Affiliated Departments & Programs

David Lynn is the editor emeritus of the Kenyon Review, a professor of English, and special assistant to the president of the college. He was the editor of the review, an international journal of literature, culture and the arts, from 1994 to 2020. As an author, he received a 2016 O. Henry Award for "Divergence." His latest collection, "Children of God: New & Selected Stories," was published in 2019 by Braddock Avenue Books. An earlier volume, "Year of Fire," was published in 2006 by Harcourt. In a review, Publisher’s Weekly said that “the stories of this collection occupy the gray borderland where betrayal mixes with trust, violence with affection, humiliation with lust. The effect is quietly haunting." And the New York Times said, [Lynn] “feels his way toward tentative, glancing resolutions that avoid glib epiphanies and leave his characters, like the professor in ‘Life Sentences,’ ‘numb and sad and lonely . . . a still center as the emotional chaos of these people swirled about him, destroying so much.’”

Lynn is also the author of the novel "Wrestling with Gabriel," an earlier collection of stories, "Fortune Telling" and "The Hero's Tale: Narrators in the Early Modern Novel," a critical study. His stories and essays have appeared in magazines and journals in America, England, India and Australia. Other awards include the Glimmer Train Short Story Prize 2015, the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award Finalist and the Ohioana Library Association Award for Editorial Excellence.

Lynn lives in Gambier, Ohio, with his wife, Wendy Singer, a distinguished historian of India.

Education

1984 — Doctor of Philosophy from Univ Virginia

1979 — Master of Arts from Univ Virginia

1976 — Bachelor of Arts from Kenyon College, Phi Beta Kappa

Courses Recently Taught

This workshop focuses on discussion of participants' fiction as well as on exercises and playful experimentation. Principally, we are concerned with how stories work at every level. As we consider narrative strategies and practical methods for developing individual styles, along with approaches to revising work, we also read, as writers, a variety of outside texts. This counts toward the creative writing emphasis and toward the creative practice requirement for the major. Prerequisite: ENGL 200, 202 or 204 (or an equivalent introductory workshop) and permission of instructor via application. Consult the department for information on the application process and deadlines.

This course focuses on the American short story since 1900. The story is not simply a shorter fictional narrative than the novel. It is a genre with a distinct pedigree. For the first three-quarters of the 20th century, writing short stories for commercial venues such as the "Saturday Evening Post," the "New Yorker" and even "Playboy" offered financial support to many authors while they were also writing novels or screenplays. Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Porter are just a few examples. More recently, creative writing workshops and university-based M.F.A. programs have proliferated, and the short form, ideal for workshop discussion, received new life. Finally, throughout the last century, the short story was often also the site for counter-narratives and other experimentation. In this course, we read five or six stories each week. We often read multiple examples by the same author. And though each week concentrates on stories largely from the same era, there are significant differences in styles, subjects and technique. We discuss how the stories work, how the authors' themes and techniques develop over time, and how they influence each other. As the semester progresses, students assume increasing responsibility for leading discussions. This counts toward the post-1900 requirement for the major. Prerequisite: ENGL 210-291 or junior standing.