Residency #137
MAY 17 - JUNE 6
(Application Deadline: February 5, 2010)

RICHARD McCANN, literature

Richard McCann is the author of Mother of Sorrows, a work of fiction, and Ghost Letters, a collection of poems (1994 Beatrice Hawley Award, 1933 Capricorn Poetry Award). He is also the editor (with Michael Klein) of Things Shaped in Passing: More 'Poets for Life' Writing from the AIDS Pandemic. His fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in such magazines as The Atlantic, Ms., Esquire, Ploughshares, Tin House, and the Washington Post Magazine, and in numerous anthologies, including The O. Henry Prize Stories 2007 and Best American Essays 2000. He is currently working on a memoir, The Resurrectionist, which explores the experience and meanings of illness and mortality through a narrative exploration of his experience as a liver transplant recipient.

For his work, Richard McCann has received grants and awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Christopher Isherwood Foundation, the Fulbright Foundation, Yaddo, The MacDowell Colony, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, on whose Board of Trustees he served from 2000-2008. He earned his MA in Creative Writing and Modern Literature from Hollins University and his Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Iowa, where he was a Rockefeller Fellow. He grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland, and he has lived in numerous places, including Sweden, Germany, and Spain. He now lives in Washington, DC, where he teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at American University. He also serves the Board of Directors of the PEN Faulkner Foundation and is a Member of the Corporation of Yaddo.

* For more information on Richard McCann, please visit http://www.richardmccann.net/

Residency Statement

I'd like to work with prose writers-whether of fiction, nonfiction, or some combination of the two-whose works derive at least in part from autobiographical sources, so that we can explore some of our common concerns, such as what it means to work from memory and what we need to do as writers in order to transform the raw material of life into stories that have the power to move others. It's my hope that in our three weeks together-bivouacked, as it were-we'll form an attentive and generous critical community, so that we can encourage one another to take the sorts of risks that allow us to grow as writers.  In the mornings, we'll write a lot; for two hours each afternoon, we'll come together for workshop sessions, individual conferences, and writing exercises that are designed to carry us to places that we hadn't necessarily thought to go.  Whether working in fiction or nonfiction, you should bring with you either a work-in-progress or the desire to begin something new.

Application Requirements

Applicants should submit a writing sample of no more than 10 pages of either fiction or nonfiction, along with a bio or resume and a personal statement describing what you hope to accomplish during this residency.