Juilene Osborne-McKnight, MFA

Juilene Osborne-McKnight, MFA, is a professor emerita of English and Director of the MFA in Creative Writing and Publishing. She received her MFA in poetry and creative nonfiction from Carlow University in Pittsburgh, with study in residence at Colaiste Naomh Padraig in Ireland; her MA (individualized) in writing from the MacGregor School of Antioch University in Ohio, specializing in Celtic and Native American storytelling; and her BA/BS summa cum laude from Youngstown State University, Ohio, in English/French/secondary education.

Her areas of specialty include Irish mythology, Irish literature, Native American literature, creative writing fiction, and non-fiction. She coordinates the DeSales Irish academic study abroad program. Osborne-McKnight is the author of four Irish historical novels: I Am of Irelaunde, Daughter of Ireland, Bright Sword of Ireland, and Song of Ireland, and the journalistic history of Ireland The Story We Carry in Our Bones: Irish History for Americans, now in its third printing. Prior to writing fiction, she worked as a newspaper and magazine columnist and as a freelance writer. She has published more than 200 articles, essays, and poems and her play Wild Swans of Ireland was staged for a month run.