Meet the Faculty

Faculty

The writing faculty have been honored for their teaching and creative work, including such awards as the Flannery O’Connor Prize for Short Fiction, the Ohio State University Press/The Journal Poetry Prize; three Pushcart Prizes for fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry; the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Fiction Prize; a Newhouse Award from the John Gardner Foundation; the George Garrett Fiction Prize; the Sawtooth poetry prize; the Stephen F. Austin University Press Poetry Prize;   CASE Professor of the Year; two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships in fiction; and nine other creative writing fellowships.

Gary Fincke, Ph.D., Kent State University

Poetry, Fiction, Non-Fiction

Fincke's latest book, The History of Permanence (2011), won the 2010 Stephen F. Austin University Press Poetry Prize. Winner of the 2003 Flannery O’Connor Prize for Short Fiction and the 2003 Ohio State University Press/The Journal Poetry Prize, Fincke has 23 books in print, including The Canals of Mars (memoir), 2010; The Fire Landscape (poems), 2008; Standing around the Heart (poems), 2005: Sorry I Worried You (stories), 2004; Amp'd (nonfiction), 2004; The Stone Child (stories), 2003; Writing Letters for the Blind (poems), 2003; and Emergency Calls (stories), 1996.
 

Tom Bailey, Ph.D., SUNY-Binghamton; MFA, University of Iowa

Fiction, Creative Non-Fiction

Bailey's first novel, The Grace that Keeps this World, was published as a Shaye Areheart book in the fall of 2005. Cotton Song was published in the fall of 2006. He is the author of Crow Man, a collection of short stories, and two books from Oxford University Press, A Short Story Writer's Companion (2001) and On Writing Short Stories (2000). The Grace that Keeps this World earned him the 2006 Mississippi Artsand Letters Fiction Prize. 
 

Karla Kelsey, Ph.D., University of Denver, MFA, University of Iowa

Poetry, Editing and Publishing

Kelsey’s book of poetry, Knowledge, Forms, the Aviary, was chosen by Carolyn Forche to win the 2005 Sawtooth Poetry Prize. The book was published by Ahsahta Press in early 2006. Also the author of the chapbook Little Dividing Doors in the Mind (Noemi Press 2005). From 2003-2005 she was associate editor of the Denver Quarterly. Her new collection of poems, Iteration Nets, was published in 2010 by Boise State University's Ahsahta Press.
 

Glen Retief, Ph.D., Florida State University, as well as degrees in English and African Studies from his native South Africa

Retief's essays, commentary, fiction and journalism have appeared in numerous publications, including Virginia Quarterly Review, The Massachusetts Review, Puerto del Sol and the Harriburg Patriot-News.  His memoir, The Jack Bank, was published by St. Martin's Press in April 2011.

 

Catherine Zobal Dent, Ph.D., M.A. Binghamton University; B.A. Duke University

Zobal Dent’s short fiction has appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Portland Review, MacGuffin, Echolocation, Paterson Literary Review and elsewhere. She is on the editorial board of the online journal Trillium. She co-wrote a chapter on short fiction in Creative Writing Guidebook, edited by Graeme Harper. Current projects include Dina, a novel, and Polyester, a creative nonfiction book about through-hiking the Appalachian Trail. Zobal Dent’s story, “Drunk,” is forthcoming in the North American Review.

 

Silas Dent Zobal, Ph.D., Binghamton University; M.F.A, University of Washington

Dent Zobal has published stories in journals and magazines such as the Missouri Review, Glimmer Train, Wisconsin Review, Beloit Fiction Journal, New Orleans Review and Shenandoah.  He has been anthologized in Peculiar Pilgrims: Stories from the Left Hand of God and awarded the Inaugural Discovered Voices Award from the Iron Horse Literary Review.  He is the recipient of a fellowship form the National Endowment for the Arts to work on his novel, titled The Feather Book.

 

Joseph Scapellato, M.F.A., New Mexico State University  

Scapellato was born in the suburbs of Chicago and earned his M.F.A. in fiction at New Mexico State University.  His work appears in Kenyon Review Online, Gulf Coast, Post Road, Unsaid, Artifice, the Collagist, SmokeLong Quarterly, and others, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Current projects include a novel and a collection of short stories.