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Marcelo Hernandez Castillo and faculty members at Kalamazoo College.  From left: Oliver Baez Bendorf, Shanna Salinas, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, and Francisco Villegas

The season’s first campus visit of the GLCA New Writers Award (NWA) took place Monday, October 28, at Kalamazoo College.  Marcelo Hernandez Castillo is the 2019-20 winner of the NWA poetry award for his collection entitled, Cenzontle (BOA Editions, 2018).  

Castillo is a poet, essayist, translator, and immigration advocate.  He was born in Zacatecas, Mexico and immigrated at the age of five with his family to the California central valley. As an AB540 student, he earned his B.A. from Sacramento State University and was the first undocumented student to graduate from the Helen Zell Writers Program at the University of Michigan. His immigration case was used by the Supreme Court to justify the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) under president Obama.

His visit to Kalamazoo encompassed a series of events with students who were interested in his life as well as his writings.  In the morning he visited a sociology class on “Race and Racism,” taught by Dr. Francisco Villegas.  At lunch he met with creative writing students and faculty.  In mid-afternoon he met with an English class on “Reading the World: Identities,” taught by Dr. Shanna Salinas.  In the evening he presented a public reading and book signing at the College’s Intercultural Center. 

Kalamazoo College had structured Castillo’s visit to recognize and celebrate his achievement not just as a writer, but as one who has experienced the life of an undocumented immigrant.  His poems and comments expressed what the GLCA poetry judges called, “a story of undocumented immigrants, border crossing, transgression, and the tantalizing fictions and facts of the American dream.”  During the reading Castillo described his determination in writing to “take back the joy in life” from the state of uncertainty that has often characterized his experience.   

Over 40 people attended Marcello Castillo’s reading and book-signing at Kalamazoo College.  He has scheduled readings at several other GLCA member colleges in the winter and spring terms. 

The New Writers Award, now in its 49th year, provides students of GLCA’s member colleges with the opportunity to meet and engage with writers of promise who have won distinction in a first-published volume of fiction, poetry, or creative non-fiction.  Judges of this national contest are faculty members of our GLCA member colleges in the fields of creative writing and literature.  

The 2019 winner for Creative Non-fiction is Dawn Davies, Mothers of Sparta: A Memoir in Pieces, published by Flatiron Books.  Judges in Creative Non-fiction were:  Matthew Ferrence (Allegheny), Marin Heinritz (Kalamazoo), Rhoda Janzen (Hope).  Our GLCA judges note:

Dawn Davies’ Mothers of Sparta deftly weaves her experiences as a woman with a simplicity of language, an elegant structure and a depth of emotion in these often redemptive essays. "Mothers of Sparta," among the book’s most powerful pieces of writing, explores parenting with compassion and responsibility, making a significant contribution to our cultural conversation about disability. These essays examine our modern ways of being and becoming.

The 2019 winner for Poetry is Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, Cenzontle, published by BOA Editions, Ltd.  Judges in poetry were:  David Baker (Denison), Joe Heithaus (DePauw), and Lynn Powell (Oberlin).  Our GLCA judges note:

Castillo’s narrative itself couldn’t be more timely and significant:  it’s a story of undocumented immigrants, border crossing, transgression, and the tantalizing fictions and facts of the American dream.  To read these poems is to participate in a journey – and an unexpected one towards illumination and the complexities of longing and belonging.  Castillo’s sweep is large but his voice is particular and clarified.  This is mature, engaged poetry.

The 2019 winner for Fiction is Lesley Nneka Arimah, What it Means When a Man Falls From the Sky, published by Riverhead Books.  Judges in Fiction were:  Danit Brown (Albion), Eric Freeze (Wabash), and Jennifer Hayward (Wooster).  Our GLCA judges note:

Lesley Nneka Arimah's larger themes explore generational conflict, transnational migrations, and the unexpected ways that the past can reach forward to throw the present off course. Her voice is always assured, the writing often beautiful and occasionally breathtaking. These characters have stories they want to tell – about family, especially mothers and daughters; about love and its dangers; about the struggle of women to be heard against the social chorus of gendered expectations.

Each of these writers has received invitations to visit several GLCA members colleges to give readings and meet with students and faculty in the fall or spring of this year.  Check the Events page of this web site to see where these writers will be.  For a fuller account of the writers and their achievements, see the GLCA New Writers Award Newsletter.  For questions about the visits of NWA winners, contact Colleen Monahan Smith of the GLCA: [email protected]. 

Three faculty-student research teams completed ten days of intensive research at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. on July 17, 2019.  The teams participating in this program are selected on the basis of proposals submitted by faculty members of GLCA colleges and the extended international institutions of the Global Liberal Arts Alliance (GLAA).  

The topics of this year’s research teams, their faculty leaders, and institutions are: 

“White Supremacist Thought and the Struggle for Union in the Civil War Era.”  Marcy Sacks, Professor of History, Albion College, Albion, Michigan, USA.

“Coming to America:  The Early Arab-American Generations.”  David Tresilian, Assistant Professor of English and Comparative Literature, American University of Paris, Paris, France.

“Poetic Modernisms, Gender, and Sexuality in Four Indian Languages.”  Kedar Kulkarni, Assistant Professor in Literary and Cultural Studies, FLAME University, Pune, India.

The program makes it possible for a faculty member to work collaboratively with a team of two or three undergraduates to research a subject in a humanities or social science discipline.  Jurretta Heckscher, a Reference Specialist at the Library of Congress who is also the project director of this GLCA partnership observes, “In this program we have created a model of service that is fairly unique – that of the research liaison for a faculty-student team.  As liaisons, we at the Library don’t have expertise in all research topics, but we know who does and can bring our teams to the door of a reading room specialist.  We position the teams to walk through those doors.”  

On the final day of the program each student and faculty member described their research to all other participants in the program.  Following those presentations, which demonstrated the range and depth of the students’ thinking, Gregory Wegner of the GLCA said, “Being taken seriously by their Library liaisons and other staff helps our students develop confidence in their own abilities as researchers.  I know that the students will carry what they have learned – about their topics, and about themselves – through their lives.”

For questions about this program contact Gregory Wegner at the GLCA:  [email protected].