Wireside Chat, featuring Special Guest Kendra Vaughan

Wireside Chat is proud to welcome Online MFA alum Kendra Vaughan, whose thesis novel, The Plymbury Witch, has become a local bestseller around New England thanks to Kendra's powerful prose and promotional skills! Tune in to hear her read from the novel and share her secrets for self-publishing success!

Field Notes with Zac LaPoint

SNHU double alum Zac LaPoint shares how creative writing became the unexpected foundation for a career fighting poverty in his community. He makes the case that liberal arts is the underpinning connecting a range of fields, including human services, making it a legitimate 'related field' when applying for roles that might not immediately seem like a fit. He also weighs in on AI's growing presence in human services, and why it can never replace art, human caring, or the critical thinking that liberal arts graduates bring to the table.

Word for Word, featuring the Penmen Review Fall Fiction Winners, 1/14/26

Join Word for Word as we honor the winners of the 11th Annual Penmen Review Fall Fiction Contest with readings of their winning stories and a Q&A with the writers!

Word for Word, Featuring Special Guest Paul Tremblay

Word for Word proudly welcomes horror master Paul Tremblay! Paul has won the Bram Stoker, British Fantasy, Sheridan Le Fanu, and Massachusetts Book awards and is the New York Times bestselling author of "Horror Movie: A Novel," "The Beast You Are," "The Pallbearers Club," "Survivor Song," "Growing Things and Other Stories," "Disappearance at Devil's Rock," "A Head Full of Ghosts," and the crime novels "The Little Sleep" and "No Sleep Till Wonderland." His novel "The Cabin at the End of the World" was adapted into the Universal Pictures film “Knock at the Cabin.” Tune in as Paul reads from "Horror Movie" and answers questions from the audience about horror, the differences between movies and fiction, and AI.

Field Notes with Brittany McMunn, Part 2

In part two of our conversation, MFA alum and entrepreneur Brittany McMunn shares the steps she took to channel her passion for writing into a thriving career as an editor and publishing partner, and how that decision helped her transcend a difficult period of her life. She describes how the value of tenacity, and creative writing skills of storytelling and landing a message set her and her clients apart in roles across industries.

Field Notes with Brittany McMunn, Part 1

SNHU alum Brittany McMunn shares her winding path from pre-med student to healthcare industry manager to publishing entrepreneur, revealing how a personal crisis led her to rediscover her passion for writing and editing. She explains how her communications degree and MFA gave her the skills to command a room, understand diverse perspectives, and ultimately build three literary ventures that help authors find their place in the industry.

Wireside Chat featuring Special Guest Alessandro DiFrancesco

Wireside Chat welcomes Online MFA instructor Alex DiFrancesco! A multi-genre writer and transmasc person (they/them), Alex is the author of the novels Transmutation, All City, Psychopomps, and Breaking the Curse. Their work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, the Guardian, Electric Literature, Lit Hub, Tin House, and more. Join us as we talk with Alex about genre-bending and blending, climate fiction, and the realities of building and sustaining a writing life as a trans person today.

Word for Word Instructor Spotlight, Featuring Special Guests Tracy Crow and Dan Gleason

Word for Word opens a new season with our annual Instructor Spotlight event! We are thrilled to welcome MA instructor Dan Gleason and Online MFA instructor Tracy Crow as our special guests! Dan is a graduate of the famed Iowa Writers' Workshop who has worked as a journalist for an array of top national magazines. His new true-crime book, "Life Without: The Wrongful Conviction of Sandy Shaw," was just published from Bloomsbury. Tracy is an author of fiction and nonfiction, a literary agent, an editor, a publisher, and a veteran. She is the president and CEO of the MilSpeak Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting creative writing in the military community. Her award-winning memoir "Eyes Right" provided an uncensored look at the Marines from a woman’s perspective.

Wireside Chat Featuring Special Guest Cindy Skaggs

Join us as Wireside Chat welcomes Online MFA Instructor Cindy Skaggs! Cindy is the author of seven novels, two novellas, and, most recently, a guidebook for new novelists, "Dear Someday Writer." She holds an MA and an MFA in creative writing and has ten years of experience teaching writing and creative writing in higher education. She is an advocate for military and veteran issues, and in 2019-2020 spearheaded the Veteran Expressive Writing Workshop in conjunction with the Colorado Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Wireside Chat, Featuring Special Guest Jerico Lenk

Join us as Wireside Chat welcomes Online MFA Instructor Jerico Lenk! Jerico's fiction and poetry combine formal experimentation, queer identities and mythological reimaginings. His current work in progress is a novel adaptation of the Apollo and Hyacinth myth. He is the author of The Missing, a YA novel set in the Victorian-era and featuring queer ghost-hunters, and his novel In the Pines was shortlisted for the First Pages Prize in 2020.