Discipline: Literature – poetry

Edwin Ochester

Discipline: Literature – poetry
Region: Shelocta, PA
MacDowell Fellowships: 2001
Edwin Ochester is an American poet and editor. Currently he is a core faculty member of the Bennington College M.F.A. Writing Seminars. For nearly 20 years Ochester served as director of the writing program at the University of Pittsburgh, and he was twice elected president of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs. From 1967 to 1970 he was assistant professor of English at University of Florida, Gainesville. Since 1979 he has served as general editor of the Pitt Poetry Series, published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. It is one of the largest and best known lists of contemporary American poetry by any publisher. He is also general editor of the Drue Heinz Literature Prize for short fiction. His book Dancing on the Edges of Knives won the 1973 Devins Award for Poetry, and he has won fellowships in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Ochester is a founding editor of the poetry magazine 5 AM.

Studios

Van Zorn (formerly Kirby)

Edwin Ochester worked in the Van Zorn (formerly Kirby) studio.

Constructed thanks to a bequest from Sarah L. Kirby, Kirby Studio was the last new building to be erected during Mrs. MacDowell’s leadership (1907-1951). The load-bearing masonry walls were laid by local mason Augustus Beaulieu atop a fieldstone foundation. A 1995 renovation preserved the brick fireplace with wooden mantel and…

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