Faculty & Student News

Poetry

Peter Campion

Angie Estes

Stephen Haven, Director

Ruth Schwartz

Kathryn Winograd

Administrative Director

Sarah Wells

Creative Nonfiction

Jill Christman

Bob Cowser, Jr.

Steven Harvey

Sonya Huber

Daniel Lehman

Bob Root

Peter Campion, poetry, is the author of The Lions: Poems (University of Chicago Press, 2009), Other People, (University of Chicago Press, 2005) and Mitchell Johnson (Terrence Rogers Fine Art, 2004).  He has held a George Starbuck Lectureship at Boston University, as well as a Wallace Stegner Fellowship and Jones Lecturership at Stanford University. His poetry and prose have appeared recently in The Boston Globe, Modern Painters, The New Republic, Parnassus, Poetry, Poetry Northwest, Tikkun, The Yale Review and elsewhere. His monograph on the painter Joseph McNamara was published by The Seven Bridges Foundation. He has published catalog essays on such painters as Terry St. John, Kim Frohsin, Eric Aho, and Siddharth Parasnis. He won a Pushcart Prize in 2008.

Campion is the editor of the journal, Literary Imagination.  He is currently Assistant Professor of English at Auburn University where he teaches creative writing, modern and contemporary poetry, prosody, and poetry and the visual arts.

Back to Top

Jill Christman, creative nonfiction, is the author of the memoir Darkroom: A Family Exposure, which won the AWP Award Series in Creative Nonfiction and was published by the University of Georgia Press in 2002. Recent essays appearing in River Teeth and Harpur Palate have been honored by Pushcart nominations, and River Teeth will reprint her essay, "Paddling the Middle Fork: A Love Story in Low Water" in their best-of-the-first-ten-years edition this spring. Her nonfiction has been published in Brevity, Barrelhouse, Descant, Literary Mama, Mississippi Review, Conclave, Wondertime, Brain, Child and many other journals and magazines. Her work has appeared on Indiana Public Radio and in anthologies, including the Writer’s Digest Rules of Thumb and Unbuttoned: Women tell the truth about the pains, pleasures and politics of breastfeeding (Harvard Common Press).

Jill Christman holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Alabama. She is currently Associate Professor of English at Ball State University where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in creative nonfiction writing.

Back to Top

Bob Cowser, Jr., creative nonfiction.  Cowser's first book, Dream Season, published in 2004 by the Atlantic Monthly Press, was a New York Times Book Review "Editor's Choice" and "Paperback Row" selection and was listed among the Chronicle of Higher Education's best-ever college sports books. It garnered further praise in Sports Illustrated, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, and on NPR's "Only a Game." His second book, Scorekeeping, a collection of coming-of-age essays, was published in October 2006 by the University of South Carolina Press. He is currently at work on a third book about the 1979 murder of one of his grade school classmates and the execution of her killer in 2000, the first execution in Tennessee in 40 years.  

An Academy of American Poets prizewinner and Pushcart Prize nominee, Cowser's work has appeared widely in American literary magazines, including The Missouri Review, Prairie Schooner, American Literary Review, Sycamore Review, Brevity, Sonora Review, The Pinch, Fourth Genre, and Creative Nonfiction. He is Associate Professor of English at St. Lawrence University, where he teaches courses in nonfiction writing and later American literature, and serves as associate editor of River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative. Cowser lives on the Grasse River in Canton, NY with his wife, Candace, and their sons Jackson and Mason.

Back to Top

Angie Estes, poetry, is the author of four books, most recently Tryst (2009) and Chez Nous (2005), both from Oberlin College Press.   Her second book, Voice-Over (Oberlin College Press, 2002), won the 2001 FIELD Poetry Prize and was also awarded the 2001 Alice Fay di Castagnola Prize from the Poetry Society of America.  Her first book, The Uses of Passion (1995), was the winner of the Peregrine Smith Poetry Prize. Her poems have appeared in numerous literary magazines, including TriQuarterly, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, Boston Review, and  Slate, and in the anthologies Gondola Signore Gondola: Venice in 20th Century American Poetry (Supernova Edizioni, Venezia, 2007), Evensong: Contemporary American Poets on Spirituality (Bottom Dog Press, 2006), The Extraordinary Tide: New Poetry by American Women (Columbia University Press, 2001), and The Geography of Home: California and the Poetry of Place (Heyday Press, 1999). Her essays have appeared in FIELD, Lyric Poetry Review, Children’s Literature, Christianity and Literature, Little Women: Norton Critical Edition, and in Poets on the Psalms.

The recipient of many awards, including a Pushcart Prize and the Cecil Hemley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, she has received fellowships, grants, and residencies from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the California Arts Council, the MacDowell Colony, and the Ohio Arts Council. Estes received her Ph.D. and M.A. in English from the University of Oregon and was for several years Professor of American Literature and Creative Writing at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Most recently she has taught creative writing at Oberlin College and at The Ohio State University. She is also a contributing editor for the literary magazine The Journal.

Back to Top

Steven Harvey, creative nonfiction, is the author of Bound for Shady Grove (University of Georgia Press, 2000), a collection of personal essays about his experiences learning to sing and play the traditional music of the Appalachian mountains where he lives. The University of Georgia Press published the book in June 2000. He is also the author of two other collections of personal essays, A Geometry of Lilies (University of South Carolina Press) and Lost in Translation (University of Georgia Press), and the editor of In a Dark Wood: Personal Essays by Men on Middle Age (University of Georgia Press).

Harvey is Dean of the Humanities and Professor of English at Young Harris College. He received his Ph.D. in literature from the University of Virginia.  He has published pieces in many magazines such as Harper's, DoubleTake, The Georgia Review, The Fourth Genre, River Teeth and Creative Nonfiction, and has been anthologized in In Short, Life Studies, The Fourth Genre, Writing True: The Art and Craft of Creative Nonfiction and other collections. He is a former Governor's appointee to the board of the Georgia Humanities Council and a book reviewer for the Atlanta Journal and Constitution newspaper.

Steve Harvey will be on-leave for the 2008-2009 school year.  He will return beginning with the 2009 Summer Residency.

Back to Top

Stephen Haven, Director, has published two books of poems, Dust and Bread (Turning Point, 2008) and The Long Silence of the Mohawk Carpet Smokestacks (West End Press, 2004), and one memoir, The River Lock:  One Boy’s Life along the Mohawk (Syracuse University Press, 2008).  His collaborative translations from contemporary Chinese poetry, The Enemy in Defensive Positions (Poetry Miscellany Chapbooks), also came out in 2008.  He is editor of The Poetry of W.D. Snodgrass:  Everything Human (University of Michigan Press, 1993), and co-editor of two anthologies of contemporary poetry.

Haven's poetry and essays have appeared in Crazyhorse, American Poetry Review, Salmagundi, Image, Western Humanities Review, The Missouri Review, The Christian Science Monitor, and in many other journals.  He has an M.F.A. in Poetry from the University of Iowa and a Ph.D. in American Civilization from New York University, where he wrote his dissertation under the direction of Harold Bloom.  Haven has been a repeat fellow at Yaddo and MacDowell, twice a Fulbright Lecturer in American Literature (poetry) at universities in Beijing, and has won three individual artist fellowships, and one residency grant (at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center), from the Ohio Arts Council.

Back to Top

Sonya Huber, creative nonfiction, is Assistant Professor of creative writing at Georgia Southern University.  Her first book, Opa Nobody, was published in 2008 by University of Nebraska Press.  Her second book of creative nonfiction, Cover Me: A Health Insurance Memoir, is forthcoming from University of Nebraska Press, and her textbook, The Backwards Research Guide: Using Your Life for Connection, Reflection, and Inspiration, is forthcoming from Equinox Books. She has an M.F.A. in Creative Writing and an M.A. in Journalism from The Ohio State University.

Her work has appeared in literary journals including Fourth Genre, Topic, Passages North, Waccamaw Journal, Oxford Magazine, Main Street Rag, Literary Mama, Kaleidoscope, Hotel Amerika, Sub-lit and others; in anthologies including Learning to Glow (University of Arizona Press), Young Wives' Tales (Seal Press), Bare Your Soul (Seal Press), Reading for the Maternally Inclined: The Best of Literary Mama (Seal Press), Mama Ph.D. (forthcoming from Rutgers University Press), and Campus, Inc. (Prometheus Books); in periodicals including The Chronicle of Higher Education, Psychology Today, In These Times, Sojourner, and Earth Island Journal; and elsewhere.

Back to Top

Daniel W. Lehman is trustees’ distinguished professor of English at Ashland University and co-editor of River Teeth: A Journal of Nonfiction Narrative. A former journalist in New York, Washington, D.C., and Charlottesville, Va., Lehman is working on books about South African nonfiction and about the artistic and ethical implications of character formation in nonfiction narratives. He is author of John Reed and the Writing of Revolution (Ohio University Press, 2002) and Matters of Fact: Reading Nonfiction over the Edge (Ohio State University Press, 1997). Lehman is co-editor of the River Teeth Reader (University of Nebraska Press, 2009) and is series co-editor of the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Book Prize series for the University of Nebraska Press. In 2004-2005, Lehman was a Fulbright Senior Scholar at Stellenbosch University near Cape Town, South Africa; he led a joint Ohio State University/Ashland University study tour to Cape Town during the summer of 2008.

Back to Top

Robert Root, creative nonfiction, is the author of Recovering Ruth: A Biographer’s Tale (University of Nebraska Press, 2002) and Following Isabella: Travels in Colorado Then and Now (University of Oklahoma Press, 2009) as well as The Nonfictionist’s Guide: On Reading and Writing Creative Nonfiction (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007) and E. B. White: The Emergence of an Essayist (University of Iowa Press, 1998). He is the editor of Landscapes With Figures: The Nonfiction of Place (Nebraska, 2007), a book of essays of place and commentaries by authors, and the co-editor of the anthology The Fourth Genre: Contemporary Writers of/on Creative Nonfiction (Longman), now in its fifth edition. He is also the author or editor of nine other books and is the Interview/Roundtable editor for the journal Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction.

Root taught at Central Michigan University and at Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver. His article “Collage, Montage, Mosaic, Vignette, Episode, Segment,” from The Fourth Genre, is often assigned in creative nonfiction courses across the country. An essay on writing and teaching, “A Double Life,” published in Writing on the Edge, won the 2007 Donald Murray Award for Best Essay on Writing and/or Teaching.

His creative nonfiction includes essays of place published in literary journals such as Brevity, North Dakota Quarterly, Rivendell, Colorado Review, The Concord Saunterer, and divide; “Knowing Where You’ve Been,” in Ascent, was named a Notable Essay in The Best American Essays 2004; “The Pattern of Life Indelible,” in Ecotone, was listed in 2007. As an essayist he has been an Artist-in-Residence at Acadia National Park, Rocky Mountain National Park, and Isle Royale National Park. He lives in Waukesha, Wisconsin. His websites are www.rootwriting.com and www.chsbs.cmich.edu/Robert_Root.

Back to Top

Ruth L. Schwartz, poetry, is the author of Dear Good Naked Morning (Autumn House Press, 2005), which was selected by Alicia Ostriker for the 2004 Autumn House Poetry Prize. Her three other books of poems include Edgewater (HarperCollins 2002), which was chosen by Jane Hirshfield as a 2001 National Poetry Series winner; Singular Bodies (Anhinga Press, 2001), the recipient of the 2000 Anhinga Prize for Poetry; and Accordion Breathing and Dancing (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996), winner of the 1994 Associated Writing Programs Competition. Ruth is also the author of a memoir, Death in Reverse: A Love Story (Michigan State University Press, 2004), and her creative nonfiction has appeared in the Utne Reader, The Sun, and numerous anthologies.

Recipient of over a dozen national writing awards, including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ohio Arts Council, and the Astraea Foundation, Ruth has taught creative writing at California State University-Fresno, Cleveland State University, Goddard College, Mills College, California College of the Arts, and elsewhere. She holds a B.A. in Women's Studies, an M.F.A. in Creative Writing, and a Ph.D. in Transpersonal Psychology. Ruth currently lives with her partner Michelle Murrain in Oakland, California, where she teaches and maintains a private practice in psychospiritual healing. Her websites are www.RuthSchwartz.com and www.HeartMindIntegration.com.

Back to Top

Kathryn Winograd, poetry, is the author of Air into Breath, a 2002 Colorado Book Award Winner in Poetry (Ashland Poetry Press, 2002).  Winograd has been the recipient of a Colorado Artist Fellowship in Poetry, a Rocky Mountain Women’s Institute Associateship, and a co-winner of a Colorado Endowment for The Humanities Grant. She is a poetry faculty member for the University of Northern Colorado’s Middle Ground Project, a collaboration with the Navajo Nation funded by a Presidential Academy in American History and Civics Education grant. Her poetry has appeared in literary journals such as TriQuarterly, The Denver Quarterly, The Colorado Review ,The Journal, The Antioch Review, Kalliope, The Ohio Review, Many Mountains Moving, Calyx, The Cincinnati Review, Water-Stone, Poets Laureate, Weber Studies and The New Yorker and was recently featured on the Dona Stein The Poetry Show 88.9 KRFC .  

Winograd is the co-author of two books on online learning and teaching, You Can Learn Online and You Can Teach Online (McGraw Hill) and author of Stepping Sideways Into Poetry (Scholastic, Inc), a classroom resource book for K12 teachers.   She has published numerous articles and essays in publications such as Iris: A Journal Abut Women, Bloomsbury Review, The Herb Companion, Mountain Living, Natural Homes Magazine, Adjunct Advocate, and Converge Magazine, as well as children's stories and poems in Cricket magazine and Shoofly: An Audio Magazine for Children. Forthcoming poems and essays will appear in Cutthroat, Fourth Genre, and Winds of Change. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.  Winograd received her Ph.D. in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Denver, and a M.F.A. from the University of Iowa.

Back to Top