Creative Writing Alumni
Alumni of the Creative Writing Program have published books of poetry and fiction in the finest presses in the country and their work has graced the pages of magazines and journals like The New Yorker, the Atlantic Monthly, and the Paris Review.
Monica Brashears is an Affrilachian writer from Tennessee. She is a graduate of Syracuse University’s MFA program. Her work has appeared in Nashville Review, Split Lip Magazine, Appalachian Review, The Masters Review, and more. House of Cotton is her first novel.
Amber Albritton is the author of the poetry collection The Indignity of Knowing: Perspectives in Verse of a Military Life. She lives with her family and dog in Knoxville, Tennessee. Though she grew up traveling extensively in a military family, East Tennessee is her land, and these are her people. She teaches for the English Department at the University of Tennessee, in Knoxville.
Katie Condon is the author of Praying Naked (Mad Creek Books), winner of the 2018 The Journal Charles B. Wheeler Poetry Prize. Her poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, Tin House, Prairie Schooner and many other places. She is an Assistant Professor at Southern Methodist University.
Allison Pitinii Davis is the author of Line Study of a Motel Clerk (Baobab Press) and Poppy Seeds (Kent State University Press), winner of the Wick Poetry Chapbook Prize. Her poems have appeared in Best American Poetry, the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day series, The New Republic, Missouri Review and many other places.
Jesse Goolsby is the author of the short story collection Acceleration Hours (University of Nevada Press) and the novel I’d Walk With My Friends if I Could Find Them (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). His fiction and essays have appeared in places like EPOCH, The Kenyon Review, Narrative Magazine, Salon, and Pleiades. He is the recipient of the Richard Bausch Short Story Prize, the John Gardner Memorial Award in Fiction, and his work has been listed in both Best American Essays and Best American Short Stories and selected for Best American Mystery Stories. He serves as Acquisitions Editor for the literary journal War, Literature and the Arts.
Jessie Graves is an associate Professor of English and Poet-in-Residence at East Tennessee State University. His collections include Basin Ghosts (Texas Review Press) and Tennessee Landscape with Blighted Pines (Texas Review Press) and he is the winner of the Weatherford Award, the Book of the Year Award from the Appalachian Writers’ Association, and the Thomas and Lille D. Chaffin Award.
Jessie Janeshek is the author of three book-length collections of poetry—MADCAP (Stalking Horse Press), The Shaky Phase (Stalking Horse) and Invisible Mink (Iris Press)—and several chapbooks, including Spanish Donkey/Pear of Anguish (Grey Book Press), Rah-Rah Nostalgia (dancing girl press) and Supernoir (Grey Book). She is an Associate Professor of English at Bethany College.
Charlotte Pence is the author of two book-length collections of poetry—Code and Many Small Fires (Black Lawrence)—two chapbooks—Weaves a Clear Night (Flying Trout) and The Branches, the Ax, the Missing (Black River)—and the editor of the Poetics of American Song Lyrics (University of Mississippi). Her work has appeared in Kenyon Review, North American Review, Denver Quarterly, Southern Review and many other places. She is the Director of the Stokes Center for Creative Writing at the University of South Alabama.
Adam Prince’s award-winning fiction has appeared in The Missouri Review, The Southern Review, and Narrative Magazine, where has was named one of the best new writers in the country. He is currently serving as the Stokes Visiting Writer at The University of South Alabama. His first book, a short story collection called The Beautiful Wishes of Ugly Men, is available from Black Lawrence Press.
Joshua Robbins is the author of the poetry collection Praise Nothing (University of Arkansas Press). He is the recipient of the James Wright Poetry Award, the New South Prize and multiple Pushcart nominations.
Michael Shou-Yung Shum is the author of the novel Queen of Spades (Forest Avenue Press). His work has appeared places like Literary Hub, The Writers Chronicle, Fiction Writers Review.
Bradford Tice is the author of two books of poetry: Rare Earth (New Rivers Press), which was named the winner of the 2011 Many Voices Project and What the Night Numbered (Trio House Press). His poetry and fiction has appeared in such periodicals as The Atlantic Monthly, North American Review, The American Scholar, Mississippi Review, as well Best American Short Stories, 2008. He currently teaches at Nebraska-Wesleyan University.
M.O. Walsh is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels The Big Door Prize (Putnam) and My Sunshine Away (Putnam) and the short story collection The Prospect of Magic (Livingston Press). His fiction and essays have appeared in EPOCH, Southern Review, Oxford American, Best New American Voices, and many other places. He currently directs The Creative Writing Workshop at the University of New Orleans.