About My Writing and Teaching

ABOUT BARRIE JEAN BORICH

Literary Awards

Publications

College and Community Teaching

Lectures, Readings, and Performances

Mentorship and Private Instruction Services

Community and Online Writing Workshops

Barrie Jean Borich is the author of Body Geographic, forthcoming in the American Lives Series of the University of Nebraska Press. Her previous book, My Lesbian Husband: Landscapes of a Marriage (Graywolf) won the American Library Association Stonewall Book Award and was finalist for both the Minnesota Book and Lambda Literary awards. Restoring the Color of Roses (Firebrand), her first book, is a memoir set in the Calumet region of Chicago, where she grew up.

Two recent essays, both from Body Geographic, received national literary magazine awards; "American Doll" won the 2010 Florida Review Editor's Prize in the Essay, and "On a Clear Day, Catalina" won the 2010 Crab Orchard Review John Guyon Literary Nonfiction Prize.

Her essays also appear in recent issues of Ecotone, Seneca Review, Indiana Review, Hotel Amerika, New Ohio Review, South Loop Review, Seattle Review and others, as well as in the New Village Press anthology American Tensions--Literature of Identity and the Search for Social Justice and the Borealis Press anthology Riding Shotgun--Women Write About their Mothers. Her work has been named Notable in Best American Essays and Best American Non-Required Reading and has twice received Special Mention in the annual Pushcart Prize Best of the Small Presses.

Borich holds an MFA from the Rainier Writer's Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University and is the recipient of many literary prizes including a Bush Artist Fellowship, two Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowships, a Loft McKnight Award in Creative Prose, and a Loft Mentor Award in Poetry. She was one of two writers chosen by Rosellen Brown to receive a Loft McKnight Award of Distinction, and was among those chosen by both Scott Russell Sanders and Gloria Anzaldua to receive Loft Creative Nonfiction Mentor Series awards.

About her work Rosellen Brown has written, "She writes with a rare deftness, clarity and sense of humor, never strident or defensive, as if she herself were curious to discover what she is thinking." Ms. Magazine described her as "an empathetic writer who can do justice to simple happiness and complicated love."

The nonfiction editor of Water~Stone Review, Borich is an assistant professor in the BFA and MFA creative writing programs at Hamline University in St. Paul, MN, where she has received the award for outstanding teaching and service. She serves on the national board of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts (vidaweb.org) where she chairs the Creative Nonfiction and Editorial Committees, she is a contributing editor of AWP's Writer's Chronicle and was a Loft Mentor Series featured author and mentor for the third time in 2008. She's taught at the Loft, the University of Minnesota, the Minnesota College of Art and Design and St. Olaf College and lives in South Minneapolis with her spouse Linnea Stenson and their goldendoodles, Miss Dusty Springfield and Miss Rosemary Clooney.

Grants, Fellowships and Awards

2007 Honorable Mention, McKnight Artist Fellowships for Writers

2003 Hamline Graduate Liberal Studies Outstanding Teaching and Service Award

2000 American Library Association GLBT Nonfiction Book Award

1999 Loft Career Initiative Grant

1997 Bush Artist Fellowship

1997 Award of Distinction in Creative Prose-
Loft McKnight Artist Fellowship for Writers (selected by Rosellen Brown)

1997 Loft Creative Nonfiction Award (selected by Scott Russell Sanders)

1995 Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship in Creative Prose

1994 Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant

1994 Loft McKnight Award in Creative Prose

1991 Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship in Creative Prose

1991 Jean Keller Bouvier Award in Creative Writing, University of Minnesota

1990 Loft Creative Nonfiction Award (selected by Gloria Anzaldua)

1990 Academy of American Poets Prize

1987-88 Loft Mentor Award in Poetry

1987 Minnesota State Arts Board Sudden Opportunity Grant

Selected Publications

Books

• My Lesbian Husband-Landscapes of a Marriage, Graywolf Press, St. Paul, Minnesota.
  Fall 1999 (cloth). Paperback reprint edition , October 2000.
• Restoring the Color of Roses, Firebrand Books, Ithaca New York. 1993.

Individual Pieces and Excerpts

• "When We Were In the Projects," in an anthology of new essays by daughters writing about their mothers, Minnesota Historical Society Press, forthcoming 2008.
• "When I Call Her My Husband," in the anthology Composing a Civic Life: A Rhetoric and Readings for Inquiry and Action, Pearson/Longman, forthcoming 2007.
• "What Kind of King," in the anthology Making Sense: A Real World Rhetorical Reader, Bedford's/ St. Martin's, 2005.
• "Unrelated by Blood" in Speakeasy, #13, Winter 2004
• "We Do Them Our Way," in Speakeasy #11, May/June 2004
• "Behind City Windows," in the anthology Hot and Bothered 4, Arsenal Pulp Press, November 2003.
• "A Mentor Series Memoir,"A View from the Loft, Summer 2003.
• "Shutters Ever Opening." Speakeasy #1, September 2002.
• "American Narratives," Hamline Magazine, May 2002.
• "Watershed,"short-short lyric essay, A View from the Loft, November 2001. Part of "September 11, 2001, Minnesota Writers Respond."
• "Politic of the Word," short-short personal essay, A View from the Loft, August 2001.
• "Generation Gap," short-short memoir, Ruminator (Hungry Mind) Review. Spring 2000.
• "Brazen Improvisations," book review, Hungry Mind Review. Summer 1999.
• "What Kind of King," personal essay, The Gettysburg Review. Winter 1999.
• "S/he's a Rebel: The Pageantry of Gender," book review, Hungry Mind Review. Summer 1998.
• "When I Call Her My Husband" and "Muddy Bodies Longing," memoir/personal essay, Gravity?s Loophole , the 1997 Mcknight Award anthology published by The Loft. Minneapolis, Minnesota. September 1997.
• "Paulie's Engagement," The Evergreen Chronicles, Volume 10, No. 2. Summer 1995.
• "Miss South Side of Chicago," memoir, Things That Fall From the Sky, the 1994 McKnight Award anthology published by The Loft, Minneapolis, Minnesota. 1994.
• "Burning Down the House," memoir, Hurricane Alice, Volume 9, # 1&2. Summer/Fall 1992.
• "Another Poet Gone to Prose: The Personal Essay as Quest," essay, A View From the Loft, Volume 14, #5. December 1991.

Poetry

• "The Last Night That Stirred," 13th Moon, Volume XIV, #1&2 Retrospective Anthology. Fall 1996.
• "The Watchers," "Space," "The Last Night That Stirred," "Too Fast for the Eye to Hold,"
  13th Moon, Volume XI, Numbers 1& 2. Winter 1993.
• "The Disappeared," Sinister Wisdom #43/44, 15th Anniversary Retrospective. Summer 1991.
• "Lightning," Agassiz Review, Volume 1, #1. Winter 1991.
• "The Watchers," A View From the Loft. March 1988.
• "A Mother Pauses Before a Photograph," The Greenfield Review. Fall 1987.
• "Him, Her, the Other," The Evergreen Chronicles, Volume 2, #4. Summer 1987.
• "Under the Sand," Ripenings, a publication of Sing Heavenly Muse. Summer 1987.
• "The Disappeared," Sinister Wisdom #32. Spring 1987.
• "Him, Her, the Other," Minnesota Writes-Poetry, an anthology of Minnesota poets. Milkweed Editions/Nodin Press. April 1987.
• "Water Between Us," The Evergreen Chronicles, Volume 2, #1. Spring 1986.
• "He brings you part way," Sing Heavenly Muse!, #13. Spring 1986.

College and Community Teaching

Selected Readings, Performances, and Invited Lectures

• Reading, Waterfront Property, in There Goes the Neighborhood, Soapbox Gallery, July 7, 2006, Minneapolis.
• Reading, Navigating Jazz, SASE GLBT Reading, June 28, 2006, Minneapolis.
• Reading, When We Were In the Projects, SASE/Intermedia Arts merger launch reading, June, 8 2006, Minneapolis
• Lecture/Panel, Staying True to a Double Life: How to Write, Make a Living and Love Your Life All at the Same Time, as part of the Hamline University Graduate School of Liberal Studies Exploration and Vocation Project, September 29, 2005, St. Paul.
• Reading, Thine Alabaster Cities Gleam, SASE GLBT Reading, August 24, 2005
• Reading, home city farewell reading from My Lesbian Husband, Wilde Roast Book Club, Minneapolis, May 12, 2005.
• Reading and Classroom Visits, University of Maine at Farmington, April 6, 2005.
• Panel Discussion, authors discuss their books on the topic of lesbian and gay marriage, Barnes & Noble, Union Square, New York City, May 12, 2004.
• Reading, From Head to Flit, in Taking Risks, Patrick's Cabaret, May 7, 2004.
• Classroom Visit, Anoka Ramsey Community College, Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, April 14, 2004.
• Reading, from My Lesbian Husband, Southwest Minnesota State University, Marshall, Minnesota, February 4, 2004.
• Reading, from My Lesbian Husband, Mankato Writers Festival, Minnesota State University Mankato, November 13, 2003.
• Reading, works-in-progress, Red Curtain Cabaret at the Bryant Lake Bowl, Minneapolis, November 6-13 2003.
• Reading, from My Lesbian Husband, Morningside College, Sioux City Iowa, September 15, 2003
• Reading and Panel Discussion, Wild Blue Yonder, Tribute to Christopher Isherwood, Minneapolis Public Library, May 17, 2003.
• Lecture, Chasing The Creative Nonfiction Question or How To Live, Think, and Write at the Same Time, Creative Writing 1101, University of Minnesota, Program in Creative Writing. April 2003, April 2002 & November 2001.
• Reading and Classroom Visit, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, March 2003.
• Reading, from My Lesbian Husband, Indiana University Writers' Conference, June 2001.
• Reading, from work-in-progress, The Loft, Minneapolis, Minnesota. April 2001.
• Public Dialogue with Scott Russell Sanders, Minneapolis Public Library, Minneapolis, Minnesota. March 2000.
• Reading, Fireside Readings, St. Paul Public Library, Hamline Branch Library, St. Paul, Minnesota. March 2000.
• Classroom visit and luncheon lecture, St. John's University, Collegeville, Minnesota. December 1999.
• Reading, from My Lesbian Husband, St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota. November 1999.
• Public Dialogue with Mark Doty, Minneapolis Public Library, Minneapolis, Minnesota. November 1999.
• Lecture, "Real as Steel: Melting Down and Re-Forming the Creative Nonfiction Moment," Creative Writing 1101, University of Minnesota, Program in Creative Writing. November 1999, March 2000, and March 2001..
• Public Dialogue with Bernard Cooper, Hamline University, St. Paul, Minnesota. October 1998.
• Paper, "What Writers Need-Documenting and Imagining Real Life," presented on a panel at AWP, Portland, Oregon. March 1998.
• Public Forum, "Real as Steel: Melting Down and Re-Forming the Actual Moment," The Loft, Minneapolis, Minnesota. January 1998.
• Reading, excerpts from My Lesbian Husband, McKnight Award of Distinction Reading with Rosellen Brown, The Loft, Minneapolis, Minnesota. September 1997.
• Reading "Crazy Diamond" from My Lesbian Husband, Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota, with Scott Russell Sanders. May 1997.
• Reading, of excerpts from Restoring the Color of Roses, and from My Lesbian Husband, Purdue-Calumet University, Hammond, Indiana. March 1996.
• Reading of "When I Call Her My Husband," an excerpt from My Lesbian Husband, A Women's Coffeehouse 10 Year Reunion, Minneapolis, Minnesota. December 1995.
• Reading, "King of the Roses," a commissioned work in conjunction with the Sigmar Polke exhibition, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota. June 1995.
• Reading, excerpts from Restoring the Color of Roses and from My Lesbian Husband, as a part of Women's Week at Beloit College, Beloit Wisconsin. March 1995.
• Reading, excerpts from My Lesbian Husband, OutWrite, the national gay and lesbian writer's conference, Boston, Massachusetts. March 1995.
• Paper, " Creative Nonfiction: A Queer Genre?" presented on a panel at OutWrite, Boston, Massachusetts. March 1995.
• Luncheon Lecture, "The Lesbian Edge: Writing a Life From the Margin," at Bemidji State University, Bemidji, Minnesota. January 1995.
• Reading, excerpts from Restoring the Color of Roses, as part of the Different Drummers Series, Bemidji State University, Bemidji Minnesota. January 1995.
• Reading from Restoring the Color of Roses, as a part of Women's Week at the University of Minnesota-Morris. February 1994.
• Performance, "Fire Ball from the End of the World," presented as a part of the Culture Calls series, produced by Intermedia Arts, performed at the Southern Theater, Minneapolis, Minnesota. April 1993.
• Performance, "Miss (White) South Side of Chicago," presented as a part of Dyke Nite II at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota. June 1992.
• Performance, Excerpts from "Slouching Towards Chicago," part of the series Giving Voice at Macalester College, St. Paul, Minnesota. January 1992.
• Reading, "Him, Her, the Other," 1990 Modern Language Association Conference, Chicago, Illinois. December 1990.
• Reading, "Him, Her, the Other," Wisconsin State Women's Studies Conference, University of Wisconsin-River Falls. October 1988.
• Reading, "Him, Her, the Other," National Women's Studies Association Conference, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. June 1988.