Author Archives: Gandy Dancer Staff

by | November 6, 2016 · 7:43 pm

Gandy Dancer and Beyond: the Debut of Dante Di Stefano

Posted by Erin Carlo, GD Public Relations Manager and Fiction Reader for 5.1Dante Di Stefano, Collection Debut

Gandy Dancers past and present are thrilled to announce the debut of one of our very talented contributors, Dante Di Stefano, in his collection of poetry, Love is a Stone Endlessly in Flight.  You can find a copy on Amazon here.  Dante graced the pages of Gandy Dancer  Issue 3.2 and Issue 4.1 with his poetry, and he has won awards such as the Thayer Fellowship in the Arts, the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award, the Phyllis Smart-Young Prize in Poetry, and an Academy of American Poets College Prize.  Aside from Gandy Dancer, Dante’s work has appeared in Shenandoah, The Writer’s Chronicle, Obsidian: Literature in the African Diaspora, Brilliant Corners, and The Southern California Review.  He earned his Ph.D. in creative writing from the State University of New York at Binghamton and is now a high school English teacher in Endicott, New York.Dante Di Stefano, Collection Debut

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by | November 5, 2016 · 9:00 am

“How to Poem”: An Interview with Gandy Dancer Contributor Ashley Olin

Posted by Rachel Powers, GD Poetry Reader for 5.1

 

Ashley Olin - Poem

From Miley Cyrus to “Wikipedia-ing,” Gandy Dancer’s former contributor discusses the writing process behind her poems.

We are excited for the chance to visit with former Gandy Dancer 3.1 contributor, Ashley Olin. Although Ashley no longer travels across Geneseo’s college green to get to poetry workshops, her time as an undergraduate student at SUNY Geneseo has shaped her unique writing process. From surfing Wikipedia to finding inspiration in pop culture, Ashley shares some sources of inspiration for her poems. Continue reading →

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by | October 31, 2016 · 9:00 am

Creating Autumn

Posted by Lexi Sammler,  GD Creative Nonfiction Section Head for 5.1

Creating Autumn in Nature and WritingFrom a young age, I discovered the ability to lose myself in nature. I pride myself in stopping to smell the flowers, going on walks in the woods, and embracing the quiet sounds of nature.  Each step I have made through crunching leaves has allowed me to better myself as a writer. I have learned to appreciate and meditate in nature beyond the small creatures of the forest. I am thankful for all the green grass in my life, the cool breezes, and the reminder of my childhood that comes from stepping outside. Continue reading →

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by | October 26, 2016 · 9:00 am

A Short Review of Heirlooms Followed by an Interview with Rachel Hall

HeirloomsPosted by Grace Ventura, GD Fiction Reader for 5.1

This past September, Gandy Dancer’s own faculty advisor Rachel Hall, had her collection of stories, Heirlooms, published. Heirlooms consists of stories written from the fictional viewpoint of Rachel’s mother and grandparents. The characters in the stories are Jewish and escape from an Occupied territory in France during World War II. In every story Rachel has recreated her family’s history; some of the information is true and some of it is stretched, but that’s the beauty of fiction. Continue reading →

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by | October 21, 2016 · 12:07 pm

Laying the Groundwork: The Importance of Opening Lines in Crafting Atmosphere

Posted by Morgan Staub, GD Creative Nonfiction Reader for 5.1

“Not a wasted word. This has been a main point to my literary thinking all my life.” 

                        —Hunter S. Thompson

“Call me Ishmael.” “124 was spiteful.” “Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.” The literary nerds out there, such as myself, recognize that these opening sentences set the tone of the story to follow. Used to express tension, style, or character, these opening lines raise the bar of expectations for the narrative. While these lines are novel openings, the same can be said for short story openings, with the difference being that in the latter medium, there is less room to expand. When we write short stories, it is even more vital to use the first few lines of the story to set the tone for what will follow. Continue reading →

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by | October 15, 2016 · 9:00 am

Finding a Voice Within Yourself

Posted by Giovanni Madonna, GD Fiction Reader for 5.1

Non-fiction has always been something of a gray zone for me because of how different it is from fiction. I’ve always loved the freedom that fiction allows, so when I entered into a non-fiction workshop this semester I was more than a bit intimidated. It was like having a smart phone and then suddenly having it taken away and replaced with one of those paper-thin flip phones that could do little more than call your parents. I started to wonder what I could write about, what would stick out, or be worth putting down. It took some time for me to realize I was asking the wrong questions. With nonfiction, it’s not a matter of finding the flashiest or most shocking events (though a good narrative could exist in those too), but about being willing and able to present yourself, your true self, to an unknown audience. And at the center of this necessary honesty is voice, the way the narrator sounds on the page and ultimately the unique personal lens that they present the essay through. Continue reading →

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by | October 11, 2016 · 8:47 am

Writing and Cultural Appropriation

Posted by Joshua DeJoy, GD Creative Nonfiction Reader for 5.1

Lionel Shriver photo by Daniel Seed for The Guardian - Writing and Cultural Appropriation

Lionel Shriver photo by Daniel Seed for The Guardian

Can fiction authors write outside of their own experiences? To ask the question is to answer it: Of course! It’s fiction, isn’t it? 

At least, that’s what American-born novelist Lionel Shriver argued at the Brisbane Writers Festival on September 8 in her keynote address, “Fiction and Identity Politics,” which deals extensively with the concept of cultural appropriation.  I think her speech is worth reading in full, but I’ll attempt to summarize it: fiction writers have to use experiences outside of their own in order to write compelling fiction. “This is a disrespectful vocation by its nature—prying, voyeuristic, kleptomaniacal, and presumptuous. And that is fiction writing at its best,” Shriver says. Continue reading →

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by | October 6, 2016 · 1:00 pm

Guerrilla, an expensive French Macaroon, and others at the Fringe Festival

Posted by Diego Barcacel Pena, GD Poetry Reader for 5.1

Rochester Fringe Festival

A transformed poem at the Rochester Fringe Festival.

The ride to the Rochester Fringe Festival was stormy, filled with great impressions, and witness to bad puns. As we passed a yard sale, I said, “Wouldn’t it be funny if you went to a yard sale and asked them how much the yard was?” No one laughed. A fringe festival is a festival that celebrates and promotes art by displaying it to the public. There are so many things to see at a fringe festival that you might get overwhelmed. It lasts for about a week promoting the artistic side of Rochester.

When we arrived at the corner of Main and Gibbs where the Spiegel Garden was located, we were met with wet tents and even wetter tables and chairs. We, Guerrilla Geneseo, were at the Fringe Festival to showcase SUNY Geneseo student’s art. Our biggest selling point was Magnetic Poetry. The idea of Magnetic Poetry is that on five home-made blackboards we would display five different SUNY Geneseo poems and have the participants of the Fringe Festival rearrange them as they saw fit. Here’s a sampling of some of the best lines that emerged from Magnetic Poetry: Continue reading →

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by | October 4, 2016 · 1:00 pm

Finding Inspiration

Posted by Pam Haas, GD Poetry Reader for 5.1

As a writer, I’m constantly looking around for different sources to draw inspiration from. Recently, however, I’ve had a bit of a block. Every writer knows that feeling when the muse has abandoned them and nothing seems like poetry, or when the day feels too dreary and drippy to compose a satisfying painting. So to combat writer’s block for myself and anyone who may be similarly searching around for creative encouragement, I asked a few fellow student writers at SUNY Geneseo to respond to the question: Where do you get your inspiration from? This is what they have to say: Continue reading →

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by | October 2, 2016 · 10:36 pm

Introducing Gandy Dancer’s Section Heads for Issue 5.1

Posted by Marley DeRosia, GD Fiction Reader for 5.1

It’s that time of the year! The new Gandy Dancer staff is starting to pick up speed as our submission deadline draws to a close, along with the dying rays of summer heat (thank goodness!) As we all settle in with our warm mugs of coffee or cider, we’ll begin reading and assessing the quality and craft of the pieces submitted. For those of you considering submitting, we’ve extended our deadline to October 8th! To get us ready to read, I asked the section heads some hard-hitting questions. This year’s fiction editor is Sarah Steil, the poetry head is Robbie Held, and the creative nonfiction editor Alexis Sammler. Here’s what these clever individuals had to say about their goals for Gandy Dancer and their reading interests:

Marley DeRosia: Sarah, what do you hope to accomplish as the Fiction Section head for this edition’s issue?

Sarah Steil:  I hope to feature different voices/writers that offer stories so powerful I need to go take a walk after reading them. There are always some poems/stories that move me so greatly that I think how did they do that?, and then, how can I do that, too? I want every fiction story featured in Gandy Dancer to, metaphorically, punch the reader in the face.

MD: What made you want to be the fiction editor this semester? Have you had experience writing or publishing fiction in the past? Continue reading →

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