MFA Writers Published in Choice Anthology

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

VISITING WRITER FRANCINE PROSE AND
MFA FACULTY MEMBER KATHERINE TOWLER

PUBLISHED IN CHOICE ANTHOLOGY

Manchester, N.H. (January 13, 2009) – A recent collection of essays by women writers on reproductive choices brings together the work of Southern New Hampshire University faculty member Katherine Towler and Francine Prose, visiting writer for this year’s summer residency for the M.F.A. Program in Writing.  Choice: True Stories of Birth, Contraception, Infertility, Adoption, Single Parenthood, and Abortion features such renowned authors as Jacquelyn Mitchard, Pam Houston, Ann Hood, and Sarah Messer. The anthology seeks to offer a personal perspective on the political issue of choice through true stories from women about the real, human questions involved.  Vanity Fair says of the book, “From adoption to abortion, birth to infertility, Karen E. Bender and Nina de Gramont’s anthology of stunningly honest essays encompasses all the contradictions and complicated emotions surrounding choice.”

“I received a notice from the editors that they were looking for an essay by a woman who had chosen not to have children,” Towler says of her involvement in the project.  “I had never thought of writing about the fact that I chose not to have children, but once I started writing, I realized how much I had to say about the topic. It was liberating to write about something people shy away from talking about.”

Towler, who has taught in the M.F.A. Program in Writing at SNHU since 2006, is author of the novels Snow Island and Evening Ferry. She has received fellowships from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, and Phillips Exeter Academy, where she served as the writer-in-residence and Bennett Fellow. She is currently completing the third volume of her Snow Island trilogy.

Prose, who will join the M.F.A. faculty in 2009 as a visiting writer, is author of the New York Times bestseller "Reading Like a Writer," as well as 14 books of fiction, including A Changed Man, winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and Blue Angel, a finalist for the National Book Award. A distinguished critic and essayist, she has taught literature and writing for more than 20 years at major universities. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, GQ, and The Paris Review; she is a contributing editor at Harper's and writes regularly on art for the Wall Street Journal.

About Southern New Hampshire University

The university has approximately 1,900 traditional, full-time undergraduate day students and a total enrollment in all divisions of about 9,425. Programs are offered on campus, online and on location at our centers in New Hampshire and Maine. The university offers programs in business, community economic development, culinary arts, teacher education, hospitality management and liberal arts.