By Lauren Picard 

Photo courtesy of Lauren Picard.

This past Thursday, poet Donika Kelly read her work to a captivated audience in Falvey Library Speakers’ Corner as part of the 25th Annual Villanova Literary Festival.  

After being introduced by two Villanova students, Kelly took to the podium, where her warm and lighthearted presence immediately set the audience at ease. Before diving headfirst into the first poem from her published book, Bestiary, Kelly asked the audience if they knew what a Centaur was. After some chuckles and nods from the audience, Kelly began reading, “Love Poem: Centaur”. Her use of repetition and visual language in the poem not only brought the audience into the mystical land in which a Centaur might truly exist, but also personified the thoughts of a Centaur in love: “Nothing approaches a field like me. Hard / gallop, hard chest—hooves and mane and flicking / tail… Love, / I pound the earth for you. I pound the earth” (Kelly, p. 41). Love and legendary creatures fill the pages of Bestiary, and it was a pleasure to have Kelly take us on a tour. 

Kelly also read from her most recently published book of poetry, The Renunciations, which, as described by the students who introduced her, asks: can experiences be unremembered, and feelings unfelt? In both The Renunciations and Bestiary, Kelly explores love in its many different forms (even through certain poems dedicated to her partner which she fondly describes as “macaroni art”), and engages readers with her vivid language and storytelling.  

The Q&A session following her readings offered the audience a chance to learn more about Kelly’s writing and editing process, to which she had a sundry of candid advice for the aspiring poets in the audience. After the event’s conclusion, Kelly stayed behind to sign books and talk more with audience members.  

Kelly’s was the third event of the Villanova Literary Festival, and both of her books, Bestiary and The Renunciations are available through Falvey Library. The fourth and final Lit Fest event is coming up on Tues., April 18 at 7pm in Falvey Library Speakers’ Corner, and will feature Steph Cha, the author of Your House Will Pay. We hope to see you there!

Lauren Picard ’23 CLAS, is Communication & Marketing Assistant at Falvey Library.

By Julia Wagner

Photo courtesy of http://stephcha.com/

Villanova University’s 2023 Literary Festival will be featuring novelist Steph Cha, author of Your House Will Pay, for a reading and talk on Tuesday, April 18, at 7 p.m. in Falvey Library’s Speakers’ Corner. Cha was born in San Fernando Valley, California and is a graduate of Stanford University and Yale Law School. She currently resides in Los Angeles, California with her family.

Your House Will Pay is a winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the California Book Award. She is also the author of Follow Her Home, Beware Beware, Dead Soon Enough, and Treasures in Heaven. Her work has made appearances in the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. She also served as noir editor and is the current series editor of the Best American Mystery & Suspense anthology.

This ACS-approved event—co-sponsored by the English Department, the Creative Writing Program, the Honors Program, Africana Studies, Global Interdisciplinary Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies, the Center for Irish Studies, and Falvey Library—is free and open to the public.

Dig deeper and explore the links below for more on Cha’s work:

• Cha’s official website
• Cha’s Twitter and Instagram
• Your House Will Pay (2019)
• Dead Soon Enough (2015)
• Beware Beware (2014)
• Follow Her Home (2013)

Julia Wagner ‘26 CLAS is a Communication major from New Hampshire (Go Patriots!). She works as a Communication & Marketing Assistant at Falvey Library.

Photo courtesy of Isabel Choi.

To celebrate the kick-off of the 25th annual Literary Festival at Villanova, I attended the Charles A. Heimbold Jr. Chair of Irish Studies Mary O’Donoghue’s poetry reading. The event began with a couple speeches of appreciation from Jennifer A. Joyce, PhD, Associate Director, Center for Irish Studies; Villanova University President the Rev. Peter M. Donohue, OSA, PhD; and Geraldine Byrne Naso, Ambassador of Ireland to the United States, who personally congratulated O’Donoghue on her new post. 

O’Donoghue’s reading invited people to sit and listen. The slightly warm yet cozy atmosphere of the President’s Lounge truly made the poetry reading seem like a personal performance. As an English major myself, I had high hopes for this event, and I was not disappointed. O’Donoghue’s poetry is deeply artistic and emotion-packed. She read a total of three poems, but one struck me most. Her villanelle, “My Daughter in Winter Costume,” inspired by the sculpture, Daughter in Winter Costume (1922) by John Storrs, uses biting language to give the stoic sculpture a personal dimension. In the formulaic villanelle style, the poem continually repeats the same lines, yet O’Donoghue delivered a different mood each time. 

The event concluded with a Q&A session with O’Donoghue who explained a bit of her writing process and struggles as a poet. Overall, the kick-off was enriching and a delightful way to spend my evening. Be sure to join us for the next Literary Festival event on Thursday, March 16, at 7 p.m. in Falvey Library’s Speakers’ Corner featuring a reading and talk by Tsering Yangzom Lama. 

Isabel Choi ’26 is a Communication & Marketing Assistant at Falvey Library.

Photo credit: Paige Critcher.

Villanova University’s 2023 Literary Festival will be featuring Tsering Yangzom Lama, who will read from selections of her works on Thursday, March 16, at 7 p.m. in Falvey’s Speakers’ Corner. Tsering Yangzom Lama was born in Kathmandu, Nepal, and earned an MFA in Writing from Columbia University and a BA in Creative Writing and International Relations from The University of British Columbia. She currently resides in Vancouver, Canada.

Her debut novel, We Measure The Earth With Our Bodies (Bloomsbury, 2022) is a New York Times Summer Reads Pick and a finalist for The Scotiabank Giller Prize. It is also longlisted for The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and The Toronto Book Award. She is a co-founder of Lhakar Diaries, an English-language blog for Tibetan youth in exile. Her other works have made appearances in The Globe and Mail, The Malahat Review, Grain, Kenyon Review, Vela, LaLit, and Himal Southasian. She is also a 2018 Tin House Novel Scholar.

Dig deeper and explore the links below for more on her work:

• Tsering Yangzom Lama’s official website
• Tsering Yangzom Lama’s Twitter and Instagram
• We Measure The Earth With Our Bodies (2022)
• Lhakar Diaries 
• “Q&A with Tsering Yangzom Lama” (Victoria Festival of Authors)
• “Tibetan author Tsering Yangzom Lama opens up about immigrating to Canada” (The Globe and Mail)
• “Tsering Yangzom Lama on Cultural Appreciation Versus Cultural Engagement” (Literary Hub)
• “Tibet Talks: A Reading and Conversation with Author Tsering Yangzom Lama” (International Campaign for Tibet)
• “Tsering Yangzom Lama: We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies w/ Jay Neugeboren” (Books Are Magic)

Julia Wagner ‘26 CLAS is a Communication major from New Hampshire (Go Patriots!). She works as a Communication & Marketing Assistant in Falvey Library.

Faculty, staff, students, and friends are invited to join us for the 2023 Literary Festival! Through this annual series, we’ve had the privilege of welcoming major poets and fiction writers on campus to give readings and meet with students.

The Literary Festival officially kicks off tonight with a reading by the Charles A. Heimbold Jr. Chair for Irish Studies, Mary O’Donoghue, an award-winning poet, fiction writer, editor, and translator. A reception will start at 6 p.m. in the Presidents’ Lounge in Connelly Center prior to the 7 p.m. reading! In addition, we are delighted that the new Ambassador of Ireland Geraldine Byrne Nason will personally congratulate our 2023 Heimbold Chair, Mary O’Donoghue, at 6:45 p.m.

See the full line-up of Literary Festival speakers, below.

Feb. 23: Mary O’Donoghue
The President’s Lounge, Connelly Center

March 16: Tsering Lama
Speakers’ Corner, Falvey Library

March 30: Donika Kelly
Speakers’ Corner, Falvey Library

April 18: Steph Cha,
Speakers’ Corner, Falvey Library

All events take place at 7 p.m. and are ACS-approved!

You can learn more about the 2023 Lit Fest speakers and enjoy recordings of past events here.

By Jenna Renaud

Word of the Week: Type II Fun 

Maybe you’re thinking, “I know what fun is,” but did you know that there are different types of fun?  

Type II fun usually feels terrible while you’re doing it, like climbing up a mountain in the freezing cold, running an ultra-marathon, or standing in line at Disney World in the blazing sun, but when it’s over, your memory erases the miserable parts, and you would do it again for fun.  

This is all based on the “fun scale,” typically used by outdoor enthusiasts. You can read more about it in this article from REI. But in summary the other types of fun are: 

Type I Fun – Enjoyable when it’s happening. Simply fun. Eating good food with good friends. Celebrating birthdays or holidays with family. Movie nights.  

Type III Fun – Not actually fun at all. While you’re doing it or in retrospect. Maybe you’re waiting for the Type II fun effect to hit, but it never does. 

For many people, Type II fun is the sweet spot. It’s challenging but isn’t actually putting your life at risk. With finals right around the corner, consider planning some Type II adventures for this summer. 

This Week at Falvey  

NOW–Wednesday, Jun. 15th  

“That Fairyland of Ice”: Polar Exploration in Mind and Memory Exhibit | Falvey First Floor & Virtual | Free & Open to the Public 

Tuesday, April 19th  

Polar Voyaging and the Humanities | 4–5 p.m. | Virtual | https://villanova.zoom.us/j/98337578849 

Wednesday, April 20th   

2022 Falvey Forum Workshop Series: Capturing the Web – Introduction to Web Archiving | 12–1 p.m. | Virtual | Register Here 

“The Politics of the Irish Harp Symbol from Henry VIII to Brexit” Lecture & Harp Performance with Mary Louise O’Donnell | 4 p.m. | Speakers’ Corner | Learn More Here 

Thursday, April 21st 

2022 Literary Festival: Tiphanie Yanique | 7–8:30 p.m. | Speakers’ Corner | Free & Open to the Public | Find more info here 

Friday, April 22nd  

Villanova Gaming Society Meeting | 2:30–4:30 p.m. | Speakers’ Corner | Free & Open to the Public 

2022 Falvey Scholars Virtual Research Presentation and Awards Ceremony | 10 a.m. | Virtual | Register Here 

2022 Concept Virtual Recognition Ceremony | 1–2 p.m. | Virtual | Register Here 

This Week in History 

April 22nd, 1970 – First Earth Day was celebrated 

Earth Day is an annual event used to demonstrate support for environmental protection and bring awareness to a wide range of environmental issues. 2022 marks the 52nd celebration of the holiday.  

Earth Day was started by Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin, an environmentalist who wanted to increase awareness and provide unity to the environmental movement. “The objective was to get a nationwide demonstration of concern for the environment so large that it would shake the political establishment out of its lethargy,” Senator Nelson said, “and, finally, force this issue permanently onto the national political agenda.” 

Earth Day has contributed to the passage of the Clean Water and Endangered Species Act. Each year the holiday is recognized by 192 different countries. 

Read more from History.com. 

Jenna Renaud is a graduate assistant in Falvey Memorial Library and a graduate student in the Communication Department.

Happy April, Wildcats! The end of the semester is quickly approaching. Be sure to check out one (or a few) of the remaining events at Falvey Memorial Library. All events are ACS-approved and open to the Villanova University community. The lineup of events are listed below.

2022 Villanova University Literary Festival: Tiphanie Yanique

• Thursday, April 21, at 7 p.m. in Falvey Library’s Speakers’ Corner.
• Livestream link.
• Tiphanie Yanique is a novelist, poet, essayist, and short story writer. She is the author of the poetry collection, Wife, which won the 2016 Bocas Prize in Caribbean poetry and the United Kingdom’s 2016 Forward/Felix Dennis Prize for a First Collection. Tiphanie is also the author of the novel, Land of Love and Drowning, which won the 2014   Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Award from the Center for Fiction, the Phillis Wheatley Award for Pan-African Literature, and the American Academy of Arts   and Letters Rosenthal Family Foundation Award, and was listed by NPR as one of the Best Books of 2014. Land of Love and Drowning was also a finalist for the Orion Award in Environmental Literature and the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. She is a tenured associate professor at Emory University.
• For more information on Yanique, please visit her website.
• This event is co-sponsored by the English Department, the Creative Writing Program, Global Interdisciplinary Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies, the Center for Irish Studies, and Falvey Library.

Polar Voyaging and the Humanities

• Tuesday, April 19, at 4 p.m.
• Virtual lecture on Zoom. Register here.
• Lecture by Hester Blum, PhD, Professor of English at Penn State.
• In the summer of 2019 Blum was the lone humanities scholar on a scientific expedition tracking climate change in the Northwest Passage. Drawn from her experience on the Arctic icebreaker (and on an Antarctic expedition), as well as her research on nineteenth-century polar expeditions, Blum’s talk offers a meditation on ice as a measure for visualizing, writing about, mourning, and mediating the state of the climate in an age of ecological and institutional crisis.
• This event is offered in support of Falvey Memorial Library’s current exhibit “That Fairyland of Ice”: Polar Exploration in Mind and Memoryand is included alongside Earth Week events.
• This event is co-sponsored by Falvey Memorial Library, the Office of Sustainability, the Department of Geography and the Environment, the Albert Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest, and the Department of English.

Russia’s War on Ukraine: Historical Turning Points

• Monday, April 25, from 6-7 p.m.
• Virtual lecture on Zoom. Register here.
• A conversation about the ongoing war in Ukraine.
• Dr. Adele Lindenmeyr, Historian of Russia and the USSR, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Villanova University, and Dr. Mike Westrate, Historian of Ukraine and the USSR, Assistant Vice Provost, Graduate Education and Research, Villanova University, will discuss the turning points that led to Russia’s invasion.
• What were the historical turning points that led to Russia’s current war on Ukraine and its people? Join us for a discussion of the Ukrainian-Russian relationship, including: the Holodomor, WWII and its aftermath, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Budapest Memorandum, the Russian war on Georgia, and the illegal annexation of Crimea.
• This event is co-sponsored by Falvey Library and the Albert Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest.

Falvey Library’s Semi-Annual Stress Busting Open House: Make Finals a Grand Slam

• Friday, April 29 (Reading Day) from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. or until supplies last on the Old Falvey patio.
• Stop by for some major (league) fun and treats to make these finals a grand slam!
• Pals for Life therapy animals will be there to help you during the 7th inning stretch of the semester.
• This event is co-sponsored by Falvey Library, the Office of Health Promotion, and POWER.

CONCEPT Virtual Recognition Ceremony

• Friday, April 22, at 1 p.m.
• Virtual lecture on Zoom. Register here.
• Join us as we celebrate the official launch of the 2022 issue of CONCEPT, the interdisciplinary journal of graduate students in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
• The ceremony will recognize this year’s Graduate Research Prize for top paper, along with all of the student authors and editors, faculty editors, and peer reviewers.
• CONCEPT accepts submissions from Villanova graduate students in all fields of the arts and sciences and is an opportunity for them to share their scholarship and research.
• This event is co-sponsored by Falvey Library and the Office of Graduate Studies in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
• Visit the CONCEPT website to learn more about the journal and to browse past volumes.

Kallie Stahl ’17 MA is Communication and Marketing Specialist at Falvey Memorial Library.

By Jenna Renaud

Word of the Week: Offensive efficiency 

Villanova is in the Final Four, so we’re back with more basketball terminology this week. Offensive efficiency is the number of points scored per 100 offensive possessions. Currently, according to the popular KenPom Ratings, Villanova has a top-10 offense, despite relying heavily on defense in this past weekend’s win against Houston.  

Fingers crossed for another big win this Saturday against the Kansas Jayhawks! If we secure the win, I will be back again next week with more basketball vocabulary as we move into the finals. 

This Week at Falvey  

NOW–Wednesday, Jun. 15th  

“That Fairyland of Ice”: Polar Exploration in Mind and Memory Exhibit | Falvey First Floor & Virtual | Free & Open to the Public 

Monday, March 28th   

2021 Outstanding Faculty Research Award Lecture Featuring Christopher Kilby, PhD, and Samantha K. Chapman, PhD | 1–3 p.m. | Room 205 | Free & Open to the Public | Find more info here 

Tuesday, March 29th   

2022 Literary Festival Schedule: Camille Dungy | 7–8:30 p.m. | Speakers’ Corner | Free & Open to the Public | Find more info here 

Wednesday, March 30th   

2022 Falvey Forum Workshop Series: Photo Management with Tropy for Archival Research | 12–1 p.m. | Virtual | Register Here 

Thursday, March 31st   

Spring 2022 Digital Seeds Lecture: David R. Ambaras, PhD, and Kate McDonald, PhD on “Bodies and Structures 2.0: Scalar and the Practice of Digital Spatial History | 4 p.m. | Virtual | Register Here 

Friday, April 1st   

Villanova Gaming Society Meeting | 2:30–4:30 p.m. | Speakers’ Corner | Free & Open to the Public 

This Week in History 

March 31st, 1889 – Eiffel Tower opens  

For this week’s “This Week in History” we’re traveling across the Atlantic Ocean over to Europe, specifically, Paris, France. On March 31st, 1889, the Eiffel Tower is dedicated in Paris. Gustave Eiffel, the tower’s designer, French Prime Minister Pierre Tirard, various other dignitaries, and over 200 construction workers were in attendance.  

The Eiffel Tower is 984 feet tall and boasts an iron framework supported on four masonry piers, from which rise four columns that unite to create a single vertical tower. There are observation decks on each of the three levels.  

Despite now being regarded as an architectural masterpiece, the project was originally met with some resistance, in part due to concerns it would be structurally unsound. At the time, it was the largest man-made structure in the world, a title it held until the New York Crysler building was completed in 1930.  

Read more from History.com. 

Jenna Renaud is a Graduate Assistant in Falvey Memorial Library and a Graduate Student in the Communication Department.

Jericho Brown. Photograph by Darnell Wilburn.

Jericho Brown, one of the 2022 Villanova University Literary Festival featured speakers, will read works from his Pulitzer Prize winning poetry collection, The Tradition, on Thursday, Jan. 27 at 7 p.m. in Falvey’s Speakers’ Corner (and virtually). Brown grew up in Shreveport, LA, and earned a PhD from the University of Houston, an MFA from the University of New Orleans, and a BA from Dillard University.

Brown is author of the The Tradition (Copper Canyon 2019), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and he is the winner of the Whiting Award. Brown’s first book, Please (New Issues 2008), won the American Book Award. His second book, The New Testament (Copper Canyon 2014), won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. His third collection, The Tradition, won the Paterson Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He is the director of the Creative Writing Program and a professor at Emory University.

Dig deeper and explore the links below for more on Brown’s work:

• Brown’s official website
• Brown’s social media accounts: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook
• The Tradition (2019)
• The New Testament (2014)
• Please (2008)
• The 2020 Pulitzer Prize Winner (Poetry)
• “Jericho Brown Reads His Pulitzer Prize Winning Poems” (The Paris Review)
• “Jericho Brown: Turn You Over” (Andrew W. Mellon Foundation)
• “Q&A: 2020 Poetry Winner Jericho Brown” (The Pulitzer Prizes)

Kallie Stahl ’17 MA is Communication and Marketing Specialist at Falvey Memorial Library.

The lineup for the 2022 Villanova University Literary Festival is listed below. All events will take place at 7 p.m. in Falvey Memorial Library’s Speakers’ Corner, except for the Emma Dabiri talk, which will take place in the Presidents’ Lounge, Connelly Center. These ACS-approved events, co-sponsored by the English Department, the Creative Writing Program, Global Interdisciplinary Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies, the Center for Irish Studies, and Falvey Memorial Library, are free and open to the public.

JERICHO BROWN

 Thursday, Jan. 27, at 7 p.m., in Falvey Memorial Library’s Speakers’ Corner

Jericho Brown is author of the The Tradition (Copper Canyon 2019), for which he won the Pulitzer Prize. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and he is the winner of the Whiting Award. Brown’s first book, Please (New Issues 2008), won the American Book Award. His second book, The New Testament (Copper Canyon 2014), won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. His third collection, The Tradition, won the Paterson Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He is the director of the Creative Writing Program and a professor at Emory University.

For more information on Brown, please visit his website: https://www.jerichobrown.com/

Livestream link: https://vums-web.villanova.edu/Mediasite/Play/d7c24d1b0ab3427da371d78e422ed08b1d

EMMA DABIRI

 Tuesday, March 15, at 7 p.m., in the Presidents’ Lounge, Connelly Center

Emma Dabiri, the 2022 Charles A. Heimbold Jr. Chair in Irish Studies, is an Irish writer, academic, BBC broadcaster, and social media influencer who has written two very successful non-fiction books: Twisted (published as Don’t Touch My Hair in Ireland) and What White People Can Do Next. Her work in the arts, fashion, and the media are complemented by her academic teaching and research in African Studies and Visual Sociology. She is currently completing her PhD at Goldsmiths University, London.

For more information on Dabiri, please visit her website: https://www.kbjmanagement.co.uk/emma-dabiri

CAMILLE DUNGY

 Tuesday, March 29, at 7 p.m., in Falvey Memorial Library’s Speakers’ Corner

Camille T. Dungy’s debut collection of personal essays is Guidebook to Relative Strangers (W. W. Norton, 2017), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. She is also the author of four collections of poetry, most recently Trophic Cascade (Wesleyan UP, 2017), winner of the Colorado Book Award. She was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2019. She is a professor in the English department at Colorado State University.

Livestream link: https://vums-web.villanova.edu/Mediasite/Play/4086caf5425347eeafc1daac395a75c31d

TIPHANIE YANIQUE

Thursday, April 21, at 7 p.m., in Falvey Memorial Library’s Speakers’ Corner

Tiphanie Yanique is a novelist, poet, essayist, and short story writer. She is the author of the poetry collection, Wife, which won the 2016 Bocas Prize in  Caribbean poetry and the United Kingdom’s 2016 Forward/Felix Dennis Prize for a First Collection. Tiphanie is also the author of the novel, Land of Love and Drowning, which won the 2014 Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Award from the Center for Fiction, the Phillis Wheatley Award for Pan-African Literature, and the American Academy of Arts   and Letters Rosenthal Family Foundation Award, and was listed by NPR as one of the Best Books of 2014. Land of Love and Drowning was also a finalist for the Orion Award in Environmental Literature and the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. She is a tenured associate professor at Emory University.

For more information on Yanique, please visit her website: https://www.tiphanieyanique.com/bio

Livestream link: https://vums-web.villanova.edu/Mediasite/Play/a70b3ecc7e914b2f846dc273fc4e1ce01d

Kallie Stahl ’17 MA is Communication and Marketing Specialist at Falvey Memorial Library.