Phil Condon

Phil Condon's books are River Street (stories, SMU Press, Dallas, 1994); Clay Center (novel, EWU Press, Spokane, 2004, and recipient of the 2001 Novel Award from the Faulkner Society of New Orleans); Montana Surround: Land, Water, Nature, and Place (essays, Johnson Books, Boulder, 2004); and Nine Ten Again, stories, (recipient of the 2008 Elixir Press National Fiction Award in Denver).

His stories and essays have appeared in The Georgia Review, Shenandoah, The Sewanee Review, Prairie Schooner, High Desert Journal, Epoch, Manoa and many other journals. He received an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship, led a writing residency for the National Writers' Voice, taught fiction and nonfiction writing in the Spaulding University MFA program (Louisville). Throughout the 1990's he taught composition, fiction, and nonfiction writing at the University of Montana.

Born in Cheyenne and raised in Omaha, Phil Condon attended Pomona College for one year in the 1960's. Subsequently, he lived in California, British Columbia, Missouri, and since 1987, in Missoula, Montana. Before returning to college as a 37-year-old sophomore, he worked as a union bricklayer for ten years and lived without electricity for five years on the Niangua River in the Missouri Ozarks. His academic education includes a BA in Writing, an MFA in Creative Writing/Fiction, and an MS in Environmental Studies/Writing. He is a retired Professor Emeritus after 20 years teaching in and directing the Environmental Studies Program at the University of Montana.