Chad Simpson | Associate Professor of English
Before he received his M.F.A. in fiction writing from Southern Illinois University Carbondale in 2005, Chad Simpson was a juvenile probation officer. Before that, he worked at a homeless shelter and at a Boys & Girls Club. Before that, he repaired pallets at a plant that slaughtered pigs, and worked at a gas station, and at a big box store, where he was a security guard. He did most of these things in the Midwest, which has almost always been his home, and which plays a central role in the stories he writes.
These stories have appeared in several magazines and anthologies, including McSweeney’s Quarterly, Esquire, Sycamore Review, The Sun, You Must Be This Tall To Ride, and Online Writing: The Best of the First Ten Years. He has received awards from The Atlantic Monthly, the Illinois Arts Council, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, where he was a work-study scholar, and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, where he received a Tennessee Williams Scholarship. His collection of short stories, Tell Everyone I Said Hi, won the 2012 John Simmons Short Fiction Award from the University of Iowa Press, and he is currently working on a novel called Forgottonia.
CONTACT
Office: Old Main 203
Knox College
2 East South Street
Box 208
Galesburg, IL 61401
309.341.7408
csimpson@knox.edu