Alistair McCartney

Alistair McCartney is the author of The Disintegrations: a Novel (University of Wisconsin Press, 2017). The story of a man obsessed with death, the novel blurs the line between fiction and nonfiction, story and eulogy, poetry and obituary. The Disintegrations was named one of 2017’s best works of fiction by the Seattle Times and Entropy Magazine, and won the Publishing Triangle’s Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBTQ Fiction. His first novel, The End of the World Book (University of Wisconsin Press, 2008), took Rimbaud’s method of systematic derangement and applied it to the form of the encyclopedia. TEOTWB was a finalist for the PEN USA Fiction Award 2009 and the Publishing Triangle’s Edmund White Debut Fiction Award 2009, and was in Seattle Times Best Ten Books of 2008. McCartney's writing has also appeared in 3:AM, Hotel, The Nervous Breakdown, Fence, Animal Shelter (Semiotexte), Bloom, Lies/Isles, Gertrude, 1913, Scott Heim's The First Time I Heard series, Karen Finley's Aroused, and elsewhere. Born in Perth, Western Australia, he lives in Venice Beach, California. A graduate of Antioch University MFA's inaugural year class, he also oversees AULA’s undergraduate creative writing concentration, and has presented at institutions throughout the country, including CUNY Grad Center, PEN Center USA, Teacher's & Writers Collaborative New York, and UW Madison. You can learn more about his writing at www.alistairmccartney.com.