
Cara Blue Adams, MFA
Associate Professor and Director of Poetry-in-the-Round
Department of English
(973) 761-5151
Email
Fahy Hall
Room 374
Cara Blue Adams, MFA
Associate Professor and Director of Poetry-in-the-Round
Department of English
My research focuses primarily on creative writing, with an emphasis on fiction. Secondary specializations include creative nonfiction and literary editing and publishing, along with contemporary literature. My stories regularly appear in magazines such as Granta, The Kenyon Review, American Short Fiction, Story, and Epoch, and my creative nonfiction in magazines like The Believer. My stories and essays are anthologized in books, too, including The Little Magazine in Contemporary America (University of Chicago Press, 2015).
Recent honors include a 2018 Center for Fiction NYC Emerging Writers Fellowship and 2017 New York-Quebec Artist Residency Exchange Grant, funded by the New York State Council on the Arts. During that time, I served as a visiting scholar at Concordia University in Montréal, Canada, in the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture. In 2016, I was profiled in Poets & Writers for my work on the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference admissions board. In 2020, I was awarded the Meringoff Prize in Fiction, an honor bestowed by the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers, and will give a reading at the conference meeting at Yale University in 2021.
Before joining Seton Hall, my stories were honored with a number of prizes and support from institutions like The Kenyon Review, The Missouri Review, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and the Sewanee Writers' Conference, and I spent five years on the editorial staff of The Southern Review, culminating in the co-editorship. My courses include creative writing workshops and craft courses, along with contemporary literature. Drawing upon my editorial background, I also designed and teach a course on literary editing and publishing.
I recently completed a story collection, entitled You Never Get It Back, which was named a finalist for the 2020 Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction at Sarabande Books, and am presently completing a novel, Removal, set in Boston shortly after 9/11 and focused on immigration law, in which I have a professional background, and a book-length lyric essay, Weather, about climate change.
Since 2017, I have directed Poetry-in-the-Round, our campus reading series, which brings a diverse range of acclaimed writers and literary professionals to campus each year.
Education
- M.F.A., University of Arizona
- B.A., Smith College
Scholarship
Anthologized Stories and Essays
- "Charity." The Center for Fiction Emerging Writers Fellows: An Anthology. The Center for Fiction, 2018.
- “Decent Company Between the Covers.” The Little Magazine in Contemporary America. Ed. Ian Morris and Joanne Diaz. University of Chicago Press, 2015.
Stories
- "At the Gates." The Mississippi Review. Forthcoming.
- "You Never Get It Back." Alaska Quarterly Review. Forthcoming.
- "Never Gotten, Never Had." Epoch. Forthcoming.
- "Desert Light." Literary Matters. Forthcoming.
- "The Coast of New Hampshire." Copper Nickel 31 (Fall 2020): 83-86.
- "The Birdcage." Story 8 (Summer 2020): 48-62.
- "The Foothills of Tucson." American Short Fiction 22:69 (Summer 2019): 57-74.
- "The Most Common State of Matter." Granta (28 Feb. 2019).
- "Paper." Gulf Coast 30:2 (Summer/Fall 2019): 53-54.
- "Above the Ground." West Branch 87 (Spring/Summer 2018).
- "Palacio de los Pollos." Epoch 67:2 (Spring 2018): 163-168.
- "Said Yes." Kenyon Review Online (January/February 2017).
Essays and Literary Interviews
- "Experimental Fiction Panel at the End of the World." The Believer. (27 Mar. 2020).
- "On Technology and Fiction: Solitude and the Constructed Self." Boulevard (October 2016): 144-147.
- "An Interview with Jason Ockert." StorySouth (Spring 2016). With co-interviewer
Daniel Cross Turner.
Accomplishments
Grants, Fellowships, and Visiting Appointments
- The Center for Fiction Emerging Writers Fellow, The Center for Fiction, Brooklyn, New York, 2018-19.
- New York-Quebec Artist Exchange Grant funded by the New York State Council on the Arts, Summer 2017.
- Visiting Scholar, Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture, Concordia University, Montréal, Canada, Summer 2017.
Other Awards and Honors
- Meringoff Fiction Prize, awarded for "Desert Light," 2020.
- Sarabande Books Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction finalist, 2020.
- The Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison fellowship finalist, 2020.
- Seton Hall University Research Council Grant, 2020.
- Pushcart Prize nominee, 2019.
- The Lewinson Center for the Study of Labor, Inequality, and Social Justice faculty fellow, 2019.
- Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts fiction residency, 2018.
- Pushcart Prize nominee, 2018.
- Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts fiction residency, 2017. (declined)
- Can Serrat fiction residency, 2017. (declined)
- Olive B. O’Connor Fellowship in Creative Writing at Colgate University finalist, 2016.
- Disquiet International Literary Prize semifinalist, 2016.
Invited Readings
- H.I.P. Lit, Elsewhere, Brooklyn, NY, 2019.
- An Evening with the 2018 NYC Center for Fiction Emerging Writers Fellows, The Center for Fiction, Brooklyn, NY, 2019.
- Local Knowledge Reading Series, Manhattan, NY, 2019.
- An Evening with the 2018 NYC Center for Fiction Emerging Writers Fellows, MacDowell Colony Event Space, Manhattan, NY, 2018.
- Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Society and Culture, Concordia University, Montréal, Québec, Canada, 2017.
- Hybrid Heaven, Montréal, Québec, Canada, 2017.
- Resonance Reading Series, Montréal, Québec, Canada, 2017.
- Lafayette College, Department of English, Easton, PA, 2016.
- Cuttyhunk Island Writers’ Residency Reading, Cuttyhunk, MA, 2016.
- Poetry-in-the-Round, Seton Hall University, South Orange, MA, 2015.
Media
- Contributor to Before and After the Book Deal by Courtney Maum (Catapult, 2020).
- "The Aha! Moment: Cara Blue Adams of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference" by Michael Bourne, Poets & Writers, March/April 2016.
- "Residents of Fishers Island Seek Artists for Neighbors" by Emily J. Weitz, New York Times, October 29, 2015.
- "Things American: Writers Remember James Salter." American Short Fiction online, July 22, 2015.
- "Practical Art: On Teaching the Business of Creative Writing" by Nick Ripatrazone, The Millions, August 20, 2014.