Clint McCown

A native of Tennessee, McCown spent his youth in Birmingham, Alabama and in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

He received B.A. and M.A. degrees from Wake Forest University and an M.F.A. from Indiana University.[1] He received professional theatre training at the Circle in the Square Theatre School on Broadway in 1973-74.[1]

McCown toured as a principal actor with the National Shakespeare Company and the Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre.[2][3][4] From 1976-78 he worked as poet/dramatist-in-residence for the North Carolina Visiting Artist program.[4]

In 1978-79 he worked as Capitol Reporter for the Alabama Information Network, a chain of sixty-seven affiliated radio stations in Alabama.[4] For his investigations of organized crime and political corruption, he received an Associated Press Award for Documentary Excellence in 1978.[5]

After a stint as editor of Indiana Review, he taught at Beloit College in Wisconsin, where he founded, and was first editor of, the Beloit Fiction Journal.[6][7][8] He served four years as General Editor of the Intro Journals Project for the Association of Writers and Writing Programs.[9]

He has taught in the MFA program at Virginia Commonwealth University since 2004, where he has served as program director; and in the low-residency MFA program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts since 2005.[10]

His work has received several awards, including the Midwest Book Award for Fiction from MIPA,[11] the Sister Mariella Gable Prize,[12] the Society of Midland Authors Award for Adult Fiction,[13] an Academy of American Poets Prize,[14] a National Endowment for the Arts grant,[9][6] a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers designation,[9] and a Distinction in Literature Citation from the Wisconsin Library Association.[14] He also received an Associated Press Award for Documentary Excellence for his investigations of organized crime and political corruption.[15] In 2021 he was inducted into the Writers Hall of Fame at Wake Forest University.[16]

In short fiction, he is the only two-time recipient of the American Fiction Prize from Birch Lane Press in 1991 for Home Course Advantage, selected by Louise Erdrich[17] and in 1993 for Mule Collector, selected by Wallace Stegner.[18][19]

• Labyrinthiad (poems, Bard Press, 1975)
• Sidetracks (poems, Jackpine Press 1977)
• Wind Over Water (poems, Northwoods Press, 1984)
• The Member-Guest (novel, cloth, Doubleday, 1995)[20][21]
• War Memorials (novel, Graywolf Press, cloth, 2000; Houghton Mifflin, pbk., 2001[22][23][24]
• The Weatherman (novel, Graywolf Press, cloth, 2004)[25]
• Dead Languages (poems, Anhinga Press, 2008)
• Haints (novel, New Rivers Press, 2012)
• Total Balance Farm (poems, Press 53, 2017)
• The Dictionary of Unspellable Noises: New and Selected Poems, 1975-2018 (poems, Press 53, 2019)
• Music for Hard Times: Selected Stories (stories, Press 53, 2021)
• Mr. Potato Head vs. Freud: Lessons on the Craft of Writing Fiction (Press 53, 2021)