Writing for Children and Young Adults is our cross-genre area.
Watch Over Me by Nina LaCour is our residency book in common.
by Kathleen Driskell, Chair, Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing
As we turn to finalizing curriculum plans for our spring residency May 24 – 31, I’m delighted to announce that this spring’s cross-genre area is Writing for Children and Young Adults and our Residency Book in Common is Watch Over Me by Nina LaCour, best-selling and award-winning author of many books for children and young adults. Ms. LaCour has been named as our distinguished visiting writer for the Spring residency as well.
The YA novel Watch Over Me is described as “a modern ghost story about trauma and survival and is the much-anticipated . . . novel from the Printz Award-winning author of We Are Okay.”
I’ll be honest: I fell for this book in a big way. I find it atmospheric, literary, syntactically elegant, and full of tension. Its narrative is wonderfully complex and unified, satisfying me as both a reader and writer. I’m very much looking forward to hearing student and faculty thoughts on Watch Over Me during our opening evening’s discussion on Saturday, May 24.
At 6:00 p.m. Tuesday, May 27, our distinguished visiting writer Ms. LaCour visits the Naslund-Mann residency to discuss her work with our literary community. Her talk will be presented at the Louisville Free Public Library’s Main Campus on York Street. The public is cordially invited to attend this presentation, a partnership between Spalding University and the Louisville Free Public Library. A book-signing will follow with books provided by our Naslund-Mann partner Carmichael’s Bookstore. Free parking is available to the public.
The next morning, Wednesday, May 28, at 9:00 a.m., Ms. LaCour offers a Q & A session open only to Naslund-Mann students, faculty, and alumni.
Nina LaCour is the bestselling Michael L. Printz Award and Lambda Literary Award-winning author of picture books, a chapter book series, young adult novels, and adult literary fiction. Her novel We Are Okay was named one of Time Magazine’s Top 100 YA Novels of All Time. Garnering starred reviews from Kirkus, Publisher’s Weekly, BookPage, Booklist, and others, Ms. LaCour’s books have been translated into over a dozen languages.
Born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Ms. LaCour received her undergraduate degree from San Francisco State University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College. Her graduate thesis became her first novel, Hold Still, which received a William Morris honor from the American Library Association.
Ms. LaCour has taught, guest lectured, and appeared at conferences and conventions across the country and internationally. Her novels have been Junior Library Guild selections and ALA Best Books for Young Adults and have been named among the best books of the year by the Boston Globe, Seventeen, Booklist, Bustle, Publishers Weekly, and the New York Public Library, among others. She won the 2009 Northern California Book Award for Children’s Literature and was featured in Publishers Weekly as a Flying Starts Author.
Ms. LaCour loves cooking, gardening, and day tripping through the ever-inspiring regions of Northern California with her wife and their daughter. She lives in San Francisco.
Each student and faculty member reads Watch Over Me in advance of residency to prepare for our book-in-common discussion and Ms. LaCour’s presentations to our community. Students should place Watch Over Me in the bibliographies of their Student Career Curriculum Vitae.
Required virtual pre-lecture, Sunday, April 13, 2:00 – 3:00 p.m. Eastern: "The World of Kidlit: An Overview of Writing for Children and Young Adults"
Naslund-Mann faculty member Leah Henderson presents the virtual pre-lecture in writing for children and young adults to better prepare students to read our book in common, Watch Over Me. She describes her talk “The World of Kidlit: An Overview of Writing for Children and Young Adults" in this way: “In order to write successful and beloved books for children and teens, one must not only understand the elements that make any story great—compelling characters, unforgettable plots, captivating worldbuilding, engaging settings, and unique voices—one needs to be able to step inside the mind of a young person. Recognize the complexity of their experiences and find what they will connect with that mirrors the intricate landscape of childhood and adolescence. Books for children and young adults are not only beloved and remembered stories, they also have a long history of pushing the boundaries of conversations. During this lecture, we will explore this rich history as well as discuss the various genres and age categories within the world of kidlit in order to better understand the breadth and wonder of the space.”
A link to the Zoom session will be posted in the Residency card on Canvas ahead of the lecture. Students unable to attend this lecture on April 13 can watch a recording of it, to be posted on Canvas just after the lecture. All students are required to submit a short lecture report after the pre-lecture, much like the lecture reports they complete for residency. (The report link will be sent to students’ spalding.edu email addresses.) The deadline for Spring 2025 residency students to submit the lecture report is May 13.
Faculty Books and Scripts in Common for Spring 2025
In addition to reading our residency book in common, all students should read the faculty book or script in common in the workshop area of their Spring 2025 residency to prepare for the virtual discussion that will take place 3:00 – 4:00 pm Eastern, Sunday, May 4, just after your virtual introductory workshop session with your faculty leader. Zoom meeting links will be posted in the Residency card on Canvas no later than the week before our discussions on May 4.
The faculty books and scripts in common for this spring's residency are:
Fiction: Elaine Neil Orr’s Dancing Woman
Poetry: Kathleen Driskell’s Goat-Footed Gods
Creative Nonfiction: Guest Hannah Pittard's We Are Too Many: A Memoir [Kind of]
Writing for Children/YA: Nancy McCabe’s Fires Burning Underground (out April 8)
Screenwriting: Bruce Marshall Romans’s script, TBA
Playwriting: Guest Brett Neveu’s Revolution: A Play
Students, I hope you enjoy reading and thinking about Watch Over Me as much as I have, as well as the faculty books and scripts in common in your residency area. We’re busily planning a wonderfully enriching Spring 2025 residency for you and are looking forward to being with you soon!
Kathleen Driskell, Chair of Spalding University’s Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing and Professor of Creative Writing, is an award-winning poet and essayist. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, River Teeth, Appalachian Review, Southern Review, Shenandoah, Rattle, and other magazines. She is the author of six poetry collections, most recently Goat-Footed Gods (Carnegie Mellon University Press), The Vine Temple (Carnegie Mellon), and Next Door to the Dead (University Press of Kentucky), winner of the Judy Gaines Young Book Award. Her Seed Across Snow (Red Hen Press) was named a Poetry Foundation Bestseller. She served as Chair of the Board of Directors of AWP, the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, from 2019 to 2022.
© Good River Review 2021