WELCOME TO MY WEBSITE! I’m Jeff Fearnside, writer, editor, teacher, workshop leader, and Returned Peace Corps Volunteer.

Follow the links above or below to read some of my work, contact me regarding readings and workshops, explore Asia through my photo travelogue, and much more.

You may want to bookmark this site, as I regularly update current material and add new material. Thanks for visiting, and please return often!

Bio

Poetry Chapbook Out

Travelogue: Asia

At China’s Taklamakan (Go-in-and-you-won’t-come-out) Desert

China

Lake, and Other Poems of Love in a Foreign Land by Jeff Fearnside
Kent, Ohio: Standing Rock Cultural Arts

The book has such a strong sense of being in that culture, the tangible feeling of being in the markets and landscape, the smoke, the smells, all with an island of love within in the space of 10 poems.—Allan Peterson, author of five chapbooks and four full-length books of poetry, most recently Fragile Acts (McSweeney’s, 2012)

Where to find my work:

Latest News

Copies of the following journals and anthologies that include my work are available; click on each cover image for order info:

May 16, 2013

My review of The Barrios of Manta: A Personal Account of the Peace Corps in Ecuador, a memoir by Rhoda and Earle Brooks, may be found on the following link to the Peace Corps Writers website. Recently republished in honor of the Peace Corps’ 50th anniversary, the book is an important document of the Peace Corps’ earliest work and an engaging portrait of the Brookses. They did an admirable job of capturing the essence of what it means to be Peace Corps volunteers.

‘Itam’ has been reprinted in a new anthology, The Chalk Circle: Intercultural Prizewinning Essays, published by Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing, Inc. The book includes 20 prizewinning essays on the subjects of race, ethnicity, culture, place, and identity. Acclaimed writer David Mura contributed the introduction.

‘… Chalk Circle is a truly important book.’—Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize Winner and recipient of the Tu Do Chinh Kien Award

May 7, 2013

My guest blog “The Writing Life” for the Potomac Review has been posted and may be found here. Please feel free to leave a comment and to check out the many other interesting entries on their website.

Honors for The Chalk Circle continue to pour in: it has been named one of three finalists in the 2013 Independent Book Publishers Association Benjamin Franklin Awards competition, in the Multicultural category. The winner will be named at the awards ceremony on May 29 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City.

Also, this month I’ll be taking part in the Trillium Project, a revolving residency program that takes place during spring wildflower season at the Cabin at Shotpouch Creek, sponsored by the Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature, and the Written Word, which will allow me to continue the work I began at the Andrews Forest.

My essay ‘Ships in the Desert’ appears in a special theme issue on water, the Winter 2011 issue of New Madrid, accompanied by beautiful black-and-white photographs by Kristian Ansand Walter.

This essay was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

My short stories ‘The Cat People’ and ‘Znamenskaya Russkaya Pravoslavnaya Tserkov (The Holy Sign Russian Orthodox Church)’ appear in the Spring 2012 issue of Fjords Review.

‘The Cat People’ has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

April 3, 2013

A reception and book signing will be held for the photography and poetry exhibit “Ekphrasis: Photos Speak Out” today from 12 to 1 p.m. in the South Santiam Hall Gallery at Linn-Benton Community College. I will be among the poets reading and available to sign a limited number of the books that will be for sale.

In addition, a silent fundraising art auction will be underway in the conference room adjacent to the gallery to benefit the Valley Writers Series. The auction items will be on display and open for bidding until April 19, with the final week of bidding continuing online at tinyurl.com/vwssaa.

The main gallery exhibit, featuring 20 pairs of photographs by the Willamette Valley PhotoArts Guild and the poems they inspired, runs through May 3.

My short story ‘Ball and Chain’ appears in the Winter 2012 issue of Little Patuxent Review. This is their special Social Justice issue.

Scent of Cedars contains my short story ‘Going for Broke,’ along with the work of 31 other writers from the Pacific Northwest, including Lisa Roullard, Kris Christensen, and Ken Letko.

‘Fearnside packs a lot of history into his story, and not much of it is pretty. It opens a window into another time….’—Cecelia Hagen, Eugene Weekly

March 18, 2013

I’ve completed my two-week residency at the Andrews Experimental Forest—what a rewarding and productive experience at a fascinating and beautiful place! Many, many thanks to the Spring Creek Project for sponsoring me, and to all the good people at forest headquarters who greatly assisted me.

A Life Inspired: Tales of Peace Corps Service contains my essay ‘Itam,’ about my host father in Kazakhstan during my summer training for the Peace Corps. In this second edition, the stories are presented within three themes: ‘Making a Difference,’ ‘Life is Calling,’ and ‘Window to the World.’

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You may also read more of my work here.