Today we are happy to announce the 3rd Annual English Graduate Student Association (EGSA) Spring Conference and its call for papers. This isn’t your ordinary conference announcement and call for papers; the EGSA Spring Conference is held each year at DePaul, organized by DePaul English graduate students involved in EGSA, and features DePaul students as panelists and presenters. Read the following announcement from EGSA to get all the details:

EGSA is pleased to announce its third spring student conference, to be held in the late afternoon and early evening of April 13th at the Arts and Letters Hall on the Lincoln Park Campus. All students in the graduate English program are invited to submit academic papers and creative work for presentation to fellow graduate students, undergraduate students, and faculty. This event is an excellent opportunity for graduate students to showcase their work, prepare for PhD programs and publication, and promote fellowship and intellectual exchange.

We invite submissions for panel sessions in the following categories:

• Poetry
• Short Story or Excerpt from Long Fiction
• Literary Nonfiction (magazine writing, memoir, literary essay, humor/satire, travel writing, science writing, etc.)
• Literary Analysis/Critical Approaches
• Pedagogical and Literary Theory
• Publishing, Professional, and Teaching Practices

Poetry submissions should be a selection of poems that can be introduced and presented in no more than 12 minutes. All other submissions will be presented, in full or in abbreviated form, in 15-minute time slots (a 15-minute paper is about eight double-spaced typed pages). Works accepted for the conference will be grouped into panels according to genre and/or theme, and a 15-minute question and answer session will conclude each panel. All works submitted must be original, and we encourage writers to submit recent work.

In the spirit of academic fellowship, we encourage all attendees to stay for the duration of the conference and to celebrate at the reception following.

Please email your submissions to egsaconference2012@gmail.com. The deadline for submissions is Monday, March 19th. All of those who submit will be notified of acceptance decisions no later than Monday, April 2nd.

Guidelines for Paper Submissions

• Each writer must include an official submission form, which you can access in the email that will be sent out shortly.  Download and fill out the form, and save as a MS Word document. When submitting your work, attach both the submission form and the work(s) as discrete documents in an email to egsaconference2012@gmail.com, using the subject line “EGSA Conference 2012 Submission”.
• DO NOT include your name or any other identifying information on the work you plan to submit. Insert your 7-digit DePaul student ID in a header that appears in the upper-left corner of every page. Include a page number in the upper-right corner of every page.
• You may submit up to 2 works, and these may be in the same category. And although both submissions may be accepted, this is not guaranteed.
• For poetry submissions, put each poem on a separate page.

All current English graduate students will receive an email shortly containing these instructions as well as the submission form. If you do not receive this email or have trouble opening the attachments, please contact Maria at mhlohows@depaul.edu. Questions about the conference itself and/or submission procedure should be directed to egsaconference2012@gmail.com.

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And, if you need a little break from all the work you’ll be doing on your conference submissions, EGSA has that covered, too.

“On February 17th, EGSA will be hosting a movie night in Room 203 in Arts and Letters Hall. They will be showing Midnight in Paris. In case you haven’t seen it yet, it’s an extremely charming movie, directed by Woody Allen, about an American writer whose midnight strolls around Paris take some unexpected turns. If you’ve seen it before, it’s definitely worth a second viewing. The movie will start at 7pm, and some refreshments will be served. All are invited, and should feel free to bring friends along!

Here are the details one more time:

Midnight in Paris
Friday, February 17 at 7pm
Arts and Letters Hall, room 203

Hope to see you there!”

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Students who are considering applying to an MFA program now have another school to add to their list of places to research. The University of Central Arkansas will be launching its brand new studio MFA program this fall. Here are the details:

“We are starting a brand new studio MFA program in creative writing at the University of Central Arkansas in Fall 2012, so for any BA, BFA or MA students in creative writing looking for a progressive and intensive graduate program, this information might be of interest. Our application period is open until March 15, so there is still plenty of time to apply. Assistantships are available and class sizes will be small. The program will train students in publishing and pedagogy and poise them for an increasingly global job market where creative imaginations are in demand. We are located just outside of Little Rock, we’re near two beautiful mountain ranges (the Ozarks and the Ouachitas), and we have a growing and exciting literary arts culture. For more information, please go to http://www.uca.edu/writing/mfa/ or write our program director Dr. Stephanie Vanderslice at stephv@uca.edu.”