The English Department

Elizabeth Stuckey-French and Patricia Henley, co-authors of "Where Wicked Starts", both grew up loving girl-sleuth books. Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, and Harriet the Spy were some of the characters in the stories that inspired Stuckey-French and Henley to write their new book.

Florida State University Distinguished Research Scholar Barbara Hamby recently released her collection of new and selected poems, "On the Street of Divine Love". In addition to selected past works, "On the Street of Divine Love" includes fifteen new poems full of humor and introspective revelations.

In her role as a senator for the United Faculty of Florida at Florida State and bargaining team member for the faculty union, Robin Goodman puts to use her extensive knowledge and understanding of labor issues to help give her fellow faculty members another voice with university administrators.

The reviews for David Kirby's recent collection of poems, "The Biscuit Joint" (Louisiana State University Press, 2013), praise his mastery of language and his expertise at livening up everyday occurrences.

Robert Olen Butler has a permanent place on the top list of skillful and accomplished fiction writers. Reviewers for years have praised his ability to create characters that are genuine and realistic despite having qualities and lives that are radically different from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author.

In a recent interview with National Public Radio, during an "All Things Considered" segment, Bob Shacochis talked about one particular difficulty he had while writing his newest novel, "The Woman Who Lost Her Soul."

The recently released "Letters from an American Farmer and Other Essays" (Harvard UP, 2013) provides more depth and insight to French-born writer J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur and his reflections on early America, thanks to Dennis Moore's twenty-plus years of research.

In his new book, "The American Essay in the American Century" (U of Missouri P, 2011), Ned Stuckey-French offers not only a cultural history of the personal essay but also a defense of that oft-neglected art form.

In the summer of 1967, The Beatles released "All You Need is Love," a song with a simple message of peace and unity. A little less than 10 years later, in the spring of 1977, the Sex Pistols thrashed the airwaves with their most-acclaimed single, "God Save the Queen," with lyrics that include the repeated ending, "No future / no future for you / No future for me."

Eric Walker's new book, "Marriage, Writing, and Romanticism: Wordsworth and Austen after War" (Stanford University Press: 2009) is destined to change what we mean when we say, "Marriage is difficult."