ABOUT

L. Lamar Wilson, a multi-genre writer and filmmaker invested in documentary poetics, is the author of Sacrilegion—the 2012 selection for the Carolina Wren Press Poetry Series, a 2013 Independent Publishers Group bronze medalist, and a 2013 Thom Gunn Award finalist—and co-author of Prime: Poetry and Conversation (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2014, ed. Jericho Brown), with Phillip B. Williams, Rickey Laurentiis, Saeed Jones, and Darrel Alejandro Holnes. The Gospel Truth, a musical adaptation of Sacrilegion, was staged in 2014 and 2017, the latter time with a troupe that honors artists with cognitive and physical divergences and disabilities. The Changing Same, a POV Short collaboration with Rada Film Group that airs on PBS, was a special jury prize winner at the 2018 New Orleans Film Festival and named best documentary at the Sisters of the Diaspora Reel Film Festival, an honor for Rada's Michèle Stephenson. Vinyl nominated the poem at the film's center, “Resurrection Sunday,” for a Pushcart Prize.

Wilson’s art centers the voices and experiences of Black, Brown, and Indigenous folk, particularly femmes, thriving in the rural South despite relentless, centuries-long, settler-colonialist terrorism. Recent poems, essays, and interviews have appeared in The Nation, the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, Michigan Quarterly Review, New American Studies Journal, Hemingway Review, This Is the Honey (Little, Brown/Hatchette, 2024), Bigger Than Bravery: Black Resilience and Reclamation in a Time of Pandemic (Lookout Books, 2022), Poetry, and The New York Times.

Other works have appeared in African American Review, Bodies Built for Game: The Prairie Schooner Anthology of Contemporary Sports Writing (University of Nebraska P, 2019), Callaloo, Crazyhorse, Furious Flower: Seeding the Future of African American Poetry (Northwestern University P, 2019), Interim, A Literary Field Guide to Southern Appalachia (University of Georgia P, 2019), The 100 Best African American Poems (Sourcebooks, 2010), NPR, Oxford American, Race and Utopian Desire in American Literature and Society (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), The Root/The Washington Post, and TriQuarterly.

Wilson, a Florida A&M alumnus, has received fellowships from, among others, the Cave Canem, Civitella Ranieri, Ragdale, and Hurston-Wright foundations and the Florida Education Fund. He holds an MFA from Virginia Tech and a doctorate in African American and multiethnic American poetics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After nearly 18 years of award-winning editing in several of the nation’s top newsrooms, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, and professorial appointments at Davidson College, the University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa, and Wake Forest University, Wilson teaches creative writing, literature, film and gender studies at Florida State University and in the low-residency MFA program at Mississippi University for Women.

Click here for CV (Fall 2024)

Photo credit: ©Marco Giugliarelli for the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, 2024.

Interviews

" 'There Are Few Moments More Beautiful in This Life': The Reckoning and Reverie of When I Waked, I Cried to Dream Again." An Interview with A. Van Jordan." Michigan Quarterly Review. July 2024.

"Furious Flower Syllabus Project." James Madison University. July 2023.

“13.1 Miles Towards Truth and Justice.” Amplified Journey. Apple/Spotify Podcasts. 24 March 2022.

"A Strange and Bitter Crop" and "The Lynching of Claude Neal (NPR/Code Switch, White Lies, and Up First, October 2019-present)

The Best American Poetry Blog, with Abdul Ali (December 2016)

Lambda Literary interview with Darnell L. Moore (March 2013)

Blast Furnace interview (June & July 2011)

Awards and Fellowships

2024 Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellowship

2022-2023 Florida Education Fund's McKnight Junior Faculty Fellowship

2020 Pushcart Prize nominee, Oxford American, "Quare"

2019 Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Best Documentary Award, The Changing Same

2018 Special Jury Prize, New Orleans Film Festival, The Changing Same

2015 American Library Association’s “Over the Rainbow” Commendation, Prime: Poetry and Conversation

2013 Independent Publishers Award – Bronze, Sacrilegion

2012 Pushcart Prize nominee, Vinyl, “Resurrection Sunday”

2011 Beau Boudreaux Poetry Prize, Cream City Review

2010, 2008 New Letters Poetry Prize Finalist

2009 International Reginald Shepherd Memorial Poetry Prize Finalist, Knockout

2008 Emily Morrison Poetry Prize, Virginia Tech

Readings, Conference Presentations, and Lectures

July 20, 2024: "Reading: 'Hemingway's Boys Are' and 'Lauren Oya Olamina Explains Earthseed to Ernest Hemingway.'" "Hemingway in Black and White: Insights from the Making of a Special Issue of The Hemingway Review" Panel. 20th Biennial International Hemingway Conference. Bilbao, Spain. w/Ian Marshall, Margaret E. Wright-Cleveland, Morgan Lehofer, and Elena Zolotariov

Nov. 10, 2023: "Gloria Naylor's 'Bottomless Well of Mercy' in Bailey's Cafe and The Men of Brewster Place." "The Future of Utopia Is Queer" Panel. 46th Annual Society of Utopian Studies International Conference. "Pedagogies of Desire." Austin, Texas. w/Sarah Nolan Brueck and Madison Johnson.

March 26, 2022: “Poetry & Disability Justice.” w/Cave Canem and Zoeglossia’s Raymond Antrobus, Saleem Hue Penny, and Khadijah Queen. Association of Writers and Writing Programs. Zoom.

Oct. 6, 2021: “Cave Canem’s 25th Anniversary Reading w/Cornelius Eady, makalani bandele, Destiny Birdsong, Adrienne Christian, and Keith Wilson.” University of Tennessee-Knoxville. 25 October 2021. Zoom.

Oct. 1, 2021: “ ‘with love like black, our black’: Black Poetry and Literary Citizenship.” Cave Canem Foundation. . Zoom. “Fall Convergence: Memory and Memorial.” University of Washington-Bothell.

Zoom.

Dec. 6. 2020: “A Literary Field Guide to Southern Appalachia Reading.” N.C. Arboretum, Asheville. Zoom.

Sept. 2, 2020: “Asheville Poetry Open Mic.” Featured Reader. Sovereign Kava. Zoom.

Feb. 13, 2020: Jacar Press's Tribute to Lucille Clifton, with Tsitsi Jaji, The Regulator, Durham, N.C.

Oct. 15, 2019: “Poetry Reading & Film Screening: Wake Forest University.” ZSR Library Auditorium (404).

Oct. 8, 2019: “More Than a Metaphor: The Ethics of Writing Through a Legacy of Racialized Violence.” Frank Islam Anthenaeum Symposia Fall 2019 Series. Montgomery College. Germantown, Md.

July 25, 2019: “Lost Johnson, McKay Novels Extend the Arc of Satire in the New Negro Renaissance.” MLA International Symposium: “Remembering Lost Voices.” Universidade Católica Portuguesa-Lisbon.

July 24, 2019: “Quaring Myths: The Poetics of Sun Ra and Gil Scott-Heron and the Black Maternal.” MLA International Symposium: “Remembering Lost Voices.” Universidade Católica Portuguesa-Lisbon.

June 21, 2019: “Poetry Reading: Cincinnati Black Pride.” Contemporary Art Center.

June 6, 2019: “Poetry Invocation: ‘Better: Skylight, Skylark.’ ” Mellon Foundation Board of Trustees Meeting: “Enduring Injustice, Legacies of Resistance.” Alley Station—The Warehouse. Montgomery, Ala.

Nov. 2, 2018: “Cave Canem @ Hugo House.” With Quenton Baker, Amanda Johnston, Dante Micheaux, and Anastacia Renee. Hugo House. Seattle.

Nov. 1, 2018: “Ballast: An Intimate Reading.” With Quenton Baker, Amanda Johnston, and Dante Micheaux. Frye Art Museum. Seattle.

Oct. 25, 2018: “Poetry Reading: Double Lives, Double Trouble.” Old Dominion University Literary Festival.

Sept. 30, 2018: “Reading Queer: Poetry in the Time of Chaos Reading.” Los Angeles Literary Festival. With Ching-In Chen, Cathleen Chambliss, and Caridad Moro-McCormick.

Feb. 15, 2018: “Third Thursdays @ Auburn University.” Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art. Auburn, Ala.

Nov. 2, 2017: “Pure Products Reading Series.” Monarch Expresso Bar. Tuscaloosa, Ala.

June 2, 2017: “The Gospel Truth Interview.” WFSU Public Radio. Interview with Tom Flanagan.

April 7, 2017: “Reading.” Hendrix College. Bertie Wilson Murphy Building. Conway, Ark.

March 6, 2017: “Reading.” University of West Alabama. Livingston, Ala. With John Estes.

Feb. 16, 2017: “L. Lamar Wilson @ Nitty Gritty Magic City.” Desert Island Supply Company. Birmingham.

Jan. 19, 2017: “Speak Out for Equity.” The Peace Center. Greenville, S.C. With Mendy Knott.

Dec. 17, 2016: “A Conversation with L. Lamar Wilson.” Best American Poetry Blog. With Abdul Ali.

Nov. 7, 2016: “L. Lamar Wilson @ ASU.” Albany State University 10th Annual Poetry Festival. With Kwame Dawes, Douglas Kearney, and Kalamu y Salaam.

Oct. 15, 2016: “Writing (Fiction) Across the Carolinas: A Discussion with Writers.” Charlotte Mecklenburg Library. Francis Auditorium.

Sept. 14, 2016: “Bankhead Faculty Reading: John Estes and L. Lamar Wilson.” The University of Alabama. Sella-Granata Art Gallery.

April 2, 2016: “Play Ball!: An All-Star Reception With Prairie Schooner Editors & Contributors.” Association of Writers and Writing Programs Conference: Los Angeles JW Marriott.

Nov. 19, 2015: “Will Read for Food!” Fundraiser for Interactive Resource Center. Featured Reader w/UNC-Greensboro MFA Faculty.

Oct. 16, 2015: West End Poetry Festival. Featured Reader. Carrboro, N.C.

May 1-2, 2015: Northeast Modern Language Association Conference

“Remixing Ethnicity, Place, and Creative Writing.” “Love and Loss in Modernist Poetry.” “Excavating the Voice: Literature of Nineteenth-century African-American Women: Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson. ” With Christina Milletti, Ellen McWhorter, Judah-Micah Lamar, et al. Northeast Modern Language Association Conference. Toronto, Ontario. 1-2 May 2015.

April 9, 2015: Association of Writers and Writing Programs, Minneapolis, Minn.: "The Big No: Taboo and Black Sexuality in Contemporary American Poetry." With Kyle Dargan, Kima Jones, Chet'la Sebree, and Kevin Simmonds.

March 28, 2015: “Wake Up to Poetry” Reading. Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, N.C.

March 15, 2015: Sunday Kind of Love, Busboys and Poets, Washington, D.C.

Feb. 19, 2015: Black History Month Program, Davidson College, Davidson, N.C.

Jan. 28, 2015: Visiting Writer Series, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattisburg, Miss.

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