Writer Mark Turcotte spent his earliest years on North Dakota's Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation and in the migrant camps of the western United States. Later, he grew up in and around Lansing, Michigan. After leaving school he traveled the country, working and living on the road for nearly fifteen years.
Arriving in Chicago in the spring of 1993 Turcotte rediscovered his love of words and writing and quickly established himself as a unique voice in the city's thriving poetry scene. That summer he was winner of the First Gwendolyn Brooks Open-mic Poetry Award. Soon thereafter he was selected by Ms. Brooks as a Significant Illinois Poet and was named to the Illinois Authors Poster. Since that time he has been the recipient of a Writer's Community Residency from National Writer's Voice and was awarded the 1997 Josephine Gates Kelly Memorial Fellowship from the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers.
Turcotte is author of The Feathered Heart, (Michigan State University Press, revised, 1998), Songs of Our Ancestors (Children's Press, 1995), a chapbook, Road Noise (Mesilla Press, 1998) and Le Chant de la Route (bilingual, La Vague Verte, 2001). His newest collection, Exploding Chippewas,(Northwestern University Press, 2002), is in its third printing. His work, four times nominated for Pushcart Prizes, has recently appeared in LUNA, TriQuarterly, POETRY, Prairie Schooner,Ploughshares, LUNA, The Missouri Review, The Seattle Review, North Dakota Quarterly, and The Laurel Review. His poem, The Flower On, was chosen by the Poetry Society of America for inclusion in their Poetry In Motion project, which places poetry placards on public transportation in cities across the United States. Recently he has also published short stories in Rosebud and Hunger Mountain.
Turcotte was the recipient of a 2001-2002 Lannan Foundation Literary Completion Grant, and has been awarded 1999 and 2003 Literary Fellowships by the Wisconsin Arts Board. He has just completed a National Book Foundation American Voices assignment at the Wind River Indian Reservation of Wyoming, and a Lannan Writer's Residency in Marfa, Texas. He currently lives and works out of Chicago and Kalamazoo.
Mark was the winner of the First Gwendolyn Brooks Open-mic Poetry Award. Soon thereafter he was selected by Ms. Brooks as a Significant Illinois Poet and was named to the Illinois Authors Poster. Recently he has been the recipient of a Writer's Community Residency from National Writer's Voice and was awarded the 1997 Josephine Gates Kelly Memorial Fellowship from the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers.
Mark was named a 1999 & 2003 Literary Fellow by the Wisconsin Arts Board, and has received a Lannan Foundation Literary Completion Grant for 2001-2002.
Another Mark Turcotte website is available.
Also available, a music and spoken word CD of Mark's performance of Road Noise. Visit MusicToEars.com to order the CD.
This is an "official" site in that this page was constructed with the assistance and active collaboration of the poet, Mark Turcotte.
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