About
Thomas Fox Averill is Professor Emeritus of English at Washburn University of Topeka, where he taught courses in Creative Writing and Kansas Studies for 37 years. Educated at the University of Kansas (BA/English, 1971; MA/English, 1974) and the University of Iowa Writers Workshop (MFA/Fiction, 1976), he is the author of 10 books, most recently the novel Found Documents from the Life of Nell Johnson Doerr. He helped to found and was the first director of the Washburn Center for Kansas Studies. In 2010 he created the Thomas Fox Averill Kansas Studies Collection at Mabee Library, donating his large library of Kansas novels, plays, collections of poetry and fiction, histories, biographies, memoirs, letters, scholarly articles, collected folklore, manuscripts and ephemera gathered over 40+ years of an abiding interest in all things Kansas.
Books
- Passes at The Moon (short stories), Woodley Press, Topeka, 1985.
- Seeing Mona Naked (short stories) Watermark Press, Wichita, 1989.
- Byron Caldwell Smith Award, Hall Center for the Humanities at the University of Kansas.
- What Kansas Means to Me: Twentieth Century Writers on the Sunflower State (editor, with introduction and headnotes) University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, 1990.
- Oleander’s Guide to Kansas: How You Know When You’re Here (collection of commentaries), Eagle Books, Wichita, 1996.
- Secrets of The Tsil Café (novel), BlueHen Books/ Penguin Putnam, 2001
- Finalist in Literary Food Writing, Cookbook Awards, International Association of Culinary Professionals, 2002.
- The Slow Air of Ewan MacPherson (novel), BlueHen/Berkley, 2003
- Ordinary Genius (stories), Flyover Fiction Series, University of Nebraska Press 2005
- Kansas Notable Book
- rode(novel), University of New Mexico Press, 2011
- Named Best Western Novel of 2011 by the Western Heritage and Cowboy Museum, Oklahoma City, OK.
- Spur Award finalist, Western Writers of America.
- Kansas Notable Book
- Finalist, Historical Novel, Arizona/New Mexico Book Awards
- A Carol Dickens Christmas (novel), University of New Mexico Press, 2014.
- Byron Caldwell Smith Award, Hall Center for the Humanities at the University of Kansas.
- Found Documents From the Life of Nell Johnson Doerr: A Novel, University of New Mexico Press, 2018
- Byron Caldwell Smith Award, Hall Center for the Humanities, the University of Kansas
- Finalist, Willa Award, Women Writing the West
Contact
- Website: https://www.washburn.edu/cas/english/taverill/about.html
- Facebook Link: https://www.facebook.com/tom.averill.56
- Twitter Link: https://twitter.com/ThomasFAverill
