Eileen Favorite's first novel
The Heroines
(Scribner, 2008) was named a Best Debut Novel by
The Rocky Mountain News
, and has been translated into Finnish, Italian, Russian, and Korean. The audio version was nominated for best recording by the American Library Association. A writer of both poetry and prose, she's twice received Illinois Arts Council Artist Fellowships (prose, 2001; poetry 2005). Her work has appeared in many publications, including
Triquarterly
,
Folio
,
Chicago Reader
,
Poetry East
, and
Diagram
. She's been nominated for Pushcart Prize for
fiction and nonfiction. She teaches at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she received her MFA in Writing and at the Graham School of Continuing Studies at the University of Chicago. She lives in Chicago with her husband and two daughters.
I’ve always loved the sound of the words Fertile Delta. The liquidic sound of the vowels coupled with the l, the hard D of delta, Greek for change, speaks to the power of a seasonal, shape-shifting body. Fertile Crescent makes another lovely pair. Crescent, so soothing, this half-moon, this womanly way to describe the cradle of civilization. Fertile, crescent, cradle, delta. The opposite of these words: barren.
