Kirk Nesset's Biography

KIRK NESSET is author of two books of stories, MR. AGREEABLE and PARADISE ROAD, as well as a nonfiction study, THE STORIES OF RAYMOND CARVER, a book of poems, SAINT X (forthcoming), and a book of translations, ALPHABET OF THE WORLD: Selected Works of Eugenio Montejo (also forthcoming). He was awarded the Drue Heinz literature prize in 2007 and has received a Pushcart Prize and grants from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. His stories, poems, translations and essays have appeared in hundreds of journals, including The Paris Review, Ploughshares, The Kenyon Review, The Southern Review, American Poetry Review, Gettysburg Review, Iowa Review, Agni, The Sun, Fiction and Prairie Schooner, among others. His short short fictions have been widely anthologized, appearing in W. W. Norton's NEW SUDDEN FICTION, FLASH FICTION FORWARD, SUDDEN FICTION LATINO, and elsewhere. Nesset grew up in northern California, close to the coast, and studied at UC Santa Cruz and UC Santa Barbara, as well as abroad. He has worked as a dishwasher, a tree planter, a telemarketer, a car parker, a caterer, a writing consultant and a salesman selling wood stoves. Currently he is Professor of English and Creative Writing at Allegheny College in Pennsylvania. He also plays guitar and sings in a rock group, and DJs on FM radio, shows featuring gothic, darkwave, EBM and electro-industrial music. He’s fond of mountain biking, kayaking and eating, and lives with three cats and a mini-Pomeranian dog.