Tracing the poet’s journey of release, return, and rebirth, this debut collection dives into the dark necessarily, as a precursive measure for arching back up toward the light. Poems that recount generational violence and addiction converse with others that conjure healing and illumination in the cycles of nature. What Blooms in the Dark, ultimately, is a work of spiritual transformation and the power of love.

Here’s what local authors are saying:

Emily Mundy’s debut collection of poems is every flower of a girl shedding petals into womanhood, every child hefting the inheritance of addiction, and every love that offers distraction, joy, or grace from the call a knife makes to the flesh. Mundy says, “Let me feed you all the years I’ve been gnawing on” and our mouths are full—language so delicious that we are happy to swallow the gristle of bitterness. An absented body described from inside the skin with honey-thick words weaves so sweetly together themes of abuse and abandonment, grief and death, addiction and dysphoria, that they become blood-chorus, bones singing.

– Amber Flame, author of Ordinary Cruelty and apocrifa

Emily Mundy’s book is sensual and singed, a spell of smoke and ocean. The body finds and loses track of itself, in the mother’s hand-me-downs, in a skeleton in the closet, in a “lace of organs.â€� “Estranged ecstasyâ€� takes cover in the cleaved and split but through the attention of myriad eyes—eyes as moths, as gnarled hands, glassy eyes and an eye on a solo journey, an eye deemed insignificant, eyes full throttle, and flying eyes—ecstasy returns, “an electrical conduit unable to un-feel.â€�

– Melanie Noel, author of The Monarchs

Hers is redemptive work.

– Rebecca Brown, author of Not Heaven, Somewhere Else

For more information about Emily’s offerings—the Poetry Séance, upcoming events & classes, and to subscribe to her monthly newsletter—visit .

The post Blooming Beyond the MFA: Emily J. Mundy’s What Blooms in the Dark appeared first on School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences.

An Animated Journey 

The night began with a screening of Rest and Resonance, an animated story written, directed, and animated by Nour. Started as a passion project in the summer of 2023, this was the first time the film was shown to an audience. Nour shared that the animation style was inspired by South Park, an aesthetic that some audience members recognized immediately. 

Set in China, the dystopian film followed the experience of two kind-spirited robots who were taunted and attacked by a menacing robot giant. Over the course of two days, we see the robots fight and successfully ward off the evil giant robot for some time, before eventually succumbing to brainwashing that forces them to join the dark side. The film was filled with emotional ups and downs, closing on a cliffhanger that left the audience wanting more. Rest and Resonance successfully takes viewers on an engaging journey, without uttering a single word. 

Transforming Confidence 

The feature film of the evening was Glitter Tears. This touching and hilarious story follows a woman named Ari, who was living a dull life as a roadkill disposal specialist. Ari’s life is turned upside down one day when she meets a fascinating raccoon named Henry and a snarky magician. The magician takes Ari through a series of trials that force her to grapple with various stages of her life. Through interactions with former bullies, her therapist, and her ex, Ari confronts some of her most difficult truths. With her new raccoon companion by her side, Ari embarks on a journey to learn more about herself and the ways she has held herself back through the years. We see Ari transform throughout the film, developing the confidence to pursue the life she desires. 

When hearing from Melissa after the showing, it was surprising to learn that Melissa hadn’t always seen herself as an artist. The talented filmmaker credits her time in college as transformative for her creative identity. It was Melissa’s own journey to build confidence that inspired the plot for the film. The IAS community is excited to continue supporting Melissa and she moves through her professional and artistic development. 

Glitter Tears was originally created as a part of the BISMCS 472: Competitive Filmmaking class, taught by Senior Artist-In-Residence Masahiro Sugano. In the future, Melissa plans to take the film to the next level, by entering it into various film festivals this year.  

Melissa Lopez is a graduate of the Media & Communication Studies major in the School of IAS. You can follow her journey on Instagram: @melisser_ballin, and stay up to date on updates related to Glitter Tears by following @glittertearsfilm. Nour Currie is a current student in IAS, who is also studying Media & Communication Studies. You can connect with Nour via Instagram: @nourcurrie, or on his website: .  

The post Double Feature Screening Showcases Filmmaking Talent in IAS appeared first on School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences.

The post MFA Alum Abigail Mandlin founds Literary Journal – Heart on our Sleeves Press appeared first on School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences.

“Just go out there and you’ll find something. You won’t expect it, but you’ll definitely find it.â€� 

These are the words of Anthony Safai (’24), a recent graduate of 56³Ô¹ÏÍø Bothell who majored in Media & Communication Studies and Culture, Literature, & the Arts. Safai is the creator of Existence in Silence, a captivating YouTube series that delves into the haunted, paranormal, and controversial histories of some of the most infamous locations in the United States and abroad.  

Exploring Our Histories

Each episode features Safai and his collaborators exploring a new location. The premise is simple: stay the night in a location that is known for being haunted, and document what happens. As simple as the premise seems, explaining what is uncovered on the show is much more challenging.  

This challenge is much of what draws Safai to this work. In exploring each location, he isn’t simply looking to terrify viewers with a spooky gimmick. Instead, the goal is to reconnect the past with the present and unearth the sometimes long-forgotten histories of the land we all walk on each day.  

“When you do these episodes,� Safai explains, “you remind people of the land, you remind people of all the things that have happened there�. Each location holds a story, some dating back centuries. With his exploration, Safai hopes to discover evidence that helps draw conclusions to historical mysteries and advance our understanding of the paranormal along the way.

“I’ve noticed that as I’ve continued to explore [these locations] more and more, I can’t help but feel this sense of unjust abandonment from modern day society. So that said, the historical remembrance is what brings me so much pride and satisfaction to my work.â€�

Anthony Safai, Media & Communications Studies; Culture, Literature & the Arts ’24

An Unexpected Passion

When speaking to Safai about his work, he describes it as purpose-filled. Although, it didn’t start out that way. “If you ever ask a paranormal investigator ‘did you ever think you’d do this when you grew up?’ I guarantee you they will say noâ€� Safai says with a laugh. 

Safai first stumbled upon this work when visiting California with a friend. They had intentions to go to Disneyland and the beach, and as a joke, decided to stay at a haunted hotel. “We also said, ‘what if we like recorded everything, too, just like as a fun little memory’â€� Safai recalls. 

That night changed his life. “A lot of very strange things started happening that we couldn’t explainâ€� says Safai. “Objects were like moving on their own. We were hearing like really, really strange noises that were caught on camera… [that was] the first time in our lives when we truly experienced something that was completely unexplainable.â€� From that moment, Existence in Silence was born. 

Safai launched the series in October of 2022, and in just over a year the show has managed to attract the attention of multiple media outlets, including Fox 13 News and 56³Ô¹ÏÍø Bothell’s own 56³Ô¹ÏÍøave Radio. With hundreds of subscribers and over a thousand views on some episodes, the show is just getting started. 

When asked about what’s next, Safai eagerly speaks of his intentions to take the show abroad. Japan is at the top of his list, with some other places in the works as well. In the meantime, viewers can get excited about season two, which is currently in post-production.  

While season one visited locations throughout the West Coast, primarily in California, Safai brings the focus of season two to the Pacific Northwest. The season, titled “Whispers in the Windsâ€� will highlight the paranormal mysteries of Washington and Oregon. “It’s a completely untapped market,â€� explains Safai, “because a lot of my competitors haven’t been to the Washington and Oregon area, and so I thought it was a perfect chance for me to be able to see what’s going on in my own backyard.â€�

A Respected Community

For students with similar interests in video production, Safai encourages them to use their class projects as opportunities to build and explore their passions. Once you get started, don’t forget to lean into your connections as a student for support. “As an IAS student, you’re never aloneâ€� explains Safai, “you will always have teachers being interested in giving you their input as well as peers.â€� He also notes that his credentials as a student have given him a boost when finding new places to investigate, and has earned him discounts on filming equipment and software. 

Most importantly, Safai urges anyone who ventures into the world of paranormal investigation to do so with respect. “Always be respectful of the property owners that let you investigate there, and I cannot stress that enoughâ€� says Safai. This work explores topics that can be sensitive for some viewers, so it is important to do so with good intentions, and a little thick skin. You can connect with Anthony Safai’s work by subscribing to his YouTube channel, (soon to be renamed Existence in Silence), or by visiting .

The Media & Communications Studies and Culture, Literature & the Arts majors are a part of the Arts & Media focus in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences. You can learn more about these programs on their respective pages on the IAS undergraduate website.

The post Purpose, History, Justice, and the Paranormal appeared first on School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences.

“The words stretched severely.�

We arrived early to help Timothy set up the chairs, and to arrange them in a certain way, decide just where the mic would be. The small things like this are important. It’s sometimes more about what the room wants. Then we left, across the street to Jupiter for tortilla soup and crispy tacos.

We had to convince each other to sit tight at the bar until 5:45, to make sure and arrive at the reading just before it was supposed to start. Slightly nervous that no one would show. Do poets ever really get over the fear (reality) of having no audience? Trading our collaborations aloud at CAM we began filling in between each poem with tiny compositional asides and secrets. How it actually helped to open several books at random, in a borrowed apartment, to generate a single line. How it was often necessary to run the odd stanza backward just to generate the taste of immediate traction.

We found a lot in common. Similar years and addresses in San Francisco. A dedication to shining tables of diners and dive bars crowded used book stores. We created a world for ourselves, one we built fresh with each meeting. We wrote at night with music playing, talking over each other slamming the notebook down in front of the other once done with our line.

We wrote 11 poems, but ended up cutting one from an otherwise accommodating body.

There were many automated fountains around us last summer, baroque, tight entry ways, small elevators of old buildings. It is important to recognize the third and fourth rooms created when writing collaboratively. These rooms filI with a dialog that is hopefully worth stealing (word for word). Everything we wrote suddenly carried new weight, like architects finding the best flow between awkwardly arranged buildings.

“Poems may write themselves but they will not print themselves.�

Simon has a monthly , the next one is on Feb 23rd.

Cedar Sigo, Simon Wolf.

Photo Credits: Joel Sigo and Wayne Buck

The post Cedar Sigo and Simon Wolf new collaboration – Occasional Objects appeared first on School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences.

Chicago editor and book blogger, Leslie Lindsey, interviewed Nicole McCarthy (MFA ’17) about her book, A Summoning, diving into the intricacies of living in and writing about memory.

Leslie: I want to end with the crux of the entire book: life (including loss, love, and trauma) is encapsulated in this nebulous concept of memory. It’s at once fresh and tainted, blank and demented. There is a sense of mourning, but also hope. You end with leaving “deep invisible tracks.� What do you see as something we leave behind? Is it tangible—a house, a book, a photograph, or something more elusive?

Nicole: I honestly think we leave nothing behind. Yes, there are photos and videos, but how many people, outside our immediate family, will hold onto and cherish them? Without the memories attached to the objects, people have no reason to keep them. We have photographic evidence that’ll live forever online, but it’s detached; it becomes purely referential.

With memories that we build with others, it becomes a situation of scarcity. We store memories in others, moments that capture who we are and why we’re loved. You can be a conversation starter between two people who mutually know you, and the exchange of memories begins. But as we age and we start losing loved ones, we also lose memories. I was once talking to a friend who lost her husband over a decade ago. She had recently lost a very close friend of hers and she said, “She was the last person who knew my former husband. All those memories are gone.� Now she is the only one who has them in the catalogs of her memory. But I think there’s something so beautiful about that; our legacy is ephemeral.

Read the rest of the !

This is part of McCarthy’s collaboration with Craft Literary, which also includes being a judge for their .

The post MFA Alum Nicole McCarthy (MFA ’17) Interviewed in CRAFT appeared first on School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences.

The idea for this series came to Emily in a dream in which she wrote “the poetry séance” on a post-it note and stuck it to the window above her writing desk. Though the post-it note remained a phantom of her subconscious, the phrase itself manifested into, as she likes to put it, “real voices in a real room.” Emily’s ongoing vision is to create ever-evolving, intimate, and connective experiences in which both audiences and artists can share in the space of poetry, constructed collectively. Each event is curated specially, with thoughtfulness around how the artists’ work is in conversation and with curiosity around how this community can change and grow. She is driven by her deep belief in poetry as a force that “heals, transforms, and illuminates.”

Emily is excited to hear from anyone who wants to be involved in this ongoing series, whether your interest is in performing, workshopping, attending, or supporting. You can find more information about The Poetry Séance, be added to her mailing list, and contact her through her Instagram .

The post Emily J. Mundy curates the third show of The Poetry Séance series appeared first on School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences.

Canadian poet, editor, and publisher, Rob McLennan, interviewed Nicole McCarthy (MFA ’17) about her new book, A Summoning, and the writing process that led to the book’s creation.

Rob: “Where does a poem usually begin for you?…”

Nicole: “It really depends on the project. My pieces usually begin with a sentence I’ve jotted down or a prompt/moment I’ve been dwelling on for a bit. I spend time developing the piece, giving it space to tell me what form it needs to take. Sometimes it comes out looking like a poem, most times it’s a micro essay. I’ll have a feeling in my gut whether or not it’s done. One time I sat on a micro essay for over a year because every time I revisited it, it didn’t have the impact I was hoping for and something about it felt hungry. Because it was about the illusion of love and betrayal, I ended up splicing the text with late 1800s drawings of magicians doing magic tricks. Then I felt in my gut it was done.”

Rob: “Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?”

Nicole: “Public readings are a big part of the process for me. In the way I think about how my text and visuals will lay out on a page, how I think about my use of white space, etc., I approach event venues and readings the same way. Being in-person with an audience brings the potential for additional layers to the work. One event I did focused on the 12-page overlapping memory piece that appears in my book, and I planted people in the audience to read; we took turns reading our parts until our voices overlapped and it was the coolest result. Another performance I did was for my second nonfiction collection. I threw myself a divorce (like someone would throw a wedding) in a Tudor-style mansion in Seattle. I had toast givers and my original wedding dress on a mannequin with photo props to encourage people to take pictures with it. I came into the performance with a 45-foot veil with wildflowers woven in before jumping right into the reading, and it was the most fun I had because I could feel this book take on another level and a new meaning for me. That wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t done a public reading. It’s my favorite part of the process.”

!

Nicole was also recently interviewed by Vol. 1 Brooklyn for their .

Last month also saw a micro essay of McCarthy’s being published at .

The post Rob McLennan interviews Nicole McCarthy (MFA 2017) about writing and A Summoning appeared first on School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences.

(All images taken by Marc Studer, 56³Ô¹ÏÍøB Advancement, January 2023)

On Wednesday, January 25th, 2023, Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies (GWSS) Co-Directors Julie Shayne and Alka Kurian and GWSS Student Representatives Henry Ngyuen and Audriannah Horne hosted the Social Justice Career Panel at the North Creek Events Center.

The Social Justice Career Panel presented three Alumni who graduated from the School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences to lead an informal discussion about their careers after they departed from 56³Ô¹ÏÍøB. The panelists included Estephanie Guzman (Gender Women & Sexuality Studies, 2020), Manveer Sandhu (Law, Economics, & Public Policy, 2014), and Mary Jane Topash (Master of Arts in Cultural Studies, 2017).

After a brief introduction from Dr. Shayne, the Panelists opened with an overview of their time as students at 56³Ô¹ÏÍøB and after their departure. The Panelists each gave a piece of advice for students on how they can best use their time at 56³Ô¹ÏÍøB to help advance their careers. Those messages included: applying for internships (Guzman), seizing every opportunity available and seeing where it takes you (Sandhu), as well as knowing where you don’t want to be in your life and taking opportunities to study abroad and expand your horizons (Topash). After their introductions, Dr. Kurian opened a Q&A session for the students.

On behalf of IAS, we would love to thank Career Services for co-sponsoring, and GWSS for hosting this event!

The post GWSS Hosts the Social Justice Career Panel appeared first on School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences.

School of IAS alumnus Brent Cox (MFA '17) is happy to announce the release of TPRI #1. TPRI, , is an autonomous research collective devoted to the study of poetics. This first issue, edited by Brent, is part newsletter and part journal, featuring poetry, poetics, and news about TPRI’s activities over the past several years, including presentations at 56³Ô¹ÏÍø’s : A Festival of Innovative Writing; , organized by Brent Cox, Simon Eales, and Courtlin Byrd at Ilaria Mazzoleni’s in Val Taleggio, Italy; and , a conversational podcast on poetics featuring regular contributors Brent Cox, Courtlin Byrd, Simon Eales, and Zack Brown, with episodes on N.H. Pritchard, Adrian Piper, Peli Grietzer, Georges Bataille, and more, along with guests Travis Sharp (MFA '15), Jake Reber, Anna Aksenova, and Joanna MÄ…kowska, Blair Johnson, and more.

Issue #1 also features a report from Corbin Louis (MFA '17), and a chapter excerpt by Amanda Hurtado (MFA '17), “Susan Howe: A Poetics of Motion and Measure,” from her in-progress dissertation on a poetics of the literal measure. Other work in the issue includes Kathleen Naughton on Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, Simon Eales on the retirement of Steve McCaffery and Karen Mac Cormack, , Zak Byrd on “scanimations,” poetry from Nepenthean Palaver, and an excerpt from Blair Johnson’s “The Overlap of Three Translations of Kafka’s Metamorphosis (and Other Stories).”

TPRI is available for order at and will be shipping soon.

You can follow TPRI on instagram.

After graduating from 56³Ô¹ÏÍø Bothell, Brent began PhD work in SUNY-Bufallo’ poetics program. He will soon be defending his dissertation, Infrastructuralist Writing, mounting a theory of poetics as an ongoing transformative topological figure in four-dimensional (at least) spacetime, and providing poetic “interstandings” with work by Holly Melgard, Craig Dworkin, Louis Zukofsky, Kamau Brathwaite, Asiya Wadud, and Jose-Luis Moctezuma. In addition to this work, Brent has also been developing a “theory of video-poetic criticism,” and has presented video-critical analyses at many conferences, including most recently a video on Kamau Brathwaite’s Sycorax Video-Style at the University of Cambridge’s graduate English conference, in part derived from research conducted at University of Colorado Boulder’s , a video that has just been published by , the critical publishing platform of The New Center. This year he also presented “Toward a Theory of Video-Poetic Criticism” at The Electronic Literature Organization’s 2022 conference in Lake Como, Italy. He has collaborated with Courtlin Byrd on a Max/MSP/algorithmic engagement with Louis Zukofsky’s “A”-9 that will be featured in , a journal of poetics based in Stockholm, Sweden, in a special issue on poetry and sound edited by Michael Nardone at the Concordia University’s Centre for Expanded Poetics. And he has recently had design work published with his ecopoetical colleagues as public art in Bergamo, Italy, as part of initiative in collaboration with the Bergamo City Cultural Center.

See some of Brent's other recent projects at , , , and .

The post MFA Alum Brent Cox launches The Topological Poetics Research Institute appeared first on School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences.