John Pipkin

John Pipkin is the Director of the Undergraduate Creative Writing Program at the University of Texas-Austin, where he is also a professor in the English Department and teaches 19th-century British Poetry. He also teaches in the low-residency MFA Program at Spalding University in Louisville, KY. Originally from Baltimore, MD, he holds a Ph.D. in 19th-century British Literature from Rice University, and he is the author of the critically-acclaimed novels: Woodsburner (Nan A Talese/Doubleday 2009) which won the New York Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and The Blind Astronomer’s Daughter (Bloomsbury 2016).

He is currently working on a novel about the Tour de France during WWII. He has received fellowships to MacDowell, Yaddo, Dobie-Paisano, and the Gullkistan Center for Creativity in Iceland. He is also the recipient of the 2021 Harry Ransom Award for Excellence in Teaching at UT-Austin.