An online home for the American University Creative Writing MFA community
Café MFA is thrilled to welcome first-year MFA candidate Nick Chhoeun to our editorial staff. Nick is a first-year MFA candidate. His focus is fiction but he is also fascinated by poetry. He primarily writes short stories and wants to begin working on a novel. His other […]
By Nick Chhoeun Teju Cole was our second Visiting Writer this year, for two sold-out events on October 3rd and October 4th. His extensive and groundbreaking work as an author and as a photographer for the New York Times make the large crowds unsurprising. I recently read parts of his […]
By Nick Chhoeun I recently came across a segment on BBC News titled “Why Some Male Authors Are Hiding Their Gender.” In the segment, author Allison Pearson talks about male authors going by gender-neutral names. We are familiar with writers like Mary Ann Evans going […]
By Nick Chhoeun Nnedi Okorafor is our guest at tomorrow’s AU’s Visiting Writers Series event and to prepare, I’ve started reading her Binti series. Tara Campbell’s post gives a great overview of Okorafor’s life, writing, and thematic interests, but here, I’ll be looking more closely at Binti. […]
By Nick Chhoeun Kafka on the Shore the fourth Haruki Murakami I’ve recently completed and it’s the second book post I’ve written about Murakami for Café. The first time I ever read one of Murakami’s books, I was hooked on his ability to include so many scenes, […]
By Nick Chhoeun I was at the high school where I work and I saw that one of the English teachers arranged her personal books differently. They weren’t arranged by genre or by the author. They were arranged with the book pages facing outward. When […]
By Nick Chhoeun On February 28th, the AU Literature Department event “The Art of Losing” showcased particular “poets, prose writers, musicians – anyone who put pen to paper who was important to you.” The goal was to celebrate the works of these people and discuss […]
By Nick Chhoeun When I went home to Connecticut a few weeks ago I met up with some friends. We were catching up about the usual things, like work and school, when the conversation turned to books. I shared my reread of Haruki Murakami’s A […]
By Nick Chhoeun A Wild Sheep Chase is one of my favorite Haruki Murakami novels and I recently reread it with greater attention to craft. I remembered Murakami’s ability to switch between multiple scenes and chapters fluidly, and I wanted to go back to see how […]
By Nick Chhoeun Rapper Logic has been in the spotlight recently for his song 1-800-273-8255, which addresses mental health. He says that this song is “the most important song I ever wrote.” The song name is the number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, […]
