The first graduates of Western Colorado University’s Publishing MA program proudly release Monsters, Movies & Mayhem, an anthology of 23 stories written by highly regarded writers in horror and cinematic genres—conceived and curated by Western’s Class of 2020 Publishing graduates.
On Wednesday July 15, the book’s official release date, Western’s Publishing Program will host a virtual launch party for students in Western’s fast-growing Graduate Program in Creative Writing, which houses the publishing program. It replaces a gala book signing initially intended at the Gunnison Arts Center but canceled due to COVID-19.
Western Publishing MFA students conceived Monsters, Movies & Mayhem, solicited the articles and selected from 435 submissions. They wrote rejections and contracts, and edited, designed and produced the anthology. Monsters, Movies & Mayhem received a starred review in Publishers Weekly, noting the “palpable love of supernatural cinema is infectious; horror fans won’t want to put this down.”
“This was the first proof-of-concept year for our new program with a full student cohort,” said Kevin J. Anderson, publishing program director. “We had to be nimble and adapt. The entire publishing world has gone through great upheavals even before COVID-19, and I am extremely proud of how the students showed their mettle and produced such remarkable results for their career portfolios.”
For their solo thesis project, each Western Publishing MFA student also produced an original book, start-to-finish, usually a public-domain classic work by H.G. Wells, Alexandre Dumas, and others. One student published the only novel by Class of 2019 GPCW student Cheryl Hardy, who passed away shortly before completing her MFA.
To celebrate this event, the Publishing program has made these students’ thesis books available to the Western community months before their broad releases (throughout the rest of 2020) at https://www.wordfirepress.com/GPCW. Proceeds from book sales will support future Western’s Publishing program projects.
