The U of A Program in Creative Writing and Translation in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences is proud to welcome poet Rachel Mennies as its 2021-22 Walton Visiting Writer in Poetry.

Mennies will give a virtual reading of her work at 7 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 4, in collaboration with the program and the Fayetteville Public Library.

 A link to register for the free public event can be found on the library's website at www.faylib.org/event/5567346.

Mennies is the author of the poetry collections The Naomi Letters (BOA Editions, 2021), The Glad Hand of God Points Backwards and No Silence in the Fields, a chapbook from Blue Hour Press. She is the 2014 winner of the Walt McDonald First-Book Prize in Poetry at Texas Tech University Press and finalist for a National Jewish Book Award. 

Mennies is the series editor of the Walt McDonald First-Book Prize in Poetry and serves as the reviews editor for AGNI. Alongside the poet Ruth Awad, she edited the anthology The Familiar Wild: On Dogs and Poetry for Sundress Publications (2020).

Her poetry has recently appeared at The Believer, Kenyon Review, American Poetry Review and elsewhere. Rachel's essays, criticism and other articles have appeared, or will soon, at The Millions, The Poetry Foundation, LitHub and numerous other outlets.

Each year, the Walton Visiting Writers series in the Program in Creative Writing and Translation brings esteemed authors in poetry, fiction and literary translation to the U of A to give free public readings and to work with graduate students in the creative writing M.F.A. program.

Past Walton Writers include Natalie Diaz, Chris Abani, Caryl Phillips, Franz Wright, Esther Allen and Karen Tei Yamashita.

This event is made possible by the Program in Creative Writing and Translation, the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, the Department of English, the Walton Family Foundation, the Fayetteville Public Library and the James E. and Ellen Wadley Roper Professorship in Creative Writing.