The Before Columbus Foundation has announced the winners of its 35th Annual American Book Awards. The prestigious American Book Awards were created to provide recognition for outstanding literary achievement from the entire spectrum of America’s diverse literary community. The purpose of the awards is to recognize literary excellence without limitations or restrictions.

Tanya Olson, a lecturer in UMBC’s English department, received a 2014 American Book Award for her book Boyishly, published by YesYes Books in May 2013. The book is a collection of poems which explores personal and public constructions of gender, violence, and America and it received the following review from “Good Reads”:

“Tanya Olson’s BOYISHLY is a magic book. It casts a spell upon you. Olson uses language like Gertrude Stein does, building large monuments of sound into humming lattices, where a ‘whale will do as a whale will do, ‘ or where ‘tree forms shapes for tiger’ and ‘tiger takes shape / under tree.’ In this book, Olson writes poems to a future America from beyond the planetary gravestone, where there is only a ‘boyish summer’ and the ‘boyish waters.’ The voice says come back to me. I am not done with you. I was waiting for you all along.”–Dorothea Lasky

Olson will be formally recognized for her award on Sunday, October 26 at the SF Jazz Center, Joe Henderson Lab in San Francisco, California. For more information on the 2014 American Book Awards and to see the complete list of recipients, click here. You can read more about the Before Columbus Foundation here.

This past summer, The Quotidian Theatre in Bethesda hosted the U.S. premiere of Conor McPherson’s play “The Veil,” which debuted in 2011 at London’s National Theatre. The description of the play is as follows on the Quotidian website: “Set in a haunted mansion in rural Ireland in 1822, surrounded by a restive, starving populace, ‘The Veil’ weaves Ireland’s troubled colonial history into a transfixing story about the search for love, the transcendental, and the circularity of time.”

Michele Osherow, an associate professor of English, played the widowed Lady Lambroke, the owner of the Irish country manor where the play takes place. Osherow and other cast members received a strong review in the Washington Post for their work: “LaRocque’s Rev. Berkeley, Decker’s Mr. Audelle, Osherow’s Lady Lambroke and Mayo’s Hannah are all well-rounded characterizations, their lines spoken with unstilted English and Irish accents.“

The play ran from July 18-August 17 and in addition to the Washington Post, it received praise from MD Theatre Guide, DC Theatre Scene, Broadway World, and DC Metro Theatre Arts. To read more of the reviews and find more information about “The Veil,” click here.

Osherow has extensive experience in professional theatre and serves as the Resident Dramaturg for the Folger Theatre in Washington, D.C. She received a 2012 best actress nomination from D.C. Theatre Scene for her work in Brian Friel’s Afterplay (Quotidian Theatre).

Assistant Professor Gary Rozanc was awarded funding from the prestigious AIGA DEC Design Faculty Research Grant program. Professor Rozanc’s grant project is “Web Designer Competencies Inventory and Recommendations for Inclusion in Design Curricula.”

His research will help identify and validate sets of core competencies that need to be effectively taught to students preparing to pursue careers as interaction and user experience designers. He will interview a select group of interaction design educators and professionals to determine, contextualize and prioritize these competencies.

Gary Rozanc is an Assistant Professor in the Graphic Design emphasis, in the Department of Visual Arts.

The second hackUMBC is coming! (And has nothing to do with security.)

hackUMBC ’14 will take place on the weekend of 27-28 September (Saturday into Sunday). The event is open to students of any skill level, from innovators and entrepreneurs to designers and hardcore coders. Its purpose is to allow students to mingle and collaborate for 24 continuous hours of community exploration to grow technology projects from scratch while expanding their connections to other students and mentors from both industry and academia. Through the generosity of various sponsors, admission is free, and includes meals, snacks, swag, prizes, and more!

Last year’s inaugural event ‘sold out’ at 100 students from across the UMBC campus community, including teams from CMSC, CMPE, EE, IS, Biology, Biotechnology, Math, Physics, and Media Studies. This year we’re expanding admission to students from both UMBC and local colleges/high schools, so register early!

More details and sign-up information is available at the event website.

Faculty, staff, and leaders from around campus and the local industry who are interested in serving as mentors or judges for hackUMBC are invited to contact Dr. Rick Forno for more information.

Photos from last year’s inaugural event held in the Skylight Room can be found here.

Eric Dyer, Visual Arts, will be featured in a solo exhibition at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts in New York. His work Copenhagen Cycles: 2006 – 2014 will be on display from September 6 through October 11, with an opening reception on September 6 from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. Information is available at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts. The exhibition received a preview article on August 15 in Wall Street International.

Forum, the public artwork by Thomas Sayre being constructed in front of the Performing Arts and Humanities Building, has been covered by local papers in North Carolina, where the “earth cast” columns were fabricated:

August 12, NewsObserver.com – First Look: Raleigh sculptor Thomas Sayre – with video here.

August 13, North Raleigh New – North Raleigh seniors dig unearthed art.