John Bensko
Professor, Director of River City Writers Series
Phone: 901-678-3318
Fax:
E-mail: jbensko@memphis.edu
Office: Patterson 401

River City Writers Series

Degrees Held

B.A., 1973, University of Alabama
M.F.A., 1979, University of Alabama
Ph.D., 1985, Florida State University

Academic Summary

Dr. John Bensko has an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from The University of Alabama and a Ph.D. in 20th century poetry and narrative technique from Florida State University. Before coming to The University of Memphis, he taught at The University of Alabama, Old Dominion University, Rhodes College, and, as a Fulbright Professor in American Literature, at The Universidad de Alicante, Spain. Dr. Bensko won the McLeod-Grobe Poetry Prize for 2000. He is Director of the River City Writers Series for the 2005-2006 season.

Courses Taught

3321 Survey of American Literature to 1865
3605 Intro to Creative Writing
4601 Advanced Poetry Workshop
4603 Advanced Fiction Workshop
4605 Forms of Fiction
4604 Forms of Poetry
7603 Graduate Poetry Workshop
7602 Graduate Fiction Workshop
7471 Forms of Fiction (Historical Fiction)
7471 Forms of Fiction (Short Story)
7472 Forms of Poetry (History of Genre)

Major Publications

Short fiction collection:

• Sea Dogs. Graywolf Press, 2004.

Books of poetry:

• Green Soldiers. Yale University Press, 1981. (Winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award.)
• The Waterman's Children. University of Massachusetts Press, 1994.
• The Iron City. University of Illinois Press, 2000.

Poems have been included in the following publications:

• The Made Thing: An Anthology of Contemporary Southern Poetry
• A New Geography of Poets
• The Morrow Anthology of Younger American Poets.

His fiction has appeared in many journals, including Chelsea, The Georgia Review, The Greensboro Review, The Madison Review, The New England Review, Quarterly West, The Sonora Review, The Southern Review, and TriQuarterly.