James C. McKinley, former AWP President, New Letters editor, teacher, fiction writer, and journalist, has passed away. He was seventy-nine.

McKinley had taught English and creative writing at the University of Missouri-Kansas City since 1970, where, in addition to editing New Letters—the quarterly literary magazine that featured many well-known writers, including Amiri Baraka, Annie Dillard, and John Updike—he directed the University’s Professional Writing Program.

He “inspired generations of writers who took his courses at UMKC,” said his son, James McKinley Jr.

McKinley’s long life included serving in the U.S. Army, working in advertising, and receiving two senior Fulbright fellowships to Yugoslavia (1983-84) and Spain (1992). While in Spain, he met the British poet and novelist Robert Graves, about whom McKinley later wrote a biography.

McKinley’s last book, Who Taught Me To Swim: New and Selected Stories, was published in 2007, and his other books include The Fickleman Suite and Other Stories (1993), Acts of Love, a collection of short stories (1987), and Assassination in America (1977).

David Fenza, AWP’s Executive Director, remembers James fondly. “Jim helped AWP to produce the 2000 conference, ‘Y2KC,’ in Kansas City, Missouri. He also worked at a big-deal advertising firm in New York, about which he wrote in a subsequent essay. He was editor of New Letters for seventeen years, and he published many of contemporary literature's best authors. He was a prince, a mensch, and very good company.”