Rachel S. May
- Courses3
- Reviews4
- School: Northern Michigan University
- Campus:
- Department: English
- Email address: Join to see
- Phone: Join to see
-
Location:
1401 Presque Isle Ave
Marquette, MI - 49855 - Dates at Northern Michigan University: December 2015 - June 2019
- Office Hours: Join to see
Biography
Northern Michigan University - English
Assistant Professor, Creative Writing at Northern Michigan University
Higher Education
Rachel
May
Green Bay, Wisconsin Area
Rachel May, PhD, MFA, is the author of An American Quilt: Unfolding a Story of Family and Slavery (May 1, 2018, Pegasus Books), which has been reviewed by Booklist (starred), Bitch Magazine, The Boston Globe, Publisher's Weekly, and other venues. She's also the author of Quilting with a Modern Slant, which was named a Best Book of 2014 by Library Journal & Amazon.com and favorably reviewed in The Chicago Tribune, Publisher's Weekly, The Library Journal (starred), The LA Times, The Providence Journal, and MarthaStewartLiving.com, as well as two books of fiction: The Benedictines, a novel, and The Experiments: A Legend in Pictures and Words, sewn images and short fiction. Her embroidered illustrations accompany two novellas published by Jaded Ibis Press and have been shown in galleries in the midwest.
Her writing has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Michigan Quarterly Review, The Volta, LARB, Cream City Review, Word for/Word, Indiana Review, The Literary Review, Meridian, Sleepingfish, and other journals. She's been a resident and fellow at The Vermont Studio Center, the VCCA, and The Millay Colony, and is an Assistant Professor of English at Northern Michigan University.
Experience
University of Rhode Island
Teaching Fellow
Rachel worked at University of Rhode Island as a Teaching Fellow
Ocean State Summer Writing Conference
Co-Coordinator
Co-coordinated the Ocean State Summer Writing Conference in 2013 & 2014, managing registration, publicity and marketing, and student volunteers, and assisting with all aspects of conference planning and logistics, as well as daily functions of the conference. http://www.uri.edu/summerwriting/2014/index.html
Northern Michigan University
Assistant Professor, Creative Writing
Rachel worked at Northern Michigan University as a Assistant Professor, Creative Writing
The Ocean State Review
Senior Editor
Edited the nationally distributed URI literary journal, which was founded in 2011 to record the proceedings of the Ocean State Summer Writing Conference, and has since expanded to include writers of national and international repute. http://www.oceanstatereview.org
Served as Fiction Editor August 2011-August 2012.Babson College
Lecturer / Arts & Humanities
Rachel worked at Babson College as a Lecturer / Arts & Humanities
Education
Davidson College
BA
English (French minor)
The University of Montana
Master’s Degree
MFA Creative Writing & MA Literature
University of Rhode Island
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
English Literature & Cultural Studies, certificate in Gender & Women's Studies
University of Rhode Island
Teaching Fellow
Publications
The Experiments: A Legend in Pictures & Words
Dusie Press
sewn images & short short fiction "Rachel May blends the sensuous and the violent into forceful narratives that refuse to settle neatly down. Instead, they stick out, don't quite match up, and shuffle restlessly around in the most exciting and satisfying ways-just as her sewn collages do, in clashing prints and riotous colors-and all in quest of identity, in trying to put a name to it all, a name that goes beyond language, that demands the vividly visual, that demands the tangible. This book puts it in our hands." -Cole Swensen
The Experiments: A Legend in Pictures & Words
Dusie Press
sewn images & short short fiction "Rachel May blends the sensuous and the violent into forceful narratives that refuse to settle neatly down. Instead, they stick out, don't quite match up, and shuffle restlessly around in the most exciting and satisfying ways-just as her sewn collages do, in clashing prints and riotous colors-and all in quest of identity, in trying to put a name to it all, a name that goes beyond language, that demands the vividly visual, that demands the tangible. This book puts it in our hands." -Cole Swensen
The Benedictines: A Novel
Braddock Avenue Books
Novel in short shorts and found text. Set near the Maine coast, Rachel May’s taut and probing new work of fiction, The Benedictines, conjures up the spirit of Sara Orne Jewett’s atmospheric landscapes. With prose that will have you turning pages in anticipation, May follows Annie James, a passionate, young artist whose decision to take a job teaching for a Benedictine school brings her deep into her students’ lives and up against the limits of control…and, for Annie, the limits of passion. With generosity and insight, May traces the deep conflicts between the human heart and the rules that heart invents. Like the quiet beauty of Maine, The Benedictines is a book that will stay with you for a long, long time. The Benedictines is a taut, vivid, spellbinding, and gracefully written novel. I was amazed at how much power and beauty can be packed into so few pages. Rachel May is really, really good. —Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried Rachel May’s strange and beautiful vision captured me the very first time I read her writing, years ago, when I was the fiction editor of the Michigan Quarterly Review. We were thrilled to publish her work there, and eagerly awaited more. Her debut novel delivers richly: in The Benedictines, May uses vignettes to render a complex place and people so immediately alive that one can’t help but turn the pages faster and faster. May’s characteristically offbeat, generous humor is a joy, as is her brilliant portrayal of a community navigating vital questions of teaching, belief, and humanity. —V.V. Ganeshananthan, author of Love Marriage: A Novel
The Experiments: A Legend in Pictures & Words
Dusie Press
sewn images & short short fiction "Rachel May blends the sensuous and the violent into forceful narratives that refuse to settle neatly down. Instead, they stick out, don't quite match up, and shuffle restlessly around in the most exciting and satisfying ways-just as her sewn collages do, in clashing prints and riotous colors-and all in quest of identity, in trying to put a name to it all, a name that goes beyond language, that demands the vividly visual, that demands the tangible. This book puts it in our hands." -Cole Swensen
The Benedictines: A Novel
Braddock Avenue Books
Novel in short shorts and found text. Set near the Maine coast, Rachel May’s taut and probing new work of fiction, The Benedictines, conjures up the spirit of Sara Orne Jewett’s atmospheric landscapes. With prose that will have you turning pages in anticipation, May follows Annie James, a passionate, young artist whose decision to take a job teaching for a Benedictine school brings her deep into her students’ lives and up against the limits of control…and, for Annie, the limits of passion. With generosity and insight, May traces the deep conflicts between the human heart and the rules that heart invents. Like the quiet beauty of Maine, The Benedictines is a book that will stay with you for a long, long time. The Benedictines is a taut, vivid, spellbinding, and gracefully written novel. I was amazed at how much power and beauty can be packed into so few pages. Rachel May is really, really good. —Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried Rachel May’s strange and beautiful vision captured me the very first time I read her writing, years ago, when I was the fiction editor of the Michigan Quarterly Review. We were thrilled to publish her work there, and eagerly awaited more. Her debut novel delivers richly: in The Benedictines, May uses vignettes to render a complex place and people so immediately alive that one can’t help but turn the pages faster and faster. May’s characteristically offbeat, generous humor is a joy, as is her brilliant portrayal of a community navigating vital questions of teaching, belief, and humanity. —V.V. Ganeshananthan, author of Love Marriage: A Novel
Illustrator for: Women Born with Fur & Out from the Pleiades, by Beth Couture & Leslie McGrath
Jaded Ibis Press
Embroidered illustrations for paired novellas.
The Experiments: A Legend in Pictures & Words
Dusie Press
sewn images & short short fiction "Rachel May blends the sensuous and the violent into forceful narratives that refuse to settle neatly down. Instead, they stick out, don't quite match up, and shuffle restlessly around in the most exciting and satisfying ways-just as her sewn collages do, in clashing prints and riotous colors-and all in quest of identity, in trying to put a name to it all, a name that goes beyond language, that demands the vividly visual, that demands the tangible. This book puts it in our hands." -Cole Swensen
The Benedictines: A Novel
Braddock Avenue Books
Novel in short shorts and found text. Set near the Maine coast, Rachel May’s taut and probing new work of fiction, The Benedictines, conjures up the spirit of Sara Orne Jewett’s atmospheric landscapes. With prose that will have you turning pages in anticipation, May follows Annie James, a passionate, young artist whose decision to take a job teaching for a Benedictine school brings her deep into her students’ lives and up against the limits of control…and, for Annie, the limits of passion. With generosity and insight, May traces the deep conflicts between the human heart and the rules that heart invents. Like the quiet beauty of Maine, The Benedictines is a book that will stay with you for a long, long time. The Benedictines is a taut, vivid, spellbinding, and gracefully written novel. I was amazed at how much power and beauty can be packed into so few pages. Rachel May is really, really good. —Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried Rachel May’s strange and beautiful vision captured me the very first time I read her writing, years ago, when I was the fiction editor of the Michigan Quarterly Review. We were thrilled to publish her work there, and eagerly awaited more. Her debut novel delivers richly: in The Benedictines, May uses vignettes to render a complex place and people so immediately alive that one can’t help but turn the pages faster and faster. May’s characteristically offbeat, generous humor is a joy, as is her brilliant portrayal of a community navigating vital questions of teaching, belief, and humanity. —V.V. Ganeshananthan, author of Love Marriage: A Novel
Illustrator for: Women Born with Fur & Out from the Pleiades, by Beth Couture & Leslie McGrath
Jaded Ibis Press
Embroidered illustrations for paired novellas.
Stitches in Time: Family & Slavery in Mercantile America
Pegasus Books
Forthcoming Spring 2017
The Experiments: A Legend in Pictures & Words
Dusie Press
sewn images & short short fiction "Rachel May blends the sensuous and the violent into forceful narratives that refuse to settle neatly down. Instead, they stick out, don't quite match up, and shuffle restlessly around in the most exciting and satisfying ways-just as her sewn collages do, in clashing prints and riotous colors-and all in quest of identity, in trying to put a name to it all, a name that goes beyond language, that demands the vividly visual, that demands the tangible. This book puts it in our hands." -Cole Swensen
The Benedictines: A Novel
Braddock Avenue Books
Novel in short shorts and found text. Set near the Maine coast, Rachel May’s taut and probing new work of fiction, The Benedictines, conjures up the spirit of Sara Orne Jewett’s atmospheric landscapes. With prose that will have you turning pages in anticipation, May follows Annie James, a passionate, young artist whose decision to take a job teaching for a Benedictine school brings her deep into her students’ lives and up against the limits of control…and, for Annie, the limits of passion. With generosity and insight, May traces the deep conflicts between the human heart and the rules that heart invents. Like the quiet beauty of Maine, The Benedictines is a book that will stay with you for a long, long time. The Benedictines is a taut, vivid, spellbinding, and gracefully written novel. I was amazed at how much power and beauty can be packed into so few pages. Rachel May is really, really good. —Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried Rachel May’s strange and beautiful vision captured me the very first time I read her writing, years ago, when I was the fiction editor of the Michigan Quarterly Review. We were thrilled to publish her work there, and eagerly awaited more. Her debut novel delivers richly: in The Benedictines, May uses vignettes to render a complex place and people so immediately alive that one can’t help but turn the pages faster and faster. May’s characteristically offbeat, generous humor is a joy, as is her brilliant portrayal of a community navigating vital questions of teaching, belief, and humanity. —V.V. Ganeshananthan, author of Love Marriage: A Novel
Illustrator for: Women Born with Fur & Out from the Pleiades, by Beth Couture & Leslie McGrath
Jaded Ibis Press
Embroidered illustrations for paired novellas.
Stitches in Time: Family & Slavery in Mercantile America
Pegasus Books
Forthcoming Spring 2017
Quilting with a Modern Slant
Storey/Workman
Profiles, patterns, tips, tutorials, inspiring the modern quilt community. Library Journal and Amazon Best Book of 2014. Reviewed in The Chicago Tribune, The LA Times, Publisher's Weekly, The Library Journal (starred), and marthastewartliving.com
Possible Matching Profiles
The following profiles may or may not be the same professor:
- Rachel May Smith (-40% Match)
Lecturer
California State University - California State University - Rachel Mayo (30% Match)
Professor
Clemson University - Clemson University
