Dr. Gary L. McDowell, assistant professor of English, recently won runner-up in Prairie Schooner’s Creative Nonfiction Contest for his braided-memoir essay, “There Are Manuals for Those.” Poet and essayist Lia Purpura chose it out of over 500 submissions, and it will appear in a forthcoming issue of Prairie Schooner. He also has poems forthcoming in Barn Owl Review, Cheat River Review, Tupelo Quarterly (where he will be the featured artist), CutBank, Fourteen Hills, Salt Hill, Bluestem and others. He will read at the Southern Festival of Books on Oct. 11 as a featured presenter.
