Teaching Areas: Fiction, Experimental Fiction, Hybrid Forms, Creative Nonfiction, Biographical Fiction, Regionalism, Editing and Independent Publishing, Study Abroad (Vienna)
Courses Taught: WR 407 Advanced Fiction Writing; WR 407 Interdisciplinary Creative Writing in Vienna; WR 412 Advanced Fiction Workshop
Biography:
M. Allen Cunningham is the author of ten books. His newest is We Are Guests of Ancient Time: Essays & Variations on the Imagination, Memory, Seeing & Media (2023). In 2021 Cunningham published Q&A, a large hybrid work inspired by the 1950s quiz show scandals. His other books include the American Booksellers Association #1 Indie Next novel The Green Age of Asher Witherow; an experimental biographical novel about Rainer Maria Rilke entitled Lost Son; a samizdat novel about unbridled surveillance, constant war, and technological upheaval entitled Partisans, which was a Finalist for the Flann O'Brien Award for Innovative Fiction; and the novel Perpetua's Kin, named one of the Most Anticipated Titles of the season in New York Magazine and a Favorite Summer Read in The Oregonian. Cunningham has also published a volume of essays entitled The Honorable Obscurity Handbook and an illustrated work of cultural criticism entitled The Flickering Page. He has written regularly for The Oregonian and recently edited and wrote the introduction for Funny-Ass Thoreau, the first collection of humorous writing by the author of Walden. Cunningham's work has appeared in many distinguished national and regional literary publications such as The Kenyon Review, Glimmer Train, Tin House, Alaska Quarterly Review, Oregon Humanities Magazine, and Poets & Writers. The recipient of residencies at the Yaddo Colony and multiple fellowships and grants, Cunningham founded the literary publishing house Atelier26 Books, which has been honored by the PEN Hemingway Award (finalist), the PEN/Bingham Prize (longlist), the Balcones Fiction Prize (winner), and an Oregon Literary Fellowship. Cunningham serves as a contributing editor for Moss literary journal. He produces and hosts the weekly creativity podcast In the Atelier, as well as Thoreau's Leaves: the Thoreau Podcast.
Publications:
- We Are Guests of Ancient Time: Essays & Variations (Atelier26, 2023)
- Q&A, a hybrid work (Regal House, 2021)
- Perpetua's Kin, a novel (Atelier26, 2018)
- Funny-Ass Thoreau (Atelier26, 2016)
- Partisans, a samizdat novel (Atelier26, 2015)
- The Flickering Page, illustrated cultural criticism (Atelier26, 2014)
- The Honorable Obscurity Handbook, essays (Atelier26, 2014)
- Date of Disappearance, assorted stories (Atelier26, 2012)
- Lost Son, a biographical novel of Rilke (Unbridled Books, 2007)
- The Green Age of Asher Witherow, a novel (Unbridled Books, 2004)