In Memoriam: Nance Van Winckel

Nance Van Winckel, an EWU professor of English and creative writing emerita whose poetry gained national acclaim, died on July 19. She was 74.

Van Winckel was born in Roanoke, Virginia. After her family relocated to Wisconsin, she completed high school at Columbus High School then continued her studies at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts. A master’s degree in creative writing at the University of Denver followed.

Van Winckel joined EWU’s English faculty in 1990. Over the next 17 years she instructed and inspired undergraduate and graduate poets and fiction writers in the classroom; provided guidance to advanced students as a graduate thesis advisor; and led, as editor of Eastern’s literary magazine, Willow Springs.

She also served as an active and influential proponent of the literary arts outside of campus. Among the more prominent of Van Winckel’s contributions was the founding of Writers in the Community, a public-service internship that provides creative writing instruction to children in schools as well as underserved populations such as those who are incarcerated, homeless, or in shelters for abuse. Writers in the Community was among the first programs of its kind in the United States.

The author of 17 books of poetry and prose, Van Winckel is remembered by her EWU colleagues as “an inspirational, challenging and imaginative teacher in both fiction and poetry. Her work pushed all of us—students and faculty alike—to take risks, to write toward lyricism and truth, and to cross boundaries between genres and forms. She was also a brilliant visual artist and genre buster.”

Throughout her career as a writer, Van Winckel also earned high praise from peers outside of academe. The celebrated poet and novelist Laura Kasischke, for example, wrote, “Nance Van Winckel has long been one of my favorite poets, a voice I turn to again and again for imagery and music and to remind me of the loveliness and intensity of the subtle narrative woven into the subtle lyric.”

Among other awards, Van Winckel was the recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, the Washington State Book Award, a Paterson Fiction Prize, the Poetry Society of America’s Gordon Barber Award, a Christopher Isherwood Fellowship and three Pushcart Prizes.

In one of those Pushcart Prize winning poems, You People, the first line perfectly captures Van Winckel’s concision and sense of humor:

“People, don’t ask me again where my shoes are,” it reads.

And ends with:

I may be a false prophet, but god bless me, at least
I have something to say. I lay myself down
in a pencil of night—no chiseled tip yet,
but the marks already forming in the lead.

“Nance’s influence as a teacher, writer and editor will continue to reverberate among the many students, colleagues and readers she has touched,” wrote EWU’s Sam Ligon, a professor of creative writing. “It will continue to touch through her clear, powerful, beautiful work.”

A memorial celebration of Nance Van Winckel’s life and work will be held on Thursday, Aug. 20, 7-10 p.m., at Barrister Winery, 1213 W Railroad Ave., Spokane.

 — EWU’s Creative Writing Program contributed this In Memoriam tribute. It was edited by InsideEWU’s Charles Reineke, who provided additional information.