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 »

Lauren Markham

Visiting Alumnx CNF Writer, Winter 2018

Ravi Howard

Visiting Fiction Writer, Winter 2023

Jerald Walker

Visiting Creative Nonfiction Writer, Summer 2021

Jaquira Díaz

Visiting CNF Writer, Summer 2022

Sunil Yapa

Visiting Fiction Writer, Summer 2019

Alison Bechdel

Visiting Creative Nonfiction Writer, Summer 2016