Core MFA Faculty

Luisa A. Igloria | John McManus | Michael Pearson | Janet Peery | Sheri Reynolds | Tim Seibles 

Luisa A. Igloria

Luisa Igloria Is a tenured professor and the author of 10 books including most recently Juan Luna’s Revolver (University of Notre Dame Press, winner of the 2009 Ernest Sandeen Poetry Prize); Trill & Mordent (WordTech Editions, 2005; co-winner, 2007 Global Filipino Literary Award in Poetry); Encanto (Anvil, 2004); and In the Garden of the Three Islands (Moyer Bell/Asphodel, 1995). Her other prizes include 4 Philippine National Book Awards in poetry. www.luisaigloria.com

faculty website | website | YouTube | top

John McManus

John McManus is the author of the novel Bitter Milk and two collections of short fiction, Born on a Train and Stop Breakin Down. Born in Knoxville and raised in Maryville, Tennessee, he has been the recipient of fellowships from the James A. Michener Center for Writers and the Camargo Foundation. In 2000 he became the youngest-ever recipient of the Whiting Writers' Award.

faculty website | YouTube | top

Michael Pearson

Michael Pearson is the author of the books Imagined Places: Journeys into Literary America (A New York Times Notable Book of 1992), Dreaming of Columbus: A Boyhood in the Bronx (1999), Innocents Abroad Too (2008) and the novel Shohola Falls (2003). He is also the author of John McPhee (1997) and A Place That’s Known (published in 1994 and out of print). He has written dozens of essays and reviews for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, The Southern Journal, Creative Nonfiction, and many other newspapers and magazines. He has taught on two Semester at Sea voyages around the world and led three travel writing summer study abroad programs in Europe.

faculty website | website | top

Janet Peery

A finalist for the National Book Award in l996, Janet Peery is the author of Alligator Dance, The River Beyond the World, and What the Thunder Said. Her stories appear in Shenandoah, Kenyon Review, American Short Fiction, Southwest Review, Chattahoochee Review, Black Warrior Review, Southern Review, Pushcart Prize anthologies, Best American Short Stories l993, and others. A fellow of the NEA and the Guggenheim Foundation, she has been the recipient of the Whiting Award and the Rosenthal Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

faculty website | top

Sheri Reynolds

Sheri Reynolds is the author of the novels Bitterroot Landing, The Rapture of Canaan (a #1 New York Times Bestseller and Oprah Bookclub selection) A Gracious Plenty, Firefly Cloak and The Sweet In-Between. Her play Orabelle's Wheelbarrow won the Women Playwrights' Initiative Award in 2005 and was produced by Orlando Repertory Theatre.

faculty website | website | YouTube |  top

Tim Seibles

Tim Seibles is the author of Body Moves (1988), Hurdy-Gurdy (1992), Kerosene (1995), Hammerlock (1990), and Buffalo Head Solos (2004). Honors and awards include an NEA Fellowship, a 1990 Open Voice Award from the National Writers Voice Project, and a Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center Fellowship.

faculty website | YouTube | top

The Mina Hohenberg Darden Chair in Creative Writing

After a national search conducted in spring 2011, Blake Bailey has been appointed the Darden Endowed Professor in Creative Writing. Blake, who is the Winner of the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography for his book Cheever: A Life, officially joins the faculty of the MFA Creative Writing program in fall 2011, to teach courses in Creative Nonfiction.

Blake’s other recent awards and achievements include the 2010 Francis Parkman Prize(Best Book of American History from the Society of American Historians); one of only seven prestigious Academy awards in Literature presented by the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2010; Finalist (Biography) for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize; Finalist (Biography) for the 2010 James Tait Black Memorial Prize; and Finalist (Bisexual Nonfiction) for the 2010 Lambda Literary Award.

In 2011, Blake was selected to serve as one of five judges to determine the finalists and winner of the 2010 National Book Award in Nonfiction. He is under contract with Alfred A. Knopf for a biography of novelist Charles Jackson which is expected to see publication in 2013.

YouTube