Prize-winning poet to give reading, lead workshop

Joy Priest will serve as the 2026 Virginia Butts Sturm Writer-in-Residence, featuring a public reading at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 9, in Colson Hall, Room 130.

She will also lead a workshop for graduate students in creative writing through Thursday, Nov. 12. 

The 2020 recipient of the Donald Hall Prize for Poetry, she is the author of “Horsepower” and the editor of “Once a City Said: A Louisville Poetry Anthology.” Her forthcoming book, “The Black Outside,” described by the author Ross Gay as “a deft, well-crafted, book-length poetic mediation on family, race, ecology, and more,” will be published in early 2027.

Priest previously visited the University in the summer of 2025 as a faculty member of the West Virginia Writers’ Workshop.

“Joy Priest is an incredible writer and a dynamic reader of her powerful work,” said Mark Brazaitis, a professor of English and director of the Creative Writing Program. “She’ll amaze you with her words. Guaranteed.”