27th ASU Writers Conference in Honor of Elmer Kelton
Feb. 29 - March 1, 2024
The 2024 conference will commemorate the 27th Angelo State University Writers Conference in Honor of Elmer Kelton. Our two-day conference is one of the few in the state that requires no registration or attendance fees for presenters and guests.
Featured Writer: Manuel Muñoz
We are pleased to announce this year’s featured writer is critically acclaimed short-story writer Manuel Muñoz.
Photo Credit: John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation
Muñoz is the author of a novel, “What You See in the Dark,” and the short-story collections “Zigzagger” and “The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue,” which was shortlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award. His most recent collection, “The Consequences,” was a finalist for the Aspen Words Literary Prize and longlisted for the Story Prize.
A recipient of a MacArthur Genius Grant along with fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts, he has been recognized with a Whiting Writer’s Award, three O. Henry Awards, and two selections in Best American Short Stories, and was awarded the 2023 Joyce Carol Oates Prize. His work has appeared in places like The New York Times, American Short Fiction, Electric Literature and ZYZZYVA.
A native of Dinuba, California, and a first-generation college student, Muñoz graduated from Harvard University and received his M.F.A. in creative writing at Cornell University. He currently lives and works in Tucson, Arizona.
The ASU Writers Conference brings award-winning authors from all genres to campus to share their works and their creativity with the ASU community and the public. Featured speakers have included renowned authors, such as Brandon Hobson, Naomi Shihab Nye, Craig Johnson, Leslie Marmon Silko, Art Spiegelman and Tim O’Brien.
Nick Almeida’s stories and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in:
Kenyon Review
Pleiades
Southeast Review
American Literary Review
Almeida, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Houston, holds an M.F.A. from the Michener Center for Writers, where he edited Bat City Review. His chapbook, “Masterplans,” was selected by Steve Almond as grand prize winner of the inaugural Masters Review Chapbook Open in fiction, and is available now.
Megan J. Arlett is an assistant professor at Eastern New Mexico University. The recipient of two Academy of American Poets Prizes, her work has appeared in:
Best New Poets 2019
Best New British and Irish Poets
The Kenyon Review
New England Review
Passages North
Prairie Schooner
The Sun
Emma Aylor is the author of “Close Red Water” (Barrow Street Press, 2023), winner of the Barrow Street Poetry Book Prize. Her poems have appeared in:
New England Review
AGNI
Poetry Northwest
The Yale Review Online
Poetry Daily
She holds an M.F.A. from the University of Washington and is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Texas Tech University.
Caleb Braun earned an M.F.A. in poetry from the University of Washington, where he received the Harold Taylor Prize. He is a Ph.D. candidate in creative writing at Texas Tech University. His poems have appeared and are forthcoming in:
Best New Poets 2022
The Gettysburg Review
Blackbird
The Cincinnati Review
Gulf Coast
32 Poems
Melissa Cundieff is the author of “Darling Nova,” winner of the Autumn House Press Poetry Prize, and her poems and essays have appeared in:
The Atlantic
Best of the Net
She received her M.F.A. from Vanderbilt University. Recently moved away from St. Paul, Minnesota Melissa taught for a handful of years at Macalester College, as well as the University of Minnesota. She now lives in Massachusetts and lectures in creative nonfiction at Harvard.
J.P. Dávila is the author of the bilingual poetry collection “De sol a rojo sol / From Sun to Red Sun” (Bric-a-Brac Press, 2023), and finalist for this year’s Alta California Chapbook Prize.
He is currently working on a translation of Mexican poet Lorena Ventura’s “Marcas de Viaje” slated for release later this year. He resides and teaches in San Antonio.
James Davis is the author of “Club Q,” which Edward Hirsch selected for the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize and The Waywiser Press published in 2020. His work has been featured on NBC News and CBC Radio and anthologized in two installments of Best New Poets (2011, selected by D. A. Powell; and 2019, selected by Cate Marvin). Recent poems have appeared or are forthcoming in:
Pleiades
The Hopkins Review
The Gettysburg Review
Gulf Coast Online
The Sewanee Review
He is a Ph.D. candidate in creative writing at the University of North Texas and editor-in-chief of American Literary Review. His website is jamesdavispoet.com
Robin Johnson is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She has a graduate certificate in creative writing and teaches in the English department at UTSA. She restarted the Sagebrush Review literary magazine and formerly served as its president. She also served on the editorial board of the Pecan Grove Review literary magazine for St. Mary’s University. She won the Wendy Barker Creative Writing Award four years in a row while at UTSA. Her research focuses on the benefits of creative writing in the study of substance use disorder. She is from San Antonio.
Daniel Kennedy grew up in rural Pennsylvania. He holds an M.F.A. from Virginia Tech, where he won the Emily Morrison Prize in Fiction. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the University of Houston’s creative writing program, where he won the Inprint Donald Barthelme Memorial Prize in Nonfiction and the Provost Teaching Excellence Award. His writing has appeared in:
New England Review
The Florida Review
Appalachian Review
The Carolina Quarterly
Arts & Letters
The Madison Review
His work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays.
Lucy R. Martinez is working on her M.A. in English at Eastern New Mexico University. Coming from the Red Rocks of Northwest New Mexico, her work typically features growing up on the edge of the reservation, landscape of the Southwest and anything that comes across her mind. Her work has been previously published in:
El Portal
Eastern New Mexico University’s Literary Journal
Keren Muñoz works in production for the local NBC news affiliate KSAN and as a website content editor for Gandy Ink. Having lived on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, her writing explores the intergenerational impact of place, family and religion. She graduated from Angelo State University with a degree in communications and a minor in fiction writing.
Heather Myers is from Altoona, Pennsylvania. She has an M.F.A. in creative writing from West Virginia University. She is a fifth year Ph.D. candidate in creative writing at the University of North Texas, where she is the social media manager and a poetry reader for American Literary Review. She was a 2018 AWP Intros Award Winner. Her work can be found in:
Door=Jar
The Journal
Palette Poetry
Puerto Del Sol
Irish-Australian poet Nathanael O’Reilly teaches creative writing at the University of Texas at Arlington. His eleven collections include:
“Landmarks”
“Selected Poems of Ned Kelly”
“Boulevard”
“Dear Nostalgia”
“(Un)belonging”
“Preparations for Departure”
His work appears in 125 journals and anthologies published in 15 countries. He is the poetry editor for Antipodes: A Global Journal of Australian/New Zealand Literature.
Matthew Pitt operates out of Fort Worth, as an associate professor of creative writing at TCU. His novella, “The Be-Everything! Brothers,” is forthcoming this year. His prior books are the story collections “These Are Our Demands” (winner of the Midwest Book Award) and “Attention Please Now” (winner of the Autumn House Prize). His works have appeared in numerous honors, fellowships and pats, and appear in:
Story
Michigan Quarterly Review
BOMB
Oxford American
Blackbird
Cincinnati Review
Conjunctions
EPOCH
The Southern Review
Fazlur Rahman’s articles, essays and stories have appeared in many national and international publications, including:
The New York Times
Wall Street Journal
Harvard Review
Short Story International
Guardian Weekly
Haaretz
Newsweek
Christian Science Monitor
Oncologist
Lancet
Two of his essays were selected as “Notable Essays” and another essay was anthologized in a college textbook. His cultural and medical memoir, “The Temple Road: A Doctor’s Journey
,”
was published in Delhi and was well reviewed and well received in India and Singapore. His forthcoming book, “Our Connected Lives: Caring for Cancer Patients in Rural Texas,
”
will be published by Texas Tech University Press in September 2024.
Jim Redmond is the author of “Get Back to Work” (Schism, 2021) and “Because You Previously Liked or Played” (Deep Vellum, 2023). Born and raised in Michigan, he received his M.F.A. from the University of Michigan, before moving to Texas. From there he taught in Pakistan for a year and then made his way back to the U.S., where he currently directs the Writing and Tutoring Center at Graceland University, Iowa.
Kathleen Reeves is an associate professor of humanities at Austin Community College, where she teaches interdisciplinary courses on culture from the ancient world to the present. She has published articles and poems in:
Arizona Quarterly
Feminist Theory
Bookslut
Full-Stop
Oversound
She is currently working on a novel.
Reeves received a B.A. in English from Yale University, an M.A. in humanities from New York University, and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Washington.
Ramona Reeves won the 2022 Drue Heinz Literature Prize for her collection, “It Falls Gently All Around and Other Stories,” and the 2022 Sergio Troncoso Award for Best First Book of Fiction from the Texas Institute of Letters.
She teaches a course for writers working on their first manuscripts and has served in editorial roles for Puerto del Sol and Kallisto Gaia Press. She is a forthcoming fellow at the San Ysidro Writers Residency, and her work has appeared in:
The Southampton Review
Pembroke
New South
The Rumpus
Texas Highways
She currently lives with her wife in Austin.
John Schulze is an associate professor of English at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, where he teaches creative writing. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska and an M.F.A. from the University of Memphis. He publishes as Penn Stewart and is the author of the novel “Fertile Ground” and the short-story collection “The Water in Our Veins.” He’s also published short fiction in markets such as:
The Westchester Review
Waccamaw: A Journal of Contemporary Literature
Iron Horse Review
He has also published creative nonfiction essays in Hippocampus Review, Fresh Yarn and Gravel. Learn more about his creative work by visiting pennstewart.com.
E. D. Watson is a poet, teacher and fifth-generation Texan. The author of three poetry collections, she has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and received several awards, most notably the 2023 Cow Creek Chapbook Prize for Via Dolorosa & Advent Wreath. She holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Texas State University, where she was a Rose Fellow.
A certified Practitioner of Poetic Medicine, she leads workshops to facilitate healing through poetry. When she’s not writing or teaching, she’s leading community yoga classes, hosting open mics, working at the public library or playing cello for her cat.
Mathew Weitman’s poetry appears in:
Alaska Quarterly Review
Bennington Review
The Georgia Review
He is the winner of the Loraine Williams Poetry Prize and The AWP Kurt Brown Prize for Poetry, and is a two time Pushcart Nominee. Currently, he is pursuing his Ph.D. at the University of Houston, where he is an Inprint Brown Foundation Fellow, and leading poetry workshops at the Harris County Jail.
The conference is held every year in honor of the late Elmer Kelton, who wrote more than 40 books, including “The Time it Never Rained,” “The Man Who Rode Midnight” and “The Good Old Boys.” He was a seven-time winner of the Western Writers of America’s (WWA) Spur Award, and the WWA named him the “all-time best Western author.” Additionally, local and regional writers are invited to showcase their works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and prose. The event is hosted by the Natalie Zan Ryan Department of English and Modern Languages and sponsored by the university with support from the ASU Alumni Association, the College of Arts and Humanities, and Guy and Eva Choate.
Questions? Contact Us!
For questions or inquiries, please contact Dr. Rebecca Bernard, Writers Conference chair, at writers-conference@angelo.edu.
Help support and enhance the Writers Conference in Honor of Elmer Kelton with a tax-deductible gift to its endowment. For more information, contact the Office of Development at 325-942-2116 or development@angelo.edu.
