Mary Bucci Bush (born 1949) is an American author and a professor of English and creative writing at

California State University, Los Angeles California State University, Los Angeles (Cal State LA) is a public research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. It is part of the California State University system. Cal State LA offers 142 bachelor's degree programs, 122 m ...

. Bush won a

PEN PEN may refer to: * (National Ecological Party), former name of the Brazilian political party Patriota (PATRI) * PEN International, a worldwide association of writers ** English PEN, the founding centre of PEN International ** PEN America, located ...

/Nelson Algren award for her collection of short stories, ''A Place of Light'', in 1987; a

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the feder ...

creative writing fellowship in 1995; and the Tillie Olsen Book Prize from the

Working Class Studies Association The Working-Class Studies Association (WCSA) is a non-profit association that helps develop and support scholarship, teaching, and activism related to working-class life and cultures. The WCSA was first established by the Youngstown State Universit ...

for her novel, '' Sweet Hope'', in 2012.

Biography

She was born and raised in Canastota, New York. The family name was changed to Bush by American schoolteachers who had trouble pronouncing Bucci. After receiving a B.A. in English at the

State University of New York at Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo (commonly referred to as UB, University at Buffalo, and sometimes SUNY Buffalo) is a public research university in Buffalo and Amherst, New York, United States. The university was founded in 1846 a ...

in 1972, Bush earned her M.A. and D.A. in creative writing at

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York, United States. It was established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church but has been nonsectarian since 1920 ...

, where she studied under George P. Elliott and

Raymond Carver Raymond Clevie Carver Jr. (May 25, 1938 – August 2, 1988) was an American short story writer and poet. He published his first collection of stories, '' Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?'', in 1976. His breakout collection, '' What We Talk About ...

. She taught at Syracuse University and

Hamilton College Hamilton College is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Clinton, Oneida County, New York, Clinton, New York. It was established as the Hamilton-Oneida Academy in 1793 and received its c ...

. In 1984 she co-founded the Community Writers Project in Syracuse with fellow novelist Rachel Guido deVries. Her fiction has appeared in literary journals such as ''

Ploughshares ''Ploughshares'' is an American literary journal established in 1971 by DeWitt Henry and Peter O'Malley in The Plough and Stars, an Irish pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1989, ''Ploughshares'' has been based at Emerson College in Bost ...

'', ''

The Missouri Review ''The Missouri Review'' is a literary magazine founded in 1978 by the University of Missouri. It publishes fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction quarterly. With its open submission policy, ''The Missouri Review'' receives 12,000 manuscrip ...

'', '' The Black Warrior Review'', and ''

Italian Americana ''Italian Americana'' is a biannual peer-reviewed academic journal covering studies on the Italian-American experience. It publishes history, fiction, memoirs, poetry, and reviews. The editor-in-chief is Alan J. Gravano ( Rocky Mountain Universit ...

''; and in anthologies such as ''The Voices We Carry: Recent Italian American Women's Fiction'' (Guernica, 2007), ''Growing Up Ethnic in America'' (Penguin, 1999), and ''The Milk of Almonds: Italian American Women Writers on Food and Culture'' (Feminist Press at CUNY, 2017). Her most recent novel, ''Sweet Hope'' (Guernica Editions, 2011), tells the story of Italian and African-American families living and working together on a

Mississippi Delta The Mississippi Delta, also known as the Yazoo–Mississippi Delta, or simply the Delta, is the distinctive northwest section of the U.S. state of Mississippi (and portions of Arkansas and Louisiana) that lies between the Mississippi and Yazo ...

cotton plantation in the early 1900s. It was inspired by the experiences of Bush's grandmother, who worked on the

Sunnyside Plantation The Sunnyside Plantation was a former cotton plantation and is a historic site, located near Lake Village in Chicot County, Arkansas, in the Arkansas Delta region. Built as a cotton plantation in the Antebellum South, it was farmed using th ...

in Arkansas as a child.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bush, Mary Bucci 20th-century American writers 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American writers 21st-century American women writers American writers of Italian descent Syracuse University alumni University at Buffalo alumni California State University, Los Angeles faculty People from Canastota, New York Living people 1949 births Hamilton College (New York) faculty