Robert McDowell

Robert McDowell is the founder and executive director of STORY LINE PRESS. The mission of the press is to advance works that tell a story, works that fit into the "new formalism" and new narrative movements in poetry. The new formalists work in a traditional poetic framework, such as sonnets, formal rhyme schemes or blank verse. New narrative poets are interested in telling a story in verse.

Robert is also a poet and critic. His books include Sound and Form in Modern Poetry (with Harvey Gross, University of Michigan Press, 1996); The Reaper Essays (with Mark Jarman, Story Line Press 1996); The Pact, a poem published in limited edition by Aralia Press, 1996; The Diviners, a 71-page narrative poem published in 1995 by Peterloo Poets of England; Quiet Money, poems published in 1987 by Henry Holt & Co.; History, Hardware, & Romance, a fine art book published by Indiana State University and New Harmony Art Gallery in Indiana; and At the House of The Tin Man, a chapbook of 23 poems selected in an open national competition in 1983, published by The Chowder Press in Massachusetts.

Previously, he worked as an associate editor at CTB McGraw-Hill; a Ghostwriter for "Kids N Sports," a nationally syndicated column, Coordinator of the University of Southern California’s Reading Series, a writer-in-residence, and Assistant Professor of English at Indiana State (now the University of Southern Indiana. His formal education includes an MFA from Columbia University’s Graduate Writing Program and a BA from the University of California in Writing & Literature.

Story Line Press: www.storylinepress.com

His newest book, On Foot In Flames was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press. www.pitt.edu/~press