WVWC MFA in Creative Writing

Core Faculty

Read the teaching statements of current faculty.

Jessie van Eerden, Program Director vaneerden@wvwc.edu	Jessie van Eerden is author of the novels Glorybound (WordFarm), winner of the 2012 ForeWord Reviews Editor’s Choice Fiction Prize, and My Radio Radio (Vandalia Press, 2016), and the essay collection The Long Weeping (Orison Books, 2017). Her personal essays, short stories, and poems have appeared in a wide variety of publications, including The Oxford American, Bellingham Review, Rock & Sling, The Literary Review, The River Teeth Reader, and others. Her prose has also been included in Best American Spiritual Writing and Red Holler: An Anthology of Contemporary Appalachian Literature. Jessie received the Milton Fellowship from Image and Seattle Pacific University for work on her debut novel, and she was an Edwin Ford Piper Memorial Scholar at the University of Iowa, where she received her MFA in nonfiction. “Edna” in Newfound Journal (new window) “Sunday Morning Coming Down” in Willow Springs (new window)

Mark Defoe defoe@wvwc.edu	Mark DeFoe’s poems have appeared in journals, anthologies and textbooks in the US, Canada, Great Britain and Europe. His work has been three times nominated for the Pushcart Prize and he has received grants, awards and fellowships from the WV Commission for the Arts, The Chautauqua Literary Journal, Poems and Plays, A Smartish Pace and others. Mark has a talented wife, two accomplished daughters, four splendid grandkids, and one indifferent cat. When he is not writing or reading, he repairs his old house and works in his garden. His tenth chapbook is In the Tourist Cave. He is a long-suffering Pittsburgh Pirate fan. “Grand Entrance” in Connotation Press (new window) “Song” on The Poetry Foundation Website (new window) “Coming Out of Wal-Mart” on The Writer’s Almanac (new window)

Devon McNamara mcnamara@wvwc.edu	Devon McNamara has poetry, essays, reviews and interviews in The Christian Science Monitor, The Hiram Poetry Review, Laurel Review, Trellis, Dark Horse, Wild Sweet Notes: 50 Years of West Virginia Poetry, and most recently Dogs Singing, from Salmon Poetry, Cliffs of Moher, Co. Clare, Ireland. She directs cultural tours of Ireland for undergraduates and for writers in the MFA program. Before joining the Wesleyan English faculty she taught in poets-in-the-schools projects in West Virginia, Ohio, Iowa and Missouri, conducted writing workshops in reform facilities, and pioneered the West Virginia Public Radio college course, Women and Literature, featuring interviews with Appalachian musician Jean Ritchie, poets Adrienne Rich, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Irene McKinney, and former West Virginia Poet Laureate Louise McNeill. She was also co-manager of The Morgantown School of Ballet, a character dancer in the regional company, and has worked collaboratively with dancers from The Dayton Ballet and Dayton Contemporary Dance Company. Her Ph.D. is from New York University and she is the recipient of a YADDO fellowship. Active Faculty Summer-Fall 2019 “Zach Sings” and “Spring Lament” in Dogs Singing (PDF)

Richard Schmitt schmitt@wvwc.edu	Richard Schmitt has published over 20 short stories in literary journals such as Blackbird, Puerto del Sol, Gulf Coast, Alimentum, Cimarron Review, and other places. He is the author of the short story collection Living Among Strangers (2017) and The Aerialist, a novel awarded four starred reviews by Kirkus, Publisher’s Weekly, Library Journal, and Entertainment Weekly. His story, “Leaving Venice, Florida,” won 1st Prize in The Mississippi Review Short Story contest and was anthologized in New Stories of the South: The Year’s Best 1999. Schmitt’s creative nonfiction has been featured in The Gettysburg Review and anthologized in Best American Essays 2013. Schmitt is the recipient of a National Endowment of the Arts Grant, 2002, for The Aerialist, and has been nominated for Pushcart Prizes in 2011 and 2012. Active Faculty Summer-Fall 2019 “Flashpoint” in Blackbird (new window) “The Heartbreak Business” in SNReview (new window) “Breathing” in Shenandoah (new window)

Doug Van Gundy vangundy_d@wvwc.edu	Doug Van Gundy’s poems and essays have appeared in many journals, including The Oxford American, Ecotone, Poems & Plays and The Louisville Review. His first book of poems, A Life Above Water, is published by Red Hen Press. In addition to teaching in the MFA program at West Virginia Wesleyan, he also directs the undergraduate Honors program. He also serves as assistant poetry editor at Connotation Press. A graduate of the Goddard College MFA program, Doug has been a visiting poet at Lynchburg College, Randolph Macon College, Barton College, Coastal Carolina University and Davis & Elkins College, and was an associate artist at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. In addition to writing and teaching, Doug is an award-winning old-time musician whose music has been featured on three CDs, several short films, and National Public Radio’s Mountain Stage. He plays fiddle, guitar and mandolin in the duo, Born Old. Active Faculty Summer-Fall 2019 “A Fierce Desire to Stay” in The Guardian (new window) “Serengeti” in Birmingham Arts Journal (new window) “The Return of the Almighty” in Waccamaw (new window) “Engineers” in Waccamaw (new window) From the Fishouse Archive