Yasmina Madden

Associate Professor of English
Office Location: 321 Howard Hall
515-271-2919
yasmina.madden@drake.edu
Madden CV
Website

I grew up outside of Chicago, spent my college years in Los Angeles earning a BA in English, and returned to the Midwest, where I earned my MFA in Fiction at Indiana University and taught courses in creative writing and literature.

At Drake, I teach writing courses on the short story, creative nonfiction, flash narratives, and literature courses that often focus on women and gender. My fiction and nonfiction have been published in The Idaho Review, Necessary Fiction, PANK, The Masters Review, Word Riot, The Forge, Hobart, and other journals. I was finalist for The Iowa Review Fiction Award, and my flash fiction has been shortlisted for the Wigleaf Top 50 (Very) Short Fictions, as well as Pulp Literature’s Hummingbird Prize for Flash Fiction.

In addition to teaching at Drake, I have led several community writing workshops for the Above + Beyond Cancer Foundation, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, and the YMCA Healthy Living Center. I’m very interested in the intersection of art, the humanities, and medicine/health, which is what these workshops focus on.

Outside of the classroom, I spend a lot of my time reading, writing, watching movies and hanging out, preferably outdoors, with my boys. Other things about me? I love to swim, like to run, and I excel at eating (so much so that I once won a hotdog eating contest). I’m a big fan of Drake students and love teaching at Drake!