Carla Kirchner, Ph.D. | Associate Professor of English

Education

Ph.D. in Creative Writing, Bath Spa University (Bath, United Kingdom)
- Dissertation: "Once Upon the Civil War: Monsters, Magic, and Making an American Fairy Tale"
M.F.A. in Creative Writing, Spalding University
- Thesis: "Four Twinkling Fish in the Lake of the Sky: Selections from a Novel"
M.A. in Writing, Composition and Rhetoric, Missouri State University
- Thesis: "Black Snakes and Lone Pines: Reflections and Personal Essays"
B.A. in English, Southwest Baptist University

“What Doves Talk About When They Talk About Love” and “A Corpuscular Theory of Light,” Expansive Poetry Online, Summer 2019
“Dragging the Lethe River,” 3Elements Review, January 2019, nominated for Best Small Fictions 2019 and Best of the Net 2019
“The Book of Signs,” Riddled with Arrows 2.3, November 2018, nominated for 2019 Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net 2019
“Answers to All the Important Questions,” Scarlet Leaf Review, September 2017
“The Shape of Air,” Gravel Literary Magazine, Summer 2017
“Heads, Hands, and Hearts,” Cave Region Review, Vol. 9, 2017
“The Lion on Canal Street Line,” Literary Orphans Issue 29, May 2017
“Let Down Your Hair,” Unbroken Journal Issue 13, April 2017, nominated for Best of the Net Anthology 2017

“The Witch and the Wizard: Writing Ozark Characters in Contemporary Fiction,” conference paper for Ozarks Studies Symposium, September 2018
“Breaking the Line: Form and Function in Poetry,” lecture for the Ozarks Association of Christian Writers, April 2018
“A ‘whole ‘nother side of life’: Setting as Character in Daniel Woodrell’s Ozarks Novels,” conference paper for Ozarks Studies Symposium, September 2017
"Can This Poem Be Saved?: The Art of Amputation, Liposuction, and Other Revisions," workshop for Lucidity Poetry Retreat, April 2017
“Finding Your Story’s Heart: Writing Poetic Prose,” lecture for Springfield Writer’s Guild, May 2017

The Physics of Love, winner of the Concrete Wolf Press 2016 Poetry Chapbook Contest