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The fourth issue of the RC Alumni Journal is out! This annual publication features work by RC and Creative Writing alums. Contributors this issue include include Peter Anderson, Esha Biswas, Hannah Brauer, Carmen Bugan, Julia Byers, Joseph Stanhope Cialdella, Bob Clifford, Logan Corey, Ellen Dreyer, Melissa Durante, Allison Epstein, Cameron Finch, Dennis Foon, Mary Gallagher, Barry Garelick, Robin Lily Goldberg, Rebecca Growe, John Hagen, John Laswick, Delaney Leach, Hannah Levine, Camilla Lizundia, Dan Madaj, Hannah Nathans, Kathryn Orwig, and Laura Thomas. You can find a PDF of this and the first three issues under the “Journals” tab on this RC Writers site.

Emily Pittinos (RC 2014, Women’s Studies, Poetry minor) has been awarded the 2020 Iowa Poetry Prize for her forthcoming debut collection, The Last Unkillable Thing (University of Iowa Press, 2021). Emily is currently teaching in Boise, Idaho. An Associate Editor for Poetry Northwest,  her recent work appears, or will soon appear, in Beloit Poetry Journal, Denver Quarterly, Michigan Quarterly Review, New England Review, Ninth Letter, Ploughshares, The Adroit Journal, The Iowa Review, and elsewhere. At U-M, she worked at The Michigan Daily and won three Hopwood awards (for poetry, fiction, and nonfiction). More about Emily at her website.

Anna Megdell (RC 2012) recently posted “What It Looks Like in the Light” in the Los Angeles Review.  Anna works as the natural sciences writer for the College of LSA at U-M, and holds an MFA from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she won the John C. Hodges Award for Fiction. Her work has appeared in Entropy and Midwestern Gothic. 

RC alumna Molly Reitman (Creative Writing, German, Media Studies, 2016) has published “Erica,” in the August 2020 issue of Rust+Month magazine.

Molly works as a copywriter and administrative assistant at The KPM Group in Plymouth, and previously worked as a proofreader at Challenger, Gray & Christmas in Chicago. She recently produced a feature-length independent film, Bury My Beautiful Skeleton in Grosse Pointe. At U-M, she received Hopwood awards for fiction and poetry, and won the Helen and Roy Meader award.

RC creative-writing student Sebastien Butler edited a 2011 interview between the RC’s Sarah Messer and poet Franz Wright, which was subsequently published in Lit Hub magazine.  Sebastian has been interning this summer at One Pause Poetry, which Sarah directs.

Sebastian is also majoring in English, minoring in Political Science, and is in the Honors Program. H
e was co-historian of RC Players:  partly in charge of photographing and filming RCP shows, as well as running the social media accounts of the organization, and is now the RC’s Communication’s Assistant, working for Robby Griswold.

RC Creative Writing (and Spanish) student Cielle Waters-Umfleet recently published “Fighting COVID-19: It’s in Our Blood, an article in Midstory about the American Red Cross’ complimentary COVID antibody tests that help find people to donate plasma to the sick. Earlier this summer, she published “Computers for a New Era of Learning,” an article in Midstory about Detroit Public Schools’ plan to provide all its 51,000 students with computers and internet plans by the end of the summer. Cielle has been working at Midstory as an intern this summer. Midstory is dedicated to retaining, cultivating, and attracting youth and the public to the Midwest, beginning in Toledo, Ohio.

Cielle is editor-in-chief of What the F Magazine at U-M, a platform for portraying the feminist movement “with representation and inclusivity.” Cielle is also Team Lead at America Reads Tutoring Corps and a James B. Angell Scholar.

RC Creative Writing (and Spanish) student Cielle Waters-Umfleet recently published “Computers for a New Era of Learning,” an article in Midstory about Detroit Public Schools’ plan to provide all its 51,000 students with computers and internet plans by the end of the summer. Cielle has been working at Midstory as an intern this summer. Midstory is dedicated to retaining, cultivating, and attracting youth and the public to the Midwest, beginning in Toledo, Ohio.

Cielle is editor-in-chief of What the F Magazine at U-M, a platform for portraying the feminist movement “with representation and inclusivity.” Cielle is also Team Lead at America Reads Tutoring Corps and a James B. Angell Scholar.

RC Creative Writing alum Lindendeary Himawan (RC 2018) reports that his “programming journey” has led to some early game development projects. “I’ve successfully made some simple games, and I’m learning to make a JRPG in my free time,” he says. Linden finds the coding side of game development to be not as difficult as he once thought, and believes that “it’s more difficult to get a video game’s story right than it is to get its mechanics and code right.” He says that the video games that remain memorable are usually due to their amazing story and characters.

Linden continues to be interested in data science and programming, and is considering graduate school.

Knopf Doubleday will publish RC Creative Writing alumna (’14) Allison Epstein‘s first novel, A Tip for the Hangman: A Novel of Christopher Marlowe on February 9, 2021. 

Allison earned an MFA in fiction from Northwestern University. A Michigan native, she now lives in Chicago, where she works as a copywriter for clients in higher education and the arts. When not writing, she enjoys good theater, bad puns, and fancy jackets. A Tip for the Hangman is her first novel.

While in the RC, Allison was an active member and editor-in-chief of the RC Review literary magazine. She was the RC’s first Emerging Writer awardee. More about Allison at her website.