Rush Rankin

Rush Rankin began teaching at Kansas City Art Institute in 1975, having earned his M.F.A. from the University of Iowa’s prestigious Iowa Writer’s Workshop. He began KCAI’s incredibly successful program in Creative Writing in 2002. For 42 years, he taught philosophy and poetry, while continuing to publish in top literary magazines: The Yale Review, The Paris Review, Antioch Review, Tri-Quarterly, DECEMBER, Pleiades, Shenandoah, Chelsea, New Letters, Stand (in England), and Hebeno (in Italy), among others. His book, In Theory, a lyrical meditation on aesthetics, has been added to the collections of 111 national and international libraries, including Toronto University, Cambridge University and the National Library of Australia. His book Pascal’s Other Wager, was selected by Rosanna Warren for the Vassar Miller Prize in 2003 for the UNT Press. His poetry manuscript, Redacted, was a finalist in the National Poetry Series.