A Pint for Pat

So, remember that time, way back, when we posted Five Questions with Pat Byrne? Good times.

It is with a great sigh of regret that we acknowledge the sad fact that Pat is retiring--has, technically, retired as of this past December. We will miss his wit, his erudition, his great love for literature and folklore, for music and all things Newfoundland, and perhaps above all his unfailing good humour and common sense.

If you are currently in St. John's, we invite you to come out for A Pint for Pat tomorrow (Thursday, March 29) at Bitters Pub, located in Feild Hall (216 Prince Philip Dr.). Come out, have pint for (and with) Pat, and celebrate his long and distinguished career with the English Department.

No speeches allowed.

Five Questions: Dr. Andrew Loman

Andrew Loman teaches and writes about nineteenth century American literature, but also makes frequent scholarly forays into the worlds of film, theatre, and graphic novels. Originally hailing from Calgary, he received his undergraduate degree from the University of Victoria and his MA and PhD from Queens University. He was hired by the Department of English in 2006.

1. What was your best grad school experience?

The first week of the PhD program. My MA was a bad experience (see 4, below), and I spent two years licking my wounds and picking up odd research jobs around Vancouver before I decided to return. I wasn’t sure I’d made the right decision until I started my courses. It was like slipping into a warm bath.


2. What was your worst grad school experience?

The last year or so of the PhD program was tough. My program had stretched to six years: friends were graduating; funding had dried up; our beater finally died; and there was no clear end in sight to my dissertation. I spent one summer unable to pay rent, so I squatted in friends’ abandoned apartments while they went on to bright and promising academic lives. A sense that my grad school roll-of-the-dice had turned up snake’s eyes was pretty overwhelming. On the bright side, the post-fellowship grad school diet is radically slimming. (Self-pity isn’t, though. Alas.)


3. What was the place outside your home/apartment where you spent the most time?

I loitered in a lot of cafes, longing to eat the pastries.


4. What text/book did you do in grad school that you never, ever want to encounter again?

I’ve had an aversion to Middle-English Romance since performing abysmally – disastrously, Ragnarokally – in a course on the subject in my MA. My aversion is born of shame. But I still have Larry D. Benson’s edition of the Stanzaic Morte Arthur and the Alliterative Morte Arthur on my bookshelf, and someday I’ll crack the spine again and see if it time has washed that soil. “Ragnarokally,” by the way, is a perfectly respectable coinage, and I dedicate it to my colleague Bill Schipper, who took the same course from the same professor many years earlier, and who did very well in it, he tells me.

I’m not fond of H.D., either; I sold Helen in Egypt to a used bookstore in Vancouver, and when the cashier gave me a surprising sum for it, telling me that I had good books, I stared at him incredulously. I threw the money in his face and said, “Your aesthetic judgement is so terrible that I won’t accept your money!” And then I changed my mind, grabbed the thirty-five cents, and ran.


5. What was your grad school comfort food?

My family spent a year in Seattle while my wife worked on her MFA at the University of Washington. Whenever we were feeling irresponsible, we’d order a gorgonzola, pear, and walnut pizza from a local gourmet pizzeria: I know the combination sounds suspect, but it was perfect. I still miss that pizza; I was back in Seattle in January and discovered with deep woe (well, with some regret) that it’s no longer on the menu. There’s no respect for tradition anywhere.

Uncorked: Michael Crummey and Lisa Moore

This coming Wednesday, March 21st, the English Department's Uncorked speaker series presents writers Michael Crummey and Lisa Moore at one o'clock in room 2071 of the Arts and Administration Building. They will be speaking about "The Art of Publication," sharing their own experiences and advice on writing, publishing, and the ins and outs of the writing life. The session will be moderated by the department's own Larry Mathews.

For those familiar with the work of these two highly esteemed authors, that should probably be enough of a plug. But for the sake of better copy:

Michael Crummey is the author of Flesh and Blood, a collection of short stories, as well as four volumes of poetry and the novels River Thieves, The Wreckage, and Galore. Lisa Moore is the author of two short story collections, Degrees of Nakedness and Open, and two novels, Alligator and February. Both have been nominated for more prizes and awards than can reasonably be listed here, though we do feel the need to mention such names as "Giller," "Commonwealth Writers" and "Man Booker."

Besides being extraordinary prose stylists, they are both also -- the authors of this blog can emphatically testify -- really, really cool people. So if you're in town and free between one and two o'clock Wednesday afternoon, we hope to see you.


Uncorked is a speaker series sponsored by the Department of English and organized by the department's research committee. It is dedicated to bringing in a broad range of scholars, thinkers, and artists to discuss topics of both local and academic interest. "The Art of Publication" is the final session of the 2011-2012 academic year.

Life After Grad School: Melissa Halford

Well, this is something new ... when asked to write her blurb on life after grad school, Melissa Halford decided to do a video describing her time at MUN. Which means we are now creating a new category for video content, and we encourage our contributors to do, really, whatever the heck you want when it comes to posting about yourselves.

Five Questions: Dr. Larry Mathews

Larry Mathews was hired by Memorial in 1984 after completing his PhD at UBC. He has since become a singular presence in the St. John’s creative writing scene, a founding member of the legendary Burning Rock Fiction Collective (a writers’ group that includes names like Lisa Moore, Michael Winter, and Jessica Grant), and a pillar of the MUN English creative writing program. In 2010 he published the critically acclaimed novel The Artificial Newfoundlander.

1. What was your best grad school experience?

Bizarrely enough, it was my PhD oral! By some fluke, I was relaxed and confident, the questions were friendly, and there was an atmosphere of genuine collegiality. (Even my office mate, there as a spectator, was allowed to ask a question.) How and why everything turned out so well is something I’ve never been able to fathom. Wish I could bottle it.


2. What was your worst grad school experience?

In the first year of my PhD program, I failed a “Practical Criticism” exam. In fact six of the eight of us writing it failed, for reasons that were never satisfactorily explained. When cornered, the chair of the examining committee was a study in arrogant obfuscation. This was my first hint that there’s a whole sub-species of academic that actually enjoys exercising arbitrary power over students as they demonstrate what they regard as their intellectual superiority. Beware! They walk among us. (Footnote: two of the six who failed were writing the exam for the second time and were expelled from the program; the rest of us passed the next time, with a different committee in place.)



3. What was the place outside your home/apartment where you spent the most time?

During my MA program in Ottawa, I shared a house with three other guys. We spent a fair amount of time in downtown bars. During the PhD years in Vancouver, I couldn’t afford a car and spent what seemed like an eternity every day on the bus from Kitsilano to the UBC campus and return.



4. What text/book did you do in grad school that you never, ever want to encounter again?

None, really. (This was before the rise of theory.)


5. What was your grad school comfort food?

Sour grapes. (See #2 above.)

Grad Student Profile: Shane Beehan

Shane Beehan is in the second semester of his MA.

If you’ve ever woken up with sand in your underwear or you’ve been blinded by saltwater-and you come to think of these things as comfort feelings-there is a good chance you’ll never be able to leave the coastal life. Born in St. John’s, raised in Nova Scotia, and traveled across the continent, I feel a sense of belonging here out east more than anywhere else in the world. Memorial was my first choice for graduate studies, because among other reasons, St. John’s offers the perfect combination of isolation and community connectedness.

I came to Memorial to study Atlantic Canadian literature because the resources the university and the city offer are unmatched anywhere else in the country. When I’m not studying or avoiding potholes and errant drivers on my bike, I’m usually at Rob’s* drinking some Dominion Ale or down at The Ship for some great music. My favorite dinner in town (when Rob’s wife, Deanna, isn’t cooking) is India Gate. I never would have imagined St. John’s would offer me the finest Indian meal I’ve ever had, but this city is full of surprises.

If you were to sneak into my bedroom (I wouldn’t mind, really) you’d probably find multiple dog-eared collections of short stories lying by my bed. The best stories become new again with re-readings, so I’m always coming back to Lorrie Moore’s Self-Help, David Bezmozgis’ Natasha, and Lisa Moore’s Open. Before I go to bed and when I wake up in the morning I always try to read a single poem. I’m currently enjoying Sue Goyette’s Outskirts and Johanna Skibrud’s I Do Not Think I Could Love A Human Being. But my free time for personal reading is becomimg less and less, and, ironically, one of my current classes is to blame ... for introducing me to Deadwood.

Where will my MA take me? I’m not entirely sure yet, but it has already brought me here to St. John’s and introduced me to some amazing people. My degree is just a bonus.


*Fellow graduate student Robert Williams, profile coming soon. 

Life After Grad School: Danni Yetman

Danni Yetman graduated from Memorial's English Graduate program in 2009 and has been engaged in a series of (mis)adventures ever since. She currently works as a Federalis in Ottawa. On less enjoyable days, she imagines herself as Walter White (the character, not the activist).

As much as I enjoyed completing my Master's (and that's a lot), I was excited for the freedom I associated with a steady, professional schedule--working days, evenings to lounge with a glass of wine, enjoying whatever literary pursuits I fancied...

That was a lovely dream I had.

Since graduating from MUN, I've been fortunate to work as a program coordinator in the non-profit sector, and now with the federal public service where the running joke is:

"Hi Danni, staying out of trouble?"
"No."
"Good girl."

Between meetings, writing, and learning photoshop, my evenings revolve less around literature and vino as getting ahead for the next day when something urgent is almost guaranteed to arise. It's a surprising transition from professional student to just professional. Learning to create a work-life balance is not something you're likely to learn in graduate school, so perhaps I might ask my wonderful former professors to shoulder some of the blame for that quality/fault (which I heap upon you all with the utmost gratitude). But the endurance you will develop will serve you well in most any sphere. Since moving to Ottawa, I've had great motivation to create a bit more balance in the interest of life: new restaurants to try, galleries to explore, and, of course, trouble to find. With all of that, where does one find the time for words?

The great thing about literature: it is the most loyal friend, and will welcome you no matter how long it has been since you've passed an evening together. Books continue to offer refuge, whether after an awful day where everything I touched turned to shit, or a great and exhausting one where I can't remember if I took a pee break, let alone ate. The worlds and words of Edeet Ravel, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Zadie Smith are always ready and waiting to provide comfort, or if I'm lucky, a bit of discomfort.

Personally, I've been a sucker for novels and autobiography. But recently, on the recommendation of a wise and wonderful friend, I decided to read a bit of non-fiction. Elizabeth Abbott's A History of Marriage explores, as you probably gathered, the origins of marriage and the role of women in the household and society. Expertly woven with an interplay of personal histories, historical accounts, and literary illustrations, A History of Marriage provides a context to analyze the role of women in society that you already know, have probably even discussed at length, but her use of language and (clearly) extraordinary research ability turns a known story into a compelling read.

What I'm Reading and Listening to: Rebeccah Hearn

Rebeccah is in the second semester of her Masters degree. Originally from Pasadena, Newfoundland, she did her undergraduate degree at Wilfred Grenfell College in Corner Brook and Memorial.

I’ve just finished reading Jonathan Safran Foer’s debut novel, Everything is Illuminated, and my only complaint is that I didn’t read it sooner. Given the fact that I wrote my undergraduate thesis on postmodern holocaust narratives, I was fully expecting to be captivated by this novel. What I wasn’t expecting, however, was that it would be so incredibly hilarious. Everything is Illuminated centers around two young men: Jonathan Safran Foer, an American who has traveled to the Ukraine in search of the woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazis, and Alex Perchov, his Ukrainian translator and tour guide. The novel alternates between three narrative strands: Alex’s re-telling of his journey with Jonathan, Alex’s letters to Jonathan afterwards, and the magic-realist stories that Jonathan has written about his Ukrainian ancestors. Both Alex’s narrative and his letters to Jonathan are written in Alex’s hilariously flawed English, and require the reader himself to become a sort of translator, mimicking the difficulty of constructing narratives around traumatic events such as the Holocaust. Despite the comic relief that Alex’s diction provides, the story remains an incredibly moving portrayal of these two young men’s journey towards an understanding of their family histories.

One band that’s been getting a lot of time on my ipod lately is the Icelandic indie-pop group Of Monsters and Men. The best way to describe their music would be to say that if Florence + The Machine and Mumford and Sons had a love child, it would be Of Monsters and Men. They only have a four-song EP released so far, but their full-length album, My Head is An Animal, is scheduled to be released in North America in early April.

We Want to Hear From You

So we've been up and running for almost two weeks, and the feedback we've received has been amazing. Thanks to everyone who has emailed and contributed content. But we want more!

Any suggestions you have, or any contributions you may wish to make, please feel free to email us at mungradblog@gmail.com. We'd especially like to hear from former Memorial English grads--what are you doing now? What are you at?

One thing that was noted by a few people was that the comments function on this blog was limited to people with Google accounts; that has now been fixed. Anyone wishing to post a comment on anything we put up here can do so, and we'll do our best to cull whatever spam appears. So please: feel free to comment on our posts! Blogs are at their best when they inspire conversation and dialogue.

More student profiles, more 5 Questions, and news and postings about local and campus events coming up. Stay tuned!

Five Questions: Dr. Patrick Byrne

A native Newfoundlander, Pat Byrne was born in Great Paradise on Placentia Bay. He started his MA at Memorial in 1968, and was hired as an instructor in 1969. After spending some years working in the university administration, he got his PhD in 1993, and has since then been cross-appointed with the Department of Folklore. Pat has taught many graduate courses over the years, but has most frequently offered an extremely popular seminar on Utopias and Dystopias. Pat retired this past December after forty-two years with Memorial.

1. What was your best grad school experience?

See below.

2. What was your worst grad school experience?

I’ll respond to 1 & 2 together.  At the MA level the best experience was getting the green light to do a thesis on Heller’s Catch-22 at a time when it was being savaged by the reviewers.  The worst experience was trying to complete the thesis while teaching three semesters back to back.  At the PhD  level the worst experience was being told early in the programme, by a professor for whom I had a great deal of respect, that he did not think I was PhD material! The best experience was being approached by the same professor some months later with an offer to supervise my thesis.

3. What was the place outside your home/apartment where you spent the most time?

My MUN office...from 8 pm to 1 or 2 am...day after day after...etc.

4. What text/book did you do in grad school that you never, ever want to encounter again?

The Sorrow of the Lonely and theBurning of the Dancers by  Edward L. Schieffelin, with Sound and Sentiment: Birds, Weeping, Poetics, and  Song in Kaluli Expression by Steven Feld...both of which are excellent ethnographies, just not my cup of tea.

5. What was your grad school comfort food?

Screech ... still is.

What I'm Reading and Watching: Leia Feltham

Leia is in her third semester of her Masters. She is from St. John's, and did her Honours Degree in English at Memorial University.

I'm a huge nerd, and a prime area of interest for me are dystopias and science fiction. Philip K. Dick is my favorite author who writes in these genres, and many of his stories have been adapted into films, including one of my top ten picks Blade Runner.

I think it takes something special to write an effective short story, and I usually have a few collections on my nightstand. The Living Dead gives me my dose of zombies while I'm waiting for the next issue of The Walking Dead. Robert Boynton's The New New Journalism is a compilation of interviews with noteworthy reporters and offers insight into the approaches and techniques they've adopted which have made them successful. It's an interesting read for me because I've worked with a newspaper in the past and it was a great way for me to learn investigative skills and get over the phobia of having lots of people read my ideas. Then for something different there's Leonard Cohen's collection of poetry Book of Longing, which is good for the soul.

When I do have time for some television I've been watching Community, which has been filling the void that Arrested Development left. It's a wonderful combination of physical comedy and intelligent writing. It's worth the 20 minute viewing just to see the end credits with Troy and Abed. Not to mention Chevy Chase, who hasn't lost his touch. I will watch National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation any time of the year.