Lindenwood Magazine - Spring / Summer 2019

LINDENWOOD UNIVERSITY “The stories in Dancing Madly explore how we keep trying to survive in our flawed ways as life breaks us down...” BETH MEAD Long Lost I found that photo today, the one with a blurred edge of thumb hiding your mouth. I’m sure you were smiling—it’s there in your eyes. Like water, those eyes. I drank them over and over and over. Where are you now? Do you watch the morning bruise of sky with her hand light on your chest? Cover my eyes again. See that day of lilacs, wine staining our lips. Find me in your drawer of lost things. I wait there, my veins shining blue through the clear skin of my wrist. I wait like this. – Excerpt from Dancing Madly SPRING/SUMMER 2019 | 7 Mead Finds Publishing Success with DancingMadly Teaching by example by Chris Duggan S DIRECTOR OF LINDENWOOD UNIVERSITY’S MFA IN WRITING PROGRAM, Beth Mead has watched with great satisfaction as her students and graduates have placed their works in literary magazines and even published book-length manuscripts. This year, she will celebrate some publishing success of her own with her new book, Dancing Madly, a collection of short pieces due out this summer. Though she has placed numerous short works in journals, this is her first book, published by Adelaide Books in July of this year. It contains 25 pieces: short stories, flash fiction, and flash nonfiction. “The stories in Dancing Madly explore how we keep trying to survive in our flawed ways as life breaks us down, sends us spinning—that mad dance that gets us through each day,” Mead said. Mead’s prose is hauntingly gripping, steeped in yearning, regret, and memory (an excerpt is on the facing page). The book deal sprung from the publication of her short story “Mothers,” published last year by Adelaide Literary Journal in New York. After the story was published, she was approached by a representative of Adelaide, who told her they were accepting manuscripts and asked her if she had one available. “I said I had a collection of fiction, flash fiction, and flash nonfiction, and he asked me to submit a proposal,” Mead said. “Then shortly after that, he asked for the full manuscript.” Mead strongly urges her students to submit their works to literary magazines as much as they can; though it is a sometimes frustrating process filled with rejection, it is the best way to build toward getting a full-length work published. “Start by getting individual pieces published in literary journals,” Mead said. “After about 15 or so pieces have been accepted by strong journals, then you can send query letters to reputable presses that accept unsolicited manuscripts.” An as-yet-unscheduled event is in the works in which Mead, MFA faculty member Gillian Parrish, and MFA alumni and faculty will read from their books. Details will be posted on the MFA program website at www.lindenwood.edu/MFAwriting and on the program’s Facebook page. Lindenwood’s nationally recognized MFA in Writing program is available in-classroom and entirely or partially online. The program publishes a literary magazine, The Lindenwood Review , annually in the spring. n A 6 | SPRING/SUMMER 2019 Outstanding FACULTY