William Baer (writer)

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William Baer
BornDecember 29, 1948 (1948-12-29) (age 75)
Geneva, New York
OccupationWriter, Editor, Translator, Professor
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater Rutgers University (B.A.)
New York University (M.A.)
University of South Carolina (Ph.D)
Johns Hopkins University (M.A.)
University of Southern California (M.A.)
Literary movement New Formalism
Website
www.williambaer.net

William Baer (born December 29, 1948) is an American writer, editor, translator, and academic. He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fulbright (Portugal), and a Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Contents

Early life and education

William Baer was born in Geneva, New York, in 1948. He was raised in The Bronx, New York City, and Wayne, New Jersey. After graduating from Rutgers University with a B.A. in English, he received an M.A. in English from New York University. He completed his doctoral dissertation in English at the University of South Carolina under the direction of James Dickey, before attending the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars where he earned an M.A. in Creative Writing, working under David St. John and John Barth. He also graduated from USC School of Cinematic Arts with an M.A. in Cinema, receiving the Jack Nicholson Screenwriting Award.

Literary activities

Baer is the author of six books of poetry, including The Unfortunates, recipient of the T. S. Eliot Poetry Prize; "Borges" and Other Sonnets; [1] and "Bocage" and Other Sonnets, recipient of the X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize. His other books include translations from the Portuguese, Luís de Camões: Selected Sonnets; the textbook, Writing Metrical Poetry; and five collections of interviews, including Classic American Films: Conversations with the Screenwriters.

In 1989, William Baer was the Founding Editor of The Formalist (1990–2004), a small poetry journal which played a significant role in the Formalist poetry revival (New Formalism). [2] He is also the former poetry editor and film critic for Crisis Magazine. Currently, he serves as the founding director of the St. Robert Southwell Institute, and previously he served as the director of the University of Evansville Press, the contributing editor at Measure , the faculty director of The Evansville Review , and the founding director of the Richard Wilbur Poetry Series, [3] the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award, [4] and the Willis Barnstone Translation Prize.

In 1995, William Baer received an N.E.A. Creative Writing Grant in fiction, and his short stories have been widely published in such journals as The Iowa Review, Kansas Quarterly, The Chariton Review, and The Dalhousie Review. In 2015, two collections of his short fiction were published: Times Square and Other Stories and One-and-Twenty Tales. More recently, he published two novels: Companion and New Jersey Noir.

William Baer's various plays have been produced at more than thirty American theaters, including the 13th Street Theatre in New York City, Chicago Dramatists, and the Metropolitan Playhouse of New York. A recent full-length drama, Three Generations of Imbeciles, received the New Works of Merit Playwriting Award [5] and was chosen for the regionals of the 2013 Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. [6]

Awards

Selected books

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References

  1. ↑ Jeffrey Hart, "Morning Star," National Review, June 28, 2004
  2. ↑ Paul Galloway, "A New Journal Asserts," Chicago Tribune, March 23, 1990
  3. ↑ "Richard Wilbur Award". Archived from the original on 2014-10-17. Retrieved 2014-06-24.
  4. ↑ "14 by 14: So You Want to Win a Nemerov?". www.14by14.com.
  5. ↑ "NewWorksOfMeritPlaywritingContest". NewWorksOfMeritPlaywritingContest.
  6. ↑ "Cuyahoga Community College's Western Campus Theatre Department to perform play at regional festival". 7 January 2013.
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