Overview
As the editor and publisher of the award-winning Atelier26 Books, a contributing editor at Moss literary journal, and a university creative writing instructor, I work regularly with writers to refine, explore, and develop new work. And as an author myself with eight books behind me, I bring respect, rigor, and creativity to all my editing practices.
I've been writing for 20 years. I hold an MFA from the Pan European Creative Writing Program, have served on the Yaddo Literature Panel, and have been a reader for Zoetrope All-Story in San Francisco and Tin House in Portland. Books I've edited have gone on to receive prestigious award recognition, including Longlist honors for the PEN/Bingham Prize, and Finalist honors for the PEN/Hemingway Award. For more than a decade I've provided literary services to a broad range of clients around the country, from aspiring writers to large non-profits and NGOs. But nothing pleases me more than helping fellow writers who are engaged in the difficult business of giving meaningful expression to sensibility. I'm happy to proofread, copy edit, or provide comprehensive editing and consultation.
If you've got a literary project that could benefit from the attention of a skilled editorial eye, please get in touch. I'd love to hear from you.
I've been writing for 20 years. I hold an MFA from the Pan European Creative Writing Program, have served on the Yaddo Literature Panel, and have been a reader for Zoetrope All-Story in San Francisco and Tin House in Portland. Books I've edited have gone on to receive prestigious award recognition, including Longlist honors for the PEN/Bingham Prize, and Finalist honors for the PEN/Hemingway Award. For more than a decade I've provided literary services to a broad range of clients around the country, from aspiring writers to large non-profits and NGOs. But nothing pleases me more than helping fellow writers who are engaged in the difficult business of giving meaningful expression to sensibility. I'm happy to proofread, copy edit, or provide comprehensive editing and consultation.
If you've got a literary project that could benefit from the attention of a skilled editorial eye, please get in touch. I'd love to hear from you.
Services
Non-Fiction
Biographies & Memoirs
History
Nature
Writing & Publishing
Fiction
Classics
Literary Fiction
Plays & Screenplays
Languages
English (US)
Awards
- PEN/Hemingway Award Finalist (edited title)
- PEN/Bingham Prize Longlist (edited title)
- Balcones Fiction Prize (edited title)
- American Short Fiction Prize Semi-Finalist (author)
- American Booksellers Association Indie Next Book of the Year Finalist (author)
- American Booksellers Association #1 Indie Next Pick (author)
Certifications
- MFA in Creative Writing
Work experience
Portland State University
Jul, 2018 —
Present
Design and teach advanced creative writing courses, including the summer creative writing program in Vienna.
Moss Literary Journal
Apr, 2016 —
Present
Moss is a journal of writing from the Pacific Northwest, published three times a year online and once annually in print.
As a Contributing Editor for Moss, I solicit and edit new works of fiction and nonfiction; review unsolicited submissions; confer with editorial team on acquisitions and plans for future issues.
Atelier26 Books
Nov, 2011 —
Present
Atelier26 is a nationally recognized, award-winning publishing house specializing in contemporary and classic literature. Distributed throughout North America by Independent Publishers Group (IPG).
At Atelier26 I acquire new works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry; provide comprehensive editing in close collaboration with authors; proofread and copy edit; work with cover designer; manage editorial and publication calendar; manage print production schedules (galleys, proofs, and finals); write advertising copy, book jacket copy, and promotional copy; frequently update content on company website and write for social media channels; work with publicist to coordinate and execute marketing and promotion; confer with Advisory Board members; work with North American distributor; devise budgets; write grants; report to fiscal sponsor; track and dispense author royalties; read and manage submissions; negotiate and execute author contracts.
Tin House Literary Magazine
Oct, 2005 —
Oct, 2006
(about 1 year)
Self-employed
Oct, 2004 —
Present
Since 2004, I have provided editing and writing services to a broad range of clients around the country, from developing writers to rocket scientists, government contractors, large nonprofits, and NGOs. Organizational clients include:
o Raytheon
o The American Transplant Foundation
o The Gastro-Intestinal Research Foundation
o The Adaptive Sailing Foundation
o Invest for Kids Chicago
o The Environmental Investigation Agency
o Prosperity Now
Zoetrope All-Story
Mar, 2003 —
Sep, 2004
(over 1 year)
Self-employed
Sep, 2002 —
Present
Under the pen name M. Allen Cunningham I have published eight books (fiction & nonfiction) since 2004:
o Perpetua’s Kin, a novel (published Sept. 2018)
o Funny-Ass Thoreau, nonfiction (published 2016)
o Partisans, a novel (published March 2015)
o The Flickering Page, cultural criticism (published March 2014)
o The Honorable Obscurity Handbook, essays (published spring 2014)
o Date of Disappearance, short story collection (published April 2012)
o Lost Son, a novel (published spring 2007)
o The Green Age of Asher Witherow, a novel (published fall 2004)
Since 2002, my essays, articles, criticism, blog posts, and short stories have appeared in numerous print and online publications both national and regional, including regular contributions to The Oregonian Books section.
Portfolio
The author of the much-acclaimed #1 Indie Next Pick The Green Age of Asher Witherow returns with a masterful new work, epic in scope and yet intimate in its emotional power, about a family shaped as much by tumultuous world events as by each of its members' lo... read more
This text is the story of the true adventures of a peasant who rose from poverty to ultimate prosperity during Japan's golden age of the samurai. Now, the secrets that guided Hideyoshi are revealed.
A provocative casebook for our digital times, this book is designed to jumpstart an in-depth dialogue about the historical, cultural, civic, and scientific implications of a mass shift in reading methods. Each chapter is broken down in a visual way through bul... read more
Presenting an array of private conundrums, this assortment of ten distinctive stories trace the disappearance of things physical, spiritual, or poignantly unnamable from various characters' lives as they face, with humor or disquiet, the blessed and bewilderin... read more
Part consoling sourcebook, part cultural commentary, and part wry self-help manual, this gloriously uncynical handbook provides advice for creatives struggling in a career world awash in bottom-line thinking. With an appealing blend of sound counsel, good humo... read more
Through the lost work of the mysterious Geoffrey Peerson Leed, this novel describes a brutal war in an unspecified past as well as Leed's struggle to survive in paranoiac future riven by totalitarianism and social decay. The book is presented in nine parts acc... read more
Supplying a quarter of San Francisco’s coal, Nortonville of the 1860s-70s is a flourishing empire in small, seeming to promise unending prosperity and a better future. But beneath the vibrant work ethic of its Welch citizens lies an insidious network of supers... read more
Spanning western Europe from 1875 to 1917 and presenting a gothic historical Paris that subverts our old assumptions regarding the City of Light, M. Allen Cunningham’s new novel brings a brooding atmosphere and human complexity to an intimate and imaginative p... read more
This masterful and compassionate novel is split into a series of interlinked stories that tell the tale of Hannah Pearl. As Hannah’s memory of the present begins to fade, she increasingly inhabits the world of her ardent and frightened youth in war-torn France... read more
In this stunning collection, the author offers an exquisite array of poems at once sublime and playful, dedicated to the unearthly wonders of winged creatures. The book is a universal song of praise to the mysteries and intricacies of the animal world that sur... read more
This book presents fans of Henry David Thoreau with a marvelous display of his most underappreciated quality: his killer sense of humor. Amid the transcendental musings of his best known works and the nature descriptions in his voluminous journal, Thoreau was ... read more
Back from a tour of duty in Vietnam, Benny Finn strives to find his bearings amid the everyday life of 1973 New England. At a Benedictine Abbey in rural New Hampshire, Sister Clare, a young novice, confronts the day-to-day realities of a cloistered existence. ... read more
Through an extraordinarily powerful mix of poetry and prose, the author shares her experience as the daughter of Holocaust survivors. She recounts her false starts in raising the subject with her father (a survivor of Buchenwald concentration camp), his piecem... read more
Painting modern America in saturated colors, this collection of short stories explores the passions and compulsions at the core of our national identity: those qualities that propel us forward or hold us back; that make us strangers to ourselves and others eve... read more
