Stuart Dybek
Encyclopedia
Personal life
Dybek was born in Chicago, IllinoisIllinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
and raised in Chicago's Little Village and Pilsen neighborhoods in the 1950s and early 1960s. Dybek graduated from St. Rita of Cascia High School
St. Rita of Cascia High School
St. Rita of Cascia High School is an all-male Roman Catholic high school located on the southwest side of Chicago, Illinois, United States. It is located in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago and is operated by the Order of Saint Augustine...
in 1959. He writes about these neighborhoods and the ethnic shift that occurred when they went from being populated with Poles
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
and Czechs toward the primarily Hispanic
Hispanic
Hispanic is a term that originally denoted a relationship to Hispania, which is to say the Iberian Peninsula: Andorra, Gibraltar, Portugal and Spain. During the Modern Era, Hispanic sometimes takes on a more limited meaning, particularly in the United States, where the term means a person of ...
areas of the city that still remain to this day. Dybek's father immigrated to the U.S. from Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
and took the job as a foreman at International Harvester
International Harvester
International Harvester Company was a United States agricultural machinery, construction equipment, vehicle, commercial truck, and household and commercial products manufacturer. In 1902, J.P...
; his mother worked as a truck dispatcher.
Dybek earned an MFA
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...
from the Iowa Writers' Workshop
Iowa Writers' Workshop
The Program in Creative Writing, more commonly known as the Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa, is a highly regarded graduate-level creative writing program in the United States...
at the University of Iowa
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...
and has an MA
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
in literature from Loyola University Chicago
Loyola University Chicago
Loyola University Chicago is a private Jesuit research university located in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded by the Society of Jesus in 1870 under the title St...
. He currently teaches at Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
after more than 30 years teaching at Western Michigan University
Western Michigan University
Western Michigan University is a public university located in Kalamazoo, Michigan, United States. The university was established in 1903 by Dwight B. Waldo, and as of the Fall 2010 semester, its enrollment is 25,045....
, where he remains an Adjunct Professor of English and a member of the permanent faculty of the renowned Prague Summer Program. He is also a contributing editor at The Alaska Quarterly Review
The Alaska Quarterly Review
The Alaska Quarterly Review is a biannual literary journal founded in 1980 by Ronald Spatz and James Liszka at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Ronald Spatz serves as editor-in-chief...
.
Dybek has two brothers, Tom a therapist and actor living in New York City and David, who are the inspiration for some of his stories. He and his wife Caren Dybek, a retired English school teacher, live in Kalamazoo.
Literary works
His two collections of poems are Brass Knuckles (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1979) and Streets in Their Own Ink (Farrar, 2004). His fiction includes Childhood and Other Neighborhoods, The Coast of Chicago, and most recently I Sailed With Magellan, a novel-in-stories. His work is frequently anthologized and appears regularly in magazines such as Harper's, The New YorkerThe New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, Atlantic Monthly, Poetry
Poetry (magazine)
Poetry , published in Chicago, Illinois since 1912, is one of the leading monthly poetry journals in the English-speaking world. Published by the Poetry Foundation and currently edited by Christian Wiman, the magazine has a circulation of 30,000 and prints 300 poems per year out of approximately...
, Tin House
Tin House
Tin House is an American literary magazine and book publisher based in Portland, Oregon and New York City. The Tin House magazine was conceived in the summer of 1998 by Portland publisher Win McCormack. He envisioned a journal that would be graphically appealing and free of the stale substance...
, Ploughshares
Ploughshares
Ploughshares is an American literary magazine founded in 1971 by DeWitt Henry and Peter O'Malley in The Plough and Stars, an Irish pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1989, Ploughshares has been based at Emerson College in the heart of Boston...
, and Triquarterly.
In 2004, his collection, The Coast of Chicago, was the “One Book, One Chicago” selection—“One Book” is an ambitious program in which the selected book is read in libraries and high schools throughout the city. Also in 2004, I Sailed With Magellan was awarded the prize in adult fiction from the Society of Midland Authors. The book was selected as a New York Times Notable Book and cited as an American Library Association Notable Book of 2005. One of the stories, “Breasts,” appears in the 2004 Best American Short Stories
Best American Short Stories
The Best American Short Stories yearly anthology is a part of The Best American Series published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Since 1915, the BASS anthology has striven to contain the best short stories by some of the best-known writers in contemporary American literature.-Edward O'Brien:The...
.
Awards
Dybek's work has won numerous awards, among them a Lannan Prize, a PENInternational PEN
PEN International , the worldwide association of writers, was founded in London in 1921 to promote friendship and intellectual co-operation among writers everywhere....
/Malamud Award, a Whiting Writers' Award
Whiting Writers' Award
The Whiting Writers' Award is an American award presented annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and plays. The award is sponsored by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation and has been presented since 1985. As of 2007, winners receive US $50,000.-External links:**...
, a Guggenheim, and numerous O. Henry Prizes. His work has been included in The Best American Short Stories
Best American Short Stories
The Best American Short Stories yearly anthology is a part of The Best American Series published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Since 1915, the BASS anthology has striven to contain the best short stories by some of the best-known writers in contemporary American literature.-Edward O'Brien:The...
and The Best American Poetry. On September 25, 2007, Dybek was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. One day later, he was awarded the 2007 Rea Award for the Short Story, a $30,000 annual prize given for "originality and influence on the genre."
External links
- Bio by Lannan Foundation
- List of PEN/Malamud winners
- New York Times review of Coast of Chicago
- Interview in SmokeLong Quarterly, June 15, 2005
- Interview in SmokeLong Quarterly, September 15, 2007
- Short Story: Brisket in SmokeLong Quarterly, June 15, 2005
- Short Story: If I Vanished in The New YorkerThe New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, July 9, 2007 - Short Story: Mole Man in SmokeLong Quarterly, September 15, 2007
- Short Story: "The Palatski Man" on Fictionaut
- Stuart Dybek Resource Page at Chicago Public Library Website
- Stuart Dybek interview on writing by The Writing Disorder
- Stuart Dybek Bio by Lannan Foundation
- Stuart Dybek Bio by Western Michigan University
- Stuart Dybek Bio by Northwestern University