Writing the Midwest: a Symposium of Scholars and Creative Writers
The Kellogg Center at Michigan State University,
2-4 June 2022
2022 Symposium Schedule
THURSDAY JUNE 2 1:00
105A Roundtable: Writing the Region
Moderator: Jacob Bruggeman AV
Editor-in-Chief, Cleveland Review of Books, Ph.D. candidate in American History, Johns Hopkins University
Jacob Bruggeman
“Representing the Cleveland Review of Books”
Mitch James
Co-chair, Managing Editor, Great Lakes Review
“Representing Great Lakes Review”
Kari Gunter-Seymour
2020 Ohio Poet of the Year, Poet Laureate of Ohio
Drawing especially on “A Place So Deep inside America it Can’t Be Seen”
Ron Riekki
Poet, writer, and editor from Michigan
Drawing especially from “Here: Women Writing on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula”
Chris Harding Thornton
Ph.d., writer
Drawing especially from “Pickard County Atlas”
Heritage Room Fiction Panel: “Dystopias, Utopias, and Just Plain Topias: Landscapes of Midwestern Imagination”
Moderator: Jane Carman
Bradley University, Founder, Editor-in-Chief at Lit Fest Press
Jane L. Carman
“Dirt Road”
Jane Holwerda
Dodge City Community College
“Making Dinner Great Again”
Curtis VanDonkelaar
Michigan State University
“Over the River, Through the Woods”
THURSDAY, JUNE 2 3:30
Heritage Room Papers AV
Moderator: Patricia Oman
Hastings College
Guy Szuberla
University of Toledo
“Samuel Putnam: Desperately Seeking (Chicago) Modernism”
Marianne Cotugno
Miami University
“Awakening Ecological Consciousness in Conrad Richter’s Ohio Trilogy”
Robert Dunne
Central Connecticut State University
“Winesburg, Ohio: A Revolt against Industrialized America”
105A Fiction
Moderator:
Matt Roberson
Central Michigan University
From Interim
John Rohrkemper
Elizabethtown College
“Apostate,” from But for the Grace of God
THURSDAY, JUNE 2 5:30
Olympus Room
Publications/Editorial Committee Meeting
Marcia Noe / Jeff Hotz / Nancy McKinney
Mary DeJong Obuchowski / Robert Beasecker / Bob Dunne
Phil Greasley / Marilyn Atlas / William Barillas
Roger Bresnahan / Patricia Oman
Scott Emmert / Steven Trout
FRIDAY, JUNE 3 8:30
Heritage Room Papers
Moderator: Jeffrey Hotz
East Stroudsburg University
Jeffrey Hotz
“Impermanence and Compassion in Ted Kooser’s Red Stilts (2020)”
Charles Cunningham
Eastern Michigan University
“Emerging History in The Dollmaker”
Marilyn Judith Atlas
Ohio University
“Additional Attention Must Be Paid: Linda Loman’s Nylon Stockings and the Politics of Womanhood in Arthur Miller’s
Death of a Salesman”
105A Prose
Jane Carman
Bradley University
fiction: “Peace of Lucy” from Exit Interview
Ed Demerly
Henry Ford College (retired)
nonfiction: “First Years: A Farm Boy Faces the Future”
Amy L. Eggert
fiction: “Present Perfect” and “Maybe Instead”: Readings from Exit Interview
FRIDAY, JUNE 3 10:30
Moderator: Marcia Noe
University of Tennessee, Chattanooga
Jon Lauck
Editor-in-chief, Middle West Review
“On Jon Hassler”
Patricia Oman
“‘Dot Vas a funny thream’: The Deconstruction of Plantation School Tropes in the Poetry of Aaron Belford Thompson and Clara Ann Thompson”
Joel Wendland-Liu
Grand Valley State University
“Andrew Blackbird’s Magic Kettle: Settler Colonialism and Racial Formation in West Michigan”
105A Poetry
Cheryl Caesar
“Words across the Water”
Joyce Meier
“Midwestern Musings”
Mary Minock
Madonna University
From A Time When You Know A House: Poems of Detroit
FRIDAY, JUNE 3 12:00-2:00 AWARDS LUNCHEON Red Cedar AB
FRIDAY, JUNE 3 2:00
Heritage Room: Plenary Session
Moderator: William Barillas
Atlanta, Georgia
2022 David D. Anderson Award for Outstanding Essay in Midwestern Literary Studies
Nathaniel Mills
University of Minnesota Twin Cities
“Aggravated into Writing: Margaret Walker, Iowa, and the Workshopping of African American Literature”
FRIDAY, JUNE 3 3:00
Heritage Room Panel: Literature of Michigan AV
Mary Jo Kietzman
University of Michigan-Flint
“From Flint to Port Hope: A Walking Guide”
William Barillas
“A Field Guide to the Poetry of Theodore Roethke and the Renewal of a Critical Canon”
C. W. Johnson
University of Minnesota Duluth
“The Whole County Covered with Trees: Louis Agassiz, The Great Lakes Region, and Jim Harrison”
105A Panel: A Celebration of the Life and Work of Lisel Mueller (1924-2020)
Moderator: Linda Nemec Foster
Poet, writer, literary presenter, founder, Contemporary Writers Series at Aquinas College
Linda Nemec Foster
“Transformation of the World: The Metaphor of Fairy Tale in the Poetry of Lisel Mueller”
Janet Ruth Heller
Michigan College English Association
“What is Midwestern about the Poetry of Lisel Mueller?”
Jenny Mueller
McKendree University
While ‘Father Was Busy Eluding the Monsters’”
FRIDAY, JUNE 3 4:30
Red Cedar Room
Advisory-Executive Board Meeting
FRIDAY, JUNE 3 7:30
Auditorium
Lenny Pinna
Independent Filmmaker
SATURDAY, JUNE 4 8:00 – 10:00
Rooms 105AB
SSML Business Meeting with Continental Breakfast
SATURDAY, JUNE 4 10:30
Room 105A Poetry
Moderator: Janet Ruth Heller
From The Blue Divide
Andrea England
Western Michigan University
“Saving and Savoring: Returning to the Natural World During Crises”
From Nature’s Olympics
Heritage Room: Papers AV
“Harrowing the Midwest: Reading Midwestern Authors in the Midwestern Classroom”
“Harrowing the Midwest: Teaching Literature about Vulnerable Populations Close to Home”
SATURDAY, JUNE 4 12:30 – 1:30
Heritage Room AV
Roundtable: “Henry Bellamann’s Kings Row at Eighty: Revisiting a Forgotten Midwestern Classic”
Rachael Price, Moderator
Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College
Panelist #1 Rachael Price
“Republishing Kings Row”
Independent filmmaker
“ʻIn the Name of Jamie Wakefield’: Filming the Story of Henry Bellamann”
SATURDAY, JUNE 4 8:00 – 10:00
Rooms 105AB
SSML Business Meeting with Continental Breakfast
SATURDAY, JUNE 4 10:30
Room 105A Poetry
Moderator: Janet Ruth Heller
Linda Nemec Foster
Poet, writer, literary presenter, founder, Contemporary Writers Series at Aquinas College
From The Blue Divide
Andrea England
Western Michigan University
“Saving and Savoring: Returning to the Natural World During Crises”
Janet Ruth Heller
Michigan College English Association
From Nature’s Olympics
SATURDAY, JUNE 4 10:30
Heritage Room: Papers AV
Moderator: Jane Carman
Bradley University, Founder, Editor-in-Chief at Lit Fest Press
Jane Carman
Bradley University, Founder, Editor-in-Chief at Lit Fest Press
“Harrowing the Midwest: Reading Midwestern Authors in the Midwestern Classroom”
Amy L. Eggert
Bradley University
“Harrowing the Midwest: Teaching Literature about Vulnerable Populations Close to Home”
SATURDAY, JUNE 4 12:30 – 1:30
Heritage Room AV
Roundtable: “Henry Bellamann’s Kings Row at Eighty: Revisiting a Forgotten Midwestern Classic”
Rachael Price, Moderator
Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College
Panelist #1 Rachael Price
Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College
“Republishing Kings Row”
Lenny Pinna
Independent filmmaker
“ʻIn the Name of Jamie Wakefield’: Filming the Story of Henry Bellamann”
