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Seth Abramson
Born	(1976-10-31) October 31, 1976 (age 48) Concord, Massachusetts, U.S.
Occupation	Attorney, professor, author, editor, freelance journalist
Education	Dartmouth College (BA) Harvard University (JD) University of Iowa (MFA) University of Wisconsin–Madison (MA, PhD)
Literary movement	Metamodernism

Seth Abramson (born October 31, 1976) is an American professor, editor, poet, attorney, journalist, and New York Times bestselling author.

Early life and education

Abramson is a graduate of Dartmouth College (1998), Harvard Law School (2001), the Iowa Writers' Workshop (2009), and the doctoral program in English at University of Wisconsin-Madison (2010; 2016).

Career

Abramson is an assistant professor of Communication Arts and Sciences at University of New Hampshire and affiliate faculty at the New Hampshire Institute of Art. His teaching areas include digital journalism, post-internet cultural theory, post-internet writing, and legal advocacy. Prior to entering academia, Abramson was a trial attorney for the New Hampshire Public Defender. While still an attorney and member in good standing of the New Hampshire Bar Association and the Federal Bar for the District of New Hampshire, he no longer practices.

Abramson has been a columnist for Indiewire, The Huffington Post, and Poets & Writers on subjects ranging from politics to higher education and metamodernism. Publishers Weekly notes that Abramson has "picked up a very large following as a blogger and commentator, covering poetry, politics, and higher education, and generating a controversial, U.S. News-style ranking of graduate programs in writing."

In November 2018, Abramson became a political columnist for Newsweek.

Creative writing

Abramson has published a number of poetry books and anthologies. Publishers Weekly describes Abramson as "serious and ambitious...uncommonly interested in general statements, in hard questions, and harder answers, about how to live."

Colorado Review called Northerners, Abramson's second collection of poetry, "alternately expansive and deeply personal...of crystalline beauty and complexity," terming Abramson "a major American voice." Notre Dame Review echoed the sentiment, calling Abramson "a powerful voice."

Abramson won the 2008 J. Howard and Barbara M.J. Wood Prize from Poetry. Editor Don Share said of Abramson's "What I Have," "The poem absorbs certain details but doesn't fasten upon them the way poets are tempted to do; it's not adjectival, it's not descriptive, it's not painting a kind of canvas with scenery on it, and yet those details are really fascinating."

Best American Experimental Writing

Abramson, with the poet Jesse Damiani, has been series co-editor of the annual anthology of innovative verse, Best American Experimental Writing, since its inception with Omnidawn in 2012. The series was picked up by Wesleyan University Press in 2014. Guest editors for the series have included Cole Swensen (2014), Douglas Kearney (2015), Charles Bernstein and Tracie Morris (2016), Myung Mi Kim (2018), and Carmen Maria Machado and Joyelle McSweeney (2019).

In 2018, The Rumpus called the anthology "meaty, daring, and beautiful." Nicole Rudick, managing editor of The Paris Review, has called the series "just my kind of rabbit hole."

Trump-Russia investigation

After the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Abramson received widespread attention for his tweets alleging collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. By synthesizing reporting from major news outlets, Abramson has documented repeated contacts between multiple members of the Trump campaign and the political network surrounding Russian President Vladimir Putin. Based on the timing, publicly known content, and personnel involved in those meetings, Abramson suggests that, through intermediaries, Trump and Putin came to an understanding in 2013 that Trump would run for president and push for an end to U.S. sanctions against Russia, and that Putin would in return greenlight a multibillion-dollar Trump Tower Moscow deal and other potential Trump ventures in Russia while using Russian capabilities to aid the Trump campaign.

Writers at The New Republic, The Atlantic, and Deadspin have described Abramson as a conspiracy theorist, while Ben Mathis-Lilley of Slate argues that Abramson is "not making things up, per se; he's just recycling information you could find on any news site and adding sinister what-if hypotheticals to create conclusions that he refers to . . . as 'investigatory analyses.'"

Meanwhile, Virginia Heffernan writes in Politico that Abramson's "theory-testing" is "urgently important." Der Spiegel calls Abramson "a quintessential American figure: an underdog who became an involuntary hero." The New York Observer writes that "events like Trump's 2013 trip to Russia for Miss Universe were covered extensively on Abramson's feed prior to the mainstream media catching on, a fact that has given him a reputation for being early to connect events within the broader Russia story." According to Avi Selk of The Washington Post, Abramson "has become virally popular by reframing a complex tangle of public reporting on the Russia scandal into a story so simple it can be laid out in daily tweets."

In November 2018, Abramson published the New York Times bestselling book Proof of Collusion (Simon & Schuster) which purports to establish "proof of collusion in the Trump-Russia case." According to a review in the Herald, "Amassed theories and suggestive juxtapositions notwithstanding, we end up with something closer to the Scottish “not proven” verdict with its unique mix of moral conviction of guilt and inability to conclusively prove the case."

The MFA Research Project

Abramson authors The MFA Research Project (MRP), a website that publishes indexes of creative writing Master of Fine Arts (MFA) programs based on surveys and hard-data research. Indexes appearing on the MRP include ordered listings of program popularity, funding, selectivity, fellowship placement, job placement, student-faculty ratio, application cost, application response times, application and curriculum requirements, and foundation dates. The MRP also publishes surveys of current MFA applicants, and of various creative writing programs. Writing for The Cambridge Companion to American Poetry Since 1945, Hank Lazer described Abramson's project as "a daring and data-rich endeavor." The Missouri Review observed that Abramson, along with novelist Tom Kealey, "had done a tremendous amount of work to peel back the layers of MFA programs and get applicants to make informed decisions."

Data from the MRP was regularly published by Poets & Writers between 2008 and 2013. The Chronicle of Higher Education termed the Poets & Writers national assessment methodology "comprehensive" and "the only MFA ranking regime." The data was not without its critics. In September 2011, a critical open letter signed by professors from undergraduate and graduate creative writing programs was published. In their response, Poets & Writers asserted that it adhered to the highest journalistic standards. The magazine's Editorial Director Mary Gannon said of Abramson, the rankings' primary researcher, that he "has been collecting data about applicants' preferences and about MFA programs for five years, and we stand behind his integrity."

In June 2018, Abramson published an expanded version of the MRP data archive as part of a nonfiction reference guide, The Insider's Guide to Graduate Degrees in Creative Writing (Bloomsbury).

Controversy

In May 2014, Abramson was criticised for his Huffington Post piece "Last Words for Elliot Rodger", a "remix" of words taken from the final YouTube video of the perpetrator of the Isla Vista killings, which Abramson published less than two days after they took place. Both the reuse of Rodger's words and the timing of the poem caused offense. Although Abramson called the work "a vehicle for amity and compassion", Omnidawn, Abramson's publisher at the time, issued a statement saying that it was "dismayed, disheartened, distressed", adding that "his actions in this matter are not in alignment with our principles."

Awards

• 2018, National Council for the Training of Journalists Honoree
• 2012, Akron Poetry Prize
• 2012, August Derleth Fiction Prize
• 2010, Green Rose Prize
• 2008, J. Howard and Barbara M.J. Wood Prize

Selected works

Books

• Best American Experimental Writing 2019 (Wesleyan University Press, 2019)
• Proof of Collusion (Simon & Schuster, 2018)
• Best American Experimental Writing 2018 (Wesleyan University Press, 2018)
• An Insider's Guide to Graduate Creative Writing Degrees (Bloomsbury, 2018)
• Golden Age (BlazeVOX Books, 2017)
• Best American Experimental Writing 2016 (Wesleyan University Press, 2016)
• DATA (BlazeVOX Books, 2016)
• Metamericana (BlazeVOX Books, 2015)
• Best American Experimental Writing 2015 (Wesleyan University Press, 2015)
• Best American Experimental Writing 2014 (Omnidawn, 2014)
• Thievery (University of Akron Press, 2013)
• Northerners (New Issues/Western Michigan University Press, 2011)
• The Poets & Writers Guide to MFA Programs (Poets & Writers, 2011)
• The Suburban Ecstasies (Ghost Road Press, 2009)
• The Creative Writing MFA Handbook (Continuum Publishing, 2008)

Anthologies

• After the Program Era: The Past, Present, and Future of Creative Writing in the University (University of Iowa Press, 2017)
• The Bloomsbury Anthology of Contemporary Jewish American Poetry (Bloomsbury, 2013)
• Poetry of the Law (University of Iowa Press, 2010)
• Best New Poets 2008 (University of Virginia Press, 2008)
• Lawyers and Poetry (West Virginia University Press, 2001)
• Xconnect (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000)

References

1. ^ Plenda, Melanie (2015-03-24). "Acclaimed Author and Poet Seth Abramson joins UNH Manchester English Program". University of New Hampshire at Manchester. Archived from the original on 2018-05-25.
2. Seth Abramson (2017-02-08). "Listen up, progressives: We need to be smart in the digital age". The Dallas Morning News. Archived from the original on 2018-05-25.
3. "Seth Abramson archive at Newsweek". www.newsweek. Retrieved 22 December 2018.
4. "Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction NYT Bestsellers for December 2, 2018". www.nytimes. Retrieved 27 November 2018.
5. ^ New Hampshire Institute of Art (2018-06-05). "Seth Abramson Joins NHIA MFA Faculty". Retrieved 2018-06-23.
6. "Seth Abramson". UNH at Manchester. 2016-02-24. Retrieved 22 June 2018.
7. "Seth Abramson - HuffPost". www.huffingtonpost.com. Retrieved 22 June 2018.
8. "On American Metamodernism," The Huffington Post (February 7, 2014).
9. "A New Press Play Column: Seth Abramson's 'Metamericana'", Indiewire (January 31, 2014).
10. Review of Northerners, Publishers Weekly (May 2011).
11. "Seth Abramson archive at Newsweek". www.newsweek. Retrieved 22 December 2018.
12. Northerners, Publishers Weekly (Review).
13. Northerners (review), Colorado Review.
14. "From Ruin to Rebirth," Notre Dame Review.
15. "You're Always Moving Toward Silence," Poetry (March 2009 Poetry Foundation Podcast).
16. "Best American Experimental Writing Anthology Announced," The Poetry Foundation (November 12, 2012).
17. "Announcing Omnidawn's New Annual Anthology, Best American Experimental Writing," Omnidawn (November 7, 2012). "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-02-21. Retrieved 2012-11-21. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
18. "Best American Experimental Writing: Guidelines for Submitting," Wesleyan University Press (April 17, 2014).
19. "Best American Experimental Writing," Wesleyan University Press (November 20, 2017).
20. "Logic and Lack of Logic: Best American Experimental Writing 2016," The Rumpus (February 23, 2018).
21. "Staff Picks: Nicole Rudick," The Paris Review (June 17, 2016).
22. @SethAbramson (13 December 2017). "From Russian payments to Trump advisors to failing to register as foreign agents working for Putin allies—from perjury to illegal solicitation of campaign donations from the Kremlin—here's a non-exhaustive summary of known Trump-Russia ties" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
23. ^ Selk, Avi (December 6, 2017). "People can't stop reading a professor's theory of a Trump-Russia conspiracy — true or not". The Washington Post. Retrieved May 25, 2018.
24. Dickey, Colin (8 June 2017). "The New Paranoia". The New Republic. Retrieved 2017-07-03.
25. McKay Coppins (2017-07-02). "How the Left Lost Its Mind". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2018-05-25.
26. Blest, Paul (2017-04-04). "Trump Conspiracy Tweetstorms Are The Infowars Of The Left". Deadspin. Retrieved 2018-05-25.
27. Ben Mathis-Lilley (2017-12-05). "Democrats: Please, Please Stop Sharing Seth Abramson's Very Bad Tweets". Slate. Archived from the original on 2018-05-25.
28. Virginia Heffernan (September–October 2017). "The Rise of the Twitter Thread". Politico. Retrieved 2018-05-25.
29. Christoph Scheuermann (June 4, 2018). "Army of Investigators Has Trump in Its Sights". Der Spiegel. Retrieved 2018-06-22.
30. Mike Albanese (June 21, 2018). "Seth Abramson Is Combating Trump and the Media on Twitter". New York Observer. Retrieved 2018-06-22.
31. "Combined Print & E-Book Nonfiction NYT Bestsellers for December 2, 2018". www.nytimes. Retrieved 27 November 2018.
32. ^ Teague, Elizabeth (2018-03-01). "Collusion: how Russia helped Trump win the White House". International Affairs. 94 (2): 467–469. doi:10.1093/ia/iiy051. ISSN 0020-5850.
33. "Protected Blog ' Log in". mfaresearchproject.wordpress.com. Retrieved 22 June 2018.
34. "American Poetry and Its Institutions," The Cambridge Companion to American Poetry Since 1945 (February 8, 2013)
35. "The MFA Degree: A Bad Decision?", The Missouri Review (August 29, 2011). Archived 2014-04-19 at the Wayback Machine
36. "What Defines a Successful Post-M.F.A. Career?", The Chronicle of Higher Education (November 3, 2011).
37. "M.F.A. Application-Season Etiquette," The Chronicle of Higher Education.
38. "Creative Writing Profs Dispute Their Ranking. No, the Entire Notion of Ranking!", The New York Observer, Kat Stoeffel (September 8, 2011).
39. ^ "Poets & Writers Responds to Open Letter". Poets & Writers. 13 September 2011. Retrieved 13 September 2011.
40. "Abramson Publisher "Distressed" by His Elliot Rodger "Remix"". Coldfront. 29 May 2014. Retrieved 28 August 2014.
41. Kempf, Christopher (10 June 2014). "The Poetics of Tragedy". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 14 January 2015. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
42. "Rap Genius and Bad Poetry: It's Always Too Soon to Grab Personal Attention After a Tragedy". Flavorwire. 27 May 2014. Retrieved 14 January 2016. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
43. "Omnidawn Breaks the Sound Barrier for BAX". Poetry Foundation. 30 May 2014. Archived from the original on 2014-10-16. Retrieved 28 August 2014. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
44. "NCJT list of 238 most respected journalists (generated)" (PDF), NCTJ, October 11, 2018, retrieved October 11, 2018

External links

Interviews

• The Conversant (March 7, 2015)
• As It Ought to Be (March 12, 2014)
• Poem of the Week (January 29, 2014)
• Full Stop (November 8, 2012)
• LitBridge (September 14, 2012)
• Poetry Society of America (March 12, 2010)

• Poets from Massachusetts
• American male bloggers
• American bloggers
• New Hampshire lawyers
• 1976 births
• Dartmouth College alumni
• Harvard Law School alumni
• Living people
• Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni
• University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni
• Metamodernism