Adam O. Davis

Biography

Adam O. Davis is the author of Pyrrhic Symphony (Nebraska UP, 2026), winner of the Raz/Shumaker Book Prize, and Index of Haunted Houses (Sarabande, 2020), winner of the Kathryn A. Morton Prize. The recipient of awards from Poetry International and the Poetry Society of America, his work has appeared in AGNI, The Believer, The Kenyon Review, The Paris Review, and ZYZZYVA. He lives in San Diego where he teaches English literature at The Bishop’s School.

See Work

ESSAYS / Fall 2025

How to Be Afraid in America

By Adam O. Davis ,  Photography by Anna Beeke

If you grew up in the 1980s, you know Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. You remember the book being passed around like contraband during recess, smuggled from backpack to backpack to bedroom where you’d read it, if brave, at night by...

Photograph of sign reading "Hotel" glowing red in the night by Anna Beeke.