Jim McGarrah
Filed under: Authors
Jim McGarrah teaches creative writing at the University of Southern Indiana. He serves as the managing editor for Southern Indiana Review and co-directs the RopeWalk Reading Series for the university, as well as being on the permanent staff of the annual RopeWalk Writers Retreat. His poems, essays, and stories have appeared in many literary magazines, including most recently in Connecticut Review, Cedar Hill Review, Elixir and North American Review, and also translated for international journals such as Pagitica and Blesok (Shine). His poetry will also be highlighted in two new anthologies this year, Roque Dalton Review by Cedar Hill Press and And Know This Place: Poems of Indiana by Indiana University Press. McGarrah's first book of poems, Running the Voodoo Down, was released nationally in 2003. It won the Elixir Press Editor's Choice Award for that year. He has been nominated for four Pushcart Prizes and a finalist twice for the James Hearst Poetry Prize. McGarrah's critical essays, "Never Such Innocence Again", "The Contemporary Frontier of American Poetry", and "Ernest Hemingway: Latent Feminist", have been presented at several national conferences including the Association of Writers & Writing Programs and the Literature, Film, and War Conference at Binghamton University (SUNY). He is currently working on a nonfiction book entitled A Matter of Priorities, which reflects his experiences as a combat Marine in Vietnam. Several excerpts from the book already appear as individual essays in print. McGarrah holds a MFA in Writing from Vermont College and a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from the University of Southern Indiana.
Winning Entry: Museum of Hostages
Contest Won: War Poetry Contest 2004, Finalist
