Associate Professor of Creative Writing

Professor Specht teaches fiction and creative nonfiction writing workshops in the department of Literature, Writing and Rhetoric. She also currently runs the Marcia Kinsey Visiting Writers Series.

A former Fulbright Scholar to Nigeria and Dobie-Paisano Writing Fellow, Professor Specht's debut novel, Migratory Animals, was an editor's choice by the New York Times and the Austin American-Statesmen, an IndieNext Pick, and an Apple iBook selection. Migratory Animals also won the Texas Institute of Letters Best First Fiction Award and the Writers' League of Texas Best Fiction of 2015. Specht's fiction and nonfiction have been anthologized and appeared in numerous publications, including: The New York Times, Prairie Schooner, The Colorado Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, The Southwest Review, Florida Review, Southwestern American Literature, World Literature Today, Blue Mesa, Hunger Mountain, Bookslut, The Texas Observer, Ibadan Journal of English Studies and Night Train, where she won the Richard Yates Short Story Award. Texas Monthly has named her one of "Ten Writers to Watch."

Education

M.F.A. in Creative Writing at Emerson College, Boston, Massachusetts, 2006

B.A. in English at Rice University, Houston, Texas, 2001

Department Group

School Group

School of Arts and Humanities