biography

Born in Sioux City, Iowa in 1940, David Allan Evans went to college on a football scholarship, and by the time he graduated, he was writing poems and short stories.  He has degrees from Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa, the University of Iowa, and the University of Arkansas, where he got his MFA in creative writing.

He lived in Brookings South Dakota from 1968 to 2006, where he was a professor of English and Writer in Residence at South Dakota State University.  He is the author of nine collections of poetry, and the author or editor of seven other books.

In 1974 he was the first South Dakotan to receive a National Endowment for the Arts Grant.  He also had writing grants from the Bush Artist’s Foundation in St. Paul, Minnesota, and the South Dakota Arts Council.  His poems, short stories, and essays have been published in many magazines and journals and in over 75 anthologies, including BEST POEMS OF 1969  (The Borestone Awards), HEARTLAND II: POETS OF THE MIDWEST, THE NORTON BOOK OF SPORTS, THE SPORTING LIFE, IMAGINE HOME, POETSPEAK, MOTION: AMERICAN SPORTS POEMS, AND FATHERS.  He received the Sioux Falls Mayor’s Award for Excellence in Literary Arts in 2007, and The South Dakota Governor’s Award for Creative Achievement in 2009.

A number of his poems have been re-printed frequently in well-known sports literature anthologies as well as K-12 textbooks.  He was a Fulbright Scholar two times in China—once in Nanjing, and once in Guangzhou, and an SDSU faculty-exchange professor in Kunming, China for one semester.  He did residencies for the South Dakota Arts Council, the Iowa Arts Council, and the Wyoming Arts Council for over 25 years.  He is listed in CONTEMPORARY AUTHORS, INTERNATIONAS AUTHORS AND WIRTERS, WHO’S WHO, and WHO’S WHO IN AMERICA.