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We have an Alum Spotlight!John Sara received his BFA in Creative Writing from BGSU in 2023 and went on to earn his MFA i...
10/24/2026

We have an Alum Spotlight!

John Sara received his BFA in Creative Writing from BGSU in 2023 and went on to earn his MFA in Creative Writing from Ashland University in 2025. Since 2024, he has worked as an adjunct professor at Ashland University, teaching composition through the university's correctional education program.

John has kept writing since graduating, and one of his first publications came from right here at BGSU, in Prairie Margins. This past February, Ashland University invited him back to give a reading of his poetry.

He said, "Since graduating at BG, I've continued to write and send out work, having had several poems, stories, and articles published across different journals and venues, including Prairie Margins, which was one of my first publications back in 2023."

You can read some of John's work at johnsara.com.

Congratulations on all of your accomplishments, John! We're proud to see you bringing writing into the classroom and to students who might not otherwise have that opportunity.

BGSU English alums, we'd love to hear what you've been up to! Share your news and successes with the English Department by emailing Jessica Zinz-Cheresnick at [email protected], and you might be featured in a future Alum Spotlight.

Our English faculty are joining the Criminal Justice Learning Community! Dr. Heather Jordan and Dr. Ethan Jordan are tea...
10/23/2026

Our English faculty are joining the Criminal Justice Learning Community!

Dr. Heather Jordan and Dr. Ethan Jordan are teaching first-year writing for a fast-growing learning community at BGSU. Dr. Heather Jordan teaches WRIT 1110 this fall, and Dr. Ethan Jordan teaches WRIT 1120 this spring. Both were invited to teach University Writing Program sections just for first-year Criminal Justice Learning Community (CJLC) students.

The partnership started at summer advising, where Dr. Heather Jordan met CJLC Director Catherine Pape. As Dr. Jordan puts it, “It’s about promoting a sense of community and belonging here at BGSU.”

Swipe to learn more about this collaboration and the team!

Heads up: there’s no Reading Series tonight (Thursday, Oct. 22nd).Instead, here’s a writing prompt to hold you over: Wri...
10/22/2026

Heads up: there’s no Reading Series tonight (Thursday, Oct. 22nd).

Instead, here’s a writing prompt to hold you over: Write about a door you have never opened, and what is waiting on the other side.

Tell us about it in the comments, or save it for your next writing session.

We’ll see you next week for the Undergraduate Ooky-Spooky Open Mic on Thursday, Oct. 29th at 7:30 PM in Prout Chapel.

Ripples of influence are moving through the Department of English. They start with James Baldwin.NOW on the BG Ideas pod...
10/22/2026

Ripples of influence are moving through the Department of English. They start with James Baldwin.

NOW on the BG Ideas podcast: Activism and the Legacy of James Baldwin with Dr. Bill V. Mullen, Professor Emeritus of American Studies at Purdue University and author of James Baldwin: Living in the Fire.

Baldwin taught at BGSU in 1978 and 1979, and the ripples haven’t stopped. Just this pst February, Dr. Rachel Walsh, Literature Program Director, hosted a screening of I Heard It Through the Grapevine (1982) at the Toledo Public Library. The documentary film stars James Baldwin and was directed by Dick Fontaine and Pat Hartley. Dr. Mullen led the talk-back as a guest of the Department of English. Now the conversation continues on BG Ideas: why Baldwin was a radical revolutionary, how racism and homophobia harm perpetrators as well as the people they target, and how class and race play out in academia.

Swipe to follow the ripples.

And Listen on Spotify and Apple Music.

Thank you to the Institute for the Study of Culture & Society (ICS) for producing the episode.

What happens when students write, illustrate, and then read their own picture books to real second graders? Hear about E...
10/21/2026

What happens when students write, illustrate, and then read their own picture books to real second graders? Hear about ENG 3430: Picture Book Workshop with Teaching Professor Amanda McGuire Rzicznek >
"Writing a picture book is a full-circle journey. In ENG 3430: Picture Book Workshop, our goal is to think, create, and do. First, we rely on human intelligence to study the foundations of picture books, visit the Mazza Museum in Findlay, meet with published author/illustrators like Lindsay Moore and Rebecca Kunz, talk with Crim Elementary teachers about grade school literacy, and conduct interviews with community partners as primary research before writing and illustrating our picture books. Then we begin creating! Once we've created, we take our picture books and share them with our intended audience—children! The special full circle moment is our "final exam", reading aloud our picture books to the second graders at Crim Elementary. In ENG 3430, we create picture books, but also we create public good through rigorous research, creative activities, community partnerships, and intentional engagement."

Swipe to see Active Learning in Action:
Partnering with Crim Elementary and community stakeholders
A visit from children’s book author Lindsay Moore
A visit to the Mazza Museum in Findlay, Ohio
A visit from children’s book illustrator Rebecca Kunz
Words from Amanda and from past students Grace Heerdt, McKenna Mahakian and Nick Van Horn

ENG 3430 is offered next year in both Fall and Spring. Prerequisite: WRIT 1120 or equivalent. Community Based Service Learning attribute.

An academic writer with a passion for pop culture. A feature writer spotlighting communities across Ohio and Indiana. A ...
10/20/2026

An academic writer with a passion for pop culture. A feature writer spotlighting communities across Ohio and Indiana. A brand-new dog mom to a pup named Stitch. YEP. That's right. Meet Alex Lehman. Alex is a second-year student in our M.A. program with a concentration in Literary and Textual Studies, originally from Antwerp, Ohio.
Alex loves dissecting contemporary media and relating it to literary theory. Outside the classroom, Alex writes feature articles that highlight communities and events, including those in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Toledo, Ohio.
Last summer, Alex adopted a dog named Stitch, who can often be found on walks around campus.
When discussing the Literary and Textual Studies program, Alex says: "This program has given me a community, and I'm incredibly thankful for the opportunity to connect with my peers and learn from one another."
This year, Alex is focusing on publication, with plans to build a strong portfolio and keep working toward a community-centered career in writing.
So glad to have you a part of the Department of English at BGSU, Alex!

Want to read Alex's published work? Check out their Muck Rack profile: https://muckrack.com/alexandra-lehman-1

Abigail Cloud's Modern Poetry class is a place where poetry gets practiced, not just read.In ENG 3200: Modern Poetry, st...
10/19/2026

Abigail Cloud's Modern Poetry class is a place where poetry gets practiced, not just read.

In ENG 3200: Modern Poetry, students study the movements and techniques of poets and works that shaped poetry from about 1900-1945. In Cloud's class, they also practice them through a "Write Like" assignment and consideration of "Inseeing," as noted below.

Inseeing (Rilke): This semester, students watched the Katmai bear cams, recorded shape and movement, and began to think like a bear. The aim is a poem like Rilke's "The Panther," locked into the creature's inner self.

The shaped word (e.e. cummings): Pick a movement, find a word that makes you feel and see it, then write the word so it moves that way on the page.

Cloud says the activities help students learn what these poets believed poetry should be and do, and appreciate poetic craft through play. At the end of the semester, students can write a poetics essay or write and annotate poems that capture the tenets of these writers.

Swipe to see Cloud's prompts and try the exercises yourself. And then tell us in the comments... Which poet would you write like?

Abigail Cloud is a longtime faculty member of BGSU's English Department and long-time editor. She holds an MFA in Poetry from BGSU. She advises the undergraduate journal Prairie Margins and has published poetry in such journals as American Poetry Review, The Gettysburg Review, Fairy Tale Review, and Pleiades. Her books are Sylph (Pleiades, 2014) and Omens (Driftwood 2027).

Happy Sunday, Falcon Readers and Writers!Need a little push to read or write today? Something besides coursework?Try thi...
10/18/2026

Happy Sunday, Falcon Readers and Writers!
Need a little push to read or write today? Something besides coursework?
Try this:
Writing prompt: Write a scene set entirely in the last ten minutes before a library closes. Who is still there, and why won’t they leave?
Reading goal: 20 pages of anything you chose just for yourself. Fiction, poetry, essays, a graphic novel. No assignment attached.

In the comments, share a line from what you wrote or read. We’d love to read it!

Words change worlds.

A writer who explores the real through the unreal or makes the real look a little unreal? That's right. and She's REAL-L...
10/17/2026

A writer who explores the real through the unreal or makes the real look a little unreal?
That's right. and She's REAL-LY here at BGSU.

Meet Kiersten Burtz. She's a second-year student in our MFA in Fiction program, originally from Indianapolis, IN.

Kiersten writes primarily speculative fiction, leaning toward magical realism or "anything that looks like real life with something a little off about it." She likes to explore the real through the unreal, using inhuman characters to get at "the roots of the human condition." As she puts it: "I like to write things that aren't real, but are still people."

Outside the classroom, she's the showrunner, head writer, and director of an audio drama called Hey Oliver, Are You There?, which is planned for release in the coming months.

While in the program, her goal is clear: "successfully write my novel for my thesis." After that, she'd love to continue in academia or land a job at a literary agency.

So glad to have you a part of the Department of English and Creative Writing MFA at BGSU, Kiersten!

Congratulations to Amorak Huey, program director in our Department of English, on two new books! Definition of Elegy: Ne...
10/16/2026

Congratulations to Amorak Huey, program director in our Department of English, on two new books!

Definition of Elegy: New & Collected Prose Poems is forthcoming from .press in fall 2027, and Field of Want is forthcoming from in spring 2028. Field of Want was announced in the Publishers Marketplace Deal Report.

We asked Amorak about place, form, and what it takes to publish. Swipe through for the Q&A and his advice for emerging writers.

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East Hall, BGSU
Bowling Green, OH
43403

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+14193722576

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