Jim Heynen is a teacher who writes and a writer who teaches. Educated first as a Renaissance scholar, he then turned to writing poetry, fiction, and nonfiction, and spent nearly a year translating old Lakota songs. His writing has appeared in publications as varied as HARPER'S and COUNTRY AMERICAN, THE NEW YORK TIMES and REDBOOK. His most recent publications include the text for Harker's Barns, 2003, a book of photographs of old Iowa barns: The Boys House: New and Selected Stories, 2001; Standing Naked: New and Selected Poems, 2001; Fishing for Chickens: Stories about Rural Youth, editor, 2001; Cosmos Coyote and William the Nice, novel, 2000; Being Youngest, novel, 1997; The One-Room Schoolhouse, stories, 1993. Earlier books include: One Hundred over 100, nonfiction, 1990; Writing About Home, nonfiction, 1989; You Know what is Right, stories, 1985; A Suitable Church, poetry, 1981; The Man Who Kept Cigars in his Cap, stories, 1979; Sioux Songs (translations), 1977; How the Sow Became a Goddess, poetry, 1976; Notes From Custer, poetry and translations, 1975; The Funeral Parlor, long-poem, 1975; Maedra Poems, poetry, 1974.
Born on a farm in northwest Iowa, Jim attended one of Iowa's last one-room schoolhouses before going on to high school at Western Christian in Hull, Iowa. He received his BA from Calvin College and his MA at the University of Iowa, concentrating in English Renaissance Literature. After completing most of the requirements for the Ph.D. at the University of Iowa, he taught for three years at the University of Michigan and one year at his alma mater, Calvin College. He then returned to graduate school at the University of Oregon, where he received his MFA in creative writing.
Since then he has been writer-in-residence at several institutions and has twice been awarded National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, once in poetry and once in fiction. In 1978, he was selected as the US writer for the US-UK Bicentennial Exchange Fellowship.
Before coming to St. Olaf in 1992, he was Writer in Residence with the Northwest Writers Institute at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon. He lives in St. Paul with his wife, Sarah T. Williams, who is the Books Editor for the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
For more information about Professor Heynen, please see his personal website.
