Maggie Nelson first UW Fall Semester Eminent Writer in Residence

August 21, 2012
Woman smiling
Maggie Nelson

Acclaimed nonfiction writer, poet and critic Maggie Nelson is the first Eminent Writer in Residence for the fall semester at the University of Wyoming.

During her weeklong residency, Nelson will consult closely with MFA Program in Creative Writing students, visit university classes and talk with students about the life of a writer.

She will read from her work Thursday, Aug. 30, from 6-8 p.m. at the UW Art Museum, 2111 Willett Drive. A reception and book signing follows Nelson’s free public presentation.

The New York Times, in a review of her latest nonfiction book, “The Art of Cruelty,” calls her a “wonderfully fearless writer, unpredictable and original.”

Nelson has written books of nonfiction, art criticism and poetry. Her recent works include “Bluets” (Wave Books 2009); “Women, the New York School, and Other True Abstractions” (University of Iowa Press 2007); and “The Red Parts: A Memoir” (Free Press 2007). Her several collections of poetry include “Something Bright, Then Holes” (Soft Skull Press 2007).

She has been awarded an Arts Writers grant from the Creative Capital/Andy Warhol Foundation for the visual arts and a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship for nonfiction. She lives in Los Angeles, where she teaches at the School of Critical Studies at California Institute of the Arts.

Next spring’s Eminent Writer in Residence will be Mark Nowak, a 2010 Guggenheim fellow and the author of “Coal Mountain Elementary” (2009) and “Shut Up Shut Down” (2004), both from Coffee House Press.

He recently appeared on BBC World News America, BBC Radio 3 and Pacifica Radio’s “Against the Grain,” to discuss global working class policies and issues. Nowak currently is the graduate creative writing program director at Manhattanville College in Purchase, N.Y.

“The MFA in Creative Writing Program aims to mentor a new generation of writers,” says Beth Loffreda, the program’s director. “Each semester, the Eminent Writer in Residence program brings distinguished writers to Wyoming.”

Previous writers include Edward P. Jones, Claudia Rankine, Joy Williams, Rattawut Lapcharoensap, Ed Roberson, Rebecca Solnit and Philip Gourevitch.

For more information about Nelson and UW’s Eminent Writer in Residence program, visit the MFA website at www.uwyo.edu/creativewriting or contact Gwynn Lemler at (307) or email cw@uwyo.edu.

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