Creative Writing MFA Alum Max McDonough Wins St. Lawrence Book Award with Debut Poetry Collection
Alum Max McDonough (MFA ’17) recently won the St. Lawrence Book Award with his debut poetry collection, Python with a Dog Inside It (Black Lawrence Press). Congratulations, Max!
Set on the marshlands of working-class southern New Jersey, Python with a Dog Inside It traces the tangled story of two gay brothers as they endeavor to survive their mother’s erratic and escalating violence. This is not only a story of survival, but one of redemption. By proclaiming the events of a particular, harrowing childhood, McDonough invents a future beyond it, one marked by radical openness, hope’s flame brighter for the darkness.
Max’s poetry has been published in AGNI, Ecotone, Northwest Review, Best New Poets, The Adroit Journal, Alaska Quarterly Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, and elsewhere, including a feature in T Magazine, guest edited by Danez Smith, in which Jim Parsons performed his poem on video alongside other poets and cast members of The Boys in the Band. His prose has been nominated for a James Beard Award, and has appeared in The New York Times, Food52, On the Seawall, and Flipboard’s ‘10 for Today,’ among others. Max received his BA from the University of Virginia. He lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
For more information, please visit Max’s website.