I write stories, essays, and novels. Here are some updates:

The Iowa Review features my story "Cats As Tuna" on its website, as part of the spring 2009 issue. Click here to see "The Boy with the Black Nails," in Waccamaw's spring 2009 issue.

've just finished a memoir about rehabbing a former frat house with my wife. Go to houselove.org for more about Renovation: A Love Story. Also check out Jan./Feb/ '08 issue of This Old House magazine to see more about the adventure.

In spring '08 I was on leave to direct a pilot educational project in Micronesia.  Supported by a grant from the National Parks Service, "The Marshall Islands Story Project" helped train Marshallese students to preseve the rich oral culture of their island nation. For more, go to mistories.org.

My jazz band, Jazz Caravan, just released a CD. Check it out at jazzvan.com.

For my blog from Micronesia and other places, go to my main website ronaldtanner.com.

Education
    Ph.D., Literature, with a concentration in Creative Writing, 
                                      University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
    M.F.A., Creative Writing, University of Iowa
    B.A., English, with Honors in Creative Writing, 
                                      University of North Carolina?Chapel Hill

Employment
   Chair, Writing Department, Loyola College, 2005-2008
   Chair, Communication Department, Loyola College, 2002 -2005        
   Chair, Writing & Media Department, Loyola College, 1999-2002
   Professor, Loyola College, 2004-
   Associate Professor, Loyola College, 1996-2003
   Assistant Professor, Loyola College, 1991-1996
   Instructor, Virginia Commonwealth University, 1989-91

Awards and Grants (partial list)
    2009 Loyola Summer Research Grant
    2008 Story South award for best fiction of the year, Million Writers Award series,  
    2008 Best of the Web award, Dzanc Books
    2008 National Park Service grant, preservation of Marshall Islands culture
    2007 Towson Prize for Literature
    2007 Jack Dyer Award, best short story, national competition, Crab Orchard Review  
    2006 Fellow, Ledig House for international writers  
    2006 Fellow, Visiting Writer, Lyon College
    2006 Loyola Sabbatical
    2005 Walter E. Dakin Fellow, Sewanee Writers’ Conference
    2005 Loyola Summer Research Grant    
    2004 Fellow, Norton Island Residency Program for Artists and Writers
    2003 Tennesee Williams Scholar, Sewanee Writers Conference
    2003 Loyola Summer Research  Grant
    2002 Winner, G.S. Sharat Chandra Fiction Prize, best unpublished short story collection,  BkMk Press national competition
    2001 Finalist, national Flannery O'Connor story collection competition, U. of Georgia Press
    2001 Semi-finalist, University of Iowa Press national short story collection competition
    2000 "Notable Essay of the Year" in Best American Essays 2000.
    2000 Loyola Summer Research Grant
    1999 Pirate's Alley Faulkner Society Gold Medal for short fiction
    1999 Loyola Sabbatical
    1998 Charles Angoff Award for best fiction in The Literary Review in the 1997-98 
    1997 Maryland State Arts Council Award for work in fiction
    1996 first place, New Letters Literary Award in short fiction, national competition
    1996 Nye Award for best article published in the Journal of Popular Culture in 1995
    1993 Loyola Summer Research Grant
    1991 The Best of the West selection in short fiction
    1990 Finalist, Associated Writing Programs competition for short fiction collection
    1989-90 national Pushcart Prize for short fiction
    1988?89  University of Wisconsin Dissertation Fellowship
    1989 Nominee, G.E. Younger Writer's Award 
    1988?89 James A. Michener Postgraduate Writing Fellowship, Awarded by Iowa Writers' Workshop

Book Publication
A Bed of Nails. BkMk Press (University of Missouri-Kansas City, 2003) second edition 2006

Short Stories Published
   "Cats As Tuna." The Iowa Review. Spring 2009. Vol 29.1: 53-55. 
   "The Yo Ho Affair." Connecticut Review. Spring 2009:
   "The Boy with Black Nails." Waccamaw. Spring 2009. Vol 3.
   "My Small Murders."  Best of the Web. Dzanc Books (2008).
   "My Small Murders." Wheelhouse Magazine, vol. 3, summer 2007
   "My Small Murders." Urbanite. April 2007.    
   "Rescue." West Branch.  Vol 58: 19-36.   
   "Day Off." Short Story. Vol. 10.1: 74-87.
   "Kiss Me, Stranger." West Branch . Vol. 53: 20-32.
   "Boom, Like That." Greensboro Reivew. Vol. 71: 114-126.
   "The Day His Wife's Face Froze." The Massachusetts Review  Autumn 2001: 319-22.
   "Telephone."  Chariton Review. 27.1: 36-39.
    “Wilderness" Descant 40. (Fall 2001): 7-18.
    "Tsumetai Kaze" Carolina Quarterly 53.1: 27-40.
    "Forty." ACM 35: 166-180.
    "You're A Sergeant." Mid-American Review. XX.1-2: 214-223.
    "Loaves and Fishes." Writers Forum 25 (Fall 1999): 61-69.
    "Handful of Nails." The Literary Review 41.4 (1998): 453-64.
    "Red Shoes." Speak (Sept./Oct. 1998): 58-65.
    "Red Shoes."  The Iowa Review  27.3 (winter 1997): 21-30.
    "A Bed of Nails."  New Letters 63.2 (1996): 85-92.
    "A Bed of Nails." New Letters on the Air (syndicated radio).
    "High Heat for Cotton." The Quarterly 26 (1994): 114-122.
    "Still Life." Turnstile IV.2 (winter 1994): 12-33.
    "Talented Hands." Quarry West 31 (summer 1993): 14-22
    "The Ape in Me." Michigan Quarterly Review XXXII.2: 253-262
    "Save the Poor Dumb Creatures."  Turnstile IV.1 (1993): 21-30.
    "Unbendable Arm." Chariton Review 18.1 (spring 1992): 25-32.
    "Jackpot." The Best of the West 4. Norton & Co., 1991: 183-196.
    "Do You Hear Me?" ACM 22 (1990): 179-188.
    "The Lesson." The Quarterly 14 (summer 1990): 69-76.
    "Catch a Falling Star." North Atlantic Review 1990: 72-80.
    "The Deep End." Crosscurrents (summer 1990): 94-106.
    "Jackpot." The Quarterly 13 (spring 1990): 61-74.
    "Homecoming." The Florida Review 16.2-3 (fall 1989): 104-115.
    "Garbage." Pushcart Prize XIV. Pushcart Press, 1989: 343-349.
    "Garbage." The Iowa Review 18.2 (fall 1988): 85 91.
    "Door to Door." Indiana Review 11.3 (spring 1988): 1 13.
    "The Hart House." American Fiction 88. Wesley Press, 1988.
    "A Model Family." Bungakukai 12 (1988): 264 73. [Japan]
    "Catch a Falling Star." LINQ 16.1 (1988): 31 37. [Australia]
    "Repairs." Carolina Quarterly 40.1 (fall 1987): 88 98.
    "The Last Draft." Washington Review 12.5 (1987): 18 19.
    "The Last Draft." Matrix 1.5 (1987): 5 20. [New Zealand]
    "Head Over Heels." The Sound of Writing. NATIONAL PUBLIC  RADIO (1987).
    "Head Over Heels." The St. Petersburg Times 21 Feb. 1987: 1D.
    "Head Over Heels." The Village Advocate 12 Oct. 1986: 7 8.
    "Head Over Heels." Kansas City Star Magazine 9-14-86: 14 17.
    "Dumb Luck." Mid-American Review 6.2 (1986): 21 30.
    "A Model Family." 20 Under 30: Best Stories by America's NewYoung Writers.
 N.Y.: Scribners, 1986: 63 72.
    "Drive My Car." Story Quarterly 18 (1984): 1 7.
    "Head Over Heels." Spectrum 26.1 2 (1984).
    "A Model Family." Indiana Review 6.3 (summer 1983): 51 58.
    "Teamwork." The New Orleans Review 10.4 (winter 1983): 37 41.

Other Publications: literary essays 
    "Kissing." The Missouri Review. Forthcoming. 
    "Nana Gragg." The Southern Humanities Review. Forthcoming.
    "RIP, the Baltimore Lightman." Smile, You're in Baltimore, Hon. Spring 2009: 43-44.
    "Preservation." Guernica. December 2009.
    "From Our House to Animal House." This Old House. January/February 2008.    
    "Fashionable Upstarts and the Etiquette of Cool." Willow  Springs vol 46 (summer 2000)
    "My Small Murders." Ascent vol. 23.4 (Spring 1999): 44-56.
    "Southern Comforts." Crazyhorse. vol. 53: 88-102.
    "Letter Perfect."  Minutes From the Lead Pencil Club. Ed. BillHenderson. 
 New York: Pushcart Press, 1996: 72-83.
    "Flashlight."  Cimarron Review. Vol 102 (January 1993): 98-106.

Academic Essays & Articles:
    "Terrible Lizard! The Dinosaur as Plaything." The Journal of American Culture vol. 23: 53-64.
    "Subjecting Schoolchildren to the Hard Sell." Reprinted in Bay City Times, Tues., 11-30-99; The Herald & News, Tues., 11-25-99; The Recorder, Sunday, 11-28-99; The Erie Morning News, Thurs., 12-9-99; St. Petersburg Times, Sat., 12-4-99; The Sunday Eagle Times, Sun., 11-28, 99; The Watertown Daily News, Sun., 11-28-99; The Daily  Messenger, Wed., 12-1-99; The Edmonton Journal, Fri., 11-26-99.
    "Subjecting Schoolchildren to the Hard Sell." Baltimore Sun, Sunday, November 21, 1999: 6c.
    "Rules and Reality in American Fiction." AWP Chronicle (Summer 1997) 29.6: 1, 7, 8, 9.
    "Mr. Atomic, Mr. Mercury, and Chime Trooper: Japan's Answer to the American Dream." Japanese Popular Culture. Ed. John Lent.  New York: Westview Press, 1995: 79-102.
    "Toy Robots in America 1955-1975: How Japan Really Won the War."  The Journal of Popular Culture 28.3 (winter 1994): 125-154.
    "The Rain of Nowness--Present-Tense Fiction in America." Chelsea. Vol 54 (summer/fall 1993): 66-87.
    "What Japan's Friendly Robots Told Our Kids." The Baltimore Sun.Vol 310.221: 13A. (January 29, 1992)
    "Humor in Everyman and the Middle English Morality Play." Philological Quarterly (fall 1991): 149-162.
    "Defense is the Best Offense When Offenses Abound or How to be an Artist in the Anthill of Academe." AWP Chronicle 23.5: 1, 8-12.
   "Self involving Reading in a High Tech Culture." ERIC, 1988.  ED 294 153.
    "Teaching Freshmen Non Readers, the A literate Majority."   ERIC, 1987. ED 280 076.
    "A Teacher's Introductory Glossary of Key Terms and Key People in Reading Theory and Pedagogy." Kansas English 72.2 (1987): 21 33. 

Readings & Lectures:    
    Cyclops Books, Baltimore, MD: June 17, 09.
    Kaleidoscope, Baltimore, MD: October 10, 08.
    Towson University, Towson, MD: November 15, 07
    Load of Fun Gallery, Baltimore, MD:  August 17, 07   
    Montgomery County Community College, MD: Nov. 7, 06
    SAGE, Rockville, MD, April 14, 06
    Hudson Wine Merchants Reading Series, Hudson, NY, April 17, 06
    Northeast Arkansas College, Blytheville, AK, March 18, 06   
    Lyon College, Batesville, AK, March 11, 06
    Lyon College, Batesville, AK, Feb. 7, 06
    Sewanee Writers' Conference, July 15, 06
    Cafe Muse Reading Series,Washington, D.C., Nov. 15, 05
    Montgomery County Community College, MD: Nov. 7, 05
    Newtonville Books, Newton, MA, July 14, 05
    Malaprop's Books, Asheville, N.C., May 15, 05
    Readers’ Books, Sonoma, CA:, May 17, 04
    Cooperfield’s Books, Sebastapol, CA:, May 15, 04 
    Enoch Pratt Library, Baltimore, MD. April 04
    Loyola College, Academic Affairs & Diversity, April 04
    Borders Books, Winston Salem, March 25, 04
    Borders Books, Greensboro, N.C., March 26, 04
    Quail Ridge Books, Raleigh, N.C., March 27, 04
    University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, March 18, 04
    Borders Books,  Normal, IL, March 17, 04
    Illinois Wesleyan University, March 17, 04
    Barbara’s Books, Chicago, IL, March 16, 04
    Canterbury Books, Madison, WI, March 15, 04
    Borders Books, Scottsdale, AZ, January 12, 04
    Readers’ Oasis, Tucson, AZ, January 10, 04

Papers & Presentations:
    Childish Deviance and the Demise of the Classic American Monster." national conference on American and Popular Culture, Toronto, March 2002.
    "The Use of Theory in Contemporary American Fiction." national  Associated Writing
Programs conference, Pittsburgh, March 1995.
    "Toy Robots in America: How Japan Really Won the War." national convention of The Popular Culture Association, March 1992 
    “Creative Writers in the Academy: Selling Romance?" 1989 midwest Modern Language
Association conference.
    "Interpretive Diversity and the A literate Reader: Reading Communities in the Classroom." 1989 National Council of Teachers of English convention.
   "Self involving Reading in a High Tech Culture." 1987 Midwest Writing Centers conference.
   "Teaching Freshmen Non Readers, the A literate Majority." 1987 national Conference on
College Composition and  Communication.