{"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":"2025-07-26T07:58:42","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T07:58:42","slug":"faculty","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mfa\/faculty\/","title":{"rendered":"Faculty Biographies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n
\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n

David Axelrod (Co-founder)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

David Axelrod\u2019s ninth collection of poems is Years Beyond the River<\/em><\/a> (Terrapin Books 2021), and his second collection of nonfiction is The Eclipse I Call Father: Essays on Absence<\/a><\/em> (Oregon State University Press 2019). Axelrod wrote the introduction, \u201cMy Interests Are People,\u201d for About People: Photographs<\/em> by Gert Berliner, which appeared in the summer of 2018 from Arts End Books. In addition to co-founding the EOU MFA program, he is the founding co-editor (also with Jodi Varon) of basalt: a journal of fine & literary arts<\/em> and serves on the editorial board of Lynx House Press. He now makes his home in Missoula, Montana.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n

Claire Boyles (Fiction)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n

Claire Boyles (she\/her) is the author of\u00a0Site Fidelity\u00a0<\/em><\/a>(W.W. Norton 2021), longlisted for the PEN\/Robert W.\u00a0Bingham Prize\u00a0for Debut Short Story Collection and winner of the High Plains Book Award in Fiction. Her debut novel is due out from W.W. Norton in 2026. She is the recipient of a 2022 Whiting Award. Her writing has appeared in\u00a0VQR<\/em>,\u00a0Kenyon Review<\/em>,\u00a0Boulevard<\/em>,\u00a0Masters Review<\/em>, and Sierra Magazine<\/em> among others. She was a Peter Taylor Fellow at the Kenyon Review Writers Workshops and has received support from the Kimmel Harding Nelson Foundation, the Bread Loaf Orion Environmental Writers Workshop, and the Community of Writers. She is also a screenwriter. A former sustainable farmer, she lives with her family in Colorado and is at work on a novel forthcoming from W.W. Norton. Find her at\u00a0claireboyleswrites.wordpress.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n

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

\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n

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\u00a0Tributaries<\/a><\/em> (U Arizona P 2015), an American Book Award winner;\u00a0Instruments 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\u00a0is 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

\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n

Christopher Kondrich (Poetry)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Christopher Kondrich is the author of\u00a0Valuing<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(University of Georgia Press 2019), selected by Jericho Brown as a winner of the National Poetry Series, by\u00a0Library Journal<\/em>\u00a0as a Best Poetry Book of 2019, and as a finalist for The Believer Book Award in Poetry; and of the book-length poem\u00a0Contrapuntal<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(Free Verse Editions 2013). His next collection Tread Upon <\/em>is forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press in 2026. His poetry and essays appear widely in such venues as the Academy of American Poets\u2019\u00a0Poem-a-Day<\/em>,\u00a0The Believer<\/em>,\u00a0Harvard Review<\/em>,\u00a0The Kenyon Review<\/em>,\u00a0New England Review<\/em>,\u00a0The Paris Review<\/em>, Ploughshares<\/em>, and\u00a0Poetry Northwest<\/em>, and his work has been recognized with an Iowa Review Award, The Paris-American Reading Series Prize, and three Pushcart Prize nominations. He has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, the I-Park Foundation, the University of Denver, and Columbia University. He was recently a Visiting Assistant Professor at College of the Holy Cross and is an associate editor for\u00a032 Poems<\/em>. Find him at\u00a0christopherkondrich.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\"Megan<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n

Megan Kruse (Fiction)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Megan Kruse grew up in the Pacific Northwest and currently lives in Olympia. She studied creative writing at Oberlin College and earned her MFA at the University of Montana. Her work has appeared widely in journals and anthologies, and her debut novel is Call Me Home<\/em><\/a> (Hawthorne Books 2015), with an introduction by Elizabeth Gilbert. In addition to teaching fiction in EOU\u2019s Low-Residency MFA program, she teaches at Hugo House and Gotham Writers\u2019 Workshop. She was the recipient of a 2016 Pacific Northwest Book Award, and was one of the National Book Foundation\u2019s \u201c5 Under 35\u201d for 2015. Find her at megannicolekruse.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n

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,\u00a0Tracing the Desire Line<\/a>\u00a0(<\/em>Split\/Lip Press 2019), a finalist for the 2021 Oregon Book award, and her second essay collection,\u00a0The Fire Trees<\/em> is forthcoming from punctum books\u00a0in 2026. Her nonfiction has appeared in\u00a0Guernica, 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.\u00a0She lives in Ashland, Oregon with her two children and also teaches at Southern Oregon University. Find her at\u00a0melissamatthewson.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n

Nick Neely (Director\/Nonfiction)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Nick Neely\u2019s first book, Coast Range <\/em><\/a>(Counterpoint 2016)\u2013largely about the Rogue River area of southwestern Oregon\u2013was a finalist for the John Burroughs Medal for natural history writing. His second book, Alta California <\/em><\/a>(Counterpoint 2019), a Los Angeles Times<\/em> bestseller, details his twelve-week trek from San Diego to San Francisco to retrace the first overland Spanish expedition through California. His nonfiction has appeared in Orion<\/em>, High Country News<\/em>, Mother Jones, Kenyon Review<\/em>, and The Georgia Review<\/em>, among others. The recipient of PEN Northwest\u2019s Boyden Wilderness Writing Residency, a UC Berkeley\u201311th Hour Food and Farming Journalism Fellowship, and an AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award, Nick is an Assistant Professor of English\/Writing at EOU and lives in La Grande. Find him at nickneely.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\"Molly<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n

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

\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n

Eliot Treichel (Fiction)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Eliot Treichel’s books are the young adult novel A Series of Small Maneuvers<\/a><\/em> (Ooligan Press 2015) and the story collection Close Is Fine<\/a><\/em> (Ooligan Press 2012). He is the recipient of a Reading the West Award, the Oregon Book Awards Readers\u2019 Choice Award, and the Wisconsin Library Association Literary Award. His aim is to create transformational courses where students see their education as an authentic opportunity for personal, professional, and civic growth. Outside of writing and the classroom, Eliot enjoys trail running, messing about on rivers, and trying to master the fine art of pizza. Originally from the Fox River Valley of Wisconsin, Eliot is an Assistant Professor of English\/Writing at EOU and lives in La Grande. Find him at eliottreichel.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n

Jodi Varon (Co-founder)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Jodi Varon is a founding editor of the award-winning basalt: a journal of fine & literary arts<\/em>, as well as a founder and first director of EOU\u2019s MFA program. She is the author of the new memoir Your Eyes Will Be My Window: Essays<\/a><\/em> (University of Georgia Press 2023) and Drawing to an Inside Straight: The Legacy of an Absent Father<\/em><\/a> (University of Missouri Press 2006), which was a WILLA Award finalist from Women Writing the West. Other awards include a first place award in non-fiction from New Millennium Writing, The William Stafford Fellowship in Non-Fiction from Literary Arts, and two awards to publishers from Literary Arts for Calapooya<\/em> and basalt<\/em>. Her work appears in Rock & Sling: A Journal of Witness<\/em>, New Letters, The Northwest Review, The Seattle Review, the High Plains Literary Review, WomenArts Quarterly, The Western Humanities Review, the Oregon Encyclopedia<\/em>, among others. Also a translator from the Chinese, her translation of the Tang Dynasty poet Li He are collected in The Rock\u2019s Cold Breath: Selected Poems of Li He<\/em> (Ice River Press).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\"Joe<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n

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

Joe Wilkins is the author of the a novel,\u00a0Fall Back Down When I Die<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(Little, Brown 2019), praised as \u201cremarkable and unforgettable\u201d in a starred review at\u00a0Booklist<\/em>. A finalist for the First Novel Award from The Center for Fiction and for the Pacific Northwest Book Award,\u00a0Fall Back Down When I Die<\/em>\u00a0won 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,\u00a0The Mountain and the Fathers\u00a0<\/em><\/a>(Counterpoint 2013), winner of a GLCA New Writers Award, andfour collections of poetry, including most recently\u00a0Thieve<\/em>\u00a0(University of Washington Press 2019) and\u00a0When We Were Birds\u00a0<\/em>(University of Arkansas Press 2016), winner of the Oregon Book Award. His stories, essays, and poems have appeared in\u00a0The Georgia Review<\/em>,\u00a0The Missouri Revie<\/em>w,\u00a0The Southern Review<\/em>,\u00a0Orion<\/em>,\u00a0The Sun,\u00a0<\/em>and the\u00a0Pushcart Prize XXXIX.<\/em>\u00a0Wilkins 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\u00a0joewilkins.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

David Axelrod (Co-founder) David Axelrod\u2019s ninth collection of poems is Years Beyond the River (Terrapin Books 2021), and his second collection of nonfiction is The Eclipse I Call Father: Essays on Absence (Oregon State University Press 2019). Axelrod wrote the introduction, \u201cMy Interests Are People,\u201d for About People: Photographs by Gert Berliner, which appeared in the summer of 2018 from Arts […]<\/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\/mfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/428"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":123,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2321,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17\/revisions\/2321"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}