Ronald McFarland

Born: 1942

Ohio connection: Birth

Bellaire

Educator and poet, Ronald Earl McFarland, the son of Earl A. and Maxine (Stullenberger) McFarland, was born in Bellaire, Ohio, and grew up in Ohio and Florida. His education includes Brevard Junior College, A.A., 1962; Florida State University, B.A., 1963 M.A., 1965; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Ph.D., 1970.   McFarland has taught in Texas and Illinois, and in 1970 went to Idaho. In 1984, he was named Idaho’s first Writer-in-Residence. He teaches a variety of courses at the University of Idaho, including Hemingway seminars.  In 1985 and 1986 he returned to Ohio as an exchange professor at Ohio University in Athens. He has published numerous books; written over six hundred poems; edited many poetry and critical anthologies; contributed to over sixty professional journals; written more than thirty book reviews, thirty essays, and fifty short stories; and has contributed a number of entries for “Masterplots,” a reference resource series for librarians that is usually called the “Magill Books.” McFarland and his wife Elsie Watson reside in Idaho and have three children.

Awards

Grant from Association for the Humanities in Idaho, 1983; Idaho State Writer-in-Residence, 1984; Burlington-Northern Faculty Achievement Award, 1990; Dr. O. Marvin Lewis Prize for Fiction, 2000, for Different Words for Snow; Midnight Sun Poetry Chapbook contest winner, 2000, for The Mad Waitress Poems; “Best of the Best from the University Presses” citation from American Association of University Presses books committee, 2000, for Understanding James Welch; Pecan Grove Press award, 2001, for The Hemingway Poems; University of Idaho Award for Excellence in Research and Creative Achievement, 2002; John Gilgum Award for Poetry, Mochila Review, 2003.