W E N D Y R A W L I N G S
Department of English 306 17th Avenue
Box 870244 Tuscaloosa, AL 35401
University of Alabama (205) 464-0188
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0244 wendy.rawlings@ua.edu
(205) 348-4507
CURRICULUM VITAE
EDUCATION
2000 Ph.D., Creative Writing, University of Utah.
1996 M.F.A., Creative Writing (Fiction), Colorado State University.
1988 B.A., English (with Honors), Trinity College, Hartford, CT.
TEACHING
Academic and Administrative Positions and Courses Taught
2010- Professor of English, University of Alabama
2006-10 Associate Professor of English, University of Alabama
2006-07 Director, The Program in Creative Writing, University of Alabama
2000-05 Assistant Professor of English, University of Alabama
Graduate
Fiction Workshop, Fiction Workshop for Poets, Nonfiction Workshop, Forms of
Writing: the Memoir, Forms of Writing: Varieties of Prose Narrative, Novel
Workshop, The History of the Short Story, Forms of Writing: Comedy, Form
Theory Practice: Teaching Undergraduate Creative Writing.
Undergraduate
Advanced Fiction Writing, Introduction to Creative Writing, Nonfiction Writing
1995-2000 Teaching Fellow, University of Utah
Introduction to College Writing, Introduction to Creative Writing, Intermediate
Creative Writing, Business Writing
1997 Adjunct Instructor, Utah State University Extension Campus
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Basic Writing, Introduction to Research Writing, Advanced Writing
1995-1997. Teaching Counselor, University of Utah
Supervised and mentored first-year graduate students teaching Introduction to
College Writing
1992-1993. Adjunct Instructor, Colorado State University
College Composition, Gender and Composition
1989-1992. Graduate Teaching Assistant, Colorado State University
Basic Writing, College Composition, Introduction to Creative Writing
RESEARCH AND CREATIVE ACTIVITY
PUBLICATIONS
Books
The Agnostics. University of Michigan Press, 2007.
Come Back Irish. The Ohio State University Press, 2001.
Essays
“’Scarce Half Made-Up’: Contemporary Memoir and its Discontents,” Fourth Genre.
Forthcoming.
“Going to Port Chuck, Or, Why I Hope My Soap Opera Outlives Me.” The Borderlands:
Explorations at the Fringes of Creative Nonfiction, Ed. BJ Hollars. University of
Nebraska Press. Forthcoming.
“The Hiccup.” Passages North. Forthcoming
“Fiasco.” The Art of the Word. Molly McQuade, Ed. Louisville, KY: Sarabande
Books. (Fall 2010)
“Spectacular Mistakes.” AGNI 64. (Fall 2006).
“Bricoleur’s Mishmash.” Rules of Thumb, ed. Michael Martone and Susan Neville.
(Writer’s Digest Books, 2006).
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“Virtually Romance.” The Fourth Genre, ed. Robert L. Root. (Longman, 2004).
“My Mother’s Closet.” Many Mountains Moving. (2004).
“Ode to the Industrial Suburbs.” Colorado Review. (Summer 2002).
“Batcatching.” The Bellingham Review. (Fall 2000).
“Love or Mangoes.” What There Is: An Anthology to Benefit the Crossroads Urban
Center. Heather Hirschi, Ed.. (1996).
Short Fiction
“Love in Wartime,” Crab Orchard Review. Forthcoming.
“The Yak Pants,” The Normal School. (Summer 2011).
“The Shift,” The Southern Review. (Summer 2009).
“In the Wasp Kingdom,” The Normal School. Vol. 2, Issue 1. (Summer 2009).
“The Fleischer/Giaccondo Online Gift Registry,” Sonora Review 55. (Summer 2009).
“The Skeleton,” The Massachusetts Review. Vol. 8, No. IV. (Winter 2007).
“Ye Olde Twentieth Century,” Indiana Review. Vol. 29, No.1. (Summer 2007).
“Again,” The Cincinnati Review 3.2. (Winter 2007).
“Omaha,” poemmemoirstory No. 6. (Spring 2006).
“Outlandish Plot,” Sonora Review 47. (Winter 2004).
“Berries on the Vine.” Tin House. Vol. 6, No. 1. (Spring 2004).
“Portrait of My Mother’s Head on a Plate.” Mid-American Review. Vol. XXIV, No. 2.
(Spring 2004).
“I’m From Ballymullet.” The Atlantic Monthly. (May 2000).
“Heteroworld.” Colorado Review. (Winter 1999).
“Notes on ‘Blood and Guts in High School.” Smashing Icons. (Winter 1998).
“Holiday.” Western Humanities Review, Vol. LII, No. 3. (Fall 1998).
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“Come Back Irish.” The Atlantic Monthly. (September 1998).
“Opposites.” Prism International, Vol. 36, No. 1. (Fall 1997).
“Rash.” Western Humanities Review, Vol. 51, No. 3. (Fall 1997).
“A Kind of Ireland.” Cimarron Review. No. 114. (January 1996).
“Fiction Workshop.” Exquisite Corpse 58. (1996).
“Love is Always This, Love is Never That.” New Letters, Vol. 61, No. 2. (1995).
“Lovely.” The Chattahoochee Review, Vol. XIII, No. 3. (Spring 1993).
“Fireflies.” New Letters, Vol. 59, No. 2. (1993).
“Offspring.” Cimarron Review, No. 102. (January 1993).
“Kissing Back.” Prism International, Vol. 30, No. 3. (Spring 1992).
Book Reviews
“Nazareth, North Dakota, by Tommy Zurhellen.” Colorado Review. Forthcoming.
“Reality Hunger, by David Shields.” Fourth Genre. Fall 2010.
“Notes from No-Man’s Land, by Eula Biss.” Fourth Genre. Spring 2010.
“The Seven Deadly Virtues and Other Lively Essays, by Lynn Z. Bloom.” Fourth Genre.
(Fall 2010).
“The End of the Straight and Narrow, by David McGlynn.” Colorado Review 36.2.
(Summer 2009).
“The Wet Collection, by Joni Tevis.” Colorado Review. (Fall 2008).
“The Understory, by Pamela Erens.” Colorado Review. (Summer 2008).
“(Not That You Asked), by Steve Almond.” Fourth Genre. Vol. 10, No. 1. (Spring 2008).
“The Arc and the Sediment, by Christine Allen-Yazzie.” Colorado Review. (Fall 2007).
“Just Beneath My Skin, by Patricia Foster.” Fourth Genre. Vol. 7, No. 1. (Spring 2005).
“Aloft, by Chang-rae Lee.” Cincinnati Review. (Fall 2004).
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“Being with Rachel, by Karen Brennan.” Fourth Genre. Vol. 5, No. 1. (Spring 2003).
“An Aran Keening, by Andrew McNeillie.” Colorado Review. (Summer 2002).
“Halls of Fame, by John D’Agata.” Colorado Review. (Fall 2001).
“Necessary Fictions, by Barbara Croft.” Colorado Review. (Spring 2000).
“Hunger, by Lan Samantha Chang.” Colorado Review. (Spring 2000).
WORK UNDER CONSIDERATION
Outlandish Plot (and Other Threats to the Homeland) (stories)
WORK IN PROGRESS
I’m Googling You (essays)
SELECTED AWARDS AND HONORS
2008 Residency Recipient, Hawthornden Castle, Scotland
2008 Residency Recipient, The UCross Foundation, Wyoming
2007 “Spectacular Mistakes” chosen as one of the 100 Notable Essays of 2007, Best
American Essays, ed. David Foster Wallace (Houghton-Mifflin)
2007 Michigan Literary Award for the Novel, University of Michigan Press
2006 Fellowship Recipient, Wesleyan Writers Conference
2006 Residency Recipient, The Hambidge Center, Georgia
2003 Research Advisory Grant, The University of Alabama
2002 John Farrar Fellowship in Fiction, Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference
2001 Research Advisory Grant, The University of Alabama
2001 Sandstone Prize in Fiction, The Ohio State University Press
2000 Residency Recipient, The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts
2000 First Prize, Creative Non-Fiction, INTRO Journals Project
1999 First Prize, Creative Non-Fiction, Utah Arts Council Writing Competition
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1999 Residency Recipient, The MacDowell Colony
1998 Second Prize, Atlantic Monthly Student Fiction Contest
1998 Patricia Highsmith-Plangman Residency, Yaddo
1998 Steffensen-Cannon Fellowship, The University of Utah
1998 First Place, Larry Levis Annual Poetry Prize, The University of Utah
1998 First Place, Western Humanities Review Annual Fiction Contest
1997 First Place, Western Humanities Review Annual Fiction Contest
1997 Second Prize, Short Fiction, Utah Arts Council Writing Competition
1995 First Prize, Book-Length Short Fiction, Utah Arts Council Writing Competition
1995 Second Runner-up in Fiction, New Letters Annual Literary Awards
1994 Tuition Fellowship, Vermont Studio Center
1993 Lauren Husted Scholarship in Fiction, Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference
1992 First Prize in Fiction, New Letters Annual Literary Awards
1991 First Runner-up, Prism International Annual Fiction Awards
SERVICE
University Committee Assignments
College of Arts & Sciences Tenure and Promotion Committee, 2011
Judge, Undergraduate Research Awards Presentations, 2009
Graduate Mentoring Advisory Committee, 2009
Graduate Council, 2008-11
Research Advisory Grants Committee, 2008-09
Media Planning Board, University of Alabama, 2001-02
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Departmental Committee Assignments
Chair, Hiring Committee for Assistant Professor-Fiction, 2009
Hiring Committee for Assistant Professor-Nonfiction, 2009
Committee to Plan Large Lecture Courses, 2007
Hiring Committee for Assistant Professor-Poetry, 2006
Member, Executive Committee, 2006
Hiring Committee for Medievalist, 2005
Faculty Liaison to English Department Instructors, 2004-2006
Hiring Committee for Fiction Writer, 2004
Member, Bankhead Visiting Writers Committee, 2000-present
Member, Undergraduate Advising Committee 2002, 2004
Member, Creative Writing Committee, 2000-present
Member, Ad Hoc Committee to Revise Promotion and Tenure Guidelines, 2002
Selected Public Readings
Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado – October 2010
University of South Florida, Tampa, FL – November 2009
Marist College, Poughkeepsie, NY – November 2009
Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, MI – March 2009
Bowery Poetry Center, New York, NY – April 2008
Devil’s Kitchen Literary Festival, SIUC, Carbondale, IL – Oct 2007
Warren Wilson College, Asheville, NC – April 2004
Valencia Community College, Orlando, Florida – March 2004
University of Montevallo, Montevallo, Alabama – March 2003
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Jefferson State University, Birmingham, Alabama – February 2003
Huntingdon College, Montgomery, Alabama – November 2002
Prairie Lights Bookstore, Iowa City, Iowa – April 2002
Mississippi State University, Starkville, Mississippi – March 2002
Associated Writer’s Conference, New Orleans, Louisiana – March 2002
The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio – February 2002
Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado –February 2002
Cheyenne Family YMCA, Cheyenne, Wyoming — February 2002
Presentations
Panelist, “Directing the Contemporary Thesis,” Associated Writing Programs
Conference, Denver, CO, 2010.
Invited Reader, 25th Anniversary Celebration of Colorado State University’s MFA
Program, Associated Writing Programs Conference, Denver, CO, 2010.
Panelist, “It Works in Practice, But Does it Work in Theory?” Associated Writing
Programs Conference, New York, NY, 2008.
Panelist, “The Art of Advocacy: How to Make Legislators Your New Best Friends,”
Associated Writing Programs Conference, Atlanta, GA, 2007.
Panelist, “The Second Draft: Revising After Workshop,” Associated Writing Programs
Conference, Baltimore, MD, 2003.
Panelist, “Double Dipping: Writing Fiction and Creative Nonfiction from the Same
Material,” Associated Writing Programs Conference, Baltimore, MD, 2003.
Panelist, “Cross-Pollinating Genres: Fiction, Poetry, Essay, Memoir, and Nature
Writing,” Associated Writing Programs Conference, New Orleans, LA, 2002.
Panelist, “Toppling Freitag’s Pyramid: The Pleasure and Possibility of Teaching Story
Structure,” Associated Writing Programs Conference, Portland, OR, 1997.
Panelist, “De-marginalizing Women and People of Color in the Creative Writing Class,”
Associated Writing Programs Conference, Atlanta, GA, 1996.
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Contests Judged
Judge, Georgia Author of the Year Award, 2010.
Judge, Birmingham Society for Arts and Letters Fiction Contest, 2010.
Non-Fiction Judge, Mississippi Institute for Arts and Letters Award, 2008.
Final Judge, Salt Flats Annual Fiction Contest, 2006.
Screening Judge, Associated Writing Programs Novel Contest, 2005.
Final Judge, Devine Award for Fiction, Bowling Green State University, 2004.
Preliminary Judge, Bakeless Fiction Prize, Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, 2002 &
2003.
Preliminary Judge, Admissions Committee, Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, 2002.
Reviewer, Selection Committee, Individual Artist Grants, Utah Arts Council, 1997.
COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES
Big Brothers/Big Sisters of West Alabama, 2005-10. Shining Star Big/Little Award, 2008
Volunteer, Humane Society of West Alabama, 2003-present
Founding Board Member, Black Warrior Rowing Club, 2008-present