Albergotti wins Crab Orchard Series poetry prize

Dan Albergotti’s poetry collection, “Millennial Teeth,” recently won the Crab Orchard Series in Poetry’s 2013 Open Competition. The Coastal Carolina University associate professor joins Tennessee poet and software developer T.J. Jarrett and her collection “Zion” as this year’s winners.

Both collections will be published by Southern Illinois University Press in August 2014. Both winners will receive a $2,000 award and a $1,500 honorarium to read at Southern Illinois University Carbondale following the publication of their books. “I'm humbled and deeply, deeply grateful,” Albergotti says.

Albergotti’s first published collection, “The Boatloads,” was selected by Edward Hirsch as the winner of the 2007 A. Poulin Jr. Poetry Prize. His poems have appeared in The Cincinnati Review, Shenandoah, The Southern Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review and many other journals. He has had poems reprinted in a number of anthologies, including “Best New Poets 2005” and “Pushcart Prize XXXIII: Best of the Small Presses.” He has been featured on National Public Radio's “The Writer's Almanac.”

Albergotti is the recipient of scholarships and fellowships from the Sewanee Writers' Conference, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts and the South Carolina Arts Commission. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English from Clemson University, an MFA in creative writing from the University of North Carolina – Greensboro and a Ph.D. in English romantic literature from the University of South Carolina.

Joining CCU in 2005, Albergotti has developed a number of new creative writing courses and assisted in the creation of a graduate program in writing. He has served as the department's coordinator of creative writing and edits the online journal Waccamaw.