David Vancil

David Vancil is the compiler of Catalog of Dictionaries, Word Books, and Philological Texts, 1440-1900: Inventory of the Cordell Collection, Indiana State University (1993), which is considered an essential reference work by many collectors and scholars of the history of lexicography and related topics. In addition to scholarship and essays, he has published poetry in small journals, such as Concho River Review, Blue Unicorn, The Heartland Review, The Hardy Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, Westview, So It Goes, WLA: War, Literature and the Arts, and The Main Street Rag. His poetry chapbooks include The Art School Baby, Night Photo, and Moon Walking. A larger collection, The Homesick Patrol, was published in 1995. The title poem was featured in the introduction and anthologized in From Both Sides Now (1998), which is the first or a very early representation of poetry by combatants on both sides during the Vietnam War. David has B.A. in English from McNeese State University and M.A. (Creative Writing) and MLS degrees from The University of Texas at Austin. He earned his Ph.D. in English at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette in 1985. He is a Fellow of the Dictionary Society of North America. Dr. Vancil worked for over 25 years at Indiana State University as a rare books librarian and on occasion as an adjunct instructor in the English Department, where he taught advanced composition and introduction to literature courses. He resides in Terre Haute, Indiana.