Virginia McLure has writing in BOMB, PANK, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Asymptote. Recent honors include a 2024 SAFTA Writer’s Coop residency and attending the 2023 Bread Loaf Writing Conference for poetry—and earning an alternate spot for French translation in the same year. A Goldwater Poetry Fellow in New York University’s MFA, mentored by the late Pulitzer winner Charles Simic, she was shortlisted for the 2016 Cosmonaut Avenue Poetry Contest (judged by Claudia Rankine) and a finalist in the 2014 No, Dear Chapbook Competition. She has won first-place prizes judged by former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove and the Washington Literary Society. Born in Manhattan, reared in Louisiana, she writes in Brooklyn.
POEMS:
“Our Story of Tobago”, "December Trees" in Cosmonauts Avenue, March 2016
“Three Red Canvases of Mine”, “Letter in Peels”, “The Real Self” in Black Sun Lit, April 2015
“Former Lover in a Statue”, “2 Or 3 Things I Know About Desire”, “Leaving Bed After a Long Weakness” in PANK, April 2015
“Soup a Hank Makes” in Bayou, University of New Orleans, May 2015
“Marcel Schwob’s Mimes– Mime VI and VII”, creative translation from the original French, in Asymptote, June 5, 2014
“Epithalamion”, a broadside collaboration with visual artist and poet, Carson Donnelly, in Parallax, Singing Saw Press, March 15, 2014
“Snake-Fascinated” in Meridian, University of Virginia, Winter 2014
“Parlor”, "Girlwife in July”, “Girlwife of Infrequent Lunch Meetings” in The Nashville Review, Vanderbilt University, Fall 2013
“Analysis of Text Message from One's Beloved" in Fuck Poems: An Exceptional Anthology, Lavender Ink Press November 2012
HONORS:
2016 Shortlist, Cosmonauts Avenue Poetry Competition for “December Trees”, “Our Story of Tobago”, MacArthur Genius grant recipient Claudia Rankine judging
2013 Goldwater Fellowship, New York University, Master of Fine Arts, Poetry, One of 5 yearly recipients, Full tuition remission and $12,000 stipend
2014 Finalist, No, Dear Chapbook Competition, three finalists chosen from hundreds of New York poets for chapbook Epithalamions
2008 Winner, Thomas Jefferson Society’s Free Speech Contest for Poetry, U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove judging
2007 Winner, Washington Literary and Debating Society’s Original Literary Competition
INTERVIEWS, ARTICLES, ETC:
"In Service of Sincerity: An Interview with Grant Souders", Los Angeles Review of Books, July 2018
“Interview with LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs and Morgan Parker”, BOMB, March 26, 2014, featured in “Poetry News” by Poetry Foundation March 27, 2014
“Max, Onetime East Village Fixture, Has Finally Reopened in Williamsburg”, Bedford+Bowery, in affiliation with New York Magazine, April 1, 2014
“Dirck the Norseman Debuts Eight Beers They Love to Drink (And You Will Too)”, Bedford+Bowery, in affiliation with New York Magazine, March 14, 2014
“This Former Momofuku Chef Wants His Pita Pop-Up to Go Permanent”, Bedford+Bowery, in affiliation with New York Magazine, November 13, 2013
“Beer Lovers, Meet Your New Best Bud: Dirck the Norseman”, Bedford+Bowery, in affiliation with New York Magazine, November 8, 2013
“A Few Culinary Tips from the Poet: 3 Questions with Mary Ruefle”, Washington Square Blog,