DeWitt Henry

Fiction Writer, Creative Nonfiction Writer

Watertown, MA

Massachusetts US

Email:

dewitt_henry@emerson.edu

Website:

www.dewitthenry.com

Author's Bio

Born 6/30/41 in Wayne, PA. Radnor High School, 1959; A.B. Amherst College, 1963; M.A. in English, Harvard Univ., 1965; Ph.D. English, Harvard Univ., 1971; completed requirements for M.F.A. University of Iowa, 1968 (did not take the degree). Married Constance Sherbill 1973; two children Ruth Kathryn Henry born 1977; David Jung Min Henry born 1985. Grand daughter Eva Luz Henry born 2003. Sister Judy Friedericy; brothers Charles (deceased 1999) and John T. Henry (deceased 2004). Founding editor of Ploughshares literary magazine, and active editor and director 1971-1995. Interim Director of Ploughshares 6/2007-10/2008. Professor, Writing, Literature, and Publishing, Emerson College, 2006 to present; Associate Professor 1989 to 2006: hired as Assistant Professor 1983; Acting Chairperson 1987-8; Chairperson 1989-93.

Publications & Prizes

Creative Nonfiction

Anthologies:

Sorrows Company: Writers on Loss and Grief (Beacon Press, 2001)

Fathering Daughters (Beacon Press, 1998)

The Pushcart Prize XIV (Pushcart Press, 1989)

Book:

Safe Suicide: Narratives, Essays, and Meditations (Red Hen Press, 2008)

Journals:

American Book Review

Boulevard

Memoir Journal

Nebraska Review

Solstice: A Magazine of Diverse Voices

Fiction

Anthologies:

Breaking Into Print: Early Stories and Insights Into Getting Published (Beacon Press, 2000)

Other Sides of Silence: New Fiction from Ploughshares (Faber & Faber, 1993)

The Ploughshares Reader: New Fiction for the Eighties (Pushcart Press, 1984)

Book:

The Marriage of Anna Maye Potts (University of Tennessee Press, 2001)

Journals:

AGNI

Nerve

Prizes won:

Peter Taylor Prize for the Novel, 2000 (inaugural award in annual competition for best novel in manuscript, judged this year by George Garrett) Commonwealth Award in the Arts, Humanities, and Interpretive Sciences (category: Organization Leadership, Small Organization), 1993. One of the first ten such awards presented by the Massachusetts Cultural Council. PEN New England Friend to Writers Award, 1992 Pushcart Prize for fiction, “Witness,” reprinted in Best of the Small Presses, XIV, 1989. St. Botolph’s Foundation Artist’s Foundation Artist’s Fellowship in Fiction, 1989. Boulevard Fiction Award for “Witness,” 1989 Third Annual Editors Book Award for The Ploughshares Reader, 1985. Citation by the Sinclair Fiction Prize for the novel, 1983. Creative Writing Fellowship Award for Fiction, National Endowment for the Arts, 1979. First Editorial Fellowship Award, Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines, 1979.

Personal Favorites

What I'm reading now:

An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken, American Pastoral by Philip Roth , What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami

More Information

Gives readings:

Yes

Travels for readings:

Yes

Identifies as:

Irish American

Prefers to work with:

Seniors

Fluent in:

English

Born in:

Wayne, PA

Pennsylvania

Raised in:

Wayne, PA

Pennsylvania

Please note: All information in the Directory is provided by the listed writers or their representatives.

Last update: Oct 30, 2022