Christopher Chambers

Christopher Chambers is the author of two books of fiction, Delta 88 and Kind of Blue, and former editor of Wisconsin People & Ideas, Midwest Review, Black Warrior Review and New Orleans Review. His work has appeared in Best American Mystery Stories and been noted in Best American Essays. 

Christopher was born in Madison, and has since lived in North Carolina, Michigan, Minnesota, Florida, Alabama, Texas, and Louisiana. He's worked as a farmhand, a carpenter, a bartender, and a lifeguard. He's worked in a warehouse, a slaughterhouse, and in an English Department. He's an erstwhile Teamster and he's given up tenure. He's repossessed cars. He taught creative writing and screenwriting in New Orleans for 16 years. He's lived a rock's throw from the Mississippi River at both ends, on the west bank in Minneapolis and downriver in Algiers.

His work has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, 5 Pushcart Prize nominations, and has been anthologized in French Quarter Fiction, Knoxville Bound, Maple Street Rag, and in the Best American Mystery Stories series.

He taught creative writing for twenty-five years, at the University of Alabama, Loyola University New Orleans, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Chambers retired from UW-Madison in 2020 when Continuing Studies discontinued its writing program. He currently teaches with the Madison Writers Studio and the Oakhill Prison Humanities Project.