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About
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• Early Decision II and Regular Decision: Saturday, Feb. 15Academics
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Dr. Leigh (Lea) Graham
Associate Professor of English, Creative Writing
Bio
Dr. Graham teaches both creative writing and literature courses, with a focus on contemporary poetry and theory, creative nonfiction, travel writing/place studies, music and cultural studies, and Latin American literature. Her first-year seminars and special topics courses have included "Travel Writing in the Time of Pandemic," "The Boundaries Within: Writing Memoir & the Craft of Bookmaking," "Myth, Play, Politics: 20th Century Poetics," "Irish Contemporary Poetry," "Poetics & the Philosophy of Language" (co-taught), "Magical Realism in the Americas," "Blues Poetry/Blues History" (co-taught), and "Birth of the Cool: Jazz & 20th Century U.S. Culture."
She has led numerous travel abroad courses and taught internationally in places such as Dublin, Ireland; Les Cayes, Haiti; Santiago de Compostela, Spain, and the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador. She has been faculty on the Marist/Lorenzo d’ Medici campus in Florence, Italy where she taught the first-year seminar, Florence by Foot, Tuscany by Train, and All Roads (Don’t) Lead to Rome: A Study on Pilgrimage.
She delights in working with students towards the publication of their creative essays, poems, and short stories and in helping them apply for grants, study abroad, and graduate programs. She has also regularly curated student projects like the O.E.D. Poem Project, interviews with visiting writers, student readings, and writing contests.
Education
BA, Westminster College
MA, University of Illinois-Chicago
PhD, University of Illinois-Chicago
Publications
Graham is the author of two poetry collections, From the Hotel Vernon (Salmon Press, 2019) and Hough & Helix & Where & Here & You, You, You (No Tell Books, 2011), one fine arts book, Murmurations (Hot Tomato Press, 2020) and three chapbooks, Spell to Spell(above/ground Press, 2018), This End of the World: Notes to Robert Kroetsch (Apt. 9 Press, 2016) and Calendar Girls (above/ground Press, 2006).
She is the editor of the forthcoming anthology of critical essays: From the Word to the Place: The Work of Michael Anania (MadHat Press, 2021).
Her poems, reviews, essays and translations have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies that include Dogwood, Plume, The Southern Humanities Review, The Arkansas Review, Reflecting Pool: Poets on the Creative Process, and In|Filtration: Anthology of Innovative Hudson Valley Poetics.
Selected Presentations
Dr. Graham has given papers and published critical work on the U.S. poets, Bill Knott, Michael Anania, Thomas McGrath, and Gordon Osing, and presented on the Canadian writers, Robert Kroetsch, Dennis Cooley, and Andrew Suknaski. She has given talks and presentations at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) and various colleges/universities on travel writing, creative writing pedagogy, and the development of creative writing programs.
Awards and Honors
Forty Women in Forty Years: Alumni Award, Westminster College, Fulton, MO, Spring 2020.
Winner of 2018 Literal Latte Poetry Prize
Short-listed for the 2018 Dogwood Prize
Short-listed for the 2017 Crab Creek Review Prize
Short-listed for the 2016 Robert Kroetsch Award
