Laura Kasischke is an American fiction writer and poet. She is best known for writing the novels Suspicious River, The Life Before Her Eyes and White Bird in a Blizzard, all of which have been adapted to film.

Laura Kasischke
Kasischke at the National Book Critics Circle Awards, March 2012
Kasischke at the National Book Critics Circle Awards, March 2012
BornGrand Rapids, Michigan, U.S.
EducationColumbia University
University of Michigan (MFA)
Notable awardsNational Book Critics Circle Award

Life and work

edit

She was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Kasischke attended the University of Michigan (MFA 1987) and Columbia University.[1] She lives in Chelsea, Michigan, with her husband and son.

She is the Theodore Roethke Distinguished University Professor of English Language and Literature,[2] and of the Residential College at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan.[3]

Kasischke's literary works have been recognized and highlighted at Michigan State University in their Michigan Writers Series.[4]

Her novel The Life Before Her Eyes is the basis for the film of the same name, directed by Vadim Perelman and starring Uma Thurman and Evan Rachel Wood. Kasischke's work is particularly well received in France, where she is widely read in translation. Her novel A moi pour toujours (Be Mine) was published by Christian Bourgois, and was a national best seller.

Her most recent book of poetry, Where Now - New and Selected Poems,[5] was published in 2017 by Copper Canyon Press.

Awards

edit

Kasischke was awarded the 2011 National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry for Space, In Chains.[6][7] Her work has received the Juniper Prize, the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America, the Pushcart Prize, the Elmer Holmes Bobst Award for Emerging Writers, and the Beatrice Hawley Award.[8] She is the recipient of two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2005 she was The Frost Place poet in residence and in 2009 she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in Creative Arts - Poetry[9] She received the 2014 Grand prix des lectrices de Elle.

Bibliography

edit

Poetry

edit
  • Kasischke, Laura (1991). Wild brides. New York UP.
  • — (1995). Housekeeping in a dream. Carnegie Mellon University Press.
  • Fire and Flower (Alice James Books, 1998)
  • What It Wasn't (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2002)
  • Dance and Disappear. Univ of Massachusetts Press. 2002. ISBN 978-1-55849-352-0. Retrieved 29 May 2013.
  • Gardening in the Dark. AUSABLE Press. 2004. ISBN 978-1-931337-22-9. Retrieved 29 May 2013.
  • Lilies Without. Copper Canyon Press. 25 December 2012. ISBN 978-1-61932-072-7. Retrieved 29 May 2013.
  • Space, in Chains. COPPER CANYON. 2011. ISBN 978-1-55659-333-8. Retrieved 29 May 2013.
  • The Infinitesimals (Copper Canyon Press, 2014) ISBN 1556594666[10]
  • Where Now: New and Selected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2017) ISBN 9781556595127[5]

Fiction

edit

Novels

edit

Short story collections

edit
  • Kasischke, Laura (2013). If a stranger approaches you : stories. Sarabande Books.

Short stories

edit
Title Year First published Reprinted/collected
The barge 2011 Kasischke, Laura (Summer 2011). "The barge". The Florida Review. 35 (1&2): 179–184. Kasischke, Laura (2013). "The barge". In Henderson, Bill (ed.). The Pushcart Prize XXXVII : best of the small presses 2013. Pushcart Press. pp. 340–344.
Search continues for elderly man 2008 Kasischke, Laura (Sep 2008). "Search continues for elderly man". F&SF. 115 (3): 57–61.

Screenplays

edit

References

edit
edit