Several CSU English alumni have published new books in recent months, adding to a growing body of work shaped by varied literary interests and approaches. Their recent titles span poetry, translation, and crime fiction, reflecting the diverse creative paths alumni continue to take after their time in the department. Learn more about these exciting alumni publications, below.
Daniel Schonning (M.F.A. ’20) has released As When Waking through the University of Chicago Press. The collection is built around abecedarian structures—poems that move forward or backward through the alphabet—using this formal pattern to explore experiences of memory, family life, and encounters with natural and domestic landscapes.
Professor Dan Beachy-Quick gave the collection high praise, sharing, “Part love letter to the alphabet, part alphabet’s love letter to us, Schonning’s miraculous debut is one where miracle is nothing more and nothing less than opening our eyes—as if for the first time— after what had seemed an endless sleep.”
Read the title poem, originally published in Yale Review, here.
Carolina Bucheli Peñafiel’s (M.F.A. ’24) new poetry collection Cinturón de Fuego, published by Valparaíso Ediciones, follows a journey through regions connected to the Pacific “Ring of Fire.” The poems consider migration, dislocation, and the shifting nature of belonging, using volcanic and seismic imagery to reflect on the movement of people and the internal changes that accompany that movement. The book also examines how personal history and language shape one another in times of transition.
Lupe Mendez, Poet Laureate Emeritus of Texas, praised the book, noting “This collection of poems accompanies you, between seasons, reminding you that ‘there are certain things that not even spring can bring back.’ Carolina pushes you forward, with a voice that looks ahead with a notion: ‘Here I am, I still exist.’ May this book penetrate you with the same question that Bucheli Peñafiel considers: ‘What do you remember?'”
Alessio Piras, a teaching assistant in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of New Mexico, also shared that “Cinturón de fuego (Ring of Fire) gives us a powerful new poetic voice in the landscape of Latin American poetry in Spanish. This debut work is destined to leave a deep mark on those who approach it.”
Kathleen Willard (M.F.A. ’04) has three recent titles that continue her engagement with ecological, spiritual, and personal themes. The Next Noise Is Our Hearts (Middle Creek Publishing) draws together poems that address environmental change and endangered species, blending scientific information with observations of the natural world. Linda Joyce, an emeritus research ecologist for the USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, admired the book’s drive to act, sharing, “The reader is reminded that ‘the world floods with eerie beauty,’ that “small miracles” are right outside your back door, that beauty and wonder and ecological damage occur across the West. The subtext is go out into the world, you will be amazed and appalled and hopefully called to action.”
In Electric Grace (Lune Press), Willard offers a poetic biography of St. Francis of Assisi, combining reflections with historical and artistic materials. Her forthcoming collection, The World on Fire: Poems of Desire (Nirala Publications), is scheduled for release in 2026 and focuses on themes of female desire and interior life.
Maria Kelson (B.A. ’96) has earned significant recognition for her debut novel Not the Killing Kind. The book received a Gold Medal in Mystery at the 2025 International Latino Book Awards, as well as the 2025 WILLA Literary Award in Mystery/Thriller from Women Writing the West. It was also named a 2025 finalist for the High Plains Book Award in Fiction.
The novel’s high‑stakes story centers on a mother navigating danger, community pressure, and shifting truths as she attempts to clear her son’s name. Booklist praised the novel for being “fast-paced and propulsive . . . [A] thriller filled with culturally relevant and timely themes.”
Translation work by Margaret A. Neves (B.A. ’70, M.A. ’72) appears in As If By Magic, a new short story collection by Brazilian author Edgard Telles Ribeiro from Bellevue Literary Press. Neves translated three stories in the volume (“Remains from the Fair,” “Albatross,” and “Turn of the River”), each involving shifting perceptions, uncertain realities, and characters navigating altered or unstable circumstances. The collection has earned positive reviews from Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and Kirkus Reviews.
Linda Bond of Auntie’s Books in Spokane, WA, shared, “I cannot thank translators Kim M. Hastings and Margaret A. Neves enough for their meticulous rendering into English of the original stories in this small book—all of which contain an unexpected emotional punch.”
These recent publications illustrate the wide‑ranging work CSU English alumni are producing across genres and geographies, contributing new writing and translations to contemporary literary conversations. Congratulations to our alumni writers!