{"id":17,"date":"2012-07-10T16:20:50","date_gmt":"2012-07-10T16:20:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/staging-writing\/?page_id=17"},"modified":"2026-08-25T15:08:37","modified_gmt":"2026-08-25T15:08:37","slug":"faculty","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/master-of-fine-arts-in-creative-writing\/faculty\/","title":{"rendered":"Faculty Biographies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\"Claire<\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Claire Boyles (Fiction)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Claire Boyles is a writer and former farmer. A 2022 Whiting Award winner in fiction, she is the author of Appraisals<\/em><\/a> (W.W. Norton 2026) and Site Fidelity<\/em> <\/a>(W.W. Norton 2021), which won the High Plains Book Award and was longlisted for the PEN\/Robert W. Bingham Award, the Colorado Book Award, and the Reading the West Award. Her nonfiction has appeared in Sierra Magazine<\/em> and Virginia Quarterly Review<\/em>, among other journals, and she is a screenwriter with multiple credits on the Hallmark Channel. Outside of Eastern Oregon University\u2019s MFA program, she splits her time between Loveland, Colorado and Ames, Iowa, where she is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing and the Environment at Iowa State University. Find her at claireboyleswrites.wordpress.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\"Allison<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Allison Cobb (Poetry\/Nonfiction)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Allison Cobb (she\/her) is the author of four books: Plastic: An Autobiography<\/a><\/em> (Nightboat Books 2021), winner of the Oregon Book Award and CLMP’s Firecracker Award for creative nonfiction; Green-Wood<\/em><\/a> (Nightboat Books 2018); After We All Died<\/em> (Ashata Press 2016); and Born2<\/em> (Chax Press 2004). Cobb\u2019s work has appeared in Best American Poetry, Denver Quarterly, Colorado Review,<\/em> and many other journals. She has been a resident artist at Djerassi and Playa and received fellowships from the Oregon Arts Commission, the Regional Arts and Culture Council, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. In addition to teaching at EOU, Allison works at Environmental Defense Fund and serves on the board of Fonograf Editions. She lives in Portland, Oregon. Find her at allisoncobb.net<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\"Laura<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Laura Da’ (Poetry)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Laura Da\u2019 is a poet and teacher who studied at the Institute of American Indian Arts. She is the author of Tributaries<\/a><\/em> (U Arizona P 2015), an American Book Award winner; Instruments of the True Measure<\/a><\/em> (U Arizona P 2018), a Washington State Book Award winner; and the forthcoming Severalty<\/a> <\/em>(U Arizona P 2025). Da\u2019 is the recipient of fellowships from the Academy of American Poets and The Native Arts and Culture Foundation. She is the current Poet Laureate for the City of Redmond and Poet Planner for King County, Washington. Da\u2019 is Eastern Shawnee and she lives near Renton, Washington with her family. Find her at laurada.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\"Megan<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Megan Kruse (Fiction)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Megan Kruse is the author of Call Me Home<\/em><\/a> (Hawthorne Books 2015) and has taught for Eastern Oregon University\u2019s low-residency MFA program since 2015. She also teaches for Gotham Writers Workshop. She holds a BA from Oberlin College and an MFA from the University of Montana. Her work has appeared widely in journals and anthologies, and she has received recent residency support from PLAYA, Wildacres Retreat, and the Mineral School. She was named one of the National Book Foundation\u2019s 5 Under 35 in 2015 and received a 2016 Pacific Northwest Book Award. She lives in Olympia, Washington, where she is at work on Small Maps<\/em>, a novel about oysters and grief. Find her at megankrusewriter.com<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\"Katherine<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Katherine Larson<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Katherine Larson is the author of two collections of poetry\u2014Radial Symmetry<\/em><\/a> (Yale University Press 2011), selected by Louise Gl\u00fcck as winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets, and The Speechless Ones<\/em> (Interlinea Press 2016), recipient of the Vercelli International Civic Poetry Prize (former recipients include Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Adam Zagajewski). Her third book, Wedding of the Foxes<\/em><\/a> (Milkweed Editions 2025), is a collection of lyric essays. Larson\u2019s work has appeared in numerous literary journals including AGNI<\/em>, Alaska Quarterly Review<\/em>, Blackbird<\/em>, Boulevard<\/em>, Crab Orchard Review<\/em>, Kenyon Review<\/em>, The Massachusetts Review<\/em>, Notre Dame Review<\/em>, Orion<\/em>, Poetry,<\/em> and Poetry Northwest<\/em> and anthologized in Read America(s): An Anthology, Prentice Hall\u2019s Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing<\/em>, and Firsts: 100 Years of Yale Younger Poets<\/em>. She is the recipient of a Ruth Lilly Fellowship, a Kate Tufts Discovery Award, the Larry Levis Reading Prize, the Union League Civic and Arts Foundation Poetry Prize, and the Foreword Indies Gold Medal in Poetry. In addition to Eastern Oregon University\u2019s MFA program, she has taught in the Stonecoast MFA program at the University of Southern Maine and at the University of Arizona Poetry Center. Find her at katherinelarsonauthor.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\"Melissa<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Melissa Matthewson (Nonfiction)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Melissa Matthewson holds an MFA in nonfiction from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and an MS in Environmental Studies from the University of Montana. She is the author of a memoir-in-essays, Tracing the Desire Line<\/a> (<\/em>Split\/Lip Press 2019), a finalist for the 2021 Oregon Book award, and her second essay collection, The Fire Trees<\/a><\/em> is forthcoming from punctum books in 2026. Her nonfiction has appeared in Guernica, Oregon Humanities, Longreads, American Literary Review, River Teeth, DIAGRAM, Mid-American Review, The Rumpus<\/em>, among other publications and anthologies. She has been awarded an AWP Intro Journals award in creative nonfiction as well as residencies and scholarships to Sundress Academy for the Arts, PLAYA, Art Smith, Tin House, and the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers\u2019 Conference. She lives in Ashland, Oregon with her two children and also teaches at Southern Oregon University. Find her at melissamatthewson.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\"Molly<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Molly Reid (Fiction)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Molly Reid is the author of the short story collection The Rapture Index: A Suburban Bestiary<\/a> <\/em>(BOA 2019). Her writing has appeared on NPR and in the journals TriQuarterly<\/em>, Crazyhorse<\/em>, Witness, Gulf Coast<\/em>, Ploughshares<\/em>, and Lit Hub,<\/em> among others. She has received fellowship and residency support from the Sewanee Writers\u2019 Conference, the Bread Loaf Writers\u2019 Conference, the Millay Colony for the Arts, the Anderson Center, the Ucross Foundation, I-Park, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She was previously the Emerging Writer Lecturer at Gettysburg College. Find her at mollyjeanreid.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\"Eliot<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Eliot Treichel (Fiction)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Eliot Treichel is an Assistant Professor of English\/Writing at EOU and a board member of the literary arts organization Fishtrap. He is the author of the young adult novel A Series of Small Maneuvers<\/em><\/a> (Ooligan Press 2015) and the story collection Close Is Fine<\/em><\/a> (Ooligan Press 2012). His new novel, Damian Mayhew\u2019s Secret Recipe for Life<\/em>, is forthcoming for Regal House in 2028. His work has appeared in Beloit Fiction Journal<\/em>, CutBank<\/em>, Duct Tape Diaries<\/em>, Passages North<\/em> and elsewhere. He is a recipient of the Reading the West Award, the Oregon Book Awards Readers\u2019 Choice Award, and the Wisconsin Library Association Literary Award. Originally from Northern Wisconsin, Eliot now lives in La Grande, Oregon, where he enjoys trail running, messing about on rivers, and trying to master the fine art of pizza. Find him at eliottreichel.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\"Joe<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Joe Wilkins (Fiction\/Nonfiction\/Poetry)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Joe Wilkins is the author of the a novel, Fall Back Down When I Die<\/em><\/a> (Little, Brown 2019), praised as \u201cremarkable and unforgettable\u201d in a starred review at Booklist<\/em>. A finalist for the First Novel Award from The Center for Fiction and for the Pacific Northwest Book Award, Fall Back Down When I Die<\/em> won the High Plains Book Award and has now been translated into French, Spanish, and Italian. His latest novel is The Entire Sky<\/a><\/em> (Little, Brown 2024). Wilkins is also the author of a memoir, The Mountain and the Fathers <\/em><\/a>(Counterpoint 2013), winner of a GLCA New Writers Award, andfour collections of poetry, including most recently Thieve<\/em> (University of Washington Press 2019) and When We Were Birds <\/em>(University of Arkansas Press 2016), winner of the Oregon Book Award. His stories, essays, and poems have appeared in The Georgia Review<\/em>, The Missouri Revie<\/em>w, The Southern Review<\/em>, Orion<\/em>, The Sun, <\/em>and the Pushcart Prize XXXIX.<\/em> Wilkins grew up north of the Bull Mountains of eastern Montana and now lives with his family in the Yamhill Valley of Oregon. Find him at joewilkins.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Claire Boyles (Fiction) Claire Boyles is a writer and former farmer. A 2022 Whiting Award winner in fiction, she is the author of Appraisals (W.W. Norton 2026) and Site Fidelity (W.W. Norton 2021), which won the High Plains Book Award and was longlisted for the PEN\/Robert W. Bingham Award, the Colorado Book Award, and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":428,"featured_media":1643,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-17","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/master-of-fine-arts-in-creative-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/master-of-fine-arts-in-creative-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/master-of-fine-arts-in-creative-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/master-of-fine-arts-in-creative-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/428"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/master-of-fine-arts-in-creative-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":141,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/master-of-fine-arts-in-creative-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2489,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/master-of-fine-arts-in-creative-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17\/revisions\/2489"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/master-of-fine-arts-in-creative-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/master-of-fine-arts-in-creative-writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}