Deb Olin Unferth
Deb Olin Unferth | |
|---|---|
 Unferth at the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Awards | |
| Born | November 19, 1968 |
| Notable works | Revolution and Barn 8 |
Deb Olin Unferth (born November 19, 1968) is the author of six books: two novels, two books of short stories, a memoir, and a graphic novel. Her fiction and essays have appeared in over fifty magazines and journals, including Harper’s, The New York Times, The Paris Review, The Believer, McSweeney’s, Granta, The Guardian, and NOON. She was a finalist for the National Book Critics’ Circle Award,[1] and she has received a Guggenheim fellowship,[2] four Pushcart Prizes, a Creative Capital Fellowship for Innovative Literature,[3] and residency fellowships from the MacDowell[4] and Yaddo[5] Foundations.
She grew up in Chicago. She has an MFA from Syracuse University, where she studied with George Saunders, Tobias Wolff, and Michael Martone.
She became a vegan in 2008.[6] In 2020 she published the novel Barn 8, which is about the personhood of chickens and industrial egg farming. For the book, she did extensive research, which appears in a longform article in Harper’s Magazine.[7] The New York Times called Barn 8, “a beautiful, urgent, politically charged book.[8]”
In 1987, as a freshman in college studying liberation theology, she dropped out of school and traveled through Central America interviewing and writing about key political and religious figures involved in the civil wars in Guatemala and El Salvador, the Sandinista revolutionary government in Nicaragua, and the Noriega dictatorship in Panama. These travels formed the basis of her memoir Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War,[9] published by Holt in 2011, which was a finalist for a 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award.[10][11]
Her first book of stories, Minor Robberies,[12] appeared in a box with two other books of stories, by Dave Eggers and Sarah Manguso. The box of books was published by McSweeney's.
Her first novel, Vacation, was also published by McSweeney's, in 2007.
She is married to the philosophy professor Matt Evans, who specializes in ancient Greek philosophy.
Career
[edit]She has taught creative writing and literature at Wesleyan University, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the University of Kansas. She is currently a professor at the University of Texas at Austin,[13] for the Michener Center[14] and the New Writers Project.[15]
Her work has appeared in Harper's, The New York Times, The Paris Review,[16] Granta,[17] McSweeney's, The Believer, The Boston Review, Esquire, and other magazines. She is a frequent contributor to Noon. She also has received four Pushcart Prizes.
Prison education
[edit]In 2015 she founded the Pen City Writers, a creative writing program at a maximum-security prison in south Texas.[18][19] Some of the students have won awards and been published in various magazines. For this work she won the 2017 Texas Governor’s Criminal Justice Service Award[20] and the inaugural American Short Fiction’s Community Star Award.[21]
Books
[edit]- Minor Robberies (short stories, McSweeney's), 2007
- Vacation (novel, McSweeney's), 2008
- Revolution (memoir, Henry Holt), 2011
- I, Parrot (graphic novel) with Elizabeth Haidle, 2017[22]
- Wait Till You See Me Dance (story collection, Graywolf Press), 2017[23]
- Barn 8, (novel, Graywolf Press), 2020
- Earth 7, (novel, Graywolf Press,) 2026[24]
Awards
[edit]- Pushcart Prize, 2005
- Creative Capital Grant for Literature, 2009[25]
- First Novelist Award for Vacation, 2009[26]
- National Book Critics Award finalist for Revolution, 2012[27]
- Pushcart Prize, 2011
- Pushcart Prize for "Likeable", 2014[28]
- St. Francis Literary Prize Finalist[29]
- Pushcart Prize, 2016
- Guggenheim Fellowship, 2018[30]
Online texts
[edit]Nonfiction
[edit]- Memoir Manifesto
- Where I Write
- "The Stipend,"[31] The Paris Review
Short fiction
[edit]Interviews
[edit]- Interview with The Coachella Review
- Interview with the Texas Book Festival
- Interview on BOMB
- Interview on The Rumpus
- Interview on HTMLGIANT
- Interview on Bookslut with Tao Lin
- 2011 radio interview (50 minutes) at The Bat Segundo Show
- "I Start From a Place of Outrage and Sadness": A conversation on humor in fiction with Elisa Albert, Steve Almond, Brock Clarke, Sam Lipsyte, Zachary Martin, John McNally, and Deb Olin Unferth in Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts (24.2)
References
[edit]- ^ "2011". National Book Critics Circle. Retrieved 2025-08-04.
- ^ "Guggenheim Fellowships: Supporting Artists, Scholars, & Scientists". www.gf.org. Retrieved 2025-08-04.
- ^ "Awardee Index". Creative Capital. Retrieved 2025-08-04.
- ^ "Deb Olin Unferth - Artist". MacDowell. Retrieved 2025-08-04.
- ^ "Our Artists – Yaddo". Retrieved 2025-08-04.
- ^ Raymond, Midge (2020-04-15). "Interview with BARN 8 author Deb Olin Unferth". EcoLit Books. Retrieved 2025-08-04.
- ^ Unferth, Deb Olin (October 31, 2024). "Cage Wars". Harper's Magazine.
- ^ "In 'Barn 8,' a Plot to Steal a Million Chickens (Published 2020)". 2020-03-03. Retrieved 2025-08-04.
- ^ "Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War | Jewish Book Council". www.jewishbookcouncil.org. 2011. Retrieved 2025-08-04.
- ^ Press Release, National Book Critics Circle Announces Finalist for Publishing Year 2011. By Barbara Hoffert. 21 Jan. 2012. Retrieved 27 Jan. 2012
- ^ 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award Nominees Announced, Huffingtonpost. By Hillel Italie. 22 Jan. 2012. Retrieved 25 Jan 2012.
- ^ "Gale - Institution Finder". galeapps.gale.com. Retrieved 2025-08-04.
- ^ "Profile for Deb Olin Unferth at UT Austin". liberalarts.utexas.edu.
- ^ "Michener Center for Writers".
- ^ "Faculty | The New Writers Project". College of Liberal Arts at The University of Texas at Austin. Retrieved May 22, 2015.
- ^ Unferth, Deb Olin (2015). "Voltaire Night". The Paris Review. Vol. Summer 2015, no. 213.
- ^ "Deb Olin Unferth".
- ^ "Thursday: Deb Olin Unferth and Andrea Lawlor". The Gazette (Cedar Rapids, Iowa). April 1, 2018. p. M6. Retrieved June 26, 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "Heartbreaking True Stories from Inside Texas Prisons". 3 March 2017.
- ^ Clark, Jason. "Austin Woman Receives Governor's 2017 Criminal Justice Volunteer Award". Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Retrieved August 4, 2025.
- ^ "THE STARS AT NIGHT 2017 - American Short Fiction". 2020-10-01. Retrieved 2025-08-04.
- ^ "I, Parrot: A Graphic Novel by Deb Olin Unferth and Elizabeth Haidle".
- ^ "Wait till You See Me Dance | Graywolf Press".
- ^ "Search Results | Publishers Marketplace". www.publishersmarketplace.com. Retrieved 2025-08-04.
- ^ "Creative Capital". creative-capital.org. Archived from the original on 2009-05-23.
- ^ "Deb Olin Unferth takes Cabell First Novelist Award". 15 August 2009.
- ^ "2012 National Book Critics Circle Award Nominees Announced". huffingtonpost.com. Archived from the original on 2012-01-25.
- ^ "Welcome to Pushcart Press: Publishers of the Pushcart Prize".
- ^ "SFC Announces $50,000 Literary Prize Short List". St. Francis College. Retrieved 2025-08-04.
- ^ "John Simon Guggenheim Foundation | Deb Olin Unferth".
- ^ Unferth, Deb Olin (2025-05-27). "The Stipend by Deb Olin Unferth". The Paris Review. Retrieved 2025-08-04.
- ^ Unferth, Deb Olin (2004-07-01). "Minor Robberies". AGNI Online. Retrieved 2022-09-01.
External links
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