a roll: He is the recipient of the MFA program’s 2021 Thomas Madden Scholarship, and the short story featured in his application, was published in the fall issue of Salt Lake City’s Quarterly West. His flash story “A Real Man” was included in the anthology, edited by Sharma Shields and Maya Jewell Zeller and out now from Scablands Books. And that story along with two other flash pieces, “Megayega!” and “De Pedrito, desde las Nubes,” are in.

MFA faculty member Joe Wilkins was, which “takes today’s best storytellers, artists, and leaders outside and into their favorite wild places, to talk about craft, conservation, and the creative life.” He also has a new short essay in Orion and .

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SPRING 2021

Susan Kay Anderson, MFA ’17, has a in Heron Tree Magazine and another, in Trouvaille Review. A , Please Plant This Book Coast To Coast, in the current issue of Hash Journal.

MFA director David Axelrod has in Terrain.org’s Letter to America series. And extra kudos to David for the news that his next book of poetry, Years Beyond the River, is in the fall.

MFA student Amelia DĂ­az Ettinger has in The Ice Colony.

MFA student Kyle Rowland has a new flash piece, in the journal Coffin Bell.

MFA faculty member Joe Wilkins‘s latest poetry collection Thieve (Lynx House Press) is among the Oregon Book Awards. He is also .

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WINTER 2021

Susan Kay Anderson, MFA ’17, has a book, , forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. Says Erica Bodwell, author of Crown Wild: “In this startling and fascinating book, Susan Kay Anderson takes the reader on a journey from California to Oaxaca to Hawaii, through the life and words of Virginia Brautigan Aste–married to Richard Brautigan for a decade–in a series of interviews that reveal Ms. Aste’s courage, creativity and sheer survival instinct.” Susan also has recent poems in Anti-Heroin Chic, , Madness Muse, , , Voice Lux Journal, and . And she was also recently interviewed by Jenee Rodriquez for The Silent World In Her Vase.

MFA director David Axelrod‘s work has recently appeared in 91´ŤĂ˝ Place, Bellingham Review, The Meadow, and Split Rock Review; and is forthcoming in Weber: The Contemporary West, saltfront: studies in human habit(at), and Terrain.org’s Letters to America series.

MFA faculty member James Crews is rocking it with recent poems in , , and Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry (two poems, and ).

Kasey Croxford-Zmrhal, BA ’21, just had published in Big Whoopie Deal. We’re thrilled also that Kasey will enroll in 91´ŤĂ˝â€™s MFA program this summer.

Asha Dore, MFA ’16, has forthcoming poems in Sweet: A Literary Confection, WhiskeyTit, and the Heavy Feather Review.

MFA student Amelia DĂ­az Ettinger published a book of poems, with Airlie Press in the fall.

Liz Asch Greenhill, MFA ’16, has created . She writes, “Essentially it’s a collection of guided visualizations. Each one is based on Surrealist art and Chinese Medicine. They are meant to be listened to a la carte as restorative care during meditation time, on subway or bus commutes, or during bouts of insomnia.”

MFA faculty member Nick Neely in a new episode of the podcast A Book and its Author. He also has an extremely of the film The Dark Divide, which is based on Robert Michael Pyle’s book Where Bigfoot Walks (he recommends this sometimes goofy but beautiful flick).

Amy Parker, MFA ’16, has new work in and forthcoming in DIAGRAM, Schuylkill Valley Journal, and Serotonin.

MFA student Kyle Rowland recently published a poem in Issue 10 of . He says, “I got to do a reading with them back in November, so I can vouch that [the journal] showcases some really badass work from some cool writers and poets!”

MFA faculty member Jodi Varon had an essay “Augury” published in the autumn 2020 issue of Boulevard.

MFA student Vanessa Watters has a spate of good news: Her poem, “Big Mother Blue,” was accepted by Poets Choice for their forthcoming compilation, Global Warming; another poem, “Limbo,” concerning our current times, will appear in ; and a third poem, is now featured on The Dewdrop online.

MFA student Chelsey Waters published her first short story, in the December issue of Unearthed. She began the story last summer at Fishtrap with Leni Zumas and finished it in Joe Wilkins’s post-residency seminar. She is also the recipient of MFA program’s 2020 Thomas Madden Scholarship.

MFA faculty member Joe Wilkins‘s novel Fall Back Down When I Die (Little, Brown 2019) came out in paperback last year and, among other honors, .

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