Published: Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Updated: Saturday, June 20, 2009

The fiction writing of 54-year-old graduate student Donald Ray Pollock has been called “poignant and raunchy,” “profanely comic” and “flat-out stunning” by critics. Now it can also be called “award-winning,” and labeled another feather in the cap of Ohio State’s creative writing program.

Pollock is the second OSU student to be awarded the exclusive PEN Robert Bingham Fellowship for Writers in the last three years, following Christopher Coake’s example from 2006. Coake’s book, “We’re in Trouble,” has just a few things in common with Pollock’s debut work, “Knockemstiff.” They’re both collections of short stories and both their authors had the same adviser: professor Michelle Herman.

“I just feel like … I’ve got a lock on it,” Herman said, laughing. “Perhaps we would have won in 2007, 2008 too, but I didn’t have a student who published a book those years.”

Jokes aside, she couldn’t help remarking on the significance of the event.

“That’s kind of amazing, actually, for two of the best debut works of fiction in the last four years to come out of the same M.F.A. program,” she said.

The Robert Bingham Fellowship for Writers is annually awarded by PEN, an 85-year-old literary and human rights organization, to an outstanding newly published writer. The award, and its stipend of $35,000, is meant to encourage the recipient to devote all of his or her time to a new literary piece.

Pollock plans to use the fellowship money to complete his degree and finish an unnamed novel about a serial killer.

Pollock got his foot in the door at OSU well before he signed on for a degree, however. He submitted several of his stories for publication in The Journal, OSU’s literary magazine, where they passed in front of Herman’s eyes. After reading his work and meeting him at a university event, she said she knew he was destined to do something great with his fiction.

“Even though he’s older than me, I feel like a mother to him,” Herman said. “I was the one who convinced him to give up the work at the paper mill and come to grad school, and it wasn’t easy to convince him.”

Pollock’s resistance proved no match for Herman’s insistence. After nearly four-and-a-half years writing on his own after coming home from working at a paper mill in Chillicothe, Ohio, he decided that he wanted to spend the rest of his life writing. Soon enough he found himself submitting his work for review and among the seven to nine students admitted annually to the M.F.A. program. It was at OSU that Pollock quickly assembled his book, and two years into the program he was finished with his thesis and finding a publisher.

“The whole idea of pushing the book forward came from the program and the professors,” Pollock said. “And yeah, I may have eventually published the book, but it wouldn’t have been as soon as I did. No way … Just getting all the feedback and all, the whole deal, was important for the book.”

As part of the whole deal, Pollock came in as a teacher and a learner, taking workshop courses to perfect his craft as well as teaching English 110 and English 265, and is now teaching English 465.

“After his third day of teaching, he was just going to quit,” English Department adviser Pablo Tanguay said.

To the hard-working Pollock, dealing with English 110 students was nearly too intimidating. Thanks to the friendship and encouragement from within the department, Pollock persevered and made the commute from Chillicothe to polish his skills. His hard work paid off when he was awarded the university’s Presidential Fellowship based on his outstanding grades and national presence. That fellowship also enabled him to take a break from the rigor of university work and devote himself to his writing, as well as promote his book across the country.

According to many who worked with him at the university, there is no one more deserving of all this attention. Lee Martin, professor and director of the creative writing department, said he was thrilled about Pollock’s award, but not surprised.

“After hearing him read,” Martin said, “I was immediately taken with the material.”

“When I was reading his stuff, I really thought that this book was going to get sold to Hollywood and be a movie,” Tanguay said.

Pollock remains modest and quiet about the award, but his biggest praise comes unsurprisingly from his adviser, Herman.

“It’s funny and it’s surprising and it’s disgusting. But if it were only funny and surprising, and if it were only gross … it might still have been very successful. What’s remarkable about it is the depth of humanity in these stories.

“I feel like Don is never gratuitous,” she said. “He never writes about such characters in a way that makes us laugh at them, or be disgusted by them. You can’t believe that somebody is drinking hair tonic, or pulling down his pants and defecating on the street, but you don’t rear back from the character. That’s a very complex tightrope he walks. He’s just not capable of seeing people as monsters. I think this is what it takes to be an artist.”

Richard Poskozim can be reached at .