December 2, 2008

BCU Professor Publishes Novel, Holds Reading

SIOUX CITY, Iowa – Briar Cliff University’s Tricia Currans-Sheehan, Ph.D., professor of English and writing, will read from her recently published book The River Road – A Novel in Stories at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 11, 2008 in Meis Recital Hall on campus.

 Currans-Sheehan, editor of The Briar Cliff Review, is a native of Emmetsburg, Iowa. The ninth of ten children born to Salome Antoine and James Henry Currans, she grew up on a 200-acre farm on the river road between Emmetsburg and Graettinger.

 In her review of The River Road – A Novel in Stories, Jonis Agee, author of The River Wife, said, “…a lovingly detailed, compassionate look at lives that rise and fall with the erratic heartbeat of relationships in a rural community.... [Currans-Sheehan] cares deeply about place and about the lives shaped by it. This is a voice worth listening to....”

 Currans-Sheehan has had stories published in Connecticut Review, Fiction, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Portland Review, Puerto del Sol, Calyx, Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Forum, Short Fiction by Women, Heritage of the Great Plains Journal, South Dakota Review, Kalliope, Wisconsin Review, and many others.

 The author won the Duff Award for the Pursuit of Excellence, the 1997 Iowa Literary Contest, the Nancy Pickard Fiction Contest and has been nominated three times for a Pushcart Prize. Recently, she won the Headwaters Literary Competition, sponsored by New Rivers Press, for her collection of short stories, The Egg Lady and Other Neighbors.

The River Road – A Novel in Stories is available on Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com. The novel also can be purchased at Book People Book Sellers in Sioux City.

Briar Cliff University is a Catholic institution with an enrollment of more than 1,100 students from 24 states and four countries. Students are educated in the Franciscan tradition of excellence in the liberal arts and career preparation in an environment of care and compassion. For more information, please visit briarcliff.edu.