McNeely Creative Writer in Residence

About the McNeely Creative Writer in Residence

Each year, the Literary Arts Institute hosts the McNeely Creative Writer in Residence for a month-long writing residency. The McNeely writer visits classes, shares meals with faculty and students, and gives two separate public presentations: a craft talk, and a reading of his or her creative work. Additionally, the recipient will mentor CSB/SJU creative writing undergraduates in individual meetings, providing constructive feedback and advice about the students’ work.

Thanks to the generous help of Manitou Fund, The Literary Arts Institute of the College of St. Benedict is delighted to announce our McNeely Creative Writer in Residence Program.

Spring 2021

Maria Dahvana Headley was the McNeely Creative Writer in Residence in Spring 2021. Maria is the New York Times-bestselling and World Fantasy Award-winning author of eight books, including Beowulf: A New Translation (FSG, 2020), which has recently been named by Kirkus, NPR, and The New Statesman as a Book of the Year, and The Mere Wife (MCD x FSG, 2018), named by the Washington Post as one of its Notable Works of Fiction. 

She has taught writing in the master's program at Sarah Lawrence, and has delivered or will soon deliver masterclasses and lectures at Oxford, Harvard, Stanford, Dartmouth, Northwestern, UCSD, and the University of Pennsylvania, among others. She grew up in the high desert of Idaho on a survivalist sled dog ranch, where she spent summers plucking the winter coat from her father’s wolf. 

Spring 2020

The McNeely Creative Writer in Residence for Spring 2020 was author Susan Steinberg. She is the Professor and Chair of English at the University of San Francisco and is also currently the Bedell Distinguished Visiting Professor in the graduate Creative Nonfiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa.