In the latest installment of the “Good News” series, the Ball State English department highlights the accomplishments of our faculty and students up through the month of January.


All the Good News that’s fit to print!

Mary Lou Vercellotti received a grant to work with Wollo University in Ethiopia. Full details are available in the following press release. She will advise in their English language program, and Ruby Cain from Teacher’s College will advise on higher education administration. Dr. Vercellotti will visit Ethiopia during spring break.

EnglertKelsey Englert, a Ball State English alum, had her story, “Goodbye to the Karls,” published in Bartleby Snopes. This online magazine asks its readers to vote on their favorite story, which is then published in an online edition, and Kelsey’s story was the one selected. She is currently a graduate student in the MFA program at West Virginia University.

Jill Christman

Emily Scalzo published her haikus, “Dutch Alcoholics” and “A Polar Vortex,” in Cattails and Halcyon this winter.

Undergraduate student Sarah Hollowell speaks to students at our recent Group Advising Sessions.

Undergraduate student Sarah Hollowell speaks to students at our recent Group Advising Sessions.

Sarah Hollowell published in The Butter (edited by Roxane Gay), which is a sister site of The Toast. Her essay, “This is an Essay About a Fat Woman Being Loved and Getting Laid,” encourages fat positivity, while also condemning the propaganda that perpetuates fat hatred.

Undergraduate students Becca Austin, Sarah Hollowell, and Brittany Means had creative work accepted at Taylor University’s Making Literature Conference  which will take place from February 26-28 in Upland, IN. They will compete for the $200 prize for creative writing.

Brian Morrison and Silas Hansen read in front of an impressive crowd as part of Ball State’s Faculty Reading Series. Three undergraduates (Brittany Means, Matt Glassburn, and Becca Austin) were also picked to read their contest submissions.

Brian Morrison

Brian Morrison

  • Brian Morrison also had four poems (“A History of Love,” “A History of Biting, Circa 1599,” “A History of Fashion,” and “Fur Elise Played Quietly in a Room on Fire”) published in The Bitter Oleander, West Branch, The Knickknackery, and Rust + Moth last week.

Do you have any good news? Let us know so we can put it in our alumni newsletter!

Do you have any good news? Let us know so we can put it in our alumni newsletter!


Jeremy Bauer (B.A. ’11) published recently in Everyday Genius. You can read “Adult Lord” here. Jeremy graduated with an M.F.A. in poetry from Texas State in 2013, where he served as Interviews Editor and Co-Managing Editor for Front Porch Journal, the university’s literary magazine. You can connect with him on LinkedIn here. Jeremy was our very first Public Relations Intern and started the Ball State English Department blog!

Becca Jackson (a double major in Creative Writing and Math) recently won best poster (Humanities) at the National Collegiate Honors College Conference in Denver. Her project, “Verb-STEM: Poetry and Prose Composed with Code and Mathematical Notation​,” discusses writing poetry in code as a way to bridge the “liminal space between the arts and sciences.” She collaborated with Osayame Gaius-Obaseki, who studies Computer Science and English at the University of West Georgia.

Silas Hansen, after his reading.

Silas Hansen, after his reading.

Lyn Jones‘s article “Opening the Gates” is just out in Reading Today, a journal for teachers and librarians with a readership of 75,000.  Jones discusses the genesis of Rethinking Children’s Literature, a free, digital, interactive literary magazine that invites the reader to engage with children’s literature as a way to raise social consciousness. You can read her article here. 

Alysia Sawchyn (M.A., Rhetoric and Composition) has a story forthcoming in Midwestern Gothic. “The Accidental Beekeeper” will appear in their Spring 2015 issue (Volume 17).