Harlaxton Visiting Writers and Faculty, 2011
Colette Bryce - Poetry
Colette Bryce is an Irish poet currently serving as Editor of the prestigious magazine Poetry London. Born in Derry in 1970, she has published three poetry collections, The Heel of Bernadette (2000) and The Full Indian Rope Trick (2005), and Self-Portrait in the Dark (2008), which was shortlisted for the Irish Times Poetry Now. For these she has received the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize, the inaugural Strong Award in Ireland, an Arts Council England writer's award, and first prize in the National Poetry Competition 2003. From 2002-2005 she was fellow in Creative Writing at the University of Dundee, in 2004 was poet in residence at the biennial Poetry International festival on London's South Bank, and is the former North East Literary Fellow at the universities of Newcastle and Durham.
Christopher Wakling - Fiction
Christopher Wakling was born in 1970. He studied English at Oxford and has worked as a farm hand, teacher and lawyer. He has written four novels: Towards the Sun, The Undertow, Beneath the Diamond Sky, and On Cape Three Points. Christopher Wakling is the Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow at Bristol University. From time to time he teaches creative writing for the Arvon Foundation, and writes travel journalism for The Independent. Married with two children, he lives in Bristol.
Beth Ann Fennelly - Poetry and Creative Nonfiction
Beth Ann Fennelly, Director of the MFA Program at the University of Mississippi at Oxford, is the author of four books and has received grants from the State of Illinois Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts. She is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and the Wood Award for Distinguished Writing from The Carolina Quarterly and residencies at the University of Arizona, MacDowell, and Breadloaf. Her poems have been published in TriQuarterly, Shenandoah, The Georgia Review, Ploughshares, The American Scholar, and Poetry Ireland Review; she was the New Voices feature of The Kenyon Review with a critical introduction by Robert Hass. Her poems have been reprinted in Best American Poetry 1996 and 2005, Contemporary American Poetry, The Penguin Book of the Sonnet, and Poets of the New Century. In 2002 she read from her work at he Library of Congress at the invitation of the U.S. Poet Laureate. She won the 1997 Texas Review Breakthrough Award for her chapbook, A Different Kind of Hunger. Her first full-length book, Open House, won The 2001 Kenyon Review Prize for Poetry, the GLCA New Writers Award, and was a Book Sense Top Ten Poetry Pick. Her second book, Tender Hooks, was published by W. W. Norton in April, 2004. A book of essays, Great With Child, was released by W.W. Norton in 2006, and a third book of poetry, Unmentionables, was published in 2008.
Tom Franklin - Fiction
Tom Franklin is from Dickinson, Alabama. He earned his MFA from the University of Arkansas in 1998 and has published four books, Poachers (stories, 1999), Hell at the Breech (a novel, 2003), Smonk (2007), and Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter (2010). His short fiction and essays have appeared in The Georgia Review, The Oxford American, Black Warrior Review, New Stories from the South (1999 and 2005), and Best American Mystery Stories of the Century, among other journals and anthologies. A 2001 Guggenheim Fellowship recipient, he has been the John and Renee Grisham Writer-in-Residence at Ole Miss and the Tennessee Williams Fellow at Sewanee. Currently he teaches at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, where he lives with his wife, poet Beth Ann Fennelly, and their two children.
Margaret McMullan - Fiction
A recipient of a 2010 NEA Fellowship in literature, Margaret McMullan is the author of six award-winning novels, including Sources of Light; In My Mother's House; Cashay, a Chicago Public Library 2009 Teen Book Selection; and When I Crossed No-Bob, a 2008 Parents' Choice Silver Honor, a 2007 School Library Journal Best Book, an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults, a Booklist 2009 Best Book For Young Adults, a 2008 finalist for the Willie Morris Prize for Southern Fiction, and a 2008 Horace Mann Upstander Honor book. Both When I Crossed No-Bob and How I Found the Strong won the Mississippi Arts and Letters Award for Best Fiction (in 2004 and 2008) and the Indiana Best Young Adult Book (in 2005 and 2008). How I Found the Strong also won the 2006 Award for Fiction from the Mississippi Library Association, was named an ALA 2005 Notable Social Studies Book, and a Booklist's Top Ten First Novel for Youth. Her essays and short stories have appeared in Glamour, the Chicago Tribune, National Geographic for Kids, Southern Accents, the Indianapolis Star, TriQuarterly, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Greensboro Review, The Southern California Anthology, Mississippi Magazine, Other Voices, Boulevard, Ploughshares, and The Sun among several other journals and anthologies such as Christmas Stories from the South's Best Writers and Christmas Essays from the South's Best Writers. Margaret teaches in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Evansville, Indiana.
Rob Griffith - Poetry
Originally from Memphis, Tennessee, Rob Griffith is the author of three award-winning books of poetry, including A Matinee in Plato's Cave (Water Press and Media, 2008), winner of the 2009 Best Book of Indiana Award; Poisoning Caesar (Finishing Line Press, 2004); and Necessary Alchemy (Middle Tennessee State University Press, 1999), winner of the Tennessee Chapbook Prize. A new, full-length collection of poetry, The Moon from Every Window, is forthcoming from David Robert Books in fall, 2011. His poems, essays, and stories have appeared in magazines and journals such as Poetry, River Styx, The North American Review, PN Review, The Dark Horse, The Sewanee Theological Review, Prairie Schooner, The Oxford American, Spoon River Review, Classical Outlook, Connecticut Review, and many others. He is the editor of the poetry journal Measure and Co-Director of the University of Evansville Press, which manages the Richard Wilbur book award. He teaches in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Evansville, Indiana.
Tiffany Denman - Translation
Tiffany Denman earned her B.A. in English Literature from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, and also holds an M.A. in English Literature and an M.F.A. in Translation and Creative Writing from the same institution. She is a translator of Spanish and Old Icelandic, and was the Director of Writing at the University of Evansville. Selections of her translations of Icelandic sagas have appeared in the Evansville Review and elsewhere.
Lee Griffith - Fiction and Creative Nonfiction
Lee Griffith completed his MFA in creative writing at the University of Memphis, where he was Managing Editor of the nationally distributed literary journal, The Pinch. A quarterfinals judge for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, he writes regularly for Publishers Weekly and Magadoo Film Productions. His writing has recently appeared in Culture + Travel, Modern Painters, Art + Auction, Opium Magazine online, and Fast Forward: The Mix Tape, a Collection of Flash Fiction. He is a Professor of Writing at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD).
