School of Sustainability and the Environment

Faculty and Staff

Sheryl St. Germain

sstgermain@chatham.edu
Program Director and Professor

Hometown : New Orleans, LA
Joined Chatham : 2005

Academic Areas of Interest

Poetry; Creative Nonfiction and Essay Writing; Nature, Environmental and Travel Writing

Personal Areas of Interest

Jazz, New Orleans rhythm and blues, alt country music, gardening, gumbo

Personal Website : Visit Website

Biography

A native of New Orleans, Sheryl St. Germain has taught creative writing at The University of Texas at Dallas, The University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Knox College and Iowa State University. She currently directs the MFA program in Creative Writing at Chatham University where she also teaches poetry and creative nonfiction. Her work has received several awards, including two NEA Fellowships, an NEH Fellowship, the Dobie-Paisano Fellowship, the Ki Davis Award from the Aspen Writers Foundation, and most recently the William Faulkner Award for the personal essay. Her books include Going Home, The Mask of Medusa, Making Bread at Midnight, How Heavy the Breath of God, and The Journals of Scheherazade. She has also published a book of translations of the Cajun poet Jean Arceneaux, Je Suis Cadien.A book of lyric essays, Swamp Songs: the Making of an Unruly Woman, was published in 2003 by The University of Utah Press. Her most recent book is Let it Be a Dark Roux: New and Selected Poems, published by Autumn House Press in 2007.

Education

• BA, Southeastern Louisiana University, 1979
• MA, University of Texas at Dallas, 1982
• PhD, University of Texas at Dallas, 1086

Publications

• The Mask of Medusa. Cross Cultural Communications, 1987. (chapbook, poetry)
• Going Home. Perivale Press, 1989 (chapbook, poetry)
• Making Bread at Midnight. Slough Press, 1995. (poems)
• Je Suis Cadien. Translations from the Cajun French of poems by Jean Arceneaux. Cross Cultural Communications Press, 1994.
• How Heavy the Breath of God, University of North Texas Press, 1995. (poetry)
• The Journals of Scheherazade, University of North Texas Press, 1996 (poetry)
• Swamp Songs: the Making of an Unruly Woman, University of Utah Press, 2003.
• Let it Be a Dark Roux: New and Selected Poems, Autumn House Press, 2007.

Awards

• Artist Residency, A Studio in the Woods, 2005
• Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Fellow, 2002
• William Faulkner Creative Writing Award for the Personal Essay, 1999.
• NEH Fellow for Institute on the Environmental Imagination, 1997
• Dobie Paisano Fellowship, 1990
• National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, 1991, 1996

Organizations

• Associated Writing Programs, Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment

Achievements

• Founding Director, Center for Excellence in the Arts and Humanities, Iowa State University

Presentations

• Selected Readings, 2008: Texas A&M University, Blinn College, Cornell College, Iowa State University, Grandview College, Prairie Lights Bookstore, Loyola University, University of New Orelans, McNeese University, East Jefferson Public Library, New Orleans, University of Mississippi, Cornelia Cafe NYC