Featured Work

Students and alumni of the IWU Division of Modern Language and Literature have been frequently recognized for their work by the Conference on Christianity and Literature. 

2010

Chelsea Pickslay
CCL Undergraduate Creative Writing Contest Winner (Third Place, Fiction)

The Amerikanka

The drapes were a greenish shade of gold. They covered some of the taped-up windows, which Teacher never ever opened because, after all, a wind would blow through, causing a draft, which would then make the students sick. But Josip Grbeša tried not to pay much attention to such things. His job was to read the text out loud perfectly and not cause any yelling.

Read the full story. 

2009

Ethan Lennox
CCL Undergraduate Creative Writing Contest Winner (Third Place, Nonfiction)

2008

Daniel Luttrull
CCL Undergraduate Creative Writing Contest Winner (Second Place, Poetry)

On Caravaggio’s The Incredulity of Saint Thomas

I believed in the regime
of sharp dressed twins
those wolf-raised Romans
poking steel through the homeless
man who made me believe in
the resurrection of the body
and the life
of a newly-dead
with a hole in his side
exactly the size of my index finger
up to the second knuckle

2007

Bethany Carlson
CCL Undergraduate Creative Writing Contest Winner (Second Place, Poetry)

Our faculty members are also active in writing and publishing:

Mary M. Brown
Chairperson, Division of Modern Language and Literature

An Education in Zambia

You tell me school is just a room somewhere
with a swept dirt floor, some children
who have walked or run through

town, hours through the scorch
of morning, an adult or near adult whose
credentials are a red pen, wet, not yet dead

Read the full poem. 

Lecture in Pastels

Near the end of spring semester, Professor
            Phlox begins her lecture on the nature
and the character of bliss. “Remember
            this:” she says. “Eternity is over-
rated. The ethereal is treasured
            primarily by over-thinkers whose
conclusion is to dwell on the ideal.

Read the full poem. 

Academic Couple

            for friends, disappointed at not having children
You wait for children like an old yellow
bus, dogged as a Monday dawn, without
any fuss at all. You swing out that arm

with absolute authority, without
a doubt that cars and trucks will fall in line
in front of you and behind, like days completely…

Read the full poem.