Dear Graduate Students, I hope your semesters are going well. I’m writing with some details about things happening in March, including the annual graduate student conference, a preview of Fall 2024 classes, and announcements about readings and other events. Graduate Student Conference The Graduate Student Conference, “In Other Worlds.” will take place on March 27, 2024, in the Presidential Conference Room 2 on the fifth floor of Rosenthal Library. The conference, which focuses on speculative literature and writing, will feature participants from Queens College as well as from other universities in the New York City area. The program will run from 10 am to 6 pm, and culminate with a reading and conversation with NK Jemisin, which will take place that evening at 7 pm in the Godwin Ternbach Museum on the fourth floor of Klapper Hall. We hope that you will be able to make it for part of the day. (If you submitted an abstract for the conference, please note that acceptance will be mailed out today and tomorrow.) We also still need volunteers to help with the conference. If you are interested in helping with planning the program, inviting faculty moderators, serving on a prize committee, or assisting on the day of the event, please contact Bill at William.Orchard@qc.cuny.edu<mailto:William.Orchard@qc.cuny.edu>. MA Open House The MA program in English will be holding a virtual open house on March 7, 2024, at 6 pm. Hillary and I will be on hand to answer questions prospective students might have about the MA program. If you know someone who is thinking about applying to the MA program for the 2024-2025 academic year, please let them know about this event. They can RSVP for it at: http://ow.ly/bqmJ50QB9v6.<http://ow.ly/bqmJ50QB9v6> MA Thesis Workshop II For those of you writing your MA theses, the second thesis writing workshop, which focuses on writing strategies and provides you an opportunity to workshop some pages, will take place on March 20 at 6:30 pm. We’ll send a reminder to thesis writers a week before, but, if you want to RSVP for it now, email MAEnglish@qc.cuny.edu<mailto:MAEnglish@qc.cuny.edu>. Fall Course Preview Pre-registration will take place sometime in March. The Registrar has yet to announce the date. Below we’ve pasted the tentative schedule to give you an early preview of the likely schedule for the fall. Please keep in mind that this still could change. A final schedule and full course descriptions will arrive a week before pre-registration starts. * ENGL 636 Studies in Literary Criticism | Jeff Cassvan | T 6:40 to 8:30 pm (online) * ENGL 701 Graduate Methodologies | Annmarie Drury | M 4:40 to 6:30 pm (online) * ENGL 639 Studies in Poetry (likely topic: Documentary Poetics) | Nicole Cooley | M 6:40-8:30 pm * ENGL 640 History and Theory of Comics and Graphic Narratives | William Orchard | T 6:40 to 8:30 pm (online) * ENGL 703 Composition Theory and Literacy Studies | Sara Alvarez | T 4:40 to 6:30 pm. * ENGL 719 Medieval Literature | Michael Sargent | Th 6:40 to 8:30 pm * ENGL 726 | Early American Literature | Sian Silyn Roberts | W 4:40 to 6:30 pm. * ENGL 781 Special Seminar (likely topic: Black Queer Studies) | Chamara Moore | M 6:40 to 8:30 (online) * ENGL 781 Special Seminar (likely topic: Latinx Literature) | Vanessa Perez-Rosario | Th 4:40 to 6:30 pm Readings/ Talks Vivian Gornick Reading: March 7 at 7 pm at the Faculty and Student Lounge, Student Union 126 Vivian Gornick is an American radical feminist critic, journalist, and memoirist. As the flyer for the event notes: “Born in the Bronx, Gornick grew up in a family of working-class immigrants who were committed Communists. Much of her writing explores the actual and metaphoric significance of being an outsider.” Gornick is currently at work on a book by CUNY’s City College of New York. She is renowned critic and as a distinct voice in the genre of memoir. She’ll be in conversation with Queens College MFA alum Catherine LaSota. March 7 at 7pm. This event will also stream on Zoom at: http://tinyurl.com/3hbvbvzs. NK Jemisin Reading: March 27 at 7 pm Godwin Ternbach Museum in Klapper Hall N.K. Jemisin is the first author to win three consecutive Best Novel Hugo Awards for her Broken Earth trilogy. Her work has won the Nebula and Locus Awards, and she is a 2020 MacArthur Fellow. Her Great Cities duology was a New York Times bestseller. She’s been an instructor for Clarion and Clarion West writing workshops and was formerly the science fiction and fantasy book reviewer at the New York Times. Her reading with be the culminating event for the Graduate Student Conference. This event will also stream on Zoom at: http://tinyurl.com/vvrnvj8z. There’s a lot going on this month. Although classes have kicked into high gear, we hope you’ll take some time to participate in some of these activities. As always, Hillary and I are available to answer any questions or concerns you might have the program. Best, Bill