Jonathan Holden
Mid-Career Fellowship in Creative Writing

Dr. Holden has lived in Manhattan, Kansas since 1977.  He received his doctorate in English in 1974 from the University of Colorado with a thesis about the poetry of Kansas poet William Stafford, The Mark To Turn: A Reading of William Stafford’s Poetry. He has published 20 books in several genres, including a novel, Brilliant Kids (1992, University of Utah Press) and a memoir Guns and Boyhood in America with the University of Michigan’s Poets-on-Poetry Series in 1997. His most recent book Mama’s Boys: A Double Life (2007) is from Lewis/Clark Press in Idaho. He continues to teach at Kansas State University, where he is The Poet-In-Residence and, since 1988 a University Distinguished Professor of English.

Artist Statement

Dr. Holden is a realist writer and, to some extent, a "confessional" poet. Most of his writing insists on personal "authenticity," picking up on Lionel Trilling's notion in his famous book Sincerity and Authenticity, though Holden disagrees with the conclusion of Trilling's book "The Authentic Unconscious". Holden regards Creative Writing as an art in the sense that Aristotle did, "Habit of production according to right method," where the "habit", conscious practice, is the primary concept.