Ira Sukrungruang is the author of three nonfiction books Buddha’s Dog & other Meditations, Southside Buddhist and Talk Thai: The Adventures of Buddhist Boy, the short story collection The Melting Season and the poetry collection In Thailand It Is Night. He is the recipient of the 2015 American Book Award, New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Nonfiction Literature, an Arts and Letters Fellowship and the Emerging Writer Fellowship. His work has appeared in many literary journals, including Post Road, The Sun and Creative Nonfiction. He is the president of Sweet: A Literary Confection, a 501c3 nonprofit organization and is honored to be the Richard L. Thomas Professor of Creative Writing at Kenyon College.
Areas of Expertise
Creative writing; creative writing pedagogy; inclusive literature
Education
2002 — Master of Fine Arts from The Ohio State University
1998 — Bachelor of Arts from Southern Illinois Univ Carbond
Courses Recently Taught
ENGL 103
Introduction to Literature and Language
ENGL 103
Each section of these first-year seminars approaches the study of literature through the exploration of a single theme in texts drawn from a variety of literary genres (such as tragedy, comedy, lyric poetry, epic, novel, short story, film and autobiography) and historical periods. Classes are small, offering intensive discussion and close attention to each student's writing. Students in each section are asked to work intensively on composition as part of a rigorous introduction to reading, thinking, speaking and writing about literary texts. During the semester, instructors will assign frequent essays and may also require oral presentations, quizzes, examinations and research projects. This course is not open to juniors and seniors without permission of the department chair. Offered every year.
ENGL 202
Creative Nonfiction Workshop
ENGL 202
Students in this workshop will write imaginative nonfiction in any of its traditional forms: memoirs, reflections, polemics, chronicles, idylls, lampoons, monographs, pamphlets, profiles, reviews, prefaces, sketches, remarks, complaints -- anything but the traditional college essay. As in other writing workshops, attention in class will be paid above all to the writing itself, word by word, sentence by sentence. Admission to this course is open, though students may not take this course in the first semester of their first year. Seats are reserved for students in each class year. Offered most years.
ENGL 300
Advanced Fiction Writing
ENGL 300
This workshop will focus on discussion of participants' fiction as well as on exercises and playful experimentation. Principally, we will be concerned with how stories work at every level. As we consider narrative strategies and practical methods for developing individual styles, along with approaches to revising work, we also will read, as writers, a variety of outside texts. Check with the English department administrative assistant for submission deadlines. Prerequisite: ENGL 200, 202 or 204 or submission of a writing sample and permission of instructor. Offered every year.
ENGL 302
Advanced Creative Nonfiction
ENGL 302
Students in this workshop will write imaginative nonfiction in any of its many forms and will write and revise one or more pieces to produce 75-90 pages over the course of the semester. As with all writing workshops, classroom discussion will require an openness to giving and receiving criticism. Outside reading will include essays and at least one book-length work by acknowledged masters of the form. To better explore questions of craft, written responses to these readings will be due each week. Prerequisite: ENGL 200, 202, 204, or a similar course, submission of writing sample and permission of instructor.
ENGL 405
Senior Seminar in Creative Writing
ENGL 405
This seminar is required for English majors pursuing an emphasis in creative writing. The course will involve critical work on a topic chosen by the instructor (such as "Reliable and Unreliable: Investigating Narrative Voice," "Beginnings and Endings," "The Little Magazine in America" and "Documentary Poetics") to provide context and structure for students' creative work. Students should check online listings for the specific focus of each section. Although not primarily a workshop, this seminar will require students to work on a substantial creative project (fiction, nonfiction or poetry). Senior English majors pursuing an emphasis in literature are required to take ENGL 410 instead. Students pursuing honors will take ENGL 497 rather than the Senior Seminar. Prerequisite: senior standing and English major. Offered every year.
ENGL 493
Individual Study
ENGL 493
Individual study in English is a privilege reserved for senior majors who want to pursue a course of reading or complete a writing project on a topic not regularly offered in the curriculum. Because individual study is one option in a rich and varied English curriculum, it is intended to supplement, not take the place of, coursework, and it cannot normally be used to fulfill requirements for the major. An IS will earn the student 0.5 units of credit, although in special cases it may be designed to earn 0.25 units. To qualify to enroll in an individual study, a student must identify a member of the English department willing to direct the project. In consultation with that faculty member, the student must write a one-to two page proposal for the IS that the department chair must approve before the IS can go forward. The chair’s approval is required to ensure that no single faculty member becomes overburdened by directing too many IS courses. In the proposal, the student should provide a preliminary bibliography (and/or set of specific problems, goals and tasks) for the course, outline a specific schedule of reading and/or writing assignments, and describe in some detail the methods of assessment (e.g., a short story to be submitted for evaluation biweekly; a thirty-page research paper submitted at course’s end, with rough drafts due at given intervals). Students should also briefly describe any prior coursework that particularly qualifies them for their proposed individual studies. The department expects IS students to meet regularly with their instructors for at least one hour per week, or the equivalent, at the discretion of the instructor. The amount of work submitted for a grade in an IS should approximate at least that required, on average, in 400-level English courses. In the case of group individual studies, a single proposal may be submitted, assuming that all group members will follow the same protocols. Because students must enroll for individual studies by the seventh class day of each semester, they should begin discussion of their proposed individual study well in advance, preferably the semester before, so that there is time to devise the proposal and seek departmental approval before the established deadline.
Academic & Scholarly Achievements
2018
Buddha's Dog & other meditations. The University of Tampa Press, 2018.
2016
The Melting Season. Burlesque Press, 2016.
2014
Southside Buddhist. The University of Tampa Press, 2014.
2013
In Thailand It Is Night. The University of Tampa Press, 2013.
2011
Talk Thai: The Adventures of Buddhist Boy. University of Missouri Press, 2011.
2005
Scoot Over, Skinny: The Fat Nonfiction Anthology, edited by Donna Jarrell and Ira Sukrungruang. Mariner Books, 2005.
2003
What Are You Looking At? The First Fat Fiction Anthology, edited by Donna Jarrell and Ira Sukrungruang. Harcourt, Inc., 2003.