Jane Springer

Professor of Literature and Creative Writing Jane Springer is the author of three prize-winning poetry collections: Dear Blackbird, Murder Ballad, and Moth. Dear Blackbird, won the Agha Shahid Ali prize for poetry (University of Utah Press, 2007), and Murder Ballad, won the Beatrice Hawley Award (Alice James Press, 2012). Her work’s been featured in The Best American Poetry and Pushcart anthologies, and she’s received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the MacDowell Artists’ Residency, and the Whiting Foundation.

She is currently working on a hybrid collection of essays/poems on the evolution of fire. 

Springer's academic interests include poetry, poetics, nonfiction, and Southern literature. She received her doctorate in creative writing from Florida State University and was appointed to Hamilton’s faculty in 2006.

Recent Courses Taught

Intro Poetry/Fiction Workshop
Intermediate Poetry Workshop
Poetry and Poetics
Honors Project in Creative Writing
Senior Creative Writing Workshop

Distinctions

• Best American Poetry Prize, 2014, for “War Widows, Stolen Grain,” chosen by Terrance Hayes
• Sheila Motton Book Award for Murder Ballad, 2013, judged by Vivian Shipley
• MacDowell Fellowship, fall, 2013, a competitive writers’ residency: Sept. 17-Oct. 19, 2013
• Pushcart prize (issue XXXVI, 2012) for “Murder Ballad” as submitted by Cincinnati Review
• Beatrice Hawley open book prize for poetry, 2011, from Alice James Books: Murder Ballad
• Emerson Research Fellowship, 2011
• Whiting Award for Poetry, 2010
• National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, 2009-11
• Agha Shahid Ali prize, 2006, from The University of Utah Press: Dear Blackbird, chosen by J.D. McClatchy
• Robert Penn Warren prize for best poems in The Southern Review, 2006, as judged by Cleopatra Mathis: “Lamentations” and “Quilts”
• Pushcart nominations for: “Whiskey Pastoral,” “Snow Angel,” “In Defense of Playing Spin the Bottle in the New Life Church,” “Salt Hill” and “Words”
• AWP Intro Award, Hayden’s Ferry, 2005, for “The Very Best Woman in All the World”
• The Jeffery E. Smith Editor’s Prize runner up for Missouri Review, 2006 (1900 entries) for “Stars, as the Bride Who Might Have Been Sees Them”
• Dean’s Prize for Excellence from Florida State University, 2007
• Anne Durham Award for Excellence for best M.A. thesis: North American Forests, 2001
• Graduated with Distinction from FSU’s M.A. program as one of 16 students since 1969 to do so
• Gulf Coast Teachers of Creative Writing Award, 1999

Selected Publications

• Murder Ballad, collection of poems chosen by editorial board (800 manuscripts) for the Beatrice Hawley Award, Alice James Books, 2012.
• Dear Blackbird, collection of poems chosen by J.D. McClatchy (375 manuscripts) for the Agha Shahid Ali open book prize, University of Utah Press, 2007.
• My Last Door, posthumous collected works of Wendy Bishop co-edited with Laura Newton and Dean Newman, Anhinga Press, 2007.
• “Lo Siento, the Only People Who Know Where Lake Canasauga is Live There & Aren’t Telling,” Walk Till the Dogs Get Mean, Ohio State University Press, 2014.

More

College Service

Co-chair of Committee on Appointments, 2023-24
Committee on Appointments, 2021-23
Committee on Academic Policy, 2020-21
Director of Senior Fellowships, 2018-19
Adirondack Program Advisory Committee Secretary, 2017-19
Faculty Mentor for Modern Languages, 2017-19
Posse Mentor, 2015-19
Honor Court, 2015-17
Judicial Board 2012-13

Professional Affiliations

Academy of American Poets & Poetry
Associated Writing Programs
Poetry Society of America
Steel Toe Books
Everything That Bewilders
The New Confessional

Appointed to the Faculty

2008

Educational Background

Ph.D., Florida State University
M.A., Florida State University
B.A., University of Evansville