Lannan Foundation

Zaia Alexander, Writer, Translator - Marfa, Spring 2008

Zaia Alexander is an author and literary translator living in Los Angeles and Berlin.  Her publications include Wende Kids: A New Generation of German Authors, “Primo Levi and Translation” in the Cambridge Companion to Primo Levi, “The Translator’s Diary” in Suitcase: A Journal for Transcultural Traffic, and “The Danube Exodus: the Rippling Currents of the River” (coauthored with Marsha Kinder) in Future Cinema: The Cinematic Imaginary after Film (MIT).  Her most recent translations include the novel Snowed Under by Antje Rávic Strubel (Red Hen Press) and a selection of short stories which have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals.  She holds a Ph.D. in Germanic Languages and Literature from UCLA, and was formerly Director of Programs at the Villa Aurora in Pacific Palisades.  In 2007, she served as Chair of the PEN Center Translation Jury.

Talvikki Ansel, Poet - Marfa, Spring 2006

Talvikki Ansel is the author of Jetty (Zoo Press, 2003), and My Shining Archipelago, chosen as a winner by James Dickey for the Yale Younger Poets Series in 1996. Of her work James Dickey has said, “She renders the heat, the closeness, the mystery, and the terrible fear of the undisclosed, the lurking, the waiting to happen. This is true imagination, true craft.” Her poems have appeared in the anthologies New Young American Poets (Southern Illinois University, 2000) and The Pushcart Prize XXVI, and in magazines such as The Atlantic Monthly, and The New Republic.  She lives in Rhode Island.

Andrew J. Bacevich, Writer - Marfa, Winter 2010

Andrew Bacevich’s books include The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism and The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War which received the inaugural Lannan Literary Award for An Especially Notable Book in 2005.  He is a professor of history and international relations at Boston University, a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, and received his PhD in American Diplomatic History from Princeton University. Bacevich is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Dan Beachy-Quick, Poet - Marfa, Spring 2005

Dan Beachy-Quick received his MFA at the University of Iowa, and currently teaches in the Writing Program at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.  He is the author of two books, North True South Bright, named one of Fence magazine’s Best Books by Emerging Writers fall 2003; and Spell, a book-length reverie on Moby Dick.  His poems have appeared widely.

Peter Behrens, Writer - Marfa, Fall 2008

Peter Behrens, a native of Montreal, is the author of one novel, The Law of Dreams, which was nominated for the 2008 International Impac Literature Prize.  His collection of short stories, Night Driving, was published in 1987. Stories and essays have appeared in Tin House, Brick, Best Canadian Stories (twice), Best Canadian Essays, The Atlantic Monthly, and many anthologies.  He held a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Creative Writing at Stanford University, and was a Fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts.  He lives in Maine.

Sherwin Bitsui, Poet - Marfa, Summer 2005

Sherwin Bitsui is Dine of the Todich’ii’nii (Bitter Water Clan), born for the Tl’izilani (Many Goats Clan). He holds an AFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts Creative Writing Program and is the recipient of the 2000-01 Individual Poet Grant from the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry, the 1999 Truman Capote Creative Writing Fellowship, and more recently, the 2002 University of Arizona Academy of American Poets Student Poetry Award. His first book, Shapeshift, is available from the University of Arizona Press. Originally from White Cone, Arizona, on the Navajo Reservation, he lives in Tucson, Arizona.

Charles Bowden, Writer - Marfa, Spring 2001

Charles Bowden is the author of eleven books including A Shadow in the City: Confessions of an Undercover Dog; Down By the River: Drugs, Money, Murder and Family; Juárez: The Laboratory of our Future; and Blood Orchid: An Unnatural History of America. His most recent book is Murder City: Ciudad Juárez and the Global Economy’s New Killing Fields. In this book, he presents a devastating chronicle of a city in collapse where not just the police and drug cartel members die as violence infects every level of society. Luís Alberto Urrea, author of The Devil’s Highway, says “...in Murder City Bowden plunges in head-first, without a parachute. There are moments when the book threatens to burst into flames and burn your hands.” Bowden is a contributing editor for GQ and Mother Jones, and also writes for Harper’s, The New York Times Book Review, and Aperture. Winner of a 1996 Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction, he lives in Las Cruces, New Mexico. 

“I wrote [A Shadow in the City] in Marfa, Texas, in a house loaned to me by a foundation as part of their writers’ program.  This is the second book I have written in that house thanks to the kindness of the outfit.  So I would like to thank the folks at the Lannan Foundation.  And issue an apology to the town of Marfa for once again being a hermit in their midst and remaining largely ignorant of their fine community.  It seems when one is blessed with the loan of a Lannan house, one enters and hardly ever leaves the walls again. I did see things out my window that make me wish this were not my fate.  The Davis Mountains and Big Bend region of Texas are good earth.  Well, better than good.”

Mary Caponegro, Writer - Marfa, Winter 2006

Mary Caponegro is the author of the short story collections Tales from the Next Village, The Star Cafe, Five Doubts, and The Complexities of Intimacy. She is the Richard B. Fisher Family Professor of Writing and Literature at Bard College.  William Gass said of her work, “The music of Mary Caponegro’s stories is to the mouth what wine is. Readers will find themselves lost among answers, intoxicated, knowing only that these are stories unlike any others before or since, which is, for this reader at least, a relief, a challenge, and a godsend.”

Cyrus Cassells, Poet - Marfa, Summer 2008

Cyrus Cassells is the author of four books of poetry, including his most recent collection, More Than Peace and Cypresses (Copper Canyon Press, 2004). Among his honors are a Lannan Literary Award, a William Carlos Williams Award, a Pushcart Prize, two National Endowment for the Arts grants and a Lambda Literary Award. He is a tenured associate professor of English at Texas State University-San Marcos.

Denise Chavez, Writer - Marfa, Fall 2000

Denise Chavez is a novelist, playwright, actress, director, and teacher. A native of Las Cruces, New Mexico, Ms. Chavez still lives in the house where she was raised. A recipient of the 1995 Governor’s Award in Literature, her books include Face of an Angel and The Last of the Menu Girls. During her residency, Ms. Chavez worked on a novel entitled The King and Queen of Comezon that addresses the complex issues of the Mexican-American border.