Kurt Caswell

Kurt Caswell was born in Fairbanks, Alaska, and grew up in the Cascade Range in Oregon. He has worked as a teacher in Hokkaido, Japan; on the Navajo Reservation; and at schools in Arizona, California, and Wyoming.

He holds an MA in English from the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College, and an MFA in literature and creative writing from Bennington College, where he was recipient of the Lucy Grealy Memorial Scholarship. He was a 2001 fellow at Fishtrap writers’ conference, and a 2007 fellow at the MacDowell Colony. He has been nominated for numerous Pushcart Prizes.

Caswell’s newest book of nonfiction is LAIKA'S WINDOW: THE LEGACY OF A SOVIET SPACE DOG. He is also the author of GETTING TO GREY OWL: JOURNEYS ON FOUR CONTINENTS, IN THE SUN'S HOUSE: MY YEAR TEACHING ON THE NAVAJO RESERVATION, and AN INSIDE PASSAGE, which won the 2008 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Book Prize.

He has taught in the MFA program at Vermont College of Fine Arts, and is professor of creative writing and literature in the Honors College at Texas Tech University. He lives in Lubbock, Texas.