Episode 11: Creative writing with Cyrus Cassells

December 4, 2020

Cassels headshot

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 ActorSoul Make a Path through ShoutingBeautiful SignorMore Than Peace and CypressesThe 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.

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Jayme Blaschke, 512-245-2555

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