Michael William Fleming

Michael William Fleming

736 Bonnyvale Road, Brattleboro, Vermont 05301

(802) 579-1700 / wyomike@earthlink.net

 

SUMMARY

Creative editor, essayist, novelist, and poet with wide-ranging interests and extensive international experience; award-winning teacher of composition and literature.

 

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Writer/Editor (Freelance) 2003 – present


Little, Brown and Company   Trade Publisher

Island Press   Publisher of Books on the Environment & Responsible Development

W. W. Norton & Company   Publisher of College Textbooks

Additional Editorial Projects

 

Senior Editor (In-House) 2000 – 2003


Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, NY   Publisher of Textbooks

  • Planned, organized, and edited last edition of Adventures in American Literature.

  • Wrote and edited all pedagogical material for The Holt Reader (grade-11 anthology).

  • Managed the work of assistants and freelancers; conducted in-depth analysis of company editorial procedures.

 

Lecturer, Undergraduate Expository Writing Programs 1991 – 1999


University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA

Baruch College, City University of New York, New York, NY

Colleges of Arts and Sciences

  • Taught a wide range of composition courses to more than 600 students over 15 semesters.

  • Developed and taught new courses: “Science and Writing I & II,” “The American Literature of Exploration and Travel,” “American Grammar.”

  • Assessed placement exams each semester, and twice served as Chief Reader.

  • Tutored undergraduate and graduate students in Writing Center.

 

Assistant Director, Secondary School Mathematics Program 1990 – 1991


Education & Technology Foundation, San Francisco, CA

Not-for-Profit Publisher of Materials for Secondary Education

  • Developed, wrote, and edited materials for Sci-Math, a federally funded project for improving high-school mathematics instruction.

  • Wrote and edited a Sci-Math newsletter for widespread distribution.

  • Conducted teacher workshops throughout the United States.

 

Secondary School Mathematics Teacher 1986


Vuvulane High School, Swaziland

  • For full academic year, prepared syllabi, conducted daily lessons with four classes, levels ranging from arithmetic to advanced algebra and trigonometry.

 

English Language Teacher & School Administrator 1980 – 1981


United Nations–Administered Refugee Camps, Thailand

  • Conducted classes in English for adults and high-school students.

  • Developed comprehensive English language program for beginning students.

  • Founded and administered Montessori pre-school.

  • Analyzed, developed, administered numerous International Rescue Committee education projects.

 

EDUCATION

Oxford University, New College, Oxford, England 1982 – 1984


M.A. Honors, English

  • Rhodes Scholar

  • Honors thesis on fourteenth-century mystic poet Richard Rolle of Hampole

Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 1976 – 1980


A.B., English

  • Graduated Magna cum laude

  • Studied writing under John McPhee, Stephen Koch

  • Won awards for senior thesis, a study of Vladimir Nabokov, as well as for short fiction

 

AWARDS

  • “Laureate’s Choice” winner of Marie W. Faust Sonnet Contest for “Purgatory,” 2025

  • Honorable Mention, 2025 Plentitudes Prizes in Poetry for “Ad Astra,” 2025

  • International Merit Award, Atlanta Review International Poetry Contest, for “Circus,” 2023

  • Honorable Mention, 2022 Steve Kowit Poetry Prize (San Diego Entertainment & Arts Guild) for “Thirteen (Alcova 1971),” 2023

  • Honorable Mention, 2021 Steve Kowit Poetry Prize (San Diego Entertainment & Arts Guild) for “Corona,” 2022

  • Winner, Sundog Poetry Center’s Vermont Book Award for Bags and Tools, 2021

  • First Place in “Traditional Rhyming Poetry” category for “Hungry”; Second Place in “Legacy Award” category for “Outside of Town”; Third Place in “Door of Dreams” category for “Dreaming of Socrates”; Arizona State Poetry Society Contest, 2021

  • Second Place, New Yorker cartoon caption contest (see 12/21/2020 issue)

  • Finalist, Sundog Poetry Center’s Vermont Book Award for Playing Along, 2020

  • Third Place in “Nature on the Edge” category for “In the Woods,” Arizona State Poetry Society Contest, 2019

  • Winner of Helen Schaible International Sonnet Contest, “Traditional–Shakespearean” category, for “Foxholes,” 2019

  • Winner of First Annual Putney Mountain Poetry Contest for “In the Woods,” 2018

  • “Laureate’s Choice” winner of Marie W. Faust Sonnet Contest for “In the Woods,” 2017

  • Sixfold Poetry Contest, Fourth Place for “For My Father,” Autumn 2016

  • Longlisted for Fish Poetry Prize for poem “The Soddy,” 2016

  • Narrative Winter Story Contest, finalist for essay “In America, They Cut Your Head Off: Among the Hmong,” 2016

  • International Publication Prize winner for poems “Rewilding the Golf Course” & “Nineteenth-Century Canvasses,” Atlanta Review, 2016

  • Shortlisted for Gregory O’Donoghue Prize for poem “Perfect,” 2016

  • Finalist, Southwest Review Morton Marr Poetry Prize, 2015

  • Top Winner of Marie W. Faust Sonnet Contest for “Editor,” 2015

  • Shortlisted for Gregory O’Donoghue Prize for poem “The Merry Dancers,” 2015

  • Sixfold Poetry Contest, Third Place for “Tributes,” Winter 2015

  • Distinguished Lecturer Award, University of San Francisco, 1998

  • Rhodes Scholarship, 1982

  • Phi Beta Kappa, 1980

  • Presidential Scholar, 1976

  • National Merit Scholarship, 1976

  • Writing Fellowships: Vermont Studio Center, 2013; Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, 2004, 2001, 2000, 1999, 1998; Ucross Foundation, 1999; Dorland Mountain Arts Colony, 1998; Ragdale Foundation, 1998, 1997

 

WRITING

Poetry and Fiction

  • Bags and Tools (poems), Green Writers Press, 2022

  • The Del Ray Method (novel in progress)

  • Many poems, essays, short stories, and other writings; numerous public readings

  • Twice had stories featured on public radio program, Fiction in Shorts

Nonfiction

  • My Commute: Living in the American West (book in progress)

  • Numerous essays about writing and the teaching of writing

  • Essays and speeches about death and dying

Publications

  • “At the Library” (poem), broadside produced by PoemCity project, Montpelier, Vermont, April 2025

  • “At the Library” & “Trail Magic” (poems), broadsides produced by Write Action’s “Poems Around Town” project, Brattleboro, Vermont 2025

  • “The Connecticut” (poem), PoemCity Anthology 2024 (Montpelier, VT: Rootstock Publishing, 2024)

  • “An Encounter” (poem), Crosswinds Poetry Journal X, 2024

  • “Tricycle in the Woods” & “The Institute Woods” (poems), broadsides produced by Write Action’s “Poems Around Town” project, Brattleboro, Vermont 2024

  • “The Connecticut” (poem), broadside produced by PoemCity project, Montpelier, Vermont, April 2024

  • “Hot Cherry Pie” (poem), San Diego Poetry Annual: Greetings from Tent City, 2023–24

  • “In,” “A Gentle Nudge,” “Pulse” (poems), Sixfold, Summer 2023

  • “An Encounter” & “The Connecticut” (poems), broadsides produced by Write Action’s “Poems Around Town” project, Brattleboro, Vermont 2023

  • “An Encounter” (poem), Crosswinds Poetry Journal IX, 2023

  • “An Encounter” (poem), broadside produced by PoemCity project, Montpelier, Vermont, April 2023

  • “Outside of Town” (poem), Crosswinds Poetry Journal VIII, 2022

  • “Corona” (poem), San Diego Poetry Annual, 2022

  • “December Twilight” (poem), broadside produced by PoemCity project, Montpelier, Vermont, April 2022

  • “Dreaming of Socrates,” “Outside of Town,” “Hungry” (poems), Sandcutters 2021 (Arizona State Poetry Society anthology), 2021

  • “In the Beginning,” “Getting Cold” (poems), Poems in the Time of Covid (anthology of Write Action’s “Poems Around Town” project, Brattleboro), 2021

  • “The Soddy” (poem), Crosswinds Poetry Journal VI, 2021

  • Print Town: Brattleboro’s Legacy of Words, Brattleboro Words Project & Vermont Historical Society, 2020

  • “Editor” (poem), Poems from the Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest, 2015–2019, ed. Ted Haaland (2020)

  • “Words Fail,” “Raspberries,” “This Evening” (poems), broadsides produced by PoemCity project, Montpelier, Vermont, April 2020

  • “In the Woods” (poem), Sandcutters 2019 (Arizona State Poetry Society anthology), 2019

  • “Harbor Pilot” (poem), broadside produced by PoemCity project, Montpelier, Vermont, April 2019

  • “He’ll Be Remembered” (poem), in The Full Vermonty: Vermont in the Age of Trump, 2nd ed., ed. B. Mares & J. Danziger (Green Writers Press, 2019, in press)

  • “In the Woods” & “Living with Cold” (poems), broadsides produced by PoemCity project, Montpelier, Vermont, April 2018

  • “Home” (poem), broadside produced by PoemCity project, Montpelier, Vermont, April 2017

  • For My Father: “The Signalman’s Story,” “Alcova 1971,” “The Brace,” “Patience” (poems), Sixfold, Winter 2016

  • “Rewilding the Golf Course” & “Nineteenth-Century Canvasses” (poems), Atlanta Review 23:1, 2016

  • “Apprentice” (poem), Southern Poetry Review 54:2, 2016

  • “Hardware” (poem), broadside produced by PoemCity project, Montpelier, Vermont, April 2016

  • “Perfect” (poem), Southword, April/May 2016

  • “Play Me the Blues” (poem), Helen, October 2015

  • The Camp: “Desire,” “Khao-I-Dang,” “Lunch,” “The Voice of America,” “Meeting Mrs. Ping” (poems), Sixfold, Winter 2015

  • “Casino” (poem), Helen, May 2015

  • “The Merry Dancers” (poem), Southword, April 2015

  • “Contact” (poem), broadside produced by PoemCity project, Montpelier, Vermont, April 2015

  • Tributes: “On the Bus,” “Paging Doctor Bebop,” “Mr. McPhee’s Class,” “Attending,” “The Audacity of the Jaguar” (poems), Sixfold, Winter 2014

  • To a Fighter: “Invocations,” “From Dartmouth-Hitchcock,” “Chemo,” “Picture This,” “The Champ” (poems), Sixfold, Summer 2014

  • “Midwinter Rain” & “Of Making Books” (poems), broadsides produced by PoemCity project, Montpelier, Vermont, April 2014

  • “Reptiles,” “Of Making Books,” “The Importance of Vowels,” “Traffic Stop,” “Hot Cherry Pie” (poems), Sixfold, Winter 2013

  • “Waiting in Line at the Liquor Store,” “Centralia,” “Grief,” “Saint David’s Head,” “Jubilee Blues” (poems), Sixfold, Summer 2013

  • “Play Me the Blues” (poem), broadside produced by PoemCity project, Montpelier, Vermont, April 2013

  • “Astrology” (poem), broadside produced by PoemCity project, Montpelier, Vermont, April 2012

  • “Math Teacher” (poem), The Salon, Autumn 2011

  • “Carolyn’s Table” (poem), broadside produced by Poetry Alive! project, Montpelier, Vermont, April 2011

  • “His Tools” (poem), in Great American Catholic Eulogies, ed. Carol DeChant (Acta Publications, 2011)

  • “Asian singers bringing their unique style to S.F.” (preview of concert by Tuvan singers at the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco), Contra Costa Times, 1993.

  • “Oasis” (review of “Oasis,” an exhibition of paintings by California landscape artists at the Oakland Museum), Contra Costa Times, 1993.

  • “America through Foreign Eyes” (op-ed piece), Casper (Wyoming) Star-Tribune, 1988

Website

 

e-mail to Mike Fleming