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College of Arts and Sciences
Home   >  College of Arts and Sciences   >  Faculty & Staff   >  Yasmina Madden

Yasmina Madden

Yasmina Madden

Associate Professor, English

College of Arts & Sciences

Phone: 515-271-2919

Email: yasmina.madden@drake.edu

Office: 233 Howard Hall

Biography

I grew up outside of Chicago, spent my college years in Los Angeles earning a BA in English, and returned to the Midwest, where I earned my MFA in Fiction at Indiana University and taught courses in creative writing and literature.

At Drake, I teach writing courses on the short story, creative nonfiction, flash narratives, and literature courses that often focus on women and gender. My fiction and nonfiction have been published in The Idaho Review, Necessary Fiction, PANK, The Masters Review, Word Riot, The Forge, Hobart, and other journals. I was finalist for The Iowa Review Fiction Award, and my flash fiction has been shortlisted for the Wigleaf Top 50 (Very) Short Fictions, as well as Pulp Literature’s Hummingbird Prize for Flash Fiction.

In addition to teaching at Drake, I have led several community writing workshops for the Above + Beyond Cancer Foundation, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and the YMCA Healthy Living Center. I’m very interested in the intersection of art, the humanities, and medicine/health, which is what these workshops focus on.

Outside of the classroom, I spend a lot of my time reading, writing, watching movies, and hanging out, preferably outdoors, with my boys. Other things about me? I love to swim, like to run, and I excel at eating (so much so that I once won a hot dog eating contest). I’m a big fan of Drake students and love teaching at Drake!

yasminadinmadden.com

Areas of Expertise

  • Fiction Writing
  • Creative Nonfiction Writing
  • Contemporary American Fiction
  • Race and Ethnicity in American Writing
  • Literary Representations of Gender

Education

  • MFA in Fiction Indiana University—Bloomington 2002, B.A. Loyola Marymount University 1996

2507 University Avenue
Des Moines, Iowa 50311
1-800-44-DRAKE


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