Episode 11: Creative writing with Cyrus Cassells

Acclaimed poet Cyrus Cassells, a professor in the Department of English at Texas State and an instructor in the university's MFA in creative writing program, sits down with the Big Ideas TXST podcast for a wide-ranging interview examining his career, family and creative process. Keenly interested in history and world travel, Cassells talks about his hermitage time spent at a Catholic monastery and visit to a Hawaiian leper colony, and how those experiences impacted his writing. 

Cassells is the author of six books of poetry: The Mud Actor, Soul Make a Path through Shouting, Beautiful Signor, More Than Peace and Cypresses, The Crossed-Out Swastika, and The Gospel according to Wild Indigo, which was a finalist for the Helen C. Smith Award for the Best Book of Poetry from the Texas Institute of Letters and a nominee for the NAACP's Image Award for Outstanding Literature in Poetry. In 2019, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.  Among his other honors are a Lannan Literary Award, a William Carlos Williams Award, a Pushcart Prize, two NEA grants, and a Lambda Literary Award.

Further reading:

• A man of his words (Hillviews Magazine, 2019)
• Department of English spotlight: Cyrus Cassells (Department of English spotlight, April 10, 2020)