Meet the Authors: Rita Mookerjee

Hello again, Readers! As promised, we are continuing the Meet the Authors series with our profile on Dr. Rita Mookerjee. Dr. Mookerjee followed Dr. Carrie McGath’s presentation which you can read about in our previous blog post here. Dr. Mookerjee spoke about a variety of topics and gave important pieces of advice to the students in the class. She also spoke about her experience living in Jamaica on a Fulbright and read a poem she wrote while staying there.

Dr. Rita Mookerjee

Bio: Rita Mookerjee is the Ida B. Wells-Barnett Postdoctoral Fellow at DePaul University. She holds a PhD in Literature from Florida State University. In 2020, she was a Fulbright fellow in Jamaica. She is the co-founder of Honey Literary, Inc. and a Poetry Editor at Split Lip Magazine.

False Offering, her debut full-length collection, is forthcoming in 2023 from Jackleg Press. Her poetry is featured in Juked, Hobart Pulp, New Orleans Review, the Offing, and the Baltimore Review.

Rita Mookerjee holds a Ph.D. in Literature from Florida State University. In 2019-2020, she was a Fulbright Fellow to Jamaica. She is also the Ida B. Wells-Barnett Postdoctoral Fellow at DePaul University. 

-End of Bio-

Meet the Authors: Carrie McGath

Hello, readers! Welcome to the first edition of “Meet the Authors,” a series for the visiting authors that grace Lewis University with their presence. On March 3rd, the University welcomed Dr. Carrie McGath and Dr. Rita Mookerjee to AS 158 where both authors read poetry and gave a Q & A afterward. For this “Meet the Authors” post, we will be focusing on Carrie McGath and her wonderful poetry (stay tuned for our post about Rita Mookerjee and her amazing work as well!) Now for a brief introduction to Carrie McGath and an exploration of her work and the thought behind it:

Before Dr. McGath and Dr. Mookerjee presented their work for the University, they made a special appearance at the Advanced/Intermediate Creative Writing class taught by Dr. Simone Muench. At this closed event, the students listened to the wisdom presented by each author and had the opportunity to ask questions following the presentations. For this blog post, we will run through some of what McGath discussed throughout the private session as well as the University event that occurred after.

Dr. Carrie McGath

Bio: Carrie McGath’s first collection of poems, Small Murders, was released in 2006 by New Issues Poetry and Prose. Since then, Carrie has self-published five limited-edition chapbooks, including: Ward Eighty-One, The Chase, So Sorry to See You Go, Ohio Lonely, and Dollface. She is currently at work on her second full-length collection of poems, The Luck of Anhedonia. Her poems have appeared in literary journals including The Chariton Review, Hiram Poetry Review, and Barrow Street. Her poem, “Dear Anhedonia” won the AWP Intro Journals Project Award in 2019 and was published in The Tahoma Literary Review.

Interview with Janice Tuck Lively

Janice Tuck Lively

This interview with Janice Tuck Lively was conducted during the Spring of 2017 by Jet Fuel Review Editor Bree Scott. 

Janice Tuck Lively was a visiting author at Lewis University in March 2017, alongside poet Elizabeth Powell. She read an excerpt from a story she had been working on at the time, including an emotionally intense passage about a mother supporting her child through childbirth.

I had the chance to catch up with Lively after the reading — I took a class of hers for one semester at Elmhurst College before transferring to Lewis University. To say that she had a hand increasing my interest in micro-fiction is an understatement, as I had strictly been a poet before meeting her for the first time.

Interview with Chicago-based Musician/Artist, Damon Locks

Damon Locks
http://bit.ly/2gJT8E1

There are few people I can think of that carry as much ambition as Chicago-based artist Damon Locks. Locks is a talented musician, visual artist, and teacher, who, over the past 30 years, has used these various avenues as a way to unleash his politically-driven, urban-influenced art upon the world.

One of Locks’ latest projects is a new album, Espiritu Zombi, from his band The Eternals, which released in August 2016. Other recent works from Locks include multiple projects with and alongside prolific artist/musician Rob Mazurek, the sound design work on a Chicago-based play, and an art project wherein Locks worked with 11 prisoners currently incarcerated in Stateville Correctional Center, located in Crest Hill, Illinois. The prisoners were asked to draw 100 frames of animation, later to be compiled into a fascinating short film called Freedom/Time.

Below is Locks’ bio, followed by our interview with him: