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1983–1996 and after · University of Notre Dame (boundary)
Valerie Sayers is the founding editor of the Notre Dame Review — her name stands as Founding Editor on the mastheads (Nos. 33, 40, 42, 46 among them), and the review's first issue is Winter 1995. Hired at Notre Dame in 1993, she secured the Creative Writing Program's first budget. She is carried through her books as well as her institution: six novels, among them Due East, Brain Fever, The Distance Between Us, and The Powers. The programme's founder on paper is William O'Rourke, who proposed the M.F.A. in 1983; the programme became real in stages — an M.A. in 1991, the M.F.A. approved in 1996 — and O'Rourke served as editor of the Notre Dame Review and later as its Editor Emeritus. The two foundings are distinct and are printed distinctly: O'Rourke founded the programme on paper and in proposal; Sayers founded the review and funded the programme's working life. Nicholas Sparks (art-51-6) later became a major benefactor of this same programme — scholarships, internships, and an annual fellowship — which is the programme line's own measure of what an alumnus's strength means here.
Osceola's share of the programme line is none: no founder, editor, or programme figure with an Osceola or Penn Township tie appears in the university records reached.
Sources: Notre Dame Review mastheads; University of Notre Dame Creative Writing Program records and histories.