L U K E W H I S N A N T
Luke Whisnant's In the Debris Field won First Prize in the 2018 Bath Flash Fiction International Novella-in-Flash competition. He is the author of two poetry chapbooks, a story collection, and two novels, including Watching TV with the Red Chinese, which was made into an independent film in 2012. His fiction, poetry, and nonfiction have been published in over 50 different journals and anthologies in the USA, and overseas in England, France, and Portugal. His work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has won awards from the Academy of American Poets and the Blumenthal Foundation; has three times been listed on the “Distinguished Story List” of the Best American Short Stories; and has been reprinted three times in the annual anthology New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best.
Whisnant earned his MFA at Washington University in St Louis, where he studied with Stanley Elkin, Howard Nemerov, and William H. Gass. He is Emeritus Professor of English at East Carolina University, where for four decades he taught courses in creative writing, literature, and professional communication. He is a three-time recipient of the department's Excellence in Teaching Award and was twice nominated for the university's Board of Governors Teaching Award. From 2006-2024 he edited Tar River Poetry, a nationally ranked magazine of verse.