Background

Stephen Joseph Murabito was born on February 21, 1956, in Oswego, New York, United States, to Sebastian Murabito, a grocer, and Helen Murabito.

Education

In 1981, Murabito received a Bachelor of Arts in English Writing from the State University of New York in Oswego, and a Master of Fine Arts in Writing from the University of Pittsburgh in 1986.

Career

In 1985 Murabito became an associate poetry editor at Pennsylvania Review. Then, from 1986 to 1988 he worked as an instructor in English at the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1988 he joined the staff of the University of Pittsburgh as an assistant professor. Since 1997, Murabito has been as associate professor of English there.

Steve teaches a wide variety of composition and writing courses. He is the author and editor of the composition textbook Connections, Contexts, and Possibilities (2001), and a chapbook, A Little Dinner Music (2004). The first book of his Oswego trilogy, The Oswego Fugues, came out in 2005; the second book of the trilogy, Communion of Asiago, came out in 2006; and the third book of the trilogy, Lowering the Body, was released in 2009. His poems are anthologized in Encore: More of Parallel Press Poets (2006); Joyful Noise: An Anthology of American Spiritual Poetry (2006); and Along These Rivers (2008).

Achievements

• Stephen Murabito is best known as an outstanding educator as well as a prolific author of a number of works. His short stories have appeared in North American Review, Antietam Review, Sou'wester, and Paper Street, while his poetry has has been published in Beloit Poetry Journal, Mississippi Review, 5 AM, and Minnesota Review.
  
  Murabito is the recipient of the Brittingham Poetry Prize Competition of 1990, and the winner of the 2004 Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Oswego Fugues

    (The Oswego Fugues is a cogent attempt by one of the stron...)

    2005
  • Lowering the Body

    (Following The Oswego Fugues and Communion of Asiago, Step...)

    2009
  • Communion of Asiago

    (Food, family, and music are the central figures this coll...)

    2006
  • Chasing Saint George

    (In Chasing Saint George, Stephen Murabito creates a cast ...)

    2010
  • Connections, Contexts, and Possibilities

    (The most expansive developmental composition text availab...)

    2000
  • A Little Dinner MUsic 2004

Views

Murabito writes in many genres and therefore, has many influences. As an artist, he is most influenced by Dante Alighieri, his patience, his kindness, his ardor, that he distilled the worlds he knew into a monumental work of art for those he imagined as his readers. He is also influenced by his teachers, too: the formalism of Lewis Putnam Turco, the realism of poets like Ed Ochester and Judith Vollmer, the humor of storytellers like Chuck Kinder, Buddy Nordan, Max Zimmer, or John O’Brien. Other influences are writers like Milan Kundera, James Baldwin, Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud, Flannery O’Connor, Joseph Heller, and John Cheever, whom he met while at the State University of New York College at Oswego.

Quotations: "I want to create something big, sweeping, inclusive, and connective, a thing that incorporates many voices and will speak to many readers."

Membership

Murabito is a member of the National Council of Teachers of English, Associated Writing Programs, and Dante Society of America.

Personality

Murabito is fond of swimming, walking and reading.

Steve Murabito describes himself as a teaching writer and a writing teacher who helps students sophisticate their thinking, reading, and writing capabilities in composition, fiction, and poetry.

Interests

• walking, reading

• Writers

  Dante Alighieri

• Sport & Clubs

  swimming

Connections

On October 3, 1981, Murabito married April Murabito, a teacher. They have four children: Angelina, Estella, Antonia and Sebastian.

Father:

Sebastian Murabito

Mother:

Helen Murabito

Wife:

April Murabito

Daughter:

Angelina Murabito

Daughter:

Estella Murabito

Daughter:

Antonia Murabito

Son:

Sebastian Murabito

References

• Contemporary Authors New Revision Series: A Bio-Bibliographical Guide to Current Writers in Fiction, General Non-Fiction, Poetry, Journalism, Drama, Motion Pictures, Television, and Other Fields In response to the escalating need for up-to-date information on writers, Contemporary Authors New Revision Series brings researchers the most recent data on the worlds most-popular authors.
  2010