Featured Writing

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By Our Gate

by Kenneth Pobo our white sweet pea  curls up and above   the top. We don’t let  the gate swing open  for fear of breaking it, no longer use the back  door until frost fells   the vine. My cousin  says we’re foolish—why  cater to a vine? Oh well,  we never did much  like her anyway. A vine  offers no opinions,  makes no demands.    Climb.    That’s what it does— and so well….

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Word for Word Graduate Spotlight, with photos of readers Brandi Shaffer (a white woman with long blond hair and black glasses), Ethan Bowers (a white person with red hair), Samantha Barrow (a white woman with brown hair), Samantha Hensley (an Asian American woman with black hair), and Trenton Guthrie (a white man with dark hair standing in front of a brick wall).

Word for Word Graduate Spotlight, June 2026

Each spring, SNHU’s online literary salon, Word for Word, honors recent graduates of the Online BA, MA, and MFA creative writing programs in a special Graduate Spotlight event. Recommended by instructors and selected by Associate Deans Jacob Powers and Paul Witcover for their high literary achievement, these outstanding writers read…

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Chuck Tingle

Word for Word, Featuring Chuck Tingle, Part II

On Wednesday, May 6, 2026, the Word for Word online literary series welcomed bestselling writer Chuck Tingle. Tingle is a USA Today bestselling author, as well as a two time Hugo Award finalist, Bram Stoker Award nominee, Goodreads award nominee, Golden Poppy award finalist, Locus award winner, Dragon Award winner, Audie…

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Chuck Tingle

Word for Word, Featuring Chuck Tingle, Part I

On Wednesday, May 6, 2026, the Word for Word online literary series welcomed bestselling writer Chuck Tingle. Tingle is a USA Today bestselling author, as well as a two time Hugo Award finalist, Bram Stoker Award nominee, Goodreads award nominee, Golden Poppy award finalist, Locus award winner, Dragon Award winner, Audie…

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SNHU Word for Word

Word for Word, Featuring Courtney Milan

Word for Word Welcomes Bestselling Author Courtney Milan On Wednesday, April 15, 2026, the Word for Word online literary series welcomed bestselling writer Courtney Milan. Milan began her career with a starred review in Publishers Weekly and has never looked back. A self-publishing pioneer, she has gone on to become…

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Photo of Chinese-American author Malinda Lo, with dark hair and glasses.

Word for Word, Featuring Malinda Lo

On Wednesday, February 18, 2026, the Word for Word Literary Series welcomed award-winning writer Malinda Lo! Lo is the New York Times bestselling author of seven novels, including, most recently, A Scatter of Light. Her novel Last Night at the Telegraph Club won the National Book Award, the Stonewall Book Award, the Asian/Pacific…

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Michelle Shreeve

Alumna Writes a Book for Grieving Families While Earning Two Degrees

Michelle Shreeve ’15G ’16G was a child when she lost her mother, and resources were limited for young families coping with the death of a parent. This experience fueled her desire to help others deal with similar grief, and through her love of writing, she addressed what hadn’t been available when…

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A white woman with glasses and brown hair smiling up at camera

One Million Words, One Year, and the Power of Goals

by DJ Cooper Moving into a new year is a natural time to think about goals. What we want to accomplish, improve, or simply attempt. Last year,  I set an ambitious writing goal. It was to write one million words, and it sounded outrageous. But it wasn’t just about the…

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The winners of the 2025 Penmen Review Fall Fiction Contest

Word for Word Celebrates the 2025 Fall Fiction Contest Winners

On Wednesday, January 14, 2026, the Word for Word Reading Series at Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) featured the winners of the Penmen Review’s eleventh annual Fall Fiction Contest. This year’s contest had more than 900 submissions, from which five winners were chosen: First place, “How to Eat a Pomegranate,”…

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