Margaret's profile

Margaret Osburn is a nonfiction and fiction writer, editor, photographer, and writing coach. She is the writer/cinematographer of a documentary film, Once There Was A City, which aired on PBS, the recipient of state (IN) press awards, and a winner in the 2014 Salamander Fiction Contest.  Recent short stories appear in Salamander, Existere, CALYX, and Raleigh Review.  Current projects include a novel, The Jelly Women, and a collection of short stories, When Desire Can't Find Its Object.

For 30 years, Margaret has served as a writing coach, helping others develop the confidence and skills needed to write and publish their own stories. At Johns Hopkins University she teaches memoir and fiction writing in the Odyssey program. She has taught for Smithsonian Associates, Washington, D.C., and Maryland Institute, College of Art. She was a featured speaker at the 2011 national writer’s conference in Baltimore sponsored by Passager literary journal. Early in her writing career she conducted a mini-workshop for the Indiana University Writers Conference, where she studied with Philip Levine, Roger Zelazny, and Grace Paley. In 2018 she conducted an essay writing workshop for faculty and graduate students at the University of Hawaii, Honolulu. She independently works with small groups and client writers. Collaborations have resulted in a substantial number of publications.

Artist Statement:  All objects and places are haunted.  Using the personalities of words, my intent as a literary artist is to paint, to sing, to offer readers the intimacies of sight, sound, touch, taste, smell--sensory experiences that ignite and haunt the human experience.  (See Projects for full Artist Statement: "Burning Down the House.")

Margaret's Curated Collection

View Margaret's favorite works from other Baker Artists