HUGH COYLE received a BA in American literature from Middlebury College, an MFA in fiction writing from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and an MA in English literature from the University of Montana. He was the administrative director of the Bread Loaf School of English in Ripton, Vermont. His prose and poetry have appeared in Ploughshares, The Boston Review, New England Review, Green Mountains Review, the American Authors series, Christopher Street, The Café Review, Bay Windows, Art and Understanding, and Vermont magazine, among other journals and publications. His work has won the James Award for Fiction from the Heekin Foundation, a Vice/Versa journalism award, and a Pushcart Prize. For nearly two decades, Hugh served on the admissions board of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference (in both prose and poetry) and attended the sessions as both a guest and full participant. He has also received scholarships to undertake several residencies at the Vermont Studio Center. In 2016, he was awarded a Bakeless Fellowship to write in residency at the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France.
In June of 2015, Hugh spoke at the Peace Palace in The Hague on the use of empathy as a catalyst for peaceful activism. Shortly thereafter, he was awarded a grant from the Vermont Arts Council to develop stand-alone chapters of his book. He returned to The Hague in June of 2018 to discuss his work as part of a weekend-long celebration of Bertha von Suttner’s 175th birthday. In addition, he has presented “Behind the Prize,” an entertaining slideshow based on his research and travels, to accompany the annual announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize. In 2020, he was named a Kathryn Wasserman Davis Peace Fellow, which provided resources for his continued study of European languages and culture. As part of the fellowship, Hugh attended Middlebury College’s summer German language program in 2021 to help create English versions of Suttner’s many untranslated works.
Hugh has prepared several self-contained excerpts in advance of the book’s publication. The first of these, entitled “Koppargruva,” was published as part of the Ploughshares Solos series and is now available via Kindle, iBooks, and the Kobo online bookseller. Another excerpt, “The Iron Tower,” appeared in Volume 41, Number 2 (Summer, 2020) of the New England Review.
Peace at Last 