Riley Hanick’s first book, Three Kinds of Motion: Kerouac, Pollock, and the Making of American Highways, weaves three distinct stories into one improbable narrative about American history and identity. Hailed by Literary Hub as “monumental,” the book has received awards from the Jentel and McKnight foundations and has been excerpted in a variety of publications, including the Sonora Review, Seneca Review, No Depression, eyeshot, and Labor World. Hanick served as three kinds of motionthe Watkins Chair in Creative Writing at Murray State University and is the nonfiction editor for New Madrid.

“As we were standing up from our last one-on-one conference of the semester I told my first teacher in the NWP that his course had been amazing.  And — I wasn’t sure what it would mean to say so aloud — “life-changing.”  Probably I embarrassed us both and that was why he brushed it aside as soon as I said it that afternoon. But I stand by the sentiment: this place, these teachers, the time and energy and arguments that envelop your head while you're in the midst of it and for years afterwards are a swirling, variegated thing that risks reconfiguring you.”