About Dennis
Dennis Maulsby is a retired bank president living in Ames, Iowa with his wife Ruth, a retired legal secretary and his dog Charlie, a retired CIA operative. A son and grandson, Matt and Kaden, live in the Pacific Northwest. His poetry and short stories have appeared in Lyrical Iowa, The North American Review, Haiku Journal, Spillway, The Hawai’i Pacific Review, The Briarcliff Review (Pushcart Prize nomination), and numerous other journals.
A U.S. Army Veteran, Maulsby spent four and a half years on active duty. Enlisting as a private, he served two years as a Russian voice intercept operator rising to the rank of Specialist Fifth Class before attending Ft. Benning, Georgia’s Infantry Officer Candidate School. After graduation as a Second Lieutenant, he was accepted into the Military’s Intelligence branch. In 1968, he served with the 25th Infantry division while in Vietnam. Maulsby led a mobile electronic intelligence gathering platoon with elements established in firebases and Vietnamese villages in southwestern Vietnam. He received an honorable discharge in 1970.
His first book of war poetry, Remembering Willie, and all the others won silver medal book awards from the Military Writers Society of America (MWSA) and the Branson Stars & Stripes organization. Maulsby’s second book of poetry, Near Death/Near Life, was released by Prolific Press in 2015. The book has since received a gold medal award from the Military Writers Society of America, named a finalist in the De Vinci Eye Cover Art award, and was a winner-finalist in the USA Book News contest.
Free Fire Zone, a book of linked poetry and short stories, was released in 2016 by Prolific Press. It has since been named an International Book Award finalist and received a silver medal from the Military Writers Society of America. Three additional books have followed. The first is Winterset, Short Stories of Pixies, Demons, and Fiends, released by NeoLeaf Press in 2019. It received a gold Global Ebook award and a Winner’s Award in the Eric Hoffer Book contest, and it made the shortlist for the Grand Prize.
The two other books, released in 2020 by NeoLeaf Press, are The Fantasy Works, a collection of poetry, short stories, and novel extracts, and House de Gracie, Maulsby’s debut novel. The book won a silver Global Ebook and Reader Views medals. In 2022, Cyberwit Press released Heart Songs, a full-sized book of poetry, which garnered an MWSA Gold medal and an American Fiction First Place award.
In May 2004, his poem “6 June, Omaha Beach” was featured with musical background on National Public Radio’s Themes & Variations in memory of the Sixtieth Anniversary of the WW II Normandy landings. That same year, he was named the Edgar Award winner of the Oak Hill Poetry Contest. His poem “Isle Royale Hunted” received a Pushcart Prize nomination in 2011. As of spring 2017, seventy of his poems have been individually published, forty percent of which have won awards, ranging from honorable mentions to first places. Out of twelve short stories published, five have won awards.
Maulsby is a past President of the Iowa Poetry Association. He holds memberships in the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, Iowa Poetry Association, The National Federation of State Poetry Societies, The Military Writers Society of America, The League of Minnesota Poets, and the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association.
A sample of his poetry and a short video is on display at the Waterloo Sullivan Brothers Iowa Veterans Museum – Grout Museum District.
Talk of Iowa, Iowa Public Radio Interview with Charity Nebbe.
In 1964, just weeks away from graduating from Grinnell College, Dennis Maulsby decided his best option after college would be to voluntarily enter the military. After returning from the Vietnam War, he channeled his war experiences into various creative outlets, ultimately pursuing writing poetry. He self-published his first book, Remembering Willy, and All the Others, and received silver medal awards from veteran’s associations. His latest book, Free Fire Zone is a collection of short military stories.
“A lot of men came back from Vietnam, and they dealt with their PTSD in a number of ways, usually women, drugs or creativity,” he says. “I chose creativity.”
During this hour of Talk of Iowa, host Charity Nebbe talks with Maulsby about his writing and his new book of linkeded short stories.
http://iowapublicradio.org/post/wounds-war-and-poetry-using-creativity-heal#stream/0