Richard Lee Zuras

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ISSUE 2
December 2001

MILKWOOD REVIEW

Richard Lee Zuras
Prose Poem: "First Christmas Without My Father

Born in 1967 in Arlington, Virginia, RICHARD LEE ZURAS studied drama at Washington-Lee High School where Sandra Bullock, Warren Beatty and Shirley MacLaine once graced the halls. He went on to study writing and literature at George Mason University earning his BA in 1990. He spent the early '90s working and attending Colorado State, Northern Colorado, and the University of Colorado at Boulder. After working under the likes of Ron Sukenick, Lucia Berlin and David Milofsky, he headed south to teach and to earn his MFA degree. He graduated in 1998 from McNeese State University with his MA and MFA degrees, having held the McNeese Graduate Fellowship during his last year. These three years under the auspices of Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Olen Butler and two-time Iowa Poetry Prize winner John Wood propelled his writing and his spirit. He married his long-time girlfriend, Kelly, and landed at the University of North Dakota to pursue his Ph.D. He spent three years working under Jay Meek and James Robison and now teaches Creative Writing and Literature at the University of Maine at Presque Isle.

Richard Lee Zuras' poetry and fiction has been or is to be published in South Dakota Review, Xavier Review, Jabberwock Review, Passages North, Futures Poetry Magazine, The Review, Rock Springs Review, and Yemassee. In the spring of 2001 he received a Yemassee Fiction Award for his story "Physician Referral, Karen Speaking." He has recently completed a collection of short stories entitled Your Father and Mine which he is marketing, and is at work on a novel. He writes his poetry during breaks from caring for he and Kelly's baby boy, Everett. He has also co-edited issues of Sniper Logic, North Country, and Emerging Voices Online.