| Title | Professor |
|---|---|
| Department | English |
| Office | Meier Hall 249B |
| Phone | 978.542.6494 |
| john.scrimgeour@salemstate.edu |
| ENG 820 | Workshop in Fiction and Narrative Forms |
|---|---|
| ENG 822A | Nonfiction Workshop |
| ENG 825 | Workshop in Memoir and Prose Forms |
| ENG 833 | Topics in Writing |
| ENG 996 | Manuscript Capstone in Writing |
| ENG 998 | Thesis Capstone |
| ENL 220 | Introduction to Creative Writing |
| ENL 230 | Introduction to Poetry |
| ENL 322 | The Craft of Fiction |
| ENL 421 | Creative Writing Workshop: Non-fiction |
| ENL 422 | Creative Writing Workshop: Fiction |
| ENL 424 | Special Topics in English: Creative Writing |
| ENL 500 | Directed Study |
| ENL 505 | Creative Writing Thesis |
J.D. Scrimgeour holds a BA and MA in English from Columbia University and an MFA (in poetry) and PhD in American Literature from Indiana University. He has published five collections of poetry, The Last Miles (2005), Territories (2013), Lifting the Turtle (2017), Festival (2019), and the bilingual collection, ???? Banana Bread (2022); and two books of creative nonfiction, Spin Moves (2000) and Themes For English B: A Professor’s Education In and Out of Class (2006), which won the AWP Award for Creative Nonfiction.
With the musician and composer Philip Swanson, he formed Confluence, which blends poetry and music. Confluence has performed at such venues as the Massachusetts Poetry Festival, the Robert Frost Place, and the AWP Conference. Confluence’s first CD, Ogunquit, was released by MSR Classics in 2009 and has been nominated for a Spoken Word Grammy Award.
His poetry has appeared in magazines such as Poetry, Ploughshares, Colorado Review, River Styx, Tar River Poetry, Connecticut Review, and Diner, and it has won awards from the National Society of Arts and Letters and the Academy of American Poets. He was named a finalist for a Massachusetts Cultural Council Individual Artist grant in poetry for 2008.
Scrimgeour’s nonfiction has appeared in such publications as The Boston Globe magazine, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Creative Nonfiction, Thought & Action, and Organica. His essay, “My Outfield,” won Creative Nonfiction’s Writing about Baseball contest and appeared in the anthology, The Anatomy of Baseball.
In addition to his work in Confluence, Scrimgeour collaborates with artists in other media to stretch the range of creative writing. Among his collaborations are works with photographer Kim Mimnaugh and choreographer Caitlin Corbett. Recently, he worked with his sons, Aidan and Guthrie, and Director Peter Sampieri to produce a musical, Only Human, which was performed at Ames Hall in Salem in the Summer of 2014.
Scrimgeour serves as Coordinator of Creative Writing at Salem State, a position he held for many years previously. In this position, he not only ran the Salem State Writers’ Series, but he organized several special events, including symposia on Jazz and the Arts; the Creative Process; and Writing, Class, and Education. He created and directs the Salem Poetry Seminar, a free week-long summer program for select student poets at Massachusetts public colleges and universities. He is also a founding member of the Salem Writers’ Group.
Creative Writing, especially poetry, creative nonfiction, and collaborations with other arts
Autobiography/Memoir
American and African American Literature
Literature of Sport
Coordinator of Creative Writing
Director of the Salem Poetry Seminar
Spin Moves (Pecan Grove Press, 2000)
The Last Miles (Fine Tooth Press, 2005)
Themes For English B: A Professor's Education In and Out of Class (U of Georgia P, 2006)
Ogunquit, by Confluence: a cd of poetry and music (MSR Classics, 2009)
Territories (The Last Automat Press, 2013)
Coaching
Writing