MARY MCMYNE

New issue of Border Crossing

September 1, 2016

I’m excited to share the release of the latest issue of Border Crossing, the online journal I co-edit with Jillena Rose and Julie Brooks Barbour as part of our work with the Lake Superior State University creative writing program. As fiction editor, I’m especially eager to share the work of the featured fiction writer this year, Saramanda Swigart, who writes the most fabulous–and feminist–historical fairy tales! “The Earth Falls to the Apple” tells the story of a young, 16th century noblewoman who receives a strange mirror as a gift from a suitor. In the interview that follows the story, Swigart explains how the premise came to her as she researched how …

Lasting Legacies: The Women of Little Traverse Bay

June 29, 2016

Today was the third day of my participation in the National Writing Project with the Top-of-the-Mitt Summer Institute in Petoskey. This evening, we were fortunate enough to have Jane Garver from the Little Traverse Bay Historical Society close down the museum and give our writing group a tour. There is a wonderful exhibit at the museum right now called “Lasting Legacies: The Women of Little Traverse Bay,” which highlights the roles of women in the history of this area. Some of the women featured in the exhibit–such as Margaret Blackbird Boyd and Ella Petoskey–are well-known locally. Others were art teachers, nurses, activists, and hard-working women who played a role in …

New Essay in Southern Humanities Review

April 16, 2016

I was excited to receive my contributor’s copies of Southern Humanities Review, today, featuring “The Birds,” first in a series of essays I’m working on about my parents’ and brother’s deaths–this one focusing on my father–and one of the most generous personal notes I’ve ever received from an editor. It is a very good feeling, that I’ve done well honoring my dad’s memory. I can’t say enough nice things about Southern Humanities Review, and their managing editor and nonfiction editor, Aaron Alford, who does excellent work. You can purchase the issue here. Also featured is poetry by Natalie Diaz, Staci R. Schoenfield, and more! …

The Alchemy of Teaching Writing

March 22, 2016

It’s been a whirlwind semester, so far. In addition to reading and editing fiction submissions for Border Crossing with two wonderful interns, I’ve been teaching two courses for the first time: a course on Responding to Writing for future teachers, and an intermediate creative writing course for majors and minors that is specifically designed to help students take risks in their writing, to encourage them to experiment in order to help them discover their voices. Teaching the combination of these two courses for the first time together has brought some interesting insights. Much of the theory we’ve been reading for the writing response course discusses the importance of encouraging students …