Uncategorized | October 14, 2016

2006 Editor’s Prize Winner in Nonfiction: Erica Cavanagh
This week on The Missouri Review Soundbooth Podcast we are thrilled to feature a former Jeffrey E. Smith Editor’s Prize winner, Erica Cavanagh (née Bleeg). Erica’s essay, “Obedience,” won the award in the nonfiction category in 2006. Erica discusses her experience winning the Editor’s Prize, her writing process and memoir project, her time at the Millay Colony, and her interests in the blurred boundaries between poetry and creative nonfiction. You can find Erica’s photography and writing on her website.
Erica Cavanagh grew up in Rochester, New York, and after college volunteered full time through the Jesuit Volunteer Corps in Washington State and the Peace Corps in Benin, where she worked with women and children on health and access to education and economic resources. She is writing a memoir about her experiences in Benin, pieces of which have appeared in The Missouri Review, North American Review, Gastronomica, Bellevue Literary Review, and others. Her writing has won the Ruth Murray Prize from the University of Chicago and the Editors’ Prize fromThe Missouri Review. She is a graduate of Iowa’s Nonfiction Writing Program, where she was awarded an Iowa Arts Fellowship. In June of 2016 she was an artist in residence at the Millay Colony for the Arts, a residency made possible by a grant from the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation. She teaches nonfiction writing, African American literature, and food studies at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia.
Interview conducted by Traci Cox.
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