Teaching Translation – a one-day conference free and open to the public — will introduce the new low residency MFA in Translation offered at Mills College and explore teaching strategies for the new program. The event will take place November 7 on the Mills College campus in the Lokey Graduate School of Business (GBS) from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
The one-day conference will be hosted by program directors Achy Obejas and Dr. Carlota Caulfield. Obejas and Dr. Caulfield will be joined by Berkeley-based translator Dan Bellm and Mills alum and translator Stacy McKenna. Generously sponsored by the English Department at Mills College, the event will also include a reception by Bon Appetit!
The new Low Residency MFA in Translation is the first low residency program of its kind in the San Francisco Bay area. The five semester program provides students with a flexible academic schedule, practical training, and a solid foundation and understanding of contemporary translation trends.
The program offers two seven-day residential periods throughout the year, one in winter and one in summer in addition to online options. Beginning in their first semester, students work closely with a master translator in a mentored study environment. The program will also include a Practical Translation semester designed to diversify and enhance the worldview of the student. The program combines both the critical and creative to successfully train and prepare translators.
Program co-director Achy Obejas is a critically acclaimed prose, poetry, and literary translator. Her translation, into Spanish, of Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao / La Breve y Maravillosa Vida de Óscar Wao was a finalist for Spain’s Esther Benítez Translation Prize from the national translator’s association. Her most recent translation, Papi by Rita Indiana, will be released in March 2016. The author of three novels, a collection of short story and a poetry chapbook, she was named a USA Ford Fellow in 2014. She is currently the Distinguished Visiting Writer at Mills.
Co-director Carlota Caulfield is a professor and head of the Spanish and Spanish American Studies at Mills College. Caulfield has been teaching at Mills since 1992 and is the coeditor of Barcelona: Visual Culture, Space and Power (University of Wales Press, 2012 and 2014), a fully illustrated volume bringing together fresh insights into the changing urban space of Barcelona from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day. She is also an award-winning poet and the author of eleven books of poems, including 34th Street and Other Poems, The Book of Giulio Camillo (A Model for a Theater of Memory), Quincunce / Quincunx, Ticket to Ride, Essays and Poems, and A Mapmaker’s Diary: Selected Poems.
Dan Bellm is a writer, editor and translator living in Berkeley, Calif. Widely published in poetry and fiction from Spanish and French, Dan’s works include Sun on the Ceiling (Au soleil du plafond) by Pierre Reverdy (The American Poetry Review, July/August 2009), and Angel’s Kite (La estrella de Angel), by Alberto Blanco (Children’s Book Press, 1994). His translation of Laura Gallego García’s novel, The Legend of the Wandering King (La leyenda del Rey Errante) (Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic, Inc., 2005), made the American Library Association’s Notable Books for Children list and the School Library Journal’s Outstanding International Books list for 2006. He is also a consultant on Spanish-language books for children and youth for Scholastic, Inc.
Stacy McKenna received her MFA in English and Creative Writing from Mills College in 2002. She recently taught English and literary translation at the Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro in Querétaro, Mexico, and currently teaches literary translation online for Intralingo. Her translations have appeared in The Other Poetry of Barcelona, Códols in New York, 580 Split, and Cerise Press.
The conference is free. Parking at Mils College is free.
To register, write: translation@mils.edu.
Mills College
Lokey Graduate School of Business (GBS) Room 125
5000 MacArthur Blvd.
Oakland, Calif. 94613
Nov. 7, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
For more information: translation@mills.edu
