Dr. Hannah Carr-Murphy is a poet and musician from Waterloo, Iowa. Since earning a PhD in English (Creative Writing) from SUNY Binghamton in 2024, Hannah returned to her home in the Cedar Valley and was selected as the inaugural 2024-2025 James Hearst Writer in Residence at The James and Meryl Hearst Center for the Arts in Cedar Falls, Iowa. As writer in residence, Hannah collaborated with local musicians Dave Malam and Rick Vanderwall to present a folk song lecture/recital on labor and union songs popularized or written by Pete Seeger. Hannah most recently taught an April poetry month class on ekphrastic poetry at the Hearst, and she is the flute player in midwest legs-together-folk chamber-rock band Jacob Lampman’s Ego Death.
Hannah is an experienced college instructor as well as a flexible facilitator of community poetry workshops. As a graduate instructor at Binghamton University, she taught Intro to Academic Writing & Inquiry, incl. oral comm credit (4), Editing a Literary Magazine: Publishing Practicum (1), and Lyrics as Poetry: Writing critically about songs (1). Hannah has also taught free poetry classes and workshops to adults at the Waterloo Public Library, Cedar Falls Public Library, the Hearst, and as part of Binghamton Poetry Project.
Hannah’s educational background includes a Bachelor in Music and Bachelor of Arts from University of Northern Iowa (2016), as well as a Master’s in Community Music from the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance within the University of Limerick (2018). Her master’s research was a combined qualitative and quantitative study examining the participation rates of girls/women in high school and college jazz bands in Iowa. As part of her MA practicum, she taught 5th year songwriting at a local Limerick elementary school, and failed to convince the students that songs dong have to rhyme.
Hannah has over a decade of experience in literary magazine and small/independent publishing. She first worked as a student assistant at North American Review from 2015-2016, eventually becoming production coordinator on the literary magazine and as a freelance interior text layout designer for NAR Press. In the summer of 2015, she worked on the editorial team for sparkhouse, an imprint of Augsburg Fortress Publishing (now 1517 media). During her MA, Hannah was Design Editor for University of Limerick’s student newspaper An Focal, which was shortlisted in the category of Layout/Design for 2017’s SMEDIAs. Her expertise in publishing eventually led her to the head editorship of Harpur Palate, Binghamton University’s student-led literary magazine. Since becoming involved with the magazine in 2021, Hannah worked to design and implement a class for undergraduate students to learn about publishing using the magazine as a learning lab. In the fall of 2023, the class was finally offered for the first time, and has been picked up as a permanent course by the university. Her final contribution to the magazine is the creation of an open-access, complete digital archive of Harpur Palate’s 20+ years of back issues.
Hannah’s current research interests include creative writing pedagogy, community outreach writing programs, American opera libretto from the mid-20th century to now, and Catholic the memoir and poetry of Catholic nuns in the mid-twentieth century.
Selected Poems
“Weight Watchers Egg Roll In A Bowl: Southwest Style,” Midway Journal Vol 9, Issue1, January 2025
“Migrations“, Bodega Magazine, October 2024 Issue
“Discussion on the Mind/Boner Dialectic”, Action, Spectacle Summer 2024 Issue
“The Naming”, Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry, 2020
“Triptych of a Scientist-Cleric’s Legacy”, Spectral Lines: Poems about Scientists, Alternating Current Press
“Scivias”, Double Kiss: Stories, Poems, and Essays on the Art of Billiards, Mammoth Books
“If only all of us could be so lucky”, Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry, 2017
“No body (but yours), The Quaker
Chapbook Q&DP #3, Quick and Dirty Press
“Aubade”, Adanna Literary Journal, Special Issue on Women and Spirituality, 2015
Hannah currently plays flute and sings harmony in the locally famous original band Jacob Lampman’s Ego Death (album available on Bandcamp with a vinyl release available for pre-order from Octopus Records). Band news available on instagram and facebook at @EgoDeath2025. 🙂
Hannah studied flute with Dr. Angeleita S. Floyd, winner of the NFA Distinguished Service Award, and Dr. Nicole Molumby, Professor of Flute at Boise State University. She also performed in masterclasses on the piccolo with composers Lowell Liebermann and Blaž Pucihar. Other musical activities include winning the 2012 Karl L. King Solo Competition with her performance of Vivaldi’s concerto RV 443 on piccolo. Hannah toured 2009-2010 with Celebration Iowa as a singer/dancer and performed locally in municipal bands throughout her undergraduate career. While studying community music in Ireland, she played as a pit musician for local theater and sang backup for Limerick-based songwriting performer Emma Langford, winner of the 2018 RTÉ Best Emerging Folk Artist Award.
