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Derek Updegraff
College of Arts and Sciences
College of Arts and Sciences
Associate Professor of English
dupdegraff@andersonuniversity.edu
Faculty Office Building #7
Academic Background
Dr. Derek Updegraff came to Anderson University in 2021 as an Associate Professor of English after several years teaching at universities throughout Southern California and the Midwest. He has published six books of fiction and poetry, and his writing has appeared in dozens of literary and scholarly journals. In addition to writing, he enjoys reading fiction, poetry, and nonfiction from a wide range of time periods. If he’s not at his desk or in the classroom, he’s probably outside in nature spending time with his family and their many animals.
BA in English, California State University, Long Beach
MFA in Creative Writing, California State University, Long Beach
MA in English, University of Missouri
PhD in English, University of Missouri
Fast Facts
I have won a handful of writing awards and have been longlisted for many more, and for a number of years I served as a national writing juror for the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards.
The students at Anderson University are top-notch. They take their studies seriously and are excited to learn. My colleagues in the English department and across campus in other disciplines are supportive and collegial.
For my PhD in English, I specialized in medieval literature and wrote a dissertation titled “Style and Structure, Politics and Preaching: The Lives of Saints and Other Alliterative Works by Ælfric of Eynsham.” While working on my PhD, I took additional coursework in linguistics and picked up a second master’s degree in English with an emphasis in language and linguistics. I was also a graduate student in the creative writing program while at Missouri, taking part in poetry workshops as part of my coursework. My MFA in Creative Writing has a specialization in fiction, but I also studied creative nonfiction, poetry, and playwriting in my MFA program and as an undergraduate.
Over the years I have increasingly become a generalist and love teaching novels, short stories, poems, essays, and plays from a diverse group of authors covering thousands of years of oral and literary cultures.
Books
Whole (A Novel). Slant Books, 2024.
Pup! et cetera (Short Stories and Flash Fiction). Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2020.
Paintings That Look Like Things (Poems and Translations). Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2018.
The Butcher’s Tale and Other Stories (Short Stories and Flash Fiction). Stephen F. Austin University Press, 2016.
Between Pit Stops at Late-night Diners (Poems). Doom-Ah Books, 2008.
The Edge Where Atlas Stands (Poems and Translations). Doom-Ah Books, 2008.
Creative Writing in Literary Journals, Magazines, and Anthologies
Over 100 short stories and poems have appeared in dozens of literary journals, magazines, and anthologies, including:
Arkansas Review, Bayou Magazine, Beside the City of Angels: An Anthology of Long Beach Poetry, Big Muddy, Blue Earth Review, The Carolina Quarterly, Chiron Review, Christianity & Literature, The Classical Outlook, CutBank, descant, Fiction International, 45th Parallel, Fourteen Hills, Gold Man Review, The Greensboro Review, Hobart, Jabberwock Review, The Los Angeles Review, The Lyric Magazine, The MacGuffin, The Maine Review, the minnesota review, Noctua Review, The Normal School, North Dakota Quarterly, Notre Dame Review, Palooka, Pembroke Magazine, Posit, Quarter After Eight, The Raintown Review, Raleigh Review, Rosebud, The Saturday Evening Post, Sierra Nevada Review, The Southampton Review, Storm Cellar, Tahoma Literary Review, THINK, Tikkun, Windhover, Yemassee, and others.
Academic Writing
“Ælfric, Alliterative Linking, and the Idea of a Vernacular Verse Line.” Pacific Coast Philology, vol. 53, no. 1, 2018, pp. 23-42.
“The Fortunes of Men.” The Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain, vol. 2, edited by Siân Echard and Robert Rouse, Wiley-Blackwell, 2017, pp. 811-13.
“The Gifts of Men.” The Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain, vol. 2, edited by Siân Echard and Robert Rouse, Wiley-Blackwell, 2017, pp. 861-63.
“The Rhyming Poem.” The Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain, vol. 4, edited by Siân Echard and Robert Rouse, Wiley-Blackwell, 2017, pp. 1605-07.
“The Translatability of Manuscript Pages Containing Old English Verse (with an Illustrative Translation of The Exeter Book, Folios 98r-101r and 124r-124v).” Texas Studies in Literature and Language, vol. 56, no. 1, 2014, pp. 1-41.
“The Old English Verse Line in Translation: Steps toward a New Theory of Page Presentation.” Oral Tradition, vol. 26, no. 2, 2011, pp. 645-52.
Selected Translations
“Ælfric’s Life of St. George.” Verse translation beside edited Old English text made from manuscript facsimile. Metamorphoses, vol. 23, no. 2, 2015, pp. 58-67.
“Ælfric’s Life of St. Æthelthryth.” Verse translation beside edited Old English text made from manuscript facsimile. Metamorphoses, vol. 20, no. 2, 2012, pp. 20-29.
“The Old English Charm for Unfruitful Land.” Prosimetric translation. Natural Bridge, vol. 26, 2011, pp. 14-19.
Additional published translations from Old English, Middle English, and Latin.
Interviews and Readings, Selected
“Trauma around the Dog Park: Q&A with Derek Updegraff.” Slant Books Website. Interview discussing my novel Whole. July 18, 2024. Linked Here.
“Slantcast, Episode 22: Book Launch Event for Whole: A Novel.” Airdate July 16, 2024. Linked Here.
“An Artist in Translation: An Interview with Derek Updegraff.” Sierra Nevada Review Website. Published as the main page feature on October 22, 2015. Linked Here.
