Rutgers MFA Students Making a Mark in the Art Scene

(Newark, NJ, May 7, 2008) – Several students in the Rutgers-Newark Masters of Fine Arts (MFA) Program are making a splash with their creative work, garnering awards and attention from the Hurston/Wright Foundation, The Whitney Museum, and The Paris Review.

Chidi Asoluka, an MFA student from Newark, has been chosen as one of the two finalists in the 2008 Hurston/Wright Award for College Writers for his novel excerpt, "Exchange."  Asoluka, who is studying fiction writing, will be awarded a $500 cash prize at the annual Hurston Wright Awards Ceremony on July 25 in Washington, D.C. He will attend the Hurston Wright Writers Week Workshop in American University the week of July 20.

Fellow MFA fiction student, Ryan McIlvain, is featured in the Spring 2008 issue of The Paris Review, an English-language literary magazine, which published his short story, "Keep It Bible."  The story can be read at the magazine’s website,  http://theparisreview.com.  McIlvain is a resident of Florham Park, N.J.

Jacob T. McCall, an MFA poetry student from Deerfield Beach, Fla., has been invited to participate as a host in this year's Whitney Biennial, an exhibition of contemporary American art, by younger lesser-known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum in New York City.  He will host an independent, artist-run radio project, "The Rutgers Reading Hour," providing an alternative media platform for artists, activists, musicians and community members.  The hour-long radio program will feature MFA students and will be produced in the storefront adjacent to the Whitney. Listeners will be able to tune to the show live, either online or at 91.9 FM. The program will take place May 10 and May 23 at 3 p.m. - 4 p.m.

McCall is a previous winner of the Miami Herald Silver Knight Award in English Literature. The Miami Silver Knight Awards are given annually, in several categories, to a select group of students for their outstanding service to school and community.

For more information, please contact Carla Capizzi, 973-353-5262, or capizzi@rutgers.edu.

The Rutgers-Newark Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program offered its first classes in fall 2007 and already is being hailed as one of the “Five Up-and Coming Programs in Creative Writing in the U.S.” (The Atlantic Magazine, 2007 Fiction/Summer Reading issue). The MFA features the Writers at Newark Reading Series as well as a wide range of electives taught by Rutgers scholars, and workshops by an accomplished writing faculty. One especially innovative aspect of the program requires students to complete an electives concentration in either literature/book arts, performance/media studies, or in cultural/political studies, to complement their writing work. For more information on the MFA in creative Writing at Rutgers in Newark, please go to: http://mfa.newark.rutgers.edu/index.htm