He was raised in the Chicago suburbs. He taught creative writing at a number of U.S. universities including Florida State University, the University of Wisconsin—Green Bay, the University of Wisconsin—Madison, and Clemson University. He is the author of sixteen books, including the creative writing textbook Contemporary American Poetry: Behind the Scenes and the poetry collection The Magical Breasts of Britney Spears. His work has been published in The Christian Science Monitor, The Iowa Review, Harvard Review, Mid American Review, The Missouri Review, Puerto del Sol, Ploughshares, The Progressive, Southern Humanties Review, TriQuarterly, and Writer's Digest. In 2006 he co-founded C&R Press (with fellow poet Chad Prevost), a non-profit literary organization that publishes early career poets and offers free community writing workshops throughout the Southeastern US. He currently works as a freelance writer, writing coach, and script doctor in Sarasota, Florida; he also is a contributing writer for Scene Magazine.

Van Cleave was the 2000-2001 Anastasia C. Hoffman Poetry Fellow at the University of Wisconsin—Madison's Institute of Creative Writing. He was the 2007-2008 Jenny McKean Moore Writer-in-Washington at George Washington University. His story "The Dynamite Train" received the 2006 Story of the Year prize from Spout Magazine. His poetry anthology Like Thunder: Poets Respond to Violence in America received the American Poetry Anthology Award (2003). His poem Aesculapius in the Underworld was included in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror (St. Martin's, 2002). He received the Theodore Christian Hoepfner Award from Southern Humanities Review in 2000. Also in 2000, he was an Edward H. and Marie C. Kingsbury Fellow at Florida State University.

Van Cleave obtained a B.A. in English from Northern Illinois University in 1994, a M.A. in American Literature from Florida State University in 1997, and a Ph.D. in American Literature from Florida State University in 2001.

Poetry

• Epistaxis...n., Med., a nosebleed. from Ploughshares
• Mensa Bob's Father from Sonora Review
• Lesson #2 from New York Quarterly
• Cultural Piracy from North American Review

Editor