A handful of SMSU English Club members found out that it is a small world. The club recently attended the John R. Milton Conference at the University of South Dakota, USD, Vermillion. The conference, celebrating its 50th anniversary, was held over the first weekend of November. Six members from the club, along with the advisor, English professor Marianne Murphy-Zarzana, attended various poetry and prose readings as well as critical panels.

It wasn’t just the conference that had the students excited, but also a few names that were familiar to the SMSU area.

Cynthia Ostrom, a PhD student at USD, presented part of her dissertation that included Adrian Louis’s novel, Skins. “It just spoke to me, the wording he used and the images he gives,” Ostrom said during the question and answer period.

A recent graduate of the SMSU English Department, Cheyenne Marco’s name also appeared. The last panel to present during the conference featured Marco’s creative non-fiction piece focused on the separation she made between her chicken farming life and graduate degree life. The title of the panel she was a part of was “’Traveling from Here to There’: The Empathy of Writing Geography and Self.”

Bright and early Saturday morning of the conference, Professor Zarzana read some of her poetry. Ranging from poems about family to responses to an artist’s work, she held the attention of all in attendance. The collaboration with artist, Betty L. Beer, inspired Zarzana to write poems she never thought she’d write.

Todd Chalmers, a creative writing senior at SMSU and a first time conference goer said, “It was a good experience. Being around other writers and talking about the craft of writing was great.”
Marianne Murphy-Zarzana will present her collaborated poems with Betty L. Beer’s works on November 10, 2013 from 2-4 pm at MAFAC in downtown Marshall. The reading will start at 2:30 pm with refreshments.