Current MAE and MAWP students, congratulate yourselves on another quarter finished! Special congratulations to all of you who are graduating, and best of luck on your next adventures.

As most Ex Libris readers probably already know, the end of the Fall 2011 quarter also marks the end of the English Department’s residence in McGaw Hall. Starting on Jan. 3 with the start of the Winter 2012 quarter, all classes and professors’ offices in the English Department (graduate and undergraduate) will be housed in the new Arts & Letters Building, located right next to the library at 2315 North Kenmore Avenue.

Although we’ve already linked you to the fantastic professional photos located at DePaul Newsline, last week some of the English faculty and staff got a special preview tour of the new building and we took a few more shots of our photogenic new home to put up on Ex Libris and our Flickr page (Did you know we had a Flickr page? We do!). Enjoy them!

And finally an update on Ex Libris: Ex Libris will not be updating over winter break, but that doesn’t mean you can’t check in. We’ve posted lots of great calls for papers, submissions, and writing contest entries over the last few months that have deadlines throughout December and January. So, if you’re working on something you want to get out there, browse our recent archives for places to send your writing and research (you can narrow your search by browsing by category on the right-hand side of the page). We will resume our regular blogging schedule on January 3rd.

And although we didn’t get the chance to publish any guest posts this quarter, come Winter Quarter we will be looking for students (and maybe alumni?) who are interesting in sharing a few thoughts on Ex Libris. If you find yourself with a little extra time on your hands, why not sit down and write us something in the 300-600 word range? Maybe a summary of some interesting research you did, a great reading or conference you attended, or a great book you read or were gifted over the holidays?

Feel free to send ideas for guest posts as well as any announcements and news over the break to mhlohows@depaul.edu. We look forward to reading them when we return in January!

Have a relaxing winter break and very happy holidays. See you in 2012!