Discipline: Literature – fiction

Julie Buntin

Discipline: Literature – fiction
Region: Ann Arbor, MI
MacDowell Fellowships: 2019, 2024

Julie Buntin's debut novel, Marlena, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize, translated into ten languages, and named a best book of the year by over a dozen outlets, including the Washington Post, NPR, and Kirkus Reviews.

Her writing has appeared in the Atlantic, Vogue, New York Times Book Review, Guernica, and elsewhere. Formerly an editor and the director of writing programs at Catapult, she is now an assistant professor in the Helen Zell Writers' Program at the University of Michigan. She has also taught creative writing at New York University, Columbia University, and the Yale Writers’ Workshop.

In 2024, she worked on her second novel, The Volta, which won the Ellen Levine Fund for Writers Award for a work-in-progress. She wrote the first chapters at MacDowell in 2019.

Studios

Van Zorn (formerly Kirby)

Julie Buntin 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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