Amy Butcher

Amy Butcher reading at Powell's Books

Amy Butcher is an American writer and essayist. Her memoir, Visiting Hours: A Memoir of Friendship and Murder, was published in 2015.

Early life and education

Butcher received her BA from Gettysburg College and her MFA from the University of Iowa's Nonfiction Writing Program.[1][2]

Career

Butcher's essays have been published in a number of publications including The New York Times,[3] The Washington Post,[4] Harper's Magazine,[5] The Paris Review,[6] The American Scholar,[7] Salon[8] and Guernica.[9] Her essays have been awarded the 2016 Solas Award for "Best Travel Writing of the Year",[10] the 2014 Iowa Review Award in nonfiction,[11] twice nominated for Pushcart Prizes,[12] and earned distinctions in Best American Essays 2015,[13] Best American Essays 2016,[14] and Best American Essays 2017.[15] Additional essays have been anthologized in The Best Travel Writing 2016,[16] The Soul Of A Great Traveler,[17] Beautiful Flesh: A Body of Essays,[18] Writing True: The Art and Craft of Creative Nonfiction[19] and The Best Of Vela.[20]

Butcher has held various teaching fellowships or visiting writer positions including at the University of Iowa,[21] Colgate University,[22] Mount Mercy University,[23] the 2017 Fall For The Book Festival,[24] the Iowa Summer Writing Festival[25] and the Sitka Fine Arts Camp in Sitka, Alaska.[26]

Butcher's March 2016 opinion piece, "Emoji Feminism",[27] published in The Times Sunday Review,[28] was cited by Google as the inspiration for thirteen new professional female-empowered emojis,[29][30][31] accepted in July 2016 by the Unicode Emoji Subcommittee and released in December 2016.[32] In August 2017, these emojis were nominated as Design of the Year by the Design Museum in London,[33] where they are on display alongside a hijab designed by Nike, Wolfgang Tillmans’ Remain Campaign for the Brexit referendum and items from Kanye West's clothing line, among other artifacts.[34]

Butcher's debut memoir, Visiting Hours: A Memoir of Friendship and Murder,[35] was published in April 2015 by Penguin-Random House imprint Blue Rider Press. It recounts her struggle to reconcile her friendship with her college friend Kevin Schaeffer, who violently murdered his girlfriend after a psychotic break.[36][37] The book was featured on NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday with Rachel Martin,[38] WAMC's The Roundtable,[39] and Poets & Writers Magazine.[40] The New York Times Sunday Review of Books writes that "at the heart of this story, beyond Butcher's search to understand the incomprehensible, lies our societal failure to recognize serious depression as the potentially fatal illness that it is..." and that "her research offers a tragic portrait of the turn of events that left one young woman dead and another forever changed." (The New York Times Sunday Review of Books, July 15, 2015)[41] NPR's Rachel Martin describes the book as "a haunting meditation on human fragility."[42] (NPR, March 30, 2015). The Star Tribune writes that the book is "riveting and visceral..." and that "Butcher is unflinching in her self-examination and masterful at it." (The Star Tribune, May 4, 2015) Kirkus Reviews describes the book as "gripping and poignant"[43] (Kirkus Reviews, January 1, 2015), Biographile writes that it is "enthralling, thought provoking, and deeply empathetic,"[44] (Biographile, April 9, 2015), and Glamour writes that it is "emotional, powerful, and oddly enough, beautiful." [45](Glamour, April 6, 2015).

Butcher is currently a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor of English at Ohio Wesleyan University,[46] where she teaches courses on the essay.

Awards and honors

  • 2014 Iowa Review Award in Nonfiction[47]
  • 2015 Best American Essays Notable Essay[48]
  • 2016 Solas Award for best travel writing[49]
  • 2016 Best American Essays Notable Essay[50]
  • 2017 Best American Essays Notable Essay[51]

References

  1. ↑ "Amy E. Butcher". Ohio Wesleyan University.
  2. ↑ de Choisy, Gemma (July 14, 2015). "Sympathy for the Devil: An interview with Amy Butcher". Little Village Magazine. Retrieved October 14, 2016.
  3. ↑ Butcher, Amy (2014-11-06). "On the Road to 'the One,' Sometimes, a Rest Stop". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-12-14.
  4. ↑ Butcher, Amy (2017-01-11). "What I learned from visiting the grave of my mom's teenage boyfriend". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2017-01-15.
  5. ↑ Butcher, Amy (2017-03-08). "Bare Necessities". The Stream - Harper's Magazine Blog. Retrieved 2017-11-09.
  6. ↑ Butcher, Amy. "All We Had – The Paris Review". www.theparisreview.org. Retrieved 2016-12-14.
  7. ↑ "The American Scholar: Flight Behavior - Amy Butcher". theamericanscholar.org. Retrieved 2016-12-14.
  8. ↑ Butcher, Amy. "My friend, the murderer". Salon. Retrieved 2016-12-14.
  9. ↑ "Amy Butcher: Why It's Called A Life Sentence". Guernica. 2014-09-03. Retrieved 2016-12-14.
  10. ↑ "Best Travel Writing". www.besttravelwriting.com. Retrieved 2016-12-14.
  11. ↑ "Reenacting". The Iowa Review. 2014-12-16. Retrieved 2016-12-14.
  12. ↑ "Olive B O'Connor Fellowship - Department of English". www.colgate.edu. Retrieved 2017-11-10.
  13. ↑ Noble, Barnes &. "The Best American Essays 2015". Barnes & Noble. Retrieved 2016-12-14.
  14. ↑ Noble, Barnes &. "The Best American Essays 2016". Barnes & Noble. Retrieved 2016-12-14.
  15. ↑ Jamison, Leslie; Atwan, Robert, eds. (2017-10-03). The Best American Essays 2017. Mariner Books. ISBN 9780544817333.
  16. ↑ O'Reilly, James; Habegger, Larry; O'Reilly, Sean, eds. (2016-10-11). The Best Travel Writing, Volume 11: True Stories from Around the World. Travelers' Tales. ISBN 9781609521172.
  17. ↑ O'Reilly, James; Habegger, Larry; O'Reilly, Sean, eds. (2017-09-19). The Soul of a Great Traveler: 10 Years of Solas Award-Winning Travel Stories. Travelers' Tales. ISBN 9781609521233.
  18. ↑ G'Schwind, Stephanie, ed. (2017-05-15). Beautiful Flesh: A Body of Essays (1 ed.). Fort Collins, Colorado: Center for Literary Publishing. ISBN 9781885635570.
  19. ↑ Perl, Sondra; Schwartz, Mimi (2013-02-26). Writing True: The Art and Craft of Creative Nonfiction (2 ed.). Boston, MA: Wadsworth Publishing. ISBN 9781133307433.
  20. ↑ Menkedick, Sarah; Beer, Molly; Giracca, Amanda; Gorrindo, Simone (2015-02-20). The Best of Vela. S.l.: lulu.com. ISBN 9781312706293.
  21. ↑ "Our Alum | Department of English | College of Liberal Arts & Sciences | The University of Iowa". english.uiowa.edu. Retrieved 2016-12-14.
  22. ↑ "Olive B O'Connor Fellowship - Department of English". www.colgate.edu. Retrieved 2016-12-14.
  23. ↑ "MMU welcomes 'Visiting Hours' author Amy Butcher, April 11 | Mount Mercy University". www.mtmercy.edu. Retrieved 2016-12-14.
  24. ↑ "Exploring Boundaries of Life and Loss – Fall for the Book Festival". fallforthebook.org. Retrieved 2017-11-09.
  25. ↑ "Amy Butcher | Iowa Summer Writing Festival". www.iowasummerwritingfestival.org. Retrieved 2017-11-09.
  26. ↑ "High School Camp | Sitka Fine Arts Camp". fineartscamp.org. Retrieved 2016-12-14.
  27. ↑ Butcher, Amy (2016-03-11). "Emoji Feminism". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-12-14.
  28. ↑ Butcher, Amy (March 11, 2016). "Emoji Feminism". Sunday Review. The New York Times. Retrieved October 14, 2016.
  29. ↑ "Google designs emojis depicting professional women". BBC News. May 11, 2016. Retrieved October 13, 2016.
  30. ↑ Readhead, Harry (May 13, 2016). "Google wants feminist emojis which depict women working (not dancing or getting married)". Metro. Retrieved October 14, 2016.
  31. ↑ Workman, Karen (May 12, 2016). "Emojis Would Show Women Doing More Than Painting Their Nails". The New York Times. Retrieved October 14, 2016.
  32. ↑ "Apple iOS 10.2 Emoji List". emojipedia.org. Retrieved 2017-01-15.
  33. ↑ Knapton, Sarah (2017-08-16). "Google 'professional women' emoji nominated for Design of the Year". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 2017-11-09.
  34. ↑ "Designs of the Year". Design Museum. Fabrique & Q42. Retrieved 2017-11-09.
  35. ↑ Butcher, Amy (2015). Visiting Hours: A Memoir of Friendship and Murder. Penguin Publishing Group. ISBN 9780698176904.
  36. ↑ Blunt, Judy (July 15, 2015). "Memoirs". The New York Times. Retrieved October 14, 2016.
  37. ↑ Otte, Jeff (July 20, 2015). "Amy Butcher on Suicide, Psychosis and Her Memoir, Visiting Hours". Westword. Retrieved October 14, 2016.
  38. ↑ "Making Sense Of Murder In 'Visiting Hours'". NPR.org. Retrieved 2016-12-14.
  39. ↑ Donahue, Joe. "Amy Butcher's Memoir Of Friendship And Murder". Retrieved 2016-12-14.
  40. ↑ "Amy Butcher Recommends... | Poets & Writers". www.pw.org. Retrieved 2016-12-14.
  41. ↑ Blunt, Judy (2015-07-15). "Memoirs". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-12-14.
  42. ↑ "Rachel Martin on Twitter". Twitter. Retrieved 2016-12-14.
  43. ↑ VISITING HOURS by Amy Butcher | Kirkus Reviews.
  44. ↑ "Visiting Hours: Amy Butcher on Murder, Friendship, and Mental Illness - Signature Reads". Signature Reads. 2015-04-09. Retrieved 2016-12-14.
  45. ↑ Eidell, Lynsey. "5 New Books to Read for Your Grown-Up Spring Break". Glamour. Retrieved 2016-12-14.
  46. ↑ "Amy E. Butcher | Ohio Wesleyan University". www.owu.edu. Retrieved 2016-12-14.
  47. ↑ "Iowa Review Award winners!". The Iowa Review. 2014-05-22. Retrieved 2016-12-14.
  48. ↑ Levy, Ariel; Atwan, Robert, eds. (2015-10-06). The Best American Essays 2015 (1 ed.). Mariner Books. ISBN 9780544569621.
  49. ↑ "Best Travel Writing". www.besttravelwriting.com. Retrieved 2016-12-14.
  50. ↑ Franzen, Jonathan; Atwan, Robert, eds. (2016-10-04). The Best American Essays 2016 (2016 ed.). Boston: Mariner Books. ISBN 9780544812109.
  51. ↑ Jamison, Leslie; Atwan, Robert, eds. (2017-10-03). The Best American Essays 2017. Mariner Books. ISBN 9780544817333.
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