University of Georgia
Creative Writing Program

It is an inspiring as well as humbling experience to lead this program that produces work that leads global literary conversations. 

My colleagues have continued to produce globally relevant work which puts the university and the department in the spotlight. This year, Professor LeAnne Howe's novel Shell Shaker will be published with a new cover; it has been in print consistently for twenty-five years, and her publisher, Aunte Lute Books, will be celebrating this milestone nationwide with events. Professor Chigozie Obioma is judging the European Prize for Literature 2026 and the European Translation Prize for Fiction; Professor Andrew Zawacki released a new collection of poems with Verve Books and presented his photography in a number of places in Australia. Professor Magdalena Zurawski will be on leave, focusing on her nonfiction book, after winning a Willson Center Fellowship; earlier she made progress towards this project as a Macdowell Fellow. 

Alongside this, the graduate students remind us year after year why we return to the class to discuss literature and craft and to organize events for the community. During the year, they organized community readings and were invited to present their work across the nation. They won prestigious national and international honors. O-Jeremiah Agbaakin won a literary prize from the UK and two fellowships from the Georgia Writers Association; Rahad Abir’s work was nominated for a Pushcart Prize; Priyadarshini Gogoi was on the Parag Honor List for her children’s book for a third consecutive year; Javier Sandoval's poetry was selected for the Best American Poetry 2025 anthology. The graduate students in CWP generated at least eighteen other creative publications in all genres, across magazines, anthologies, and online venues, as well as presented in a number of academic conferences. The work of our students continue to strengthen the spirit of the program that prides itself on this unique marriage of literary scholarship and craft. 

What the world will read nationally and internationally tomorrow is produced today in Park Hall. That is a fascinating thought that brings me back to this building every day to be part of this community. Thank you for trusting me to lead this program

Our Creative Writing Program has long understood that a writing program is not confined to the classroom. Writing flourishes through conversation—with other writers, with readers, with teachers and students, with other creative writing programs, and with the wider community. The 2025–2026 academic year offered a particularly rich series of opportunities to encounter writers and writing from across the literary landscape and from distant corners of the globe. These events represent something fundamental to the mission of the Department of English. They remind us that literary study is an active and communal practice: we read together, listen together, argue about ideas, encounter unfamiliar perspectives, and discover new possibilities for our own writing.

Our faculty and students have yet another outstanding year behind them with a series of new publications and various awards and recognitions. These accomplishments are an important reminder that the work of a writing program is ultimately both local and expansive: rooted in the relationships and creative exchanges of our community while reaching readers far beyond Athens. My thanks go to our Creative Writing faculty and students and the many colleagues and partners whose work makes these events possible. Most of all, I am grateful for the generosity and creative energy that our writers bring to Park Hall and to the larger UGA community.