Profile

Dolen Perkins-Valdez is the New York Times-bestselling author of Wench (2010), Balm (2015), and Take My Hand (April 2022). Wench was a finalist for two NAACP Image Awards and the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for fiction.  In 2013, Dolen wrote the introduction to a special edition of Solomon Northup’s Twelve Years a Slave, published by Simon & Schuster, which became a New York Times bestseller. Dolen is the current Chair of the Board of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation and is Associate Professor in the Literature Department at American University in Washington, DC. dolenperkinsvaldez.com »

Ravi Howard

Visiting Fiction Writer, Winter 2023

Yusef Komunyakaa

Visiting Poet, Winter 2022

Vandana Khanna

Visiting Poet, MFA in Writing

Dionne Irving

Visiting Writer, MFA in Writing

Samantha Hunt

Visting Fiction Writer, MFA in Writing

Jerald Walker

Visiting Creative Nonfiction Writer, Summer 2021