Beverly Coyle
Visiting Professor Emerita and lecturer in religion and literature.
Professor Coyle’s books on the poet Wallace Stevens preceded her turning to fiction writing and the publication of a collection of short stories and two novels – The Kneeling Bus (Ticknor and Fields;Penguin), Taken In (Viking; Penguin), and In Troubled Waters (T&F; Penguin). In Troubled Waters was a New York Times “Notable Book” in 1993 and named a “Ten Best Novels” selection by the American Library Association in 1994. Professor Coyle is Professor Emeritus at Vassar College where she was also the Mary Augusta Scott Professor of Literature before early retirement in 2000. Her first play, Parallel Lives, co-authored with journalist Bill Maxwell, is an autobiographical story about growing up in the last days of Jim Crow segregation, and premiered at American Stage Theater in 2003. Her second play, A man and a woman and a blackbird, is in development. She makes her home in New York City and currently serves on the board of directors for the organization Cross Currents, which publishes the critically acclaimed quarterly of the same name. B.A. Florida State University, Ph. D. University of Nebraska.