Jesse Lee Kercheval
Encyclopedia
Jesse Lee Kercheval is an American academic and writer. She is a writing teacher
at the University of Wisconsin–Madison
. She has authored several books of various genres, notably Building Fiction, The Museum of Happiness, and The Dogeater.
, France. Raised in Cocoa, Florida
, she attended Florida State University
in Tallahassee, Florida
. She studied with Janet Burroway
, David Kirby
, and Jerome Stern there. She received her Bachelor of Arts
in History
at the university in 1983.
Kercheval earned her Master of Fine Arts
in Creative Writing from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, 1986. She then worked at the DePauw University
, Greencastle
, Indiana
, for a year.
She proceeded to the University of Wisconsin–Madison
, Madison, Wisconsin
, and was the founding director of the MFA
Program in Creative Writing
. She is currently the director of the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing
and the Sally Mead Hands Bascom Professor of English
. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin with her husband, Dan, their two children, Max and Magda, and a rat terrier.
named The Dogeater. The stories include The Dogeater, Underground Women, Willy, A Clean House, Tertiary Care, La Mort au Moyen Age, The History of the Church in America, and A History of Indiana. It is now out of print.
The short story The Dogeater is about an Igorrote
man who lived in New Orleans. He was brought to the United States of America for the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair
.
Underground Women discusses the poor way women were treated. It was expanded into Kercheval's later novel, The Museum of Happiness. Kercheval got the idea for Underground Women after seeing a woman collapse in a launderette during a trip to Paris.
The novel The Alice Stories is about a girl called Alice and her family. She falls in love with Anders Dahl, a Norwegian farmer. Then, their child Maude was born. The novel goes through her life and her biggest challenge.
. It was published by Algonquin Books, and is now out of print.
The writing textbook Building Fiction:How to Develop Plot and Structure was published in 1997, by Story Press, and reissued by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Press. Divided into two parts, it discusses sources for fiction, openings, points-of-view, characters and endings. It also discusses novel
s, novella
s, novels-in-stories and short stories
.
s. The first collection was World as Dictionary, published by Carnegie Mellon University Press
. The second, Dog Angel, was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press
. The third was Chartreuse, which was a chapbook of fiction
, nonfiction and poetry
. It was published by Hollyridge Press. Likewise, her next chapbook, Film History as a Train Wreck was also a chapbook of mixed genres. It was published by the Center for Book Arts. Finally, her topical collection of poetry
, Cinema Muto, was about the age of silent films.
. The Dogeater won the Associated Writing Programs Award 1986 in Short Fiction. The Alice Stories, won the Prairie Schooner Fiction Book Prize. Her novella, Brazil, was the winner of the Ruthanne Wiley Memorial Novella Contest. David Wojahn
selected her poetry collection Cinema Muto for the Crab Orchard Open Selection Award. The Center for Book Arts Poetry Chapbook Prize 2006 was also won by her chapbook, Film History as a Train Wreck, by Albert Goldbarth
.
Teacher
A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...
at the University of Wisconsin–Madison
University of Wisconsin–Madison
The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...
. She has authored several books of various genres, notably Building Fiction, The Museum of Happiness, and The Dogeater.
Biography
Kercheval was born in FontainebleauFontainebleau
Fontainebleau is a commune in the metropolitan area of Paris, France. It is located south-southeast of the centre of Paris. Fontainebleau is a sub-prefecture of the Seine-et-Marne department, and it is the seat of the arrondissement of Fontainebleau...
, France. Raised in Cocoa, Florida
Cocoa, Florida
Cocoa is a city in Brevard County, Florida, United States. The population was 16,412 at the 2000 census. As of 2008, the estimated population according to the U.S. Census Bureau was 16,478. It is part of the Palm Bay–Melbourne–Titusville Metropolitan Statistical Area.-History:Cocoa was...
, she attended Florida State University
Florida State University
The Florida State University is a space-grant and sea-grant public university located in Tallahassee, Florida, United States. It is a comprehensive doctoral research university with medical programs and significant research activity as determined by the Carnegie Foundation...
in Tallahassee, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
. She studied with Janet Burroway
Janet Burroway
Janet Gay Burroway is an American author.Burroway was born in Tucson, Arizona, and educated at the University of Arizona, Barnard College in New York, Cambridge University in England , and the Yale School of Drama...
, David Kirby
David Kirby
David Kirby is a journalist based in Brooklyn, New York, and was formerly a regular contributor to the New York Times since 1998. He is author of the 2005 book Evidence of Harm - Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic: A Medical Controversy....
, and Jerome Stern there. She received her Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
in History
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
at the university in 1983.
Kercheval earned her Master of Fine Arts
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...
in Creative Writing from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, 1986. She then worked at the DePauw University
DePauw University
DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, USA, is a private, national liberal arts college with an enrollment of approximately 2,400 students. The school has a Methodist heritage and was originally known as Indiana Asbury University. DePauw is a member of both the Great Lakes Colleges Association...
, Greencastle
Greencastle
Greencastle may refer to:In the United States:* Greencastle, Indiana, a city* Greencastle, Missouri, a city* Greencastle, Pennsylvania, a borough* Greencastle, West Virginia, an unincorporated community...
, Indiana
Indiana
Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...
, for a year.
She proceeded to the University of Wisconsin–Madison
University of Wisconsin–Madison
The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...
, Madison, Wisconsin
Madison, Wisconsin
Madison is the capital of the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Dane County. It is also home to the University of Wisconsin–Madison....
, and was the founding director of the MFA
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...
Program in Creative Writing
Creative writing
Creative writing is considered to be any writing, fiction, poetry, or non-fiction, that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, and technical forms of literature. Works which fall into this category include novels, epics, short stories, and poems...
. She is currently the director of the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing
Creative writing
Creative writing is considered to be any writing, fiction, poetry, or non-fiction, that goes outside the bounds of normal professional, journalistic, academic, and technical forms of literature. Works which fall into this category include novels, epics, short stories, and poems...
and the Sally Mead Hands Bascom Professor of English
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin with her husband, Dan, their two children, Max and Magda, and a rat terrier.
Works
- The Dogeater (19871987 in literatureThe year 1987 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Tom Wolfe was paid $5 million for the film rights to his novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities, the most ever earned by an author, at the time.-Fiction:...
) (ISBN 0826206328) - The Museum of Happiness (19931993 in literatureThe year 1993 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Professor Stephen Hawking's book, A Brief History of Time, becomes the longest running book on the bestseller list of The Sunday Times....
) (ISBN 057119821X) - Building Fiction: How To Develop Plot and Structure (19971997 in literatureThe year 1997 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Tom Clancy signs a book deal with Pearson Custom Publishing and Penguin Putnam Inc. , giving him US$50 million for the world-English rights to two new books . A second agreement gives him another US$25 million for a...
) (ISBN 1884910289) - Space: A Memoir (19981998 in literatureThe year 1998 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*March 5 - Tennessee Williams' 1938 play, Not About Nightingales, receives its stage première....
) (ISBN 1565121465) - World as Dictionary (19991999 in poetryNationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* July 1 — Scotland's Parliament opened with the singing of Robert Burns' "A Man's a Man For A'That", instead of "God Save The Queen"...
) (ISBN 0887482856) - Dog Angel (20042004 in poetryNationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* April 1 — Foetry.com Web site is launched for the announced purpose of "Exposing fraudulent contests. Tracking the sycophants...
) (ISBN 0822958406) - Chartreuse (20052005 in poetryNationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* October 7 — Celebrations marking the 50th anniversary of the first reading of Allen Ginsberg's poem Howl were staged in San Francisco, New York City, and in Leeds in the UK...
) (ISBN 0975257390) - Film History as Train Wreck (20062006 in poetryNationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* French public notary Patrick Huet unveils Pieces of Hope to the Echo of the World in Lyon...
) - The Alice Stories (20072007 in literatureThe year 2007 in literature involves some significant new books.-Events:*November 19 - First Kindle e-book reader released.*December 11 - Terry Pratchett informs fans on-line that he has been diagnosed with a rare form of Alzheimer's disease.-Literature:...
) (ISBN 9780803211353 ) - Cinema Muto (20092009 in poetryNationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* January 5 – The Turkish government announces it will posthumously restore the citizenship it had stripped from influential poet Nazim Hikmet, a Marxist who died in 1963 as an exile in the Soviet...
) (ISBN 9780809328956) - Brazil (20102010 in literatureThe year 2010 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*February - The Wheeler Centre, Australia's "literary hub", officially opened.*April 3 - First release of the Apple iPad, electronic book reading device....
) (ISBN 9781880834862)
Short Stories
Kercheval's first published book was a collection of short storiesShort Stories
Short Stories may refer to:*A plural for Short story*Short Stories , an American pulp magazine published from 1890-1959*Short Stories, a 1954 collection by O. E...
named The Dogeater. The stories include The Dogeater, Underground Women, Willy, A Clean House, Tertiary Care, La Mort au Moyen Age, The History of the Church in America, and A History of Indiana. It is now out of print.
The short story The Dogeater is about an Igorrote
Igorot
Cordillerans are the people of the Cordillera region, in the Philippines island of Luzon. The word, Igorot is a misnomer term invented by the Spaniards in mockery against the Nortnern Luzon tribes. The word ‘Igorot’ also as coined and applied by the Spaniards means a savage, head-hunting and...
man who lived in New Orleans. He was brought to the United States of America for the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair
Saint Louis Exposition (1884)
The Saint Louis Exposition or St. Louis Expo was a series of annual agricultural and technical fairs held in St. Louis' Fairgrounds Park, from the 1850s to 1902. In 1904, the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, a major World's Fair, was held in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. The annual...
.
Underground Women discusses the poor way women were treated. It was expanded into Kercheval's later novel, The Museum of Happiness. Kercheval got the idea for Underground Women after seeing a woman collapse in a launderette during a trip to Paris.
Novels
The The Museum of Happiness is a story about a young widow and a half-Alsatian, half-German carnival worker as they fall in love in a 1929 Paris. A German translation was published by Wilhelm Heyne Verlag in 1997.The novel The Alice Stories is about a girl called Alice and her family. She falls in love with Anders Dahl, a Norwegian farmer. Then, their child Maude was born. The novel goes through her life and her biggest challenge.
Nonfiction
Space is Kercheval's memoir about her childhood and the Space RaceSpace Race
The Space Race was a mid-to-late 20th century competition between the Soviet Union and the United States for supremacy in space exploration. Between 1957 and 1975, Cold War rivalry between the two nations focused on attaining firsts in space exploration, which were seen as necessary for national...
. It was published by Algonquin Books, and is now out of print.
The writing textbook Building Fiction:How to Develop Plot and Structure was published in 1997, by Story Press, and reissued by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Press. Divided into two parts, it discusses sources for fiction, openings, points-of-view, characters and endings. It also discusses novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
s, novella
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
s, novels-in-stories and short stories
Short Story
Short Story is a piece for violin and piano composed by George Gershwin in 1927.Gershwin composed the duet from two other short works that premiered at the same time as his Three Preludes. He combined a section of the "Novelette in Fourths" and another slower work to create this piece....
.
Poetry and Chapbooks
Kercheval has altogether published five chapbookChapbook
A chapbook is a pocket-sized booklet. The term chap-book was formalized by bibliophiles of the 19th century, as a variety of ephemera , popular or folk literature. It includes many kinds of printed material such as pamphlets, political and religious tracts, nursery rhymes, poetry, folk tales,...
s. The first collection was World as Dictionary, published by Carnegie Mellon University Press
Carnegie Mellon University Press
Carnegie Mellon University Press is a publisher that is part of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States.It is headquartered within the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences in Baker Hall and specializes in poetry. Gerald Costanzo is the founder and...
. The second, Dog Angel, was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press
University of Pittsburgh Press
The University of Pittsburgh Press is a scholarly publishing house and a major American university press, part of the University of Pittsburgh. The university and the press are located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the United States....
. The third was Chartreuse, which was a chapbook of fiction
Fiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
, nonfiction and poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
. It was published by Hollyridge Press. Likewise, her next chapbook, Film History as a Train Wreck was also a chapbook of mixed genres. It was published by the Center for Book Arts. Finally, her topical collection of poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, Cinema Muto, was about the age of silent films.
Others
Kercheval also composed a one-page short short story, Carpathia. Published in Chapter 11 of her textbook Building Fiction, this book is about the story of two passengers on board the Carpathia, narrated by their future daughter.Awards
Her memoir, Space, won the Alex Award from the American Library AssociationAmerican Library Association
The American Library Association is a non-profit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with more than 62,000 members....
. The Dogeater won the Associated Writing Programs Award 1986 in Short Fiction. The Alice Stories, won the Prairie Schooner Fiction Book Prize. Her novella, Brazil, was the winner of the Ruthanne Wiley Memorial Novella Contest. David Wojahn
David Wojahn
David Wojahn is a contemporary American poet who teaches poetry in the Department of English at Virginia Commonwealth University, and in the low residency MFA in Writing program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts...
selected her poetry collection Cinema Muto for the Crab Orchard Open Selection Award. The Center for Book Arts Poetry Chapbook Prize 2006 was also won by her chapbook, Film History as a Train Wreck, by Albert Goldbarth
Albert Goldbarth
Albert Goldbarth is an American poet born January 31, 1948 in Chicago. He is known for his prolific production, his gregarious tone, his eclectic interests and his distinctive 'talky' style. He has been a Guggenheim fellow and won the National Book Critics Circle award in 1991 and 2001, the only...
.