Darcey Steinke (born April 25, 1962) is an American author and educator. She has written five novels: ''Up Through the Water,'' ''Suicide Blonde,'' ''Jesus Saves,'' and ''Milk,'' ''Easter Everywhere,'' and ''Sister Golden Hair''. Steinke has also served as a lecturer at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

, the

American University of Paris The American University of Paris (AUP) is a private, independent, and accredited liberal arts university in Paris, France. Founded in 1962, the university is one of the oldest American institutions of higher education in Europe, and the first to ...

New School University The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...

Barnard College Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...

, the

University of Mississippi The University of Mississippi (byname Ole Miss) is a public research university that is located adjacent to Oxford, Mississippi, and has a medical center in Jackson. It is Mississippi's oldest public university and its largest by enrollment. ...

, and

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

Early life

Steinke, born in

Oneida, New York Oneida (, one, kanaˀalóhaleˀ) is a city in Madison County located west of Oneida Castle (in Oneida County) and east of Wampsville, New York, United States. The population was 11,390 at the 2010 census. The city, like both Oneida County an ...

, on April 25, 1962, is the daughter of a

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...

minister. Steinke grew up in upstate New York;

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

; Philadelphia; and Roanoke, Virginia. She is a graduate of Cave Spring High School, Goucher College, and the University of Virginia, where she received a

Master of Fine Arts A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.) is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts admini ...

in creative writing. Steinke completed a

Stegner Fellowship The Stegner Fellowship program is a two-year creative writing fellowship at Stanford University. The award is named after American Wallace Stegner (1909–1993), a historian, novelist, short story writer, environmentalist, and Stanford faculty mem ...

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

Career

Writing

She is the author of four novels, ''Up Through the Water,'' ''Suicide Blonde,'' ''Jesus Saves,'' and ''Milk,'' and the spiritual memoir ''Easter Everywhere''. Her fifth novel, ''Sister Golden Hair'', was published by Tin House Books in October 2014. Steinke co-edited the collection of essays ''Joyful Noise: The New Testament Revisited'' with Rick Moody. Steinke has written extensively on art and literature and has contributed to ''

Spin Magazine ''Spin'' (stylized in all caps) is an American music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione, Jr. Now owned by Next Management Partners, the magazine is an online publication since it stopped issuing a print edition in 2012. Histor ...

'', covering the

David Koresh David Koresh (; born Vernon Wayne Howell; August 17, 1959 – April 19, 1993) was an American cult leader who played a central role in the Waco siege of 1993. As the head of the Branch Davidians, a religious sect and offshoot of the Davidian Sev ...

Branch Davidian story and contributing a 1993 cover story on

Kurt Cobain Kurt Donald Cobain (February 20, 1967 – April 5, 1994) was an American musician who served as the lead vocalist, guitarist and primary songwriter of the rock band Nirvana. Through his angst-fueled songwriting and anti-establishment persona ...

. In addition, she has a web project called ''blindspot'' which was part of the

Whitney Biennial The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, United States. The event began as an annual exhibition in ...

in 2000. Her novels ''Up Through the Water'' and ''Jesus Saves'' were selected as New York Times Notable Books of the Year. Steinke's prose has been said to "repeatedly hint at the divine in tangible things." According to a ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' book review of Steinke's novel ''Milk'', "Steinke writes some beautifully mystical descriptions of sexual encounters, and the conjunction of sex and the spirit, bodies and souls, is fascinating." Steinke's writing has appeared in ''

The New York Times Magazine ''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine Supplement (publishing), supplement included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted man ...

'', ''

The Boston Review ''Boston Review'' is an American quarterly political and literary magazine. It publishes political, social, and historical analysis, literary and cultural criticism, book reviews, fiction, and poetry, both online and in print. Its signature form ...

'', ''

Vogue Vogue may refer to: Business * ''Vogue'' (magazine), a US fashion magazine ** British ''Vogue'', a British fashion magazine ** ''Vogue Arabia'', an Arab fashion magazine ** ''Vogue Australia'', an Australian fashion magazine ** ''Vogue China'', ...

'', ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...

'', and ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

''.

Teaching

Steinke teaches creative writing at

and the

and in the graduate programs at

and

. She previously taught at the

, where she was a

writer-in-residence Artist-in-residence, or artist residencies, encompass a wide spectrum of artistic programs which involve a collaboration between artists and hosting organisations, institutions, or communities. They are programs which provide artists with space a ...

, and at

Personal life

Steinke married journalist Michael Hudson in June 2009. It is her second marriage after writer

Michael Hornburg Michael Hornburg (born October 31, 1960) is an American writer and literary agent. He has published two novels: '' Bongwater'' (1995) and ''Downers Grove'' (1999), both of which have been adapted into feature films. He has also written for the P ...

. Steinke lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter, Abbie. Steinke played guitar in the New York-based rock band Ruffian. Her cousin Rene Steinke is also an author. She has written about how her struggles with a

stutter Stuttering, also known as stammering, is a speech disorder in which the flow of speech is disrupted by involuntary repetitions and prolongations of sounds, syllables, words, or phrases as well as involuntary silent pauses or blocks in which the ...

contributed to her writing career.

Bibliography

Fiction

*''Up Through the Water'' (1989) *''Suicide Blonde'' (1992) *''Jesus Saves'' (1999) *''Milk'' (2005)

Bloomsbury Publishing Bloomsbury Publishing plc is a British worldwide publishing house of fiction and non-fiction. It is a constituent of the FTSE SmallCap Index. Bloomsbury's head office is located in Bloomsbury, an area of the London Borough of Camden. It has a U ...

*''Sister Golden Hair'' (October 2014)

Tin House Books ''Tin House'' is an American book publisher based in Portland, Oregon, and New York City. Portland publisher Win McCormack originally conceived the idea for a literary magazine called ''Tin House'' in the summer of 1998. He enlisted Holly MacArt ...

Nonfiction

* ''Joyful Noise: The New Testament Revisited'' (co-editor, with Rick Moody, and contributor) (1997) * ''Easter Everywhere'' (2007) (memoir) * ''Flash Count Diary: Menopause and the Vindication of Natural Life'' (2019) • "God Is In The House" (2020), an essay about the musician & songwriter Nick Cave, contained in his book "Stranger Than Kindness" (Canongate), published in association with Stranger Than Kindness: The Nick Cave Exhibition, Royal Danish Library, Copenhagen, March 23 – October 3, 2020

References

External links

Official website

Nirvana: 'In Utero' Cover Story (SPIN Magazine)

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20140826114243/http://www.vogue.com/magazine/article/meeting-kurt-cobain-darcey-steinke-story/#1 Meeting Kurt Cobain: One Writer's Story, 20 Years Later
New York Times review of ''Easter Everywhere''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Steinke, Darcey American women novelists Goucher College alumni Living people American memoirists University of Virginia alumni 1962 births Novelists from Virginia Goddard College faculty The New School faculty Columbia University faculty University of Mississippi faculty Barnard College faculty 20th-century American novelists American women memoirists 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American novelists 21st-century American women writers Novelists from New York (state) Novelists from Mississippi Novelists from Vermont 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers American women academics