Essay by Pitt-Bradford Professor Named a Notable Essay of 2012

An essay by Dr. Nancy McCabe, associate professor of writing at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford, was chosen as a notable selection for two of Houghton Mifflin’s “Best American” 2012 collections.

Her essay “Threads,” which was first published last fall in Prairie Schooner, was named a Notable Essay of 2012 by Best American Essays and a Notable Work of 2012 by Best American Nonrequired Reading. This is the fifth time she has been recognized by Best American Essays and her first time being recognized by Best American Nonrequired Reading.

The essay is the prologue and a chapter from McCabe’s latest book, “Crossing the Blue Willow Bridge: A Journey to my Daughter’s Birthplace in China,” and is the story of her and her daughter, Sophie’s, visit to a remote village in China to meet the man who had taken care of Sophie when she was a baby.

“Crossing the Blue Willow Bridge,” which was published last year by the University of Missouri Press, is about traveling to China with Sophie to trace Sophie’s connection to her native country. It is a sequel to her book “Meeting Sophie: A Memoir of Adoption,” which relates McCabe’s story of adopting her daughter.

McCabe is currently writing the final chapters of her fourth book, “Medium-Sized House on the Prairie: A Memoir About Imaginative Heroines and Literary Landscapes,” which is forthcoming from the University of Missouri press.

An excerpt from that book appears in the current issue of The Looking Glass: New Perspectives on Children’s Literature as “Rereading Childhood: Journeys into Female Imagination,” which is about the portrayal of female imagination in classic books for girls.

Another new work appears in American Literature, for which she reviewed Ned Stuckey-French’s “The American Essay in the American Century” and Tim Aubry’s “Reading as Therapy.”

McCabe is the director of the writing program at Pitt-Bradford and is also the author of “After the Flashlight man: A Memoir of Awakening.” Her work has appeared in literary journals and mainstream media, and she has won several awards, including a Pushcart Prize for memoir.

In addition to teaching at Pitt-Bradford, McCabe teaches in the brief-residency Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing at Spalding University.

She and Sophie live in Bradford.

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