Anna Clark

Journalist, writer, educator, blogger, editor; a bookish but outdoorsy sensibility.

PROFESSIONAL VERSION:

Anna Clark is an independent journalist living in Detroit. She writes reported news features, longform nonfiction, and book reviews, and she has an omnivorous range: she covers literature (especially international literature), culture, health, prisons, sports, and media stories. Her writing is a "notable" pick in Best American Sports Writing 2012. She's contributed stories to The New Republic, The Guardian, The American Prospect, Salon, The Nation, Grantland, The Christian Science Monitor, The Boston Review, and other publications. She is a political media correspondent for the Columbia Journalism Review as part of its United States Project.

Anna is a past Fulbright Fellow in Kenya, where she focused on creative writing, and has also been a fellow with the Peter Jennings Center for Journalists and the Constitution. She is the founder of Literary Detroit and writes the literary blog Isak. Anna is a writer-in-residence with the InsideOut Literary Arts Project, and on Thursday evenings, she facilitates a theater workshop at a men's prison in Macomb County, Michigan. She graduated from the University of Michigan's Residential College with highest honors, and from Warren Wilson College's MFA Program for Writers, where she practiced (and practiced...) fiction.

PERSONAL VERSION:

I am a journalist and a fiction writer; an editor and an educator; a progressive person interested in creative approaches to art and to justice work. I'm also 32 years old. I come from St. Joseph, Michigan, a small town to which I'll point to on my right palm. Much time was spent playing in a great lake a few blocks away and reading Nancy Drew books. I went on to explore Ann Arbor, where I graduated from the Residential College at the University of Michigan with degrees in Creative Writing & Literature and History of Art, and a minor in Crime & Justice. In January 2007, I earned my walking stick (literally: they give you a walking stick) from Warren Wilson College's MFA Program for Writers, where I was a fiction student.

I have been engaged with prisons and detention centers for a lot of years: facilitating weekly writing and theater workshops via the Prison Creative Arts Project, in particular, radically impacted me. I also partnered in developing and served as leader in The Portfolio Project, matching mentors to incarcerated artists and writers to build portfolios of their best work and connect them to creative opportunities. I spearheaded PCAP's Speakers Bureau for three years, mentored and trained new members, and was elected twice to its Executive Committee. I continue to be an associate member of PCAP, and, in 2012, I began a theater workshop at Macomb Correctional Facility in New Haven, Michigan. In my journalism life, I do a good deal of writing about the stories tangled up with prisons, detention, and the criminal justice system.

I live, write, and work in Detroit, Michigan. In 2011, I was on a Fulbright fellowship in creative writing in Nairobi, Kenya. Not long ago, I spent a vigorous three years in Boston, Massachusetts. During the bulk of The Boston Years, as I've come to call them, I was a live-in community member at Haley House. I also was the arts editor for the Boston street mag: What's Up Magazine "brings arts and awareness to the streets" while functioning as a tool for economic empowerment. In Boston, I also worked with the Center for New Words (a feisty nonprofit that creates "spaces and places where women's words matter," now reorganized as Women, Action, & the Media).

In Detroit -- a fascinating place, a city in the re-making -- I taught writing at Henry Ford Community College. Elsewhere, I serve as a guest facilitator and speaker, and teach freelance writing workshops. I've also have the pleasure of being a writer-in-residence through the InsideOut Literary Arts Project. I worked on poetry and storytelling with second, fourth, and fifth-graders at Lessenger Elementary-Middle School. I have since written with teenagers at Osborn High School, Southeastern High School, and the Detroit School of Arts.

I founded Literary Detroit in 2012, which is a group dedicated to cultivating the city's literary community by hosting distinctive events, like a seasonal book swap at roving locations around Detroit, "ghost libraries," and author events with a uniquely interactive twist.

My writing has appeared in The New Republic, The Guardian, The American Prospect, The Daily Beast, Salon, The Nation, Grantland, Grantland Quarterly, Architect Magazine, The Classical, The Boston Review, the Columbia Journalism Review, The Christian Science Monitor, UTNE Reader, AlterNet, The Detroit Free Press, Hobart, Writers' Journal, Bitch Magazine, Religion Dispatches,The Women's International Perspective, Women's eNews, ColorLines, RH Reality Check, The Millions, make/shift, BloodLotus, and Midwestern Gothic, among other publications. I was a 2010 Fellow with the Peter Jennings Center for Journalists and the Constitution.

I’m also a reader, a knitter, a music-lover, a fan of Detroit sports, and a lover of kayaking. I’m habitually barefoot and I have a tendency to laugh entirely too loudly at my own jokes.

Connect with me at:
Twitter

If you are a publisher interested in submitting a book for review, or would like to contact me about speaking or facilitation opportunities, please email me at the link at the top of the page with details.