BIO
Gary L. McDowell was born and raised in suburban
Chicago. He earned a BA in English from Northern Illinois University, an MFA in
Poetry from Bowling Green State University, and a Ph.D. in Contemporary Poetics
and American Literature from Western Michigan University. He is the author of Weeping at a Stranger's Funeral
(Dream Horse Press, 2014); American
Amen (Dream Horse Press, 2010), winner of the 2009 Orphic Prize in
Poetry; They Speak of
Fruit (Cooper Dillon, 2009), and The
Blueprint (Pudding House, 2005).
He’s the co-editor, with F. Daniel Rzicznek, of The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to
Prose Poetry: Contemporary Poets in Discussion and Practice (Rose
Metal Press, 2010). His poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in journals
such as American Poetry Review, The Nation, Green Mountains Review, Bellingham Review,
Colorado Review,
Indiana Review,
Mid-American Review, New
England Review, Ninth
Letter, Prairie Schooner, and
Quarterly West, among others. He’s won awards from Prairie Schooner, Green Mountains Review, (the 2014 Neil Shepard Prize in Creative Nonfiction), National Poetry Review, Minnetonka
Review, The Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Foundation, Dream Horse Press, and
others. He lives just outside Nashville, TN with his family and is an assistant
professor of English and Creative Writing at Belmont University.