University of Southern Colorado professor receives NEA artist's grant
Pueblo -- David Keplinger, assistant professor of English at the University
of Southern Colorado, has been awarded a $20,000 "Individual Artist's
Grant" for 2003-2004 from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Keplinger, who heads the university's Creative Writing program, will receive the
cash award, no strings attached, on the basis of a 20-page sampling of poetry
from his work in progress. Keplinger was one of only 38 poets chosen nationwide
from among 1,600 entries. Among the judges were Robert Pinsky, Dorianne Laux,
Li-Young Li, Timothy Lui, Albert Goldbarth and other former recipients.
Professor Keplinger's first book of poetry, "The Rose Inside," won the
T.S. Eliot Prize in 1999. He has recently published poems in The Gettysburg
Review; The Colorado Review; Poetry; American Literary Review, and several other
journals.
A collection of his translations, in collaboration with the author, of prose
poems by the Danish poet Carsten Nielsen was published earlier this year in
Mid-American Review and was winner of the review's Translation Prize.
Professor Keplinger earned his MFA in English from Pennsylvania State University
in 1994 and has taught at USC since fall 2000. He previously taught at Arcadia
University (formerly Beaver College) in Pennsylvania and in the Czech Republic,
where he was a Soros Fellow.
The University of Southern Colorado is a regional, comprehensive university
emphasizing professional, career-oriented, and applied programs. Displaying
excellence in teaching, celebrating diversity, and engaging in service and
outreach, USC is distinguished by access, opportunity, and the overall quality
of services provided to its students.
