Pitt Professor and Poet Lynn Emanuel Named 2009 Elliston Distinguished Poet-in-Residence

PITTSBURGH-Lynn Emanuel, University of Pittsburgh professor of English, has been named the 2009 Elliston Distinguished Poet-in-Residence at the University of Cincinnati. The position carries an award of $20,000. As poet-in-residence, Emanuel will teach an intensive five-week course for graduate students at Cincinnati's McMicken College of Arts and Sciences and will give a poetry reading and two public presentations.

Supported by the George Elliston Poetry Fund and the University of Cincinnati Department of English and Comparative Literature, this position has been offered to one poet annually for more than 50 years. The Elliston poet-in-residence position has an illustrious history and includes such poets as Robert Frost, Randall Jarrell, Robert Lowell, Louise Glück, John Ashbery, Richard Howard, Michael Harper, Heather McHugh, and C.D. Wright, among others.

Director of Pitt's Writing Program, Emanuel is author of four collections of poetry-"Hotel Fiesta" (University of Georgia Press, 1984); "The Dig" (University of Illinois Press, 1992), a National Poetry Series Award winner; "Then, Suddenly"-(University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999), a selection of the Academy of American Poets' Poetry Book Club and Eric Matthieu King Award; and, forthcoming, "Mob and Torch."

Her work has been featured in the "Pushcart Prize Anthology" and in "Best American Poetry" eight times and is included in "The Oxford Book of American Poetry." She has been a "Pushcart Prize Anthology" poetry editor, a member of the National Endowment for the Arts' literature panel, and a judge for the National Book Awards. She is a recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships.

Emanuel has taught at the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, the Bennington Writers' Conference, and The Warren Wilson Program in Creative Writing.

Emanuel received a BA degree from Bennington College, an MA degree from City College of New York, and an MFA degree from the University of Iowa.

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12/10/08/tmw