Chase Twichell: Who Is Russell Banks Second Wife?

Chase Twichell was the second wife of prolific author Russell Banks.

Twichell and Banks got married in 1989 and stayed married until his death which occured in Jan. 2023.

Twichell’s husband specialized in fiction and poetry.

He was born on March 28, 1940 and died on January 7, 2023 at age 82.

Who Is Chase Twichell?

Chase Twichell is an American poet, professor, publisher, and founder of Ausable Press (founded in 1999).

Born on August 20, 1950, Twichell’s most recent poetry collection is Things as It Is (Copper Canyon Press, 2018).

Her poem, Horses Where the Answers Should Have Been (Copper Canyon Press, 2010) earned her Claremont Graduate University’s prestigious $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award.

She has also won several awards in writing from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, the American Academy of Arts and Letters and The Artists Foundation.

She is also the recipient of fellowships from both the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Twichell’s poems have appeared in literary journals and magazines including The New Yorker, Field, Ploughshares, The Georgia Review, The Paris Review, Poetry, The Nation, and The Yale Review.

Many of Twichell’s poems are heavily influenced by her years as a Zen Buddhist student of John Daido Loori at Zen Mountain Monastery.

Twichell has also taught at Princeton University, Warren Wilson College, Goddard College, University of Alabama, and Hampshire College.

She was a judge for the 2011 Griffin Poetry Prize.