Bio | Glen Retief

Glen Retief is an Associate Professor of nonfiction writing at Susquehanna University. His The Jack Bank: A Memoir of a South African Childhood won a Lambda Literary Award.

BIO | GLEN RETIEF

Glen Retief grew up in South Africa during the apartheid era and holds a doctorate in writing from Florida State University.  His The Jack Bank: A Memoir of a South African Childhood (St. Martin’s Press, April 2011) won a Lambda Literary Award and was selected as an Africa Book Club Book of 2011.  He has published work in journals including Kenyon Review, Yale Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and New Contrast, as well as short personal essays in newspapers and magazines like The New Republic, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  He writes regular literary journalism (“slice of life”) articles for the South African Daily Maverick.

He teaches Creative Nonfiction at Susquehanna University, where he directed the undergraduate creative writing program until 2019.  From 2021 to 2022 he served as a US Fulbright Scholar in Mamelodi, South Africa, where his research and teaching focused on using peer feedback and support to improve academic and professional writing skills.