Biography

Sean Bernard (anotherseanbernard.com) serves as fiction editor for Veliz Books and is the Western Region chair and member of the board of directors (2021-2024) for the Association of Writers and Writing Programs. He holds degrees in creative writing from Arizona, Oregon State, and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and has received grants and fellowships from groups including the National Endowment for the Arts, Jentel Artists Foundation, the University of Arizona Poetry Center, and Poets & Writers. His novel Studies in the Hereafter came out in 2015 (Red Hen Press) and his collection Desert sonorous won the 2014 Juniper Prize. His fiction has appeared in numerous journals, including Santa Monica Review, The Common, Crazyhorse, Redivider, Glimmer Train, and The Gettysburg Review.

My creative work is primarily fiction writing, with occasional ventures into criticism. I’ve published over forty stories in journals including The Gettysburg Review, Glimmer Train, and Crazyhorse. My first collection, Desert sonorous, received the 2014 Juniper Prize and was published in 2015 by the University of Massachusetts Press. My first novel, Studies in the Hereafter, was published that same year by Red Hen Press. I’ve received grants and awards from various groups such as Jentel Arts Foundation, the University of Arizona Poetry Center, Poets & Writers, and, in 2012, a prose fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. As with most writers, my concerns vary greatly—from regional fiction about the Southwest to toxic masculinity, from speculative pieces set in the afterlife to my current work, a multi-sectioned novel that gathers together family, astronomy, race, and the craft of writing itself.

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Organizational Affiliations

Professor, Creative Writing, College of Arts and Sciences, University of La Verne

Education

University of Iowa (United States, Iowa City) - UI
1983–2003