English Dept. College of Arts and Sciences, Washburn University

Thomas Averill
tom.averill@washburn.edu

Thomas Fox Averill is Writer-in-residence and Professor of English at Washburn University of Topeka, where he teaches courses in Creative Writing and in Kansas Literature, Folklore and Film. His publications include two novels: Secrets of the Tsil Cafe, published by BlueHen/ Penguin Putnam, in 2001 and The Slow Air of Ewan MacPherson (BlueHen/Berkley, 2003). A collection of short stories, Ordinary Genius, was published by the University of Nebraksa Press in April 2005. He is represented by agent Stephanie von Hirschberg. He is the 2006 recipient of the Kansas Arts Commission Fellowship in Fiction.

An O. Henry Award winner, his previous story collections are Passes at the Moon (Woodley Press ) and Seeing Mona Naked (Watermark Press,1989). He is the editor of What Kansas Means to Me: Twentieth Century Writers on the Sunflower State (University Press of Kansas ). In the Fall of 1996, Eagle Books (Wichita) brought out his Oleander's Guide to Kansas: How You Know When You're Here. Passes at the Moon is out of print. Seeing Mona Naked and Oleander's Guide to Kansas are available only from the author.

He is also the author of numerous articles, poems, and short stories (in New Letters, Cimarron Review, Chariton Review, North American Review and Doubletake, and others), and is a frequent speaker on Kansas Culture.

He helped to found and was the first director of the Washburn Center for Kansas Studies. He has edited several books for Woodley Press and the Center for Kansas Studies, most recently In a Place with No Map, poems by Steven Hind, and A West Wind Rises: Massacre at Marais des Cygnes, by Bruce Cutler.

He is also a commentator in the voice of William Jennings Bryan Oleander of Here, Kansas, for Kansas Public Radio, KANU, 91.5 FM, National Public Radio from the University of Kansas. His Oleander play, Abide With Me, won the first Great Plains Play Competition, and was produced by the University of Kansas Theatre as the final play of the 1996-97 Season. His commentaries are published bi-weekly in the Topeka Metro News.

Averill's interests include gardening and bagpiping .

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