Vivian Wagner

I received my Ph.D. from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, specializing in American literature and popular culture. I taught literature and writing for many years at Muskingum University in New Concord, Ohio, where I'm now an Associate Professor Emerita of English. Currently, I write, teach, tutor, and do art, splitting my time between Alaska and an Airstream in the Lower 48.

My work has appeared in The Atlantic, Narratively, O: The Oprah Magazine, Creative Nonfiction, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Alaska Magazine, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, KROnline, Zone 3, The Ilanot Review, Silk Road Review, Easy Street Magazine, The Pinch, and other publications. One of my pieces, "Under the Gun," was listed as a notable essay in The Best American Essays 2007. I'm the author of a memoir, Fiddle: One Woman, Four Strings, and 8,000 Miles of Music (Citadel-Kensington, 2010); a full-length poetry collection, Raising (Clare Songbirds Publishing House, 2018); and several poetry chapbooks, including The Village (Aldrich Press-Kelsay Books, 2017), Making (Origami Poems Project, 2018), Curiosities (Unsolicited Press, 2018), and Spells of the Apocalypse (Thirty West Publishing, 2020).