Discipline: Literature

James McKinley

Discipline: Literature
Region: Kansas City, MO
MacDowell Fellowships: 1983, 1989
James McKinley (1935-2015) was an American Non-fiction writer. He published several collections of short stories such as Acts of Love in 1987 and Who Taught Me to Swim in 2007. In 1977 he published Assassination in America for which he interviewed James Earl Ray, convicted assassin of Martin Luther King Jr. In 1989, McKinley agreed to interview Kansas City serial killer Bob Berdella on public television. McKinley also wrote about rural survivalist communities and pari-mutuel betting, publishing in Playboy and Esquire and other magazines. In the early 1990s, he prepared oral histories of the American Royal Livestock, Horse Show, and Rodeo as well as the National Catholic Reporter. Beginning in 1970, McKinley taught English and creative writing at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. In 1985, he became editor of New Letters, the quarterly literary magazine published by UMKC. During McKinley’s tenure, which lasted 17 years, the magazine featured contributions from many well-known writers, among them Amiri Baraka, Thomas Berger, Annie Dillard and John Updike. McKinley also championed poets as diverse as Thomas McAfee, a former University of Missouri faculty member, and Dan Quisenberry, the late Kansas City Royals relief pitcher and — later in life — poet. McKinley’s last edition of New Letters, a special issue devoted to baseball, appeared in 2002.

Studios

Star

James McKinley worked in the Star studio.

Funded by Alpha Chi Omega, a national fraternity founded in 1885, Star Studio — built in 1911–1912 — was the first studio given to the residency by an outside organization. To this day, Alpha Chi sorority pledges learn the story of Star Studio and its role in supporting American arts and letters. Beginning as a nicely proportioned…

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