Terese Svoboda
Artist Statement
The author of six novels, seven books of poetry, a memoir, a book of Nuer translations, and a biography, I won a Guggenheim in fiction but my most recent book is Professor Harriman’s Steam Air-Ship, a steampunk look at the future of sex and family. I’ve also received the Iowa Prize for poetry, two fiction fellowships from the NYFA, a CAPS grant, three awards from the Poetry Society, a Bobst Prize in fiction, Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award, a Pushcart Prize for an essay, an O. Henry for a short story, a Jerome Foundation fellowship for video, and an NEH translation fellowship. My opera WET premiered at Disney’s Red Cat theater. I’m a fabulist, interested in where reality starts to fray, and often write about politics, most recently in Anything That Burns You: A Portrait of Lola Ridge, Radical Poet, to be reissued in paper this spring.
While at Headlands
While at Headlands I plan to expand “The Haight,” a published story of mine, into a draft for a novel about a woman whose sister disappears during the height of the Haight Ashbury phenomenon. It’s about sibling rivalry and political choices. I’ll be working with archives and locations accessible only through the generosity of this residency.
Selected Work
“Frangipani,” Guernica Magazine, 2017
“Niagara,” New World Writing, 2017