BIO

Annie Dawid lives and writes in the Sangre de Cristo range of South-Central Colorado. An English professor and director of creative writing for 15 years at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, Annie left full-time teaching for full-time writing. She founded BloomsburyWest, a retreat for writers and artists, in 2006.

Annie Dawid's new book of linking stories, And Darkness Was Under His Feet: Stories Of A Family, won the 2007 Litchfield Award for Short Fiction and was published in 2008. Her last book, Lily in the Desert: Stories, was published in 2001 by the Carnegie-Mellon University Press.Her first book, York Ferry, a novel, is now in a second printing from Cane Hill Press of NYC. Both books can be bought in any bookstore, on-line or in the flesh. You can also buy copies of York Ferry directly from the writer. Her photographs have also appeared in various literary magazines as well as shows in Oregon and Colorado. She also designs and hooks rugs, which have been featured in Colorado galleries. Her story about Sept. 11, 2001, “The Closer You Were, the Less You Knew,” won a prize in the Glimmer Train Fiction Open and was published in Glimmer Train Stories in the Winter 2007 issue.

In 2004, she was writer-in-residence at the University of North Dakota’s annual writer’s conference. In 2003, she taught master classes in the short story at the South Australia Writers Center in Adelaide. In 2005-2006, she visited campuses in Arkansas, Kentucky and Indiana. Forthcoming readings and workshops are scheduled for venues in Oregon, Pennsylvania and Colorado. At present, she writes columns for the Denver Post’s “Colorado Voices” series, reviews books for The Oregonian, High Country News and The Jewish Review, and teaches AP English part time at the Custer County High School in Westcliffe,CO, where she lives with her son, Isaiah Max, and her dogs, Rafe and Fanny.

Annie Dawid is a regular contributor to the Jonestown Institute website.  Click here to see her Jonestown page and some of her commentaries.

Honors and Awards

2009 Finalist, Next Generation Indie Book Awards, Short Story-Fiction, "And Darkness Was Under His Feet: Stories of a Family"
2008 First Prize, Short Grain Magazine, Dramatic Monologue, “Mamelah’s Monologue”
2007 First Prize, Literal Latte Short-Short Fiction Contest; Litchfield Review Award for Short Fiction for "And Darkness Was Under His Feet: Stories of a Family" [collection]
2006 Second Prize, Abroad Writer’s Conference, Short Story Prize for“Knowing What We Know,” [section of "Jonestown"]
Selected “Colorado Voice” for The Denver Post, temporary columnist

Editorial Experience

2010 Fiction Editor, Poetica magazine
2009 Arts Editor The Canon Beat, Canon City, Colorado
2007-2008 Prose Editor: www.rokovoko.com
2006-ongoing“Colorado Voice” columnist, The Denver Post.
1994-present Freelance Book Reviewer, The Oregonian, The (Portland) Jewish Review,
High Country News.

"I recently hired Annie Dawid to edit the manuscript of my novel and was very impressed with the results. Annie did a thorough, sensitive, intelligent and extremely helpful job, providing me with a scrupulously edited ms., detailed chapter summary and separate multi-page critical reaction with concrete suggestions for changes that respected my authorial intent. Incorporating her edits and some suggestions in a rewrite of the novel, I discovered my book had more interesting characters, a stronger plotline, and a more flowing style. I submitted the rewritten novel to the Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Contest and placed in the Quarterfinals, with many positive reviews."

- Leslie Rodd, San Francisco 2009