Jennifer Leonard
Director
JENNIFER LEONARD ’09 is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Denison University. She has held scholarships and fellowships at the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, New York State Summer Writers Institute, and Indiana University, where she received her MFA in poetry and served as Editor-in-Chief of Indiana Review. She is the recipient of the Diane Middlebrook Poetry Fellowship at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize, and a 2013 Ruth Lilly finalist. She lives in Columbus, Ohio with the poet Keith Leonard and their two children.
Faculty
Peter Grandbois is a Professor of English and Creative Writing at Denison University. He is the author of 12 books: three novels, half-burnt, Nahoonkara, and The Gravedigger; two memoirs, The Arsenic Lobster and Kissing the Lobster; a collection of short fictions, Domestic Disturbances; three novella collections or “monster double features”—Wait Your Turn, The Glob Who Girdled Granville, and The Girl on the Swing—and four collections of poetry, This House That, Triptych: the Three-Legged World, Last Night I Aged A Hundred Years, and Everything Has Become Birds. His plays have been performed in St. Louis, Columbus, Los Angeles, and New York. His poems, essays, and short fiction have appeared in over one hundred magazines and been shortlisted for Best American Essays, Best American Horror, and the Pushcart Prize. He is the Poetry Editor for Boulevard magazine and coaches Denison’s varsity fencing team.
Faculty
Alison Stine ’00 was a student in the inaugural Reynolds Young Writers Workshop and has been a member of the Reynolds faculty since 2002. She is the author of the novels Trashlands, long-listed for the Reading the West Award, and Road Out of Winter, winner of the Philip K. Dick Award; a novella; and three books of poetry. Recipient of an NEA fellowship and the Wallace Stegner at Stanford, she formerly worked as a reporter with “The New York Times,” and now writes as the staff culture writer at “Salon.” Her next novel Dust will be published by Macmillan in 2023.
Faculty
Anne Barngrover’s (’08) third book of poetry, Everwhen, is forthcoming with University of Akron Press in 2023. Anne earned her BA from Denison University, her MFA from Florida State University, and her PhD from University of Missouri. She is currently an Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Saint Leo University, where she is on faculty for the low-residency MA program in Creative Writing, and lives in Tampa, Florida. She has served on the Reynolds Workshop staff since 2008.
Faculty
Lauren Mallett was born in Pennsylvania and raised in Oregon and Illinois. She has lived and studied in Guanajuato and Xalapa, Mexico. Lauren earned her BA from Denison University and her MFA from Purdue University. She taught dual-language immersion fifth grade in Richmond, California. Her recent writing appears in Poetry Northwest, The Seventh Wave, The Night Heron Barks, Grimoire Magazine, and other journals. Lauren lives on Clatsop land of Oregon’s north coast. She teaches at Warrenton High School.
Matthew Moser Miller
Faculty
Matthew Moser Miller ’10 is a Denison graduate and born-and-raised Ohioan. He holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Michigan, and his work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, Gettysburg Review, Narrative, and elsewhere. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford University and lecturer at the University of Michigan, he is now a visiting assistant professor in English at Denison University. In addition to his teaching, he also works as an orchardist and cidermaker on his family’s Ohio farm.
Abigail Current Carlson
Faculty
Abby Current Carlson ’14 was raised in southern Ohio, then spent a few years in New Mexico, where she earned an MFA in fiction from the University of New Mexico, before moving back to Ohio again. She has been writing all her life and attended Reynolds as a student in 2008 before coming to Denison and joining the Reynolds staff in 2012. She writes fiction, often tangling magical elements with real to explore moments of tension, transformation, and the unspoken bubbling up. Abby lives with her partner and their dog, Cassie, who occupies about 80% of her camera roll.
Malina Infante
Malina Infante is a rising senior English: Creative Writing and Educational Studies double major at Denison University. Outside of her coursework, she serves as an English Department Fellow as well as a Teaching Assistant for various Introduction to Creative Writing and Advanced Poetry Writing courses. She has worked as an editor for Exile Literary Magazine for the last three years. Over the summer of 2022, she completed an intensive 10-week creative project focused on drafting a literary fantasy novel under the direction of Dr. Peter Grandbois. She has recently been funded to continue that work with Dr. Margot Singer during the summer of 2023. After graduation, she is hopeful to pursue an MFA in either Poetry or Fiction and plans to one day teach high school English.
Creative Writing at Denison University
Denison University offers majors and minors in English focusing on either creative writing or literature. Creative writers make up about half of Denison’s English majors.
Creative writing majors take writing workshops across the genres plus a range of literature classes. We offer many sections of the introductory multi-genre class plus advanced workshops in poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, literary translation, and/or other genres (no application required). All senior majors complete a full-year independent writing project. Senior writers work in small groups under the close mentorship of a creative writing faculty member and produce a book-length work!
Denison’s large creative writing faculty includes prize-winning poets and writers David Baker, Michael Croley, Peter Grandbois, Jennifer Leonard, Jack Shuler, and Margot Singer.
Denison’s Journalism major is for students interested in writing that combines rigorous research with compelling, story-driven prose. Students gain experience researching and writing long-form journalism on topics in their areas of interest. They build skills in fact-based storytelling with a focus on ethical reporting and research, gain experience through independent writing projects, and make connections through internships and workshops with editors and writers.
Denison’s endowed Beck Series brings prominent writers to campus for short residencies to give readings, craft talks, workshops, and manuscript consultations. Visiting writers have included Ada Limon, Hanif Abdurraqib, Joy Harjo, Billy Collins, Louise Erdrich, Bill McKibben, Stephen Millhauser, Michael Pollan, Pam Houston ’83, and many others.
The creative writing program also publishes Exile, a biannual award-winning student-edited literary magazine. We also have a vibrant creative writing club, student readings, and much more!