Alysse Kathleen McCanna

Curriculum Vitae

Nell.jpg
 
 

Alysse Gopalakrishnan

Publishing as Alysse Kathleen McCanna 

Education

Ph.D. English, Creative Writing Emphasis (Poetry), Oklahoma State University. Exam Areas: Poetics, Literary Studies: Feminist Theory in American Literature by Women. Dissertation: FishWife. Dissertation Defended on March 8, 2022; passed with no revisions. May 2022.

M.F.A. Writing and Literature, Poetry Concentration, Bennington College. Thesis: Reflectogram. Thesis Committee: April Bernard, Major Jackson. June 2015.

B.A. History of Art; Minor: English Language & Literature, Smith College. May 2007.

Teaching & Academic Appointments

Associate Professor, Fall 2022-Present 

Colorado Mountain College, Eagle, CO 

ENG1001: Academic Writing Skills 

ENG1021: English Composition I 

ENG1022: English Composition II 

ENG2021: Creative Writing I 

LIT2005: Race, Ethnicity, Culture

Graduate Teaching Assistant (Instructor of Record), Fall 2016-Spring 2022 

Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK 

ENGL1113, 1213: Composition 1 and 2 (In Person & Online) 

ENGL1113, 1213: High School Concurrent Composition 1 and 2 (Online) 

ENGL1413: Critical Analysis & Writing II: Multimodal Composition 

ENGL2513: Intro to Creative Writing 

Writing Center Consultant, Spring 2017, Fall 2018, Spring 2022 

Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK 

Synchronous & asynchronous tutor, in person and online, for undergraduate students and the Graduate Writing Center 

Higher Education and Student Affairs (HESA) and Social Foundations (SF) Writing Fellow 

Dissertation Writing Workshop Facilitator 

Adjunct Instructor, Fall 2021 

Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, NJ 

WRIT1000: Fundamentals of Writing  

Adjunct Instructor, Fall 2019 

Westfield State University, Westfield, MA 

ENGL101: Composition 1 

Assistant Director of Creative Writing, 2018-2019 

Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK  

Lecturer, Spring 2016

Colorado State University-Pueblo, Pueblo, CO 

ENG101: Composition I 

ENG102: Composition II 

Community Teaching Experience

Poetry Workshop Leader, La Vista Correctional Facility, Spring 2016 

Poetry Workshop Leader, Pueblo West Public Library, Spring 2016 

Publications 

Full-Length Poetry Collection

FishWife, forthcoming from Black Lawrence Press, March 2024. 

Chapbook 

Pentimento, winner of the 2017 Gold Line Press Chapbook Competition, judged by Safiya Sinclair, March 2019. 

Poetry 

“The Scientist.” Bombay Gin, forthcoming.

“Crown for Forgetting.” Grist, Issue 15, Spring 2023.

“Oven Spring.” North American Review, 307.1, Spring 2022.  

“The [ ] Wife,” “He Who Finds a Wife Finds a Good Thing.” The Pinch, 41.2, Fall 2021. 

“The Soldier,” “The Sailor,” “The Trucker.” The Rumpus, August 2021.  

“An Ex-Husband for the End of the World.” Harpur Palate, Double Issue 19.2/20.1. 

“Woman Turned Inside Out.” POETS.org, September 2020. 

“Waiting for Men to Come Home from Wars.” So to Speak: feminist journal of language and art, 2020 Contest Issue. 

“Pantoum for Burning.” Pembroke Magazine, no. 52, 2020. Featured on Verse Daily August 19, 2020. 

“Petroglyphs.” Inverted Syntax, February 2020. 

“Land Run Haibun,” “The Salesman.” Nimrod International Journal, Fall/Winter 2019. 

“Cutting Hair.” Poet Lore, Spring 2019. 

“Near Misses.” CutBank, Spring 2019. Featured on Verse Daily October 9, 2019. 

“A Practice of Gestures.” TriQuarterly, Spring 2019. 

“The Magician.” Rabbit Issue 26: Belonging. 

“The Men I’ve Never Loved, Exactly.” Dogwood, Spring 2018. 

“Heat,” “Success That is Partly the Result of Chance.” The Boiler, March 2018. Nominated for Best of the Net 2018. 

“Changing the Baby.” Free State Review, February 2018. 

“Husband Ghazal,” “Reckoning.” Lunch Ticket: Amuse Bouche, January 2018. 

“Taking Up the Dock.” Midwestern Gothic, Winter 2018. Contributor Spotlight, March 2018. 

“Wife.” Barrow Street, Winter 2017/2018. 

“Kissing Angelina.” Tinderbox, December 2017. 

“Time is Blood.” POETS.org, August 2017. 

“It’s Not Like the Movies.” The Tishman Review, Spring 2017.  

“Joey Teaches Me How to Chop Wood.” Bridge Eight, Spring 2016. 

“Family Dollar,” “My Mother Saves a Man O’ War,” “Pears.” Coda Quarterly, Spring 2016. 

“Risk.” Boulevard, Spring 2016. 

“Filling Out Forms.” Driftwood, July 2015. 

“Learning the Tarot.” Madcap Review, July 2015. 

“Sylvia Plath in the Kitchen.” Coal Hill Review, June 2015. 

Book Reviews 

Review of Katy Bohinc’s Scorpio, “The Gorgeous and the Grotesque,” American Book Review, Volume 40, Number 3, March/April 2019.  

Review of Rachel McKibben’s blud, “Accepting in Blud Inheritance,” American Book Review, Volume 39, Number 6, September/October 2018.  

Review of Diane Gilliam Fisher’s Kettle Bottom, The Operating System, April 2014. 

Fellowships, Scholarships, Residencies, Workshops

Kenyon Review Residential Writers Workshop, July 2022 (accepted; did not attend due to funding). 

Juniper Summer Writing Institute, June 2022 (accepted; did not attend due to funding).

Tucson Festival of Books Writing Workshop, March 2022.

Tuition Scholarship to attend New York State Summer Writers Institute at Skidmore College, July 2021. 

Fellowship, Vermont Studio Center, February 2020. 

Juniper Summer Writing Institute, June 2020 (accepted; did not attend due to funding). 

Marye Lynn Cummings Scholarship, OSU, 2020. 

Finalist, Thomas Lux Scholarship, Palm Beach Poetry Festival, 2020. 

Marye Lynn Cummings Scholarship, OSU, judged by Donika Kelly, 2019. 

Writers Coop Resident, Sundress Academy for the Arts, November 2018. 

Poet Ai Scholarship, OSU, Fall 2016. 

Writing Program Scholarship, Bennington College, June 2013-June 2015. 

Honor and Awards 

Winner 

Poetry Contest, So to Speak: feminist journal of language and art, judged by t’ai freedom ford, 2020. 

University & College Poetry Prize, judged by Tyler Mills, Academy of American Poets, 2020. 

Chapbook Competition, Gold Line Press, 2017. 

University & College Poetry Prize, judged by Molly Brodak, Academy of American Poets, 2017. 

Liam Rector Poetry Prize, Bennington College, 2015. 

Winter Poetry Contest, Sixfold Literary Journal, 2013. 

Mark Fischer Poetry Prize, 2010. 

Elizabeth Babcock Poetry Prize, Smith College, 2007. 

Runner Up 

Key West Literary Seminars Emerging Writer Awards, Scotti Merrill Award for Poetry, 2022. 

Grist ProForma Contest, April 2021. 

Finalist 

Antivenom Poetry Award, Elixir Press, March 2022. 

Barrow Street Book Prize, Barrow Street Press, January 2022. 

Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards, 2022. 

Indiana Review 1/2K Prize, September 2020. 

Dogwood Literary Prize, Dogwood: A Journal of Poetry and Prose, 2018. 

Moon City Poetry Award, Moon City Press, 2017. 

Chapbook Contest, The Center for Book Arts, 2017. 

Best of the Net, Sundress Publications, 2017. 

Edna St. Vincent Millay Poetry Prize, The Tishman Review, 2017. 

First Book Contest, Autumn House Press, 2016. 

Chapbook Contest, Iron Horse Literary Review, 2016. 

Chapbook Contest, Coal Hill Review, 2015. 

Semi-Finalist 

Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize, October 2022. 

Perugia Press Prize, March 2022. 

2021 Philip Levine Prize for Poetry, Anhinga Press. 

Perugia Press Prize, March 2021. 

Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards, 2020. 

Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize in Poetry, Persea Books, 2018. 

Brittingham & Felix Pollak Prizes in Poetry, University of Wisconsin Press, 2016. 

Emerging Poets Contest, Boulevard, 2016. 

Conference Presentations 

Arts and Humanities Graduate Colloquium: On the Brink: Borders, Transitions, and the Body, February 25, 2022, as part of the craft panel Freedom as Literary Ecotone: Ecowriting Along Borders of Poetry / Prose and Non / Human Communities, virtual.  

Creative Writing Studies Conference: Creative Writing as Care & Other Lessons of the Pandemic, October 2021, as part of the workshop Ritual and Wonder: Methods of Reopening and Unsilencing the Workshop, virtual. Introduction on YouTube

SoCo Conference, April 2016, as part of the panel, The Writer Goes Pop: Memory, Influence, and Processing Pop Culture, CSU-Pueblo. 

Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Social Imagery (SISSI) Conference, March 2015, Image of the Rebel: as part of the panel, The Poetics of the Rebel, CSU-Pueblo. 

SISSI Conference, March 2014, Image of the Hero: as part of the panel, The Poetics of the Hero, CSU-Pueblo. 

Editorial Experience 

Associate Editor, Pilgrimage Magazine, 2015-Present 

Editorial Assistant, The Cimarron Review, 2017-2021  

Copy Editor, Pilgrimage Magazine, 2013-2015 

Editor, The Bennington Review, 2015 

Poetry Reader, The Literary Review, 2014-2015 

Service & Professional Activities 

Recreational Coordinator, Bennington Writing Seminars, Jan 2020-January 2022 

Editorial Committee Member, Gasher Journal First-Book Scholarship, Fall 2021  

Reader, Cow Creek Chapbook Contest, Pittsburg State University, 2020-2021 

Cowboy Concurrent Pilot Program, OSU, Fall 2020-Fall 2021  

Eli Review Pilot Program, OSU, 2018-2019 

Secretary, OSU Creative Writers Association, 2017-2018 

Nature Walk Coordinator, Oklahoma State University, 2017 

Regional Coordinator and State Judge, Southeastern Colorado History Day, 2014-2016 

Writing Contest Judge, Otero Junior College, 2014-2015  

Readings, Classroom Visits, & Interviews 

Classroom Visit, Professor Juan Morales’ Magazine Editing and Production Class, CSU-Pueblo, Virtual, January 27, 2022 

Creative Writers Association Publishing Panel, Virtual, April 16, 2021 

Bombay Gin Contributor Reading, Virtual, February 27, 2021 

So To Speak Contributor Reading, Virtual, November 6, 2020 

Classroom Visit, Professor Juan Morales’ Poetry Workshop, CSU-Pueblo, Virtual, December 4, 2020 

Creative Writers Association Readings, Stillwater, OK, April 30, 2019; March 27, 2017 

Pentimento (Chapbook) Launch, Stillwater, OK, April 15, 2019 

AWP Off-Site Reading for Gold Line Press, Portland, OR, March 29, 2019 

Classroom Visit, Professor Randi Eldevik’s Reading Poetry Class, October 24, 2018 

Interview with KT Herr for Electric Poetry on WYCE, Grand Rapids, MI, May 16, 2017 

Poems-to-Go, Stillwater, OK, October 7, 2016 

Siren World Book Launch, SoCo Reading Series, Pueblo, CO, November 12, 2015 

Getting There From Here, Poetry Reading with Lauren Camp, Juan Morales, and Jeanetta Calhoun Mish, Teatro Paraguas, Santa Fe, NM, October 18, 2015 

Poetry Reading, SoCo Reading Series, Pueblo, CO, February 7, 2015 

Poems on the Corridor, Kadoya Gallery, Pueblo, CO, February 6, 2015 

Pilgrimage Contributor Reading, Pueblo, CO, May 16, 2013 

At First Sight Poetry Reading, Hoag Gallery, Pueblo CO, April 6, 2013 

P.S. Poetry Invasion Reading, Sangre De Cristo Arts Center, August 17, 2012 

Mark Fisher Poetry Prize Reading, Telluride, CO, April 27, 2010 

Administrative Experience 

Online Programs Coordinator & Application Reader, March 2021-June 2022 

Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ 

Admissions Counselor, September 2019-March 2020 

Smith College, Northampton, MA 

Administrative Assistant, History and Psychology Departments, 2012-2016 

Colorado State University—Pueblo, CO