Appearances
Misty chats about the short story form and her writing history with Dan Wooten and Roald Tweet on Scribble, airing at noon on WVIK 90.3 FM in the Quad Cities.
New Releases
Recent fiction:
Check out “Ficus” online at District Lit. How do you end a relationship gracefully? How do you figure out why something won’t grow? Just how useful can a little white lie be?
New scholarship:
Melusine’s Footprint: Tracing the Legacy of a Medieval Myth
Now available from Brill in print or ebook! In Melusine’s Footprint: Tracing the Legacy of a Medieval Myth, edited by Misty Urban, Deva F. Kemmis, and Melissa Ridley Elmes, twenty accomplished scholars offer an interdisciplinary analysis of the legendary medieval fairy Melusine. Combining approaches from art history, history, alchemy, literature, cultural studies, and medievalism, applying rigorous critical lenses ranging from feminism and comparative literature to film and monster theory, this study offers fresh insights into the popular French and German traditions and investigate Melusine’s English, Dutch, Spanish, and Chinese counterparts to illuminate Melusine’s dynamic resonances across cultures and time.
A magnificent book combining a wide variety of literary as well as artistic approaches. . . This enthralling work contributes extensively to Melusinia, presenting a figure who clearly continues to escape prescribed boundaries. —Gillian M. E. Alban, author of Melsuine the Serpent Goddess in A. S. Byatt’s Possession and in Mythology
Chapters:
Premodern Rulers and Postmodern Viewers: Gender, Sex, and Power in Popular Culture, eds. Janice North, Karl C. Alvestad, and Elena Woodacre. In particular see Misty’s chapter, “Women’s Weapons in The White Queen.”
“The Unicorn Learns Accountability” in The Ballad of the Lone Medievalist, eds. Kisha Tracy and John Sexton. A compilation support, advice, and amused reflections by and for anyone who has ever found themselves the only medievalist in the room. Or the department. Or campus. Or town.
“Sexual Compulsion and Sexual Violence in the Lais of Marie de France,” in Teaching Rape in the Medieval Literature Classroom: Approaches to Difficult Texts, edited by Alison Gulley. A volume that shows how much a sensitive understanding of medieval literature can confront and help us challenge the buried prejudices and injustices that have been perpetuated for too long.
Awards
Great River Writer’s Retreat
Misty was the fortunate recipient of the 2017 Midwest Writing Center’s Great River Writer’s Retreat, which awards a regional author with a week of quiet solitude to write, read, dream, and create at the Benet House, on the beautiful grounds of St. Mary’s Monastery in Rock Island, IL. Misty spent the week working on a historical novel about a young feminist firebrand who gets herself thrown into jail in 1792 London for advocating too forcefully for the rights of women.
2017-2018 MCC Outstanding Adjunct Faculty of the Year
Misty was honored as the Outstanding Adjunct of the Year for Muscatine Community College for the 2017-2018 academic year.
A LESSON IN MANNERS Wins Serena McDonald Kennedy Award
Buy your copy now from Snake~Nation~Press!
Want a sample? Hear audio of the author reading select stories over at SoundCloud:
“Sally”
“Monsoon”
Want an autographed copy?
Also available as a Kindle ebook at Amazon
About the book
The ten stories in this haunting and hilarious collection offer a how-to manual for dealing with love, lies, and loneliness. Sam Wesson, an up-and-coming country-western singer, plots to get pregnant without her boyfriend’s consent, while Dacey, already pregnant, confronts her cheating husband over her secret checking account. Andrea rescues a stray dog to avoid facing her complicated human relationships. Sarah, an exotic dancer, longs for employment at a religious theme park, and Amelia dreams of creating impossible bonsai. Whether facing life-threatening illness or life-threatening loss, these characters scheme in humble, funny, sympathetic, and outrageous ways to find an etiquette that will deliver them from disappointment and shield them from crushing grief.