Mark Yakich
Mark Yakich is an American poet, novelist, and the Gregory F. Curtin, S.J., Distinguished Professor of English at Loyola University New Orleans. Yakich co-founded and co-edits "Airplane Reading", a media venue dedicated to collecting travelers' stories about flight. He is director of Loyola's Center for Editing & Publishing. From 2012-2020, he was editor of "New Orleans Review". Awards. His collection of poems "Unrelated Individuals Forming a Group Waiting to Cross" was one of five winners of the National Poetry Series in 2003. Another collection, "The Making of Collateral Beauty", won the Snowbound Chapbook Award and  was published by Tupelo Press in 2006. He has also published "The Importance of Peeling Potatoes in Ukraine" (Penguin Poets, 2008), "Green Zone New Orleans" (Press Street, 2008), and "Spiritual Exercises" (Penguin Poets, 2019). Yakich's first novel, "A Meaning for Wife", was named by the National Book Critics Circle as the No. 1 Small Press Highlight for 2011. Yakich was a Fulbright Fellow (2011–12) and taught in the School of Letters at the University of Lisbon, Portugal. In 2019, Yakich was awarded the Dux Academicus award, Loyola University's highest honor given to a faculty member by their peers