Faculty
Kevin McIlvoy
Regents Professor
Email:
kmcilvoy@nmsu.edu
Office Address:
New Mexico State University
Department of English
P.O. Box 30001, MSC 3E
Las Cruces, NM 88003
Phone:
(575) 646-2024
Fax:
(575) 646-7725
Biographical Statement
Kevin McIlvoy received his MFA in creative writing from the University of Arizona, his MA from Colorado State University and his BA from the Unversity of Illinois. He has taught at New Mexico State University for seventeen years, and has received the 1999 Westhafer Teaching Award, 1998 New Mexico Council of Teachers of English Excellence Award, 1996 Dennis Darnall Faculty Achievement Award, the 1996 New Mexico Council of Teachers of English Excellence Award, the 1989 New Mexico State University Donald C. Roush Award for Teaching Excellence, and the 1987 Burlington Northern Foundation Faculty Achievement Award.
He has published four novels: A Waltz (Lynx House Press, 1981), The Fifth Station (Algonquin Book,1987 and Collier Macmillan, 1989), Little Peg (Atheneum, 1991), and Hyssop (October 1998, TriQuarterly Books, October 1999, Avon/Bard). His short stories have appeared in The Southern Review, Ploughshares, TriQuarterly, The Missouri Review, Chelsea and other literary magazines. He has received a National Endownment for the Arts Fiction Fellowship. In January 2005 Graywolf Press published his short story collection, The Complete History of New Mexico.
He teaches beginning, intermediate, and advanced workshops in fiction writing as well as an advanced Form & Technique in Fiction course and an advanced Writing the Novella course.
Professional Statement
The writing I most value - and envy - is that in which the author's visceral commitment to the fictional character is complemented by her/his conscious artistry. I believe that at every stage in a writer's career the first must take precedent over the second in order for the work to have moment-by-moment integrity and intensity. The reason for perfecting technique is not to become more invulnerable as a writer, but in order to consciously invite greater vulnerability into your own writing process. What I teach best is risk-taking.