Donna Seaman

Selected Works

TriQuarterly, #133
I guest edited this issue
A grand celebration of the language of the land
Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape
Edited by Barry Lopez and Debra Gwartney
Anthology edited by Alison Swan
Fresh Water: Women Writing on the Great Lakes
Essays, poetry, and stories about the Great Lakes
Author Interviews
Writers on the Air: Conversations about Books
Writers on the Air brings to print Donna Seaman’s vibrant author interviews from her Chicago-based radio program, Open Books.
Fiction anthology
In Our Nature: Stories of Wildness
"These compelling short works... remind us of how important it is to go where the wild things are."
--O Magazine

Reading on Earth

In “The American Scholar,” Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "there is then creative reading as well as creative writing.” Emerson also wrote, “I do not feel as if my day had substance in it, if I have read nothing.” Reading has been my lifelong passion, and I have tried to read creatively as a reviewer, critic, and literary journalist. And I, too, feel that a day lacks "substance" if some part of it hasn't been spent reading. Reading with high curiosity and receptivity. Books illuminate minds and worlds. Literature breaks the isolating fever of the self.

So I read, and I write about books. Primarly for BOOKLIST, published in Chicago by the American Library Association, where I'm an associate editor. I also review books for the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, the Kansas City Star, and Bookforum. I'm a book critic for Chicago Public Radio. Visit their web site: www.chicagopublicradio.org

My radio interviews with writers can be heard on the web site: www.openbooksradio.org. That's where I blog, too.

I'm proud to be a recipient of the James Friend Memorial Award for Literary Criticism; the Writer Magazine Writers Who Make a Difference Award, the Literacy Chicago Literacy Hero Award, the Fiction Writing Department at Columbia College Chicago’s Story Week Achievement Award, and the Studs Terkel Humanities Service Award.