About

Douglas Haynes is an essayist, journalist, and poet whose work focuses on overlooked people and places. His writing has been featured in Orion, Longreads.com, Virginia Quarterly Review, Witness, Boston Review, North American Review, Poetry Ireland Review, and dozens of other publications. His many awards include a grant from the Fund for Environmental Journalism and a residency at the Blue Mountain Center.   

Douglas grew up in Iowa, graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Wisconsin Madison, and earned his MFA in creative writing at Southern Illinois University Carbondale under the tutelage of award-winning poet Rodney Jones. He also washed dishes for a living, worked on farms, and studied in Germany, Ireland, and Guatemala. After years of wandering, he found his way back to the American Midwest, where he is now an associate professor of English at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. A passionate advocate for international education and the documentary arts, he teaches nonfiction writing and leads a “Writing across Cultures” course in Nicaragua. He also regularly presents on Nicaraguan environmental and economic justice issues at colleges and community organizations and volunteers with the non-profit organization Compas de Nicaragua, which promotes cross-cultural exchange and sustainable community development through projects in Managua and Carazo, Nicaragua.

Douglas lives with his family in Madison, Wisconsin between a corn field, a lake, and an abandoned feed mill.