Phil Furia teaches courses in creative nonfiction; writing biography; the art of the song lyric; forms of poetry, fiction, and dramatic writing; modern American poetry; the jazz age: literature, art, and music in New York, 1910-1940; Americans in Paris: Stein, Hemingway, Gershwin and other figures of the 1920s; American popular song lyrics, 1900-1950; the Broadway and Hollywood musical; the history of English lyric poetry and song.

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Background

PhD, University of Iowa, 1970

MFA, Iowa Writers Workshop, 1970

MA, University of Chicago, 1966

BA, Oberlin College, 1965

Publications

Skylark: The Life and Times of Johnny Mercer

Ira Gershwin: The Art of the Lyricist

Irving Berlin: A Life in Song

The Poets of Tin Pan Alley: A History of America's Great Lyricist