[UPDATE] Sensing the Midwest: The Work of Michael Martone / SSML 2016 Presidential Panel (June 2-4, 2016. DUE Feb 12, 2016)

full name / name of organization: 
Dawn Comer / Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature (SSML)
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Sensing the Midwest: The Work of Michael Martone / SSML 2016 Presidential Panel (June 2-4, 2016. DUE Feb 12, 2016) [EXTENDED DEADLINE]

The Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature seeks papers exploring the work of SSML's 2016 Mark Twain Award recipient Michael Martone for a Presidential Panel at SSML's 46th Annual Symposium, held on June 2-4, 2016 at Michigan State University in East Lansing, MI. We welcome papers that examine Martone's extensive body of work--fiction, essays, and edited collections. Of particular interest is Martone's exploration of the Midwest as "a place of sense." As he writes in "The Flatness," "the way I feel about the Midwest is the way my skin feels and the way I feel my own skin....The Midwest as hide, an organ of sense and not power, delicate and coarse at the same time....It is a place of sense." Please e-mail an abstract (250-300 words) and brief biographical note to Dawn Comer (dawncomer@gmail.com) by February 8, 2016. All accepted presenters must join SSML prior to the June 2016 symposium. More information about the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature and the Annual Symposium can be found at www.ssml.org.