TANA WOJCZUK
EDUCATION
MFA Columbia University Nonfiction Writing, 2010
Department fellow, Teaching fellow
BA with honors Lewis & Clark College, English/Theater double major, 2001
Dean’s scholar, H.R. Warren scholarship for academic excellence in theater studies
AWARDS AND HONORS
Best American Science and Nature Writing 2023 notable for “Fallout” (Orion Winter 2022)
LAMBDA Literary Award Finalist for Lady Romeo: The Radical, Revolutionary Life of Charlotte Cushman, America’s First Celebrity (2020)
Marfield / DC Council for the Arts Award in Arts Writing, Finalist for Lady Romeo. (2020).
Publishing Triangle Award Finalist for Lady Romeo (2020)
USA Artist Fellowship nominee
Global Studies Fellow, New York University
Gulf Coast Nonfiction Prize finalist, judged by David Shields
Tin House Summer Writers Workshop fellow in poetry
Helene Wurlitzer residency
American Poets University Prize
BOOKS
Lady Romeo: The Radical, Revolutionary Life of Charlotte Cushman, America’s First Celebrity Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster 2020.
LAMBDA literary award finalist
Marfield Prize finalist
Publishing Triangle Award finalist.
Starred Kirkus review
Amazon Editor’s Pick
WNYC/Get Literary Most Anticipated Read
Excerpted in: Folger Shakespeare Library’sShakespeare and Beyond, Bookforum, and The Advocate.
ESSAYS AND CRITICISM
“Lithium Wars” Virginia Quarterly Review (forthcoming Spring, 2024)
“Fallout” Orion (Winter, 2022) *Best American Science and Nature Writing 2023 notable
“A Mother’s Reflections on Her Child’s Joy and Gender” The New Yorker June 22, 2022
“Back Draft” interview with Rebecca Donner, author of All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days” (Winner of the National Book Critics Circle for Biography) Guernica 2022
CRISPR and the Future of Gene Editing in Mental Illness Slate Sept. 21, 2021
“What to Make of Childhood Fears in an Anxious Age” The New Yorker July 8, 2021
“Guilt, Humor and Nostalgia of the Holidays in Eight Days” The New Yorker Dec 9, 2020
“Charlotte Cushman Broke Barriers on Her Way to Becoming the A-List Actress of the 1800s” Smithsonian Magazine June 30, 2020.
- Sam Sifton recommends pairing this essay with a perfect peach
“How a Pandemic Shaped Shakespeare’s King Lear” Chicago Review of Books July 8, 2020
“How Shakespeare Paperbacks Made Me Want to Be a Writer” The New York Times Magazine June 2, 2020
“A Mother Turns Her Quarantine Yard Into An Enchanted Garden” The New Yorker May 8, 2020
Every Atom #133 , Walt Whitman Project North American Review Oct 10, 2019
“They Weep at My Doorstep” Tin House Issue 79, Spring 2019
“A Car-Free New York?” New York Times Opinion April 8, 2019
“You Need to Read Haruki Murakami’s New Stories” Vice, May 2017
“Way of the Gun” Gulf Coast 2017 Finalist, Gulf Coast Nonfiction Prize, 2016 selected by David Shields
“Strangers in the Dark: interview With John Guare” Guernica, 2017
“God’s Body”Apogee, Issue 7
“The Vanity of Crowds: Shakespeare and Democracy” Guernica, Aug 2016
“Shakespeare: Sex, Class, Comedy” Guernica, June 2016
“The Riddle of Trevor Nunn’s ‘Pericles’” Guernica March 2016
“Shakespeare on the Frontier” Guernica, Feb 2016
“Hillary Clinton as Lady Macbeth” Guernica, Jan 2016
“Chiasmus” The Rumpus, Aug, 2015
“Gone Girl, Bluebeard and the Meaning of Marriage” Guernica Oct 2014
“Making a Hard Choice for a Soft Landing” The New York Times, Modern Love, May 2013
“Reconsideration: Shakespeare’s Coriolanus” The Believer, Sept, 2013
“Man Without Armor: an interview with Alan Sillitoe” Tin House 2013
“Mitt Romney as Shakespeare’s Coriolanus” Guernica, Nov, 2012
“Death Comes as the End: The Murder of Agatha Christie” Narrative, Spring 2012
“Walt Whitman as Editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle” Tin House, Sept 2012
“Drying in the Wilderness: How Unshakeable Myths About the West Lead to California’s Current Environmental Crisis” The Believer May 2012 Translated into French at Le Believer Audiobook, produced by The Believer and McSweeneys
“Fukushima’s Nuclear Disaster Foretold in 1976” Guernica, Mar, 2012
Street Art and the New Bohemian: interview with Eric Drooker and Molly Crabapple Guernica 2012
What Money Can’t Buy: interview with Michael Sandel Guernica 2012
“The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics” The Rumpus August 2011
“A Modern Marvel: Werner Herzog’s Cave of Forgotten Dreams” Bomb Magazine 2011
“Lebanon by Samuel Maoz” winner Venice Film Festival Golden Lion Award Bomb Magazine 2011
“Wrestling With Truth: The Future of Documentary Film” Bomb Magazine 2011
Restrepo: interview with Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger winners of the 2010 Sundance Grand Jury Prize Bomb Magazine 2011
“Charlotte Cushman: A Very Dangerous Young Man,” Lapham’s Quarterly Feb, 2011
Certified Copy: interview with Juliette Binoche Bomb Magazine 2011
“The Gentleman Interrogator” Tin House Issue 41, 2009 Tin House selection for New York Public Library / Council for Literary Magazines and Presses Emerging Writers series “Periodically Speaking”
“Christian Mungiu’s Tales from the Golden Age” Bomb Magazine 2010
“Editor’s Choice: Treeless Mountain by So Yong Kim” Bomb Magazine Issue 108, 2009
“Lucretia Martel’s The Headless Woman” Bomb Magazine 2009
“Clay Enos’ The Watchmen” Bomb Magazine 2009
No One Knows About Persian Cats: Interview with Bahman Ghobadi Bomb Magazine 2009
Interview with Jem Cohen (audio) Bomb Magazine 2009
Wendy and Lucy: interview with John Raymond Bomb Magazine 2009
Sin Nombre: podcast interview Cary Fukunaga, Best Director, Best Cinematographer: Sundance Film Festival, Bomb Magazine 2009
“Muse Film Festival: MC Escher’s Infinite Vision” Bomb Magazine 2009
Interview with Robert Persons, director of General Orders No. 9 Bomb Magazine 2009
“Top Honors at the Sundance Film Festival” Bomb Magazine 2009
“Stay the Same, Never Change: Mumblecore Cinema and the Essay Film” Bomb Magazine 2009
“Taiso Yoshitoshi: The Great Resurrection” Tin House, Issue 29, 2006
“J.M. Barrie: The Man Who Couldn’t Grow Up,” Tin House Issue 23, 2005
“Alan Sillitoe: The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner” Tin House, Issue 21, 2004
“Why Young Voters Supported Dean” New York Times Opinion Feb 24, 2004
TEACHING
Clinical Associate Professor, New York University Expository Writing Program 2017-Present
Classes Taught
- Writing and Researching the Secret History (designed)
- Advanced Writing the Essay: The World Through Art, Tisch School of the Arts
- Writing the Essay: Art and the World, Tisch School of the Arts
- Writing the Essay, Tandon School of Engineering
- Advanced College Essay
- Writing the Essay, College of Arts and Sciences
Departmental Service
- Student Research Symposium Committee 2023
- Library Ad-Hoc Committee 2022-2023
- Curriculum Committee 2022
- Steering Committee 2021, alternate, 2022
- Fulbright Student Program Mentor, Office of Global Awards 2022
- Judge, College of Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Research Conference 2022
- Guest speaker, “Editors panel” EWP event series 2022
- Guest speaker, “How the Heck Did You Publish While…” EWP event series 2022
- Guest presenter, Tandon School of Engineering Orientation, “Building the Essay” Spring 2022
- Mercer Street, Reader 2021, 2022
- Student Workshop/Event “Bates Must Play: using archival research in student writing” with NYU Undergraduate Research Archivist Janet Bunde 2021
- Steering Committee, Spring, 2020
- Guest presenter, Faculty Development Workshop “Occasioning the Essay,” Spring, 2020
- Editorial Board, EWP Digital Reader 2019- 2020
Course Director, Lecturer, Columbia University Undergraduate Writing Program 2012-2017
Classes Taught
- Writing: Readings in American Studies (co-designed)
- Writing: Law and Justice (designed)
- University Writing, College of Arts and Sciences
Departmental Service
- “Conferencing with students” faculty workshop
- Fall 2016
- “Presence on the Page” event for students with Pulitzer-prize winning critic Margo Jefferson
- Spring, 2016
- “Summative and Formative Assessment” guest lecturer, Columbia University, Teaching Writing Theory and Practice, March, 2016
- “Life After the MFA” Panelist, Columbia University MFA Writing Program, March, 2016
- “How to Get Your Work Published” Panelist, Columbia University Muslim Students Association April, 2013
- Faculty development workshops, co-planned, developed every semester
- Fall 2013 – Spring, 2016
- “Teaching Critics and Criticism” workshop for faculty, Spring, 2015
- Mentor: graduate student instructors 2012-2017
- “Workshopping moves” workshop for faculty 2014
- “Life After the MFA,” panelist, Columbia University MFA Writing Program, March, 2014
- “Teaching Context” guest lecturer, Columbia University, Teaching Writing Theory and Practice ENG36913 taught by Dr. Susan Mendelsohn, Writing Center Director, October, 2013
- “Making Your Essay Your Own” event for students with Phillip Lopate, 2013
- “Citizen Critics” faculty workshop, 013
- “Transferrable Research Methods” Guest Lecturer, Columbia University, Teaching Writing Theory and Practice ENG36913 taught by Dr. Nicole Wallack, Director of Undergraduate Writing November, 2010
Guest Creative Writing Instructor, Lighthouse Writers Workshop 2021
- Proposal Writing for Nonfiction Writers
- Proposal Writing for Memoirists
Adjunct Instructor, Yeshiva University Undergraduate Writing Program 2010-2011
Graduate Student Teacher, Columbia University Undergraduate Writing Program 2007-2010
Creative Writing Instructor, Columbia University Narrative Medicine Department 2009-2010
- Short Story Writing for Medical Students
Creative Writing Instructor Columbia University Columbia Artist/Teachers Program 2009
- “Writing the Detective Story”
Creative Writing Instructor, Columbia University Summer Writing Program for high school students 2008, 2009
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
“Material Culture and Archival Research” Conference on College Composition and Communication 2022
“The Myth of the Mad Artist and Other Writing Metaphors” Conference on College Composition and Communication, Portland, OR. Mar 2017
“Disordered Minds: Mental Health as Mobility,” Thomas R. Watson Conference, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY October, 2016
“Teaching Doubt: Beginning Research With an Open Mind,” Conference on College Composition and Communication, Indianapolis, IN March, 2014
LECTURES AND BOOK TALKS
HowlRound podcast 2022
Shakespeare Unlimited Folger Shakespeare Library podcast 2020
All of It With Allison Stewart, WNYC/NPR 2020
Houghton Theater Library, Harvard University 2020
Mt. Auburn Cemetery 2020
Rummaging in the Attic Jezebel 2020
Insight CapRadio Sacramento 2020
Sweet Tea Shakespeare podcast 2020
The Queer Creative podcast 2020
HerStory podcast 2020
Boulder Bookstore 2020
Tattered Cover Bookstore 2020
Terrace Books 2020
Aria Code WNYC/ NPR “Verdi’s Lady Macbeth: Sleepwalk With Me With Anna Netrebko” (November 2019)
EDITORIAL WORK
Editor, Guernica, A Magazine of Art and Politics 2011-Present
Editor, MYOO Digital Journal of Environmental Writing 2011-2012
Reviewer, Publishers Weekly 2011-2013
Editorial Board, Columbia Journal
2008-2009
Agent’s Associate, International Creative Management 2006-2008
Reader, Tin House Magazine 2001-2005
Development Director, Teatro Milagro 2003-2004
- National Endowment for the Humanities Grant, “Latino/Jewish Playwrights Festival”
Dramaturg, Coho Theater Productions 2002
Tana Wojczuk 