UW-Green Bay’s Meacham wins literary journal contest for flash fiction chapbook

UW-Green Bay Associate Prof. Rebecca Meacham, English and Humanistic Studies, has won a literary journal contest award for her chapbook of flash fiction, which will be published in early March.

“Morbid Curiosities” earned top honors in the chapbook contest of New Delta Review, a literary journal produced by graduate students in the Master of Fine Arts program at Louisiana State University. Meacham’s work consists of 14 stories that are between 290 and 1,000 words long, in keeping with the style of flash fiction, which generally describes very short stories. The entire chapbook will be about 45 pages long.

Meacham’s collection explores the line between private loss and public spectacle in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, with stories often imagined from found things: suitcases, watches, news headlines, school spellers. Events range from the mundane to the extraordinary, with one tale imagining the voices behind the suitcases of inmates in a New York insane asylum from 1910 until 1960. Another story uses the language of an 1870s primer to help students seek revenge on a cruel schoolmaster, while yet another assumes the point of view of a tornado. Twelve of 14 of the collection’s stories have been, or will be, published in journals. Many are available online, and can be accessed via Meacham’s website, http://rebeccameachamwriter.com.

The New Delta Review award was chosen by Mark Yakich, writer and professor of English at Loyola University New Orleans. In reviewing the collection, Yakich reflects on how Meacham uses death and irony in her works of flash fiction: “What I glean most of all here is that while many of us live lives of intentional or unintentional irony, it is death that best ‘enfold[s] the layers of irony’ we’ve lived. As at the end of the story ‘Mrs. Williamson Winds the Watch,’ we view death ‘surprised’ and something to ‘back away’ from, but also we often find ourselves ‘smiling’ to endure morbidity: ‘giddy as a girl carrying the sun in her pocket, poised on the brink of radiance.’ “ That story is one of two set in Wisconsin, written as Meacham was researching the infamous Peshtigo Fire of 1871.

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Designer Spotlight – Addie Sorbo

Addie Sorbo, president of Strawberry Fields Design and lecturer in graphic design and two-dimensional design at her alma mater UW-Green Bay, was featured in the AAF Fox River Ad Club’s Designer Spotlight. She talks about her new e-commerce business, ScriptCharms, and shares some insight on what it takes to launch a new business: http://aaffoxriver.org/designer-spotlight-addie-sorbo/

Huh publication

Economist Yunsun Huh, an assistant professor of Democracy and
Justice Studies, and Women’s and Gender Studies, is the author of the lead
article in the December 2013 edition of The Journal of Women and
Economics. Her paper’s title is “Gender Equality, Economic Development, and
Labor Market Success of East Asian Migrants.” It examines the U.S. labor market
performance of East Asian migrants (from Korea, Japan and China) from a gendered
perspective. Analyzing the motivating factors, Huh compares the status of
development and women’s empowerment and subsequent labor market outcomes. The
results show human capital factors and home country gender equality play
significant roles in shaping outcomes.

Success by design: A big year at the Addys for UW-Green Bay

A UW-Green Bay student is advancing to the national American Advertising Federation Addy Awards competition, having qualified at the district level earlier this year.

Senior Matt Vanden Boomen is one of two UW-Green Bay graphic design students — along with fellow senior Sarah Schrader — who were honored during the district awards ceremony, held in February at Lawrence University in Appleton. Two faculty members — Toni Damkoehler and Addie Sorbo — also took home Addy Awards during the event, which recognizes outstanding student and faculty work in advertising.

Vanden Boomen (pictured above) is a senior Design Arts major who received two Student Silver awards and one Student Gold award at the district competition. The Student Gold designation automatically qualifies his piece to be judged at the national level, with awards presented June 8 during the AAF’s national conference in Phoenix.

Receiving three trophies during the district-level Addy gala is notable because even professional designers rarely receive even two, organizers say. Vanden Boomen remains humble despite the success, he looks toward the future and how the designation may turn the heads of potential employers.

“The company I was interning for offered me a paid position soon after they found out about my work winning awards at the Addys,” Vanden Boomen said. “This accomplishment will definitely set me a part from others designers in the future, too.”

Vanden Boomen received Student Silver medals for his Design Studio III coffee shop “404” campaign and for his Design Studio III “Mustache Milk” men’s cologne package design. The Student Gold medal was awarded for his part in the graphic design of last fall’s issue of UW-Green Bay’s student produced magazine, the Sheepshead Review.

Designing the Sheepshead Review is a collaboration among many students and a faculty adviser, Vanden Boomen said. He was the creative editor on the project, while fellow student Jake Jenkins participated in the effort as the journal’s chief layout editor. The student editor-in-chief, Kelsey Duquaine, gave input into the final product, and faculty advisor Chuck Rybak, English and Humanistic Studies, was also key during the design process, Vanden Boomen said.

Schrader (pictured left), a senior Design Arts major, was recognized for her work in advertising design. No stranger to the Addys, Schrader received a district Student Silver Award for the second consecutive year. She noted that her time at UW-Green Bay has been filled with opportunities to pursue goals outside of academics, and she insists every student should do more than just class work. Earning recognition during the Addys was that something extra for Schrader.

“This is a recognizable award, it’s not just a local event, it’s possible to receive national attention,” Schrader said. “Everyone is striving for it.”

Schrader received Student Silver for her “Open MIC Night” poster for the University Union, where she is a graphic designer.

The image of the brooding artist doesn’t accurately describe Vanden Boomen or Schrader. Their creative process allows for constant change and adaptation, both say. Each year the Addys come around and the two students set out to find their best work from the previous year.

“I don’t design anything with the intention of entering it,” Schrader said. “I prefer to review my previous year’s work, and then decide which has been my strongest piece.”

UW-Green Bay students weren’t the only ones hauling in the hardware during the annual gala. Associate Prof. Toni Damkoehler received three awards during the Feb. 28 ceremony. Damkoehler, a UW-Green Bay alumna and current faculty member in the Design Arts department, earned a Gold Addy and two Silver Addys for designing a promotional poster for the UW-Green Bay Theatre program. Her creation of a poster illustration for the UW-Green Bay Theatre and Music production of Gone Missing was awarded with a Gold Addy. The same poster received a Silver Addy in the “advertising for the arts” category. Finally, Damkoehler’s work on UW-Green Bay Theatre’s bobrauchenbergamerica poster was awarded a Silver Addy.

Another UW-Green Bay alumna, lecturer Addie Sorbo, received a Silver Addy award for her design of the poster used during the advertising campaign for the 2012 production of UW-Green Bay Theatre and Music’s Cabaret.

Professor Emeritus Goff, nationally published

March 2013: “Associate Prof. Victoria Goff (Communication and History) is one of several nationally recognized journalism professors whose work is included in Editing Across Media: Content and Process for Print and Online Publication, which will be released this month. Goff, who has been the editor of the award-winning history magazine Voyageur for 19 years and the adviser of the Fourth Estate student newspaper, wrote a chapter that pulled the book’s other chapters together in a final project—editing a magazine.”

From UWGB Inside Newsroom: http://news.uwgb.edu/log-news/faculty-staff/03/11/faculty-note-goff-4/

Goff’s interest in both communication and history, along with global studies and ethnic influences, demonstrates the value of considering multiple disciplines in the study of Hispanic-American Journalism. Furthermore, Goff has involved student research assistants in her work, offering students a hands-on research experience.