Creative Writing Past Faculty

Darcey Steinke

Darcey Steinke headshot

Photo by Jenny Gorman

About

Darcey Steinke, born in Virginia on April 25, 1962, is the daughter of a Lutheran minister. Steinke grew up in Connecticut; Harlan, Kentucky; and Roanoke, Virginia.

She is a graduate of Goucher College and the University of Virginia, where she received a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing. Steinke completed a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University.

She is the author of four novels, Up Through the Water, Suicide Blonde, Jesus Saves, and Milk, and the spiritual memoir Easter Everywhere. She also co-edited the collection of essays Joyful Noise: The New Testament Revisited with Rick Moody. Steinke has written extensively on art and literature and has contributed to Spin Magazine, covering the David Koresh Branch Davidian story and contributing a 1997 cover story on Kurt Cobain. In addition, she has a web project called blindspot, which was part of the Whitney Biennial in 2000. Her novels Up Through the Water and Jesus Saves were selected as New York Times Notable Books of the Year.

Steinke's prose has been said to "repeatedly hint at the divine in tangible things." According to a Washington Post book review of Steinke's novel Milk, "Steinke writes some beautifully mystical descriptions of sexual encounters, and theconjunction of sex and the spirit, bodies and souls, is fascinating."

Steinke's writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Boston Review, Vogue, Spin Magazine, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, and The Guardian.

Steinke teaches creative writing in the graduate programs at Goddard College, New School University and Columbia University. She previously taught at the University of Mississippi, where she was a writer-in-residence, and at Barnard College.

Links

Campus Address

New South Building, Floor 6