Jenny Mueller, Ph.D.

Professor of English

Office: Carnegie Hall 215

Phone: (618) 537-6459

Education

PhD, University of Utah

MFA, University of Iowa

MA, University of Chicago

BA, University of Chicago

Publications

Work in Progress

Currently working on a third book of poetry.

Books of Poetry

State Park (Elixir Press, 2017)

Bonneville (Elixir Press, 2007)

Found Land (chapbook, Slim Princess Holdings, 2015)

Diorama (chapbook, Polyphemus Press, 1999)

I edited and wrote an afterword for Moonie, a book of poetry by Brian Young (published posthumously by Fence Digital, 2017)

Journal Publications

I have published poetry in numerous magazines and journals, including Allium, Atlantic Monthly, Denver Quarterly, Chicago Review, Fence, Interim, New American Writing, Crazyhorse, and many others.

My creative nonfiction most recently appeared as part of New Territory magazine's Literary Landscapes series and in Another Chicago Magazine. The New Territory piece was subsequently collected in the 2025 anthology Lingering Inland: A Literary Tour of the Midwest, edited by Andy Oler (University of Illinois Press). 

My scholarly writing has appeared most recently in Midwestern Miscellany's peer-reviewed special issue dedicated to Lisel Mueller (53:1, spring 2025), published by the Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature.

Teaching Interests

Creative writing (poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction)

20th-century American and English poetry

Advisor to Catalyst (McKendree student literary and art magazine)

Teaching Philosophy

Whether I'm teaching how to read literature or practice creative writing, what’s most important to me is to help students understand how writers write. Much of the great literature we read in class comes out of the same hard and messy process we ourselves experience when we compose in words. Writers, even the ones history has deemed “great,” do not just put what is in their brilliant heads down on paper; they have to sort their ways through language. The ideas, the characters, and the images emerge from the words, not the other way around. There’s no better way to learn this than to try it yourself, in a creative writing class!

Awards

Awarded writer's residencies at Banff Centre for Creative Arts (Canada), Alderworks Alaska, PLAYA,, Wildacres, Benaco Arte (Italy), Casa Regis (Italy), Herekeke Arts Center, 360 Xochi Quetzal (Mexico), and others

2008 Literary Award, Illinois Arts Council, for "Sylvia Plath at the Aviary," Court Green

Poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and the Best of the Web anthology. 

Organizations & Memberships

Association of Writers and Writing Programs, Modern Language Association, Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature , St. Louis Poetry Center

Other Information

I am the contact person regarding the life and work of the poet Lisel Mueller (1924-2020). I am currently working on collecting and editing her previously unpublished poetry. 

I am the literary executor of the poet Elizabeth Arnold (1958-2024) and assisted in the creation of a special web supplement on her life and work published by Chicago Review.