Edward McPherson is the award-winning author of four nonfiction books and numerous essays and short stories. His work has appeared in such outlets as the New York Times Magazine, the Paris Review, and the American Scholar.
Edward McPherson is the author of four nonfiction books: Buster Keaton: Tempest in a Flat Hat (Faber & Faber), The Backwash Squeeze and Other Improbable Feats (HarperCollins), The History of the Future: American Essays (Coffee House Press), and Look Out: the Delight and Danger of Taking the Long View (Astra House). He has written for the New York Times Magazine, the Paris Review, Tin House, the American Scholar, the Gettysburg Review, Gulf Coast, Salon, the Southern Review, the New York Observer, I.D., Esopus, Epoch, Essay Daily, Catapult, True Story, Literary Hub, Guernica, and Talk, among others. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, the PEN Southwest Book Award in Nonfiction, the Gulf Coast Prize in Fiction, an Artist Fellowship from the Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis, a Minnesota State Arts Board grant, and the Gesell Award from the University of Minnesota, where he received his MFA. He is a contributing editor of The Common Reader. In 2025, he received the Provost’s Faculty Research Excellence Award at Washington University in St. Louis. Before joining the faculty, he was the Interim Education Director at the Loft Literary Center and taught creative writing at the University of Minnesota.
