Docenten

Mieke Eerkens is a Dutch-American writer who grew up between Los Angeles and The Netherlands, and now makes Amsterdam her home. She earned a BA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University, an MA in English from the University of Leiden in The Netherlands, and an MFA from the University of Iowa, where she worked as an instructor in the Magid Center Undergraduate Writing Program following graduation. She has also taught creative writing for UCLA Extension’s Writer’s Program, Leiden University College, Amsterdam University College, and as a visiting instructor for the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, as well as in private workshops.

Her book All Ships Follow Me: A Family Memoir of War Across Three Continents, was published in April 2019 by Picador, with a translation in The Netherlands from De Geus, De oorlog van horen zwijgen.

In addition, her work has appeared in outlets such as The Atlantic, Catapult, The Rumpus, Los Angeles Review of Books, Pen America, Pank, Guernica, and Creative Nonfiction; the latter nominating her for a Pushcart Prize. Her work has been anthologized in Best Travel Writing 2011, in which it was favorably singled out by Pico Iyer in his introduction;
Norton’s Fakes: An Anthology of Pseudo-Interviews, Faux-Lectures, Quasi-Letters, “Found” Texts, and Other Fraudulent Artifacts edited by David Shields; A Book of Uncommon Prayer; and Water’s Edge: Open to Interpretation.

Her narrative essay, “Seep,” was a winner in the Walton Sustainability Solutions Essay Award in collaboration with Creative Nonfiction magazine and was selected as a notable essay in Best American Science and Nature Writing 2015.

In addition to her teaching activities, she was the editor-in-chief of the university literary magazine, Transfer; host of the reading series Speakeasy; and has served as a judge for The Essay Prize, Roxanne Mueller Award, and The Allegra Johnson Writing Prize.

She is currently working on a book about the circus.