Robert Flanagan

Robert Flanagan's work includes MAGGOT, NAKED TO NAKED GOES, and CHAMPIONS. He was born and raised in Toledo, Ohio. He attended St. Ann's grade school and Central Catholic high school, worked a series of dead-end jobs that included dishwasher, janitor and night watchman, then joined the U.S. Marine Corps reserve, going through boot camp at Parris Island and later went on to school, taking his B.A. at the University of Toledo and his M.A. at the University of Chicago. Flanagan's seminal Marine Corps novel MAGGOT (Warner Books) went through twelve printings and sold a quarter of a million copies. His story collection NAKED TO NAKED GOES (Scribners) was named one of the best books of 1986 by the Cleveland Plain Dealer and was highly praised by writers Lee K. Abbott, Hugh Nissenson, Annabel Thomas and Austin Wright. Flanagan's stories have been included in such anthologies as The Norton Book of American Short Stories, Best Ohio Fiction, and Ohio Short Fiction. His story "Berzerk" was a runner-up (to Louise Erdrich) for the Nelson Algren Fiction Award and "Teller's Ticket" was made into an award winning short film. Also a playwright, Flanagan is the author of the full-length plays JUPUS REDEYE, and VOLLEYS, which have been produced by professional, college, and community theaters, including the American Theatre of Actors in NYC, the Cleveland Public Theatre, the Cincinnati Ensemble Theatre, and the Contemporary American Theatre Company in Columbus (CATCO). As a poet, Flanagan has published five chapbooks of poems in the U.S., Canada, and Ireland, and his work appears in a number of anthologies, most notably in the seventh edition of An Introduction to Poetry (Harper Collins) edited by X. J. Kennedy. In June, 2009, Bottom Dog Press published REPLY TO AN EVICTION NOTICE, Flanagan's selected poems, 1969-2009. A collection of his manuscripts and publications is available for reference at the University of Toledo's Ward M. Canaday Center of the William S. Carlson Library. Retired after serving 30 years as Director of Creative Writing at Ohio Wesleyan University, Flanagan now writes full time.