Visiting Writers Prog.

University of Idaho

Dept. of English
University of Idaho
P.O. Box 441102
Moscow, ID 83844-1102

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The Distinguished Visiting Writers Program was instituted in 1978 at the University of Idaho. It brings three to five nationally recognized authors to campus each year to provide graduates and undergraduates with a week of intensive instruction in poetry, fiction, or nonfiction writing, both in workshop settings and in one-on-one sessions. The workshop sessions are generally offered as a one-credit course. The credit can be used as part of the degree requirements for the B.A. in English, the M.F.A. in Creative Writing, and the M.A. in English.

Distinguished Visiting Writers are chosen not only for their talent as teachers and writers, but also for the diversity they bring to students in terms of genre, vision, voice, and background. Among those who have taught in the program are Kathy Acker, Charles Baxter, Ann Beattie, Robert Boswell, Ron Carlson, Lan Samantha Chang, Billy Collins, Robert Coover, Samuel R. Delany, Mark Doty, David James Duncan, Stephen Dunn, Tony Earley, Raymond Federman, Carolyn Forche, Jorie Graham, Robert Hass Ursula Hegi, Tony Hoagland, Stanley, Kunitz, Li-Young Lee, Margot Livesey, Beverly Lowry, Carole Maso, Campbell McGrath, Rebecca McClanahan, Heather McHugh, Antonya Nelson, Sharon Olds, Marilynne Robinson, Sonia Sanchez, Ellen Bryant Voigt, Derek Walcott, and David Foster Wallace.

2007-2008 DVWs

Patricia Hampl, nonfiction

Ann Pancake, fiction

Mark Halliday, poetry

2008-2009 DVWs

Dan Chaon (October 1st, 2008)

Dan Chaon is the acclaimed author of Fitting Ends and Among the Missing, a finalist for the National Book Award, which was also listed as one of the ten best books of the year by the American Library Association, Chicago Tribune, The Boston Globe, and Entertainment Weekly, as well as being cited as a New York Times Notable Book. Chaon's fiction has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, and won both Pushcart and O. Henry awards. Chaon teaches at Oberlin College and lives in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, with his wife and two sons.

Stephen Kuusisto (November 5, 2008)

A graduate of the “Writer’s Workshop” at the University of Iowa, and a Fulbright Scholar, Steve holds a dual faculty appointment at the University of Iowa where he teaches courses in creative nonfictionin the English Department and serves as a public humanities scholar in the U of Iowa’s Carver Institute for Macular Degenaration.  He speaks widely on diversity, disability, education, and public policy.  His essays and poems have appeared in numerous anthologies and literary magazines including Harper’s’ The New York Times Magazine; Poetry; and Partisan Review.  He is currently working on a collection of prose poems for Copper Canyon Press entitled "Mornings With Borges" as well as a collection of political poems about disability.

  B.H. Fairchild (March 25, 2009)

B. H. Fairchild grew up in small towns in Texas, Oklahoma, and southwest Kansas. He is the author of The Arrival of the Future, Local Knowledge, and The Art of the Lathe, a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the Kingsley Tufts Award, the William Carlos Williams Award, the California Book Award, the PEN Center West Poetry Award, and an award from the Texas Institute of Letters. He is the recipient of Guggenheim, Rockefeller/Bellagio, and NEA Fellowships, and recently received the Arthur Rense Poetry Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in California.

 

For further information, please contact the Coordinator of Creative Writing Brandon Schrand at bschrand@uidaho.edu.

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