Thumbnail of a Life
David Meischen has been writing poetry and teaching the writing of poetry for forty years. He is the author of Caliche Road Poems, new in 2024, and Anyone’s Son, 2020 winner of the John A. Robertson Award for Best First Book of Poetry from the Texas Institute of Letters. His poems have appeared in Assaracus, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Naugatuck River Review, San Pedro River Review, Southern Poetry Review, The Southern Review, Talking Writing, and other journals, as well as Two Southwests (Virtual Artists Collective, 2008), which features poets from the Southwest of China and the United States.
A passionate storyteller with a lifelong interest in narrative, David is the author of Nopalito Texas: Stories and The Distance Between Here and Elsewhere: Three Stories. His short stories have appeared in Bellingham Review, Copper Nickel, The Evansville Review, The Gettysburg Review, Gertrude, Peauxdunque Review, Salamander, Talking Writing, Valparaiso Fiction Review, and elsewhere. David has an MFA in fiction from Texas State–San Marcos. Honors include the Writers’ League of Texas manuscript award in Mainstream Fiction (2011), the Talking Writing Prize for Short Fiction (2012), and the Kay Cattarulla Award for Best Short Story from the Texas Institute of Letters (2017 and 2020). David has served as a juror for the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts. He is an alumnus of Jentel Arts.
David has published several personal essays. “How to Shoot at Someone Who Outdrew You” was selected for Pushcart Prize XLII: Best of the Small Presses 2018. Originally published in The Gettysburg Review, “How to Shoot”is online as a Gettysburg Review Selection. “Not a Word Among Us” is live at The Common.
In 2004 David and partner, now husband, Scott Wiggerman founded Dos Gatos Press, a nonprofit dedicated to the support of poets and poetry, especially in Texas, New Mexico, and the Southwest. Publisher of the Texas Poetry Calendar for thirteen years, Dos Gatos has also published Big Land Big Sky Big Hair: Best of the Texas Poetry Calendar (2008), as well as four collections by individual poets—Shallow-Rooted Heart, poems by Gregory Louis Candela (2018), Circumference of Light, poems by Bruce Noll (2016); Letting Myself In, poems by Anne McCrady (2013); and Redefining Beauty, (2009)—now in its third printing—poems focusing on former Texas Poet Laureate karla k. morton’s struggle with breast cancer. Among the proudest achievements of the Press are two remarkable books of poetry writing exercises: Wingbeats and Wingbeats II (2011 and 2014), co-edited by Scott and David. Finally, the Press has published five installments in Poetry of the American Southwest—Unknotting the Line: The Poetry in Prose (2023), 22 Poems & a Prayer for El Paso (2020),Weaving the Terrain: 100-Word Southwestern Poems (2017), Bearing the Mask: Southwestern Persona Poems (2016), and Lifting the Sky: Southwestern Haiku and Haiga (2013).
David was born and raised on a farm in the Dilworth community of Jim Wells County, Texas. With a masters degree in English, he taught high school English for twenty-seven years and worked in educational publishing for several years. David was the Master Teacher in English for UTeach–Liberal Arts, the teacher preparation program in the College of Liberal Arts, University of Texas, Austin, 2002–2006.
David is the father of two sons. Karl, an accomplished musician and founding member of the band The Greening, lives with his wife in San Francisco. Jack has two graduate degrees. Married, he lives in the New England.
David and Scott have been together for twenty-seven years. They married in Taos, New Mexico, October 23, 2013. Residents of Austin, Texas, until the spring of 2015, they make their home in Albuquerque, where they divide their time between their own writing and the publishing ventures they’ve taken on together.