Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum

THOUSAND OAKS, CA - An award-winning poet, editor and educator will appear at California Lutheran University as part of the free Guest Writer Series on Wednesday, March 18.

Andrew McFadyen-Ketchum will share and discuss his poetry at 4 p.m. in William Rolland Gallery. A reception will follow the presentation.

McFadyen-Ketchum’s first book of poems, “Ghost Gear,” was released in 2014 and was a finalist for the Miller Williams Arkansas Poetry Prize. “Ghost Gear” chronicles the poet’s coming-of-age in a working-class neighborhood in Nashville, Tennessee. The poems of an urban life are joined by verses inspired by tales told by his father, who took his children to explore the natural world surrounding the city and regaled them with stories of his own childhood.

The writer’s edited anthology, “Apocalypse Now: Poems and Prose from the End of Days,” was released in 2012. McFadyen-Ketchum is series editor of the “Floodgate Poetry Series: Three Chapbooks by Three Poets in a Single Volume,” editor of “Warning! Poems May be Longer Than They Appear: An Anthology of LongISH Poems” and “Apocalypse Now: Poems and Prose from the End of Days.” He is founder and managing editor of PoemoftheWeek.org.

McFadyen-Ketchum is acquisitions editor for Upper Rubber Boot Books and contributing editor for The Southern Indiana Review. He is also a freelance editor, writing coach and instructor of creative writing and English at the University of Colorado Boulder.

His poems, reviews, interviews and podcasts have appeared in The Writer’s Chronicle,
The Southern Poetry Anthology, Glimmer Train, American Literary Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, The Missouri Review, storySouth, Blackbird, InsideHigherEd.com, Hayden’s Ferry Review and other journals.

McFadyen-Ketchum received an honors degree in English from Virginia Tech and a master’s degree in creative writing/poetry from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. He founded The Little Grassy Literary Festival, which brings contemporary writers to SIUC each spring. In 2009, he received the university’s Graduate Teaching Assistant of the Year Award from the English and Writing Studies departments.

The gallery is located in William Rolland Stadium on the north side of Olsen Road between Campus Drive and Mountclef Boulevard on the Thousand Oaks campus. For more information, contact Jacqueline Lyons at 805-493-3825 or jlyons@callutheran.edu.