Each year, thanks to the generosity of the ESRR Humanities/Arts Endowment Fund, the University of Utah Creative Writing Program brings in a nationally recognized ESRR Distinguished Visiting Writer to teach graduate and undergraduate workshops and seminars for a half semester or longer. The ESRR Distinguished Visiting Writer also gives a public reading, leads an informal craft conversation with students and the community, and participates in the larger literary culture of the university and Salt Lake.

August 22-Oct 11, 2022 ESRR Distinguished Visiting Writer

Douglas Kearney

Douglas Kearney has published seven books, most recently, Sho (Wave Books, 2021), a National Book Award, Pen American, and Minnesota Book Award finalist, and winner of the 2022 Griffin Prize. Buck Studies (Fence Books, 2016), is the winner of the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Award, the CLMP Firecracker Award for Poetry and silver medalist for the California Book Award (Poetry). His work is widely anthologized, including Best American Poetry (2014, 2015), Best American Experimental Writing (2014), Teaching Black: The Craft of Teaching on Black Culture and Literature,  What I Say: Innovative Poetry by Black Writers in America, The Future of Black, and Conceptualisms. His work has been exhibited at the American Jazz Museum, Temple Contemporary, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, and The Visitor’s Welcome Center (Los Angeles). Kearney received OPERA America’s Campbell Opera Librettist Prize, and has had four operas staged, most recently Sweet Land, which was namedOpera of the Year (2021) by the Music Critics Association of North America. He has received a Whiting Writer’s Award, a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Cy Twombly Award for Poetry, residencies/fellowships from Cave Canem, The Rauschenberg Foundation, and others.