Bio

Born and raised in New York City, Philip Brady received a B.A. from Bucknell University, M.A.’s from the University of Delaware and San Francisco State University, and a Ph.D. in English from SUNY Binghamton.

His poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in over fifty journals in the United States, including Abraxas, The American Literary Review, At Length, The Belfast Literary Supplement, Centennial Review, College English, Green Mountains Review, The Honest Ulsterman, Hotel Amerika, The Irish Literary Journal, The Laurel Review, The Literary Review, The Massachusetts Review, Poetry Northwest, Thought & Action, and other journals. Translated into Spanish, Polish, Norwegian, and Hebrew, his poems have been published internationally.

Brady is the author of five books of poetry, the upcoming The Elsewhere: Poems and Poetics (Broadstone Books, 2021); To Banquet with the Ethiopians: A Memoir of Life Before the Alphabet (Broadstone 2015); Fathom (WordTech 2007); Weal (1999 Snyder Prize from Ashland Poetry Press); and Forged Correspondences (New Myths, 1996) chosen for Ploughshares’ “Editors’ Shelf” by Maxine Kumin.

His essay collection, Phantom Signs: The Muse in Universe City appeared from the University of Tennessee Press in 2019. By Heart: Reflections of a Rust-Belt Bard (University of Tennessee, 2008) won a Gold Medal from ForeWord Magazine. A memoir, To Prove My Blood: A Tale of Emigrations & The Afterlife, was published by Ashland Poetry Press in 2003. He co‑edited, with James F.Carens, Critical Essays on James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, (Twayne,1998) and edited Poems & Their Making: A Conversation (Etruscan Press, 2015).

Brady’s work has received the Ohio Governor’s Award in Arts Education, Ohioana Poetry Award, six Ohio Arts Council Individual Artists Fellowships, a Thayer Fellowship in the Arts from New York State, an Academy of American Poets Prize, a Listowel Writer’s Prize (Ireland) and residencies at Yaddo, the Millay Colony, the Ragdale Foundation, the Hambidge Center, the Headlands Center for the Arts, The Virginia Center for the Arts, Hawthornden Castle (Scotland), The Tyrone Guthrie Centre (Ireland), Fundacion Valparaiso (Spain), and Cimelice Castle, (Czech Republic). He has also been a visiting lecturer at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria and the Poets’ House in Donegal, Ireland.

He is Executive Director of Etruscan Press, a national literary publishing house which he co-founded in 2001. Etruscan has been named one of five 2015 finalists for the AWP Small Press Award, produced three National Book Award Finalists and a Longlist nominee, earned four NEA grants, won the Roethke Prize, and had work reprinted in Best American Poetry, 2007 & 2008. He also was the founding director of the NEOMFA Program from 2004-2006.

Brady has taught at University College Cork in Ireland, as a Peace Corps Volunteer at the National University of Zaire, in the Semester at Sea Program, and in the Wilkes University Low-Residency MFA Program. Currently he is a distinguished professor of English at Youngstown State University, where he directs the Poetry Center and plays in the New-Celtic band, Brady’s Leap.

Education

May, 1990 • Ph.D. in English, Binghamton University
May, 1986 • M.A. in Creative Writing, San Francisco State University
May, 1979 • M.A. in English, University of Delaware
May, 1977 • B.A. with Honors in English, Bucknell University
1975 – 1976 • Junior Year Abroad, University College Cork, Ireland

Academic Positions

1990-pres • Faculty Member, Youngstown State University (Named Distinguished Professor, 2015)
2004 – pres. • Faculty Member Wilkes University Low-Residency MFA Program
2003 • Faculty Member, Summer Semester at Sea Program
1987-1990. Teaching Assistant, Binghamton University
1986 – 1987 • Instructor, Evergreen Valley College, San Jose, CA
1985 – 1986 • Adjunct Lecturer, San Francisco State University
1983 – 1986 • Assistant Professor, Armstrong College, Berkeley, CA
1982 – 1983 • Tutor, University College Cork, Ireland
1980 – 1982 • Associate Professor (Peace Corps), U. of Lubumbashi
1977 – 1979 • Teaching Assistant, University of Delaware

Publications / Books

The Elsewhere: Poems & Poetics. Friankfurt: Broadstone Books, 2021

Phantom Signs: The Muse in Universe City. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, March 2019.
To Banquet with the Ethiopians: A Memoir of Life Before the Alphabet. Frankfurt: Broadstone Books, 2015.
By Heart: Reflections of a Rust Belt Bard. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, October, 2008.***
Fathom, a collection of poems. Cincinnati, Ohio: World Press, 2007.
To Prove My Blood: A Tale of Emigrations & the Afterlife. Ashland, Ohio: Ashland Poetry Press, 2003.
Weal, a collection of poems. Ashland, Ohio: Ashland Poetry Press, 2000.**
Forged Correspondences, a collection of poems. Binghamton, NY: New Myths Press, 1996.*

***ForeWord Magazine Gold Medal
**Winner of the 1999 Snyder Publication Prize.

*Ploughshares’ Editor’s Shelf, chosen by Maxine Kumin

Editions

Poems & Their Making: A Conversation. Wilkes-Barre, PA: Etruscan Press, 2015.
Critical Essays on James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist. (Co-edited with James. F. Carens) New York: G.K. Hall Literary Series, Twayne Publishers, 1998.
Provincetown Arts, Guest Poetry Editor
Artful Dodge, a Journal of Contemporary Writing, Senior Poetry Editor, 2000-2006.
New Myths/MSS: A Journal of Fiction and Poetry, third issue, Senior Poetry Editor, 1995.

Essays, Interviews, Notes

“My Dinner with Joe,” Green Mountains Review, 2008.
“This is Heyen Speaking: On Shoah Train and The Rope,” Provincetown Arts, 2006.
“Fiction That Might Be Strange: An Interview with Joyce Carol Oates,” Bucknell World, 2006.
“The Shapes a Bright Container Can Contain,” Ordering Demons, Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2005.
“And Look At Me: An Interview with Robert Mooney and Christine Lincoln,” Artful Dodge, 2004.
“Interview with William Heyen,” Artful Dodge, 2003.
“Essay on Milt Kessler,” Artful Dodge, 2003.
“Note on Drift of Days and Nights by Torild Walderner,” Artful Dodge, 2001.
“By Heart: Curriculum for a Bardic School,” The Drunken Boat, Fall 2002.
“Ginsberg in Ballydehob,” The Ohio Writer, Spring 2001.
“Books of Sand: A Review of Unpublished Manuscripts, One a Conceit of Its Author,” Connecticut Review, Spring, 2001.
“Tom Clancy & Me,” Thought & Action, Fall 1998.
“The Scholar in the Hayfield: Brian Friel and the Post-Colonial Classroom,” Radical Teacher, Fall 1998.
“What the River Says: Narrative in the Composition Class,” Writing on the Edge, Fall 1998.
“Teaching Like My Fathers: Gender and Learning Styles,” Connecticut Review, Spring 1998.
“Teaching Tu Fu on the Night Shift,” College English, September 1995. Reprinted in The Questioning Reader, Allen & Bacon, 2000.
“Entangled Music: Teaching the Aural Imagination,” Pennsylvania English, Spring 1995.
“The Poetry of Resistance in Northern Ireland,” The Arkansas Quarterly, Fall 1992.
“Wesen,” The Ohio Writer, January 2001.
“The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba (in Galway),” The Massachusetts Review, Fall 1992.

Poems Published In

American Literary Review, Poetry Northwest, Passages North, Abraxas, The International Poetry Review, The Laurel Review, The New Virginia Review, The Centennial Review, The Chattahoochee Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, Cincinnati Poetry Review, Jeopardy, Interim, West Branch, Footwork, Onionhead, The Oregon Review, The Honest Ulsterman, Mahoning Valley Poetry Anthology, The Birmingham Poetry Review, The Graham House Review, The Hiram Poetry Review, Pacific International, The Eleventh Muse, Provincetown Arts, New Myths/MSS, Bluff City Review, The Belfast Gown Literary Supplement, The Endless Mountains Review, Poet Lore, The Berkeley Poetry Review, Five Fingers Review, The Berkeley Poets Co-op, Alembic, Transfer, Cyphers, and The Journal of Irish Literature.

Translations

“Priest Hole,” translated into Hebrew by Ya’el Globerman, Helicon, Spring 1999.
“Touring Plague Country” and “Scald” translated into Polish by Beata Tarnowski, Portrat, 1998.
“New Age,” translated into Norwegian by Torild Walderman, Dogndrift, Spring 1997.
“Hunger’s Painting” translated into Spanish by Roberto Fernandez, Guadalajara, A View from the North, 1994.

Grants and Awards / Teaching

Faculty Improvement Leave, YSU, 2015
Distinguished Professorship in Teaching, YSU, 2015
Sabbatical, YSU, 2006-2007
Distinguished Professorship in University Service, YSU, 2005
Research Professorship, YSU, 2003
Faculty Improvement Leave, YSU, 2002
Distinguished Professorship in Scholarship, YSU, 1999
Sabbatical, YSU, 1997-1998
Research Professorship, YSU, 1996
Research Professorship, YSU, 1993
College Teacher of the Year, Armstrong College, 1985

Grants and Awards / Travel

Faculty Appointment to Semester-At-Sea Program, Summer 2003
Ohio Arts Council Travel Grant to Cimelice, Czech Republic, 1999
YSU Research Council Grant for travel to Ireland for research on To Prove My Blood: A Tale of Emigrations & the Afterlife
International Rotary Foundation Cultural Exchange Travel Grant to Nigeria, March-April 1995
Ohio Arts Council Travel Grant to Sausalito, California, 1994
Ohio Cultural Alliance Artists Exchange Travel Grants to Guadalajara, Mexico, December 1990 and March 1993

Artist Colony Residence

Soros Centre for the Contemporary Arts, Czech Republic, 1999
Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, 1998
Hawthornden Castle, Scotland, 1998
Hambidge Center for the Arts, 1997
Ragdale Foundation, 1997
Tyrone Guthrie Arts Centre, Ireland, 1997
Fundacion Valparaiso, Spain, 1997
Millay Colony for the Arts Fellowship, 1995
Headlands Center for the Arts Fellowship, 1994
Yaddo Fellowship, 1992

Poetry, Fiction, and Criticism

Ohio Governor’s Award in Arts Education, 2015
Ohioana Poetry Award, 2008
Ohio Arts Council Individual Artists Fellowship in Criticism, 2006
Ohio Arts Council Individual Artists Fellowship in Criticism, 2001
Best of Ohio Writers Contest: First Prize, Fiction; First Prize, Poetry; Second Prize, Writers on Writing; Honorable Mention, Creative-Non Fiction, 2000
Richard Snyder Memorial Publication Prize, for Weal, 1999
Ohio Arts Council Individual Artists Fellowship in Poetry, 1999
Ohio Arts Council Individual Artists Fellowship in Criticism, 1999
Forged Correspondences chosen for Ploughshare’s Editor’s Shelf by Maxine Kumin, 1996
Ohio Arts Council Individual Artists Fellowship in Poetry, 1993
Thayer Fellowship from New York State, 1990
Academy of American Poets Prize, Binghamton University, 1989
Newhouse Award for Poetry, Binghamton University, 1987
Poetry Prize, Listowel Writers Week, Ireland, 1983

Courses Taught

Poetry Writing (introduction, advanced undergraduate, and graduate workshops)
Fiction Writing (introduction, advanced undergraduate, and graduate workshops)
Literary Publishing
Creative Non-Fiction Writing (graduate workshop)
Poets in the School: Teaching Creative Writing in the Community
Ethnopoetics (graduate seminar)
Modern Poetry (undergraduate and graduate seminars)
Modern Irish Literature (graduate seminar)
Post.Colonial Literature (senior seminar)
Modern Irish Poetry, Modern Irish Drama, Contemporary Irish Fiction, Irish-American Literature (advanced undergraduate courses)
African Literature (advanced course)
Modern World Literature (introductory courses)
Classical World Literature (introductory courses)
Introduction to Literature
Composition (Developmental, Rhetoric, and Research)

University & Community Service

As Founder and Director of the YSU Poetry Center, 1994 – present

Wrote successful grants resulting in $90,000 funding
Arranged, promoted, and hosted and introduced 100 readings and performances by visiting and local writers from 1994 to present
Instituted and continue to promote student reading series
Managed annual budget
Produced promotional material, including website, yearly flyers, posters, and 10 year Retrospective

As Co-Founding Director of NEOMFA Program, 2004 – 2006

Chaired committee which wrote NEOMFA Governance Document
Planned, monitored, and dispersed MFA budget
Chaired meetings of the executive committee.
Supervised admissions committee
Interacted with four campus administrations
Represented MFA faculty on administrative committee
Coordinated application procedures
Coordinated course offerings
Coordinated promotional activities for MFA
Coordinated campus events related to MFA

As English Department Faculty Member, 1990 – present

Represent YSU on intercollegial committee to institute consortial MFA Program with University of Akron, Cleveland State University, and Kent State University
Acted as Consulting Editor, CEA Critic: review essays submitted for publication, 1990-1996
Lectured for American Visions & Artists Series, Ohio Cultural Alliance, Irish Heritage Society, The Ulster Project, The College Club of Sharon, the Boardman Rotary Club, and Ohio Retired Teachers Organization.
Served on Committees on Search, Workload, Composition, and British Literature
Managed and Performed in Brady’s Leap, Celtic acoustic band comprised of YSU faculty members: over thirty engagements; released two CD’s of original music, 2003-2019

As Founder and Director of Etruscan Press, 2001 – present
http://www.etruscanpress.org

Inaugurated national literary press, which has released over 100 books of poetry, literary criticism, creative non-fiction, and fiction since 2002
Raised $800,000 in private funding
Wrote successful grants for National Endowment for the Arts, the Ohio Arts Council, the Wean Foundation, The Rayen Foundation, and the Andrews Foundation.

Oversee all aspects of publishing operation, including screening manuscripts, book selection and promotion, board development, financial management, hiring and supervision of Managing Editor, Publishing Consultant, Development Officer, Book Designers, and Student Interns
Negotiated successful partnership between Etruscan Press and Wilkes U. permitting Etruscan to hire a full-time managing editor, part-time assistants, and to move into a new Wilkes U. facility
Negotiated book distribution deal with Consortium, the premier small-press book distributor