Diaz Named Fellowship Recipient for Artist Residency Program

January 27, 2022

BLOOMINGTON, ILL. – Illinois Wesleyan professor of English Joanne Diaz was recently named the fourth recipient of the Richard S. and Julia Louise Reynolds Poetry Fellowship, allowing her to focus on her creative work at one of the nation’s largest artist residency programs.

This fully-funded residency offered by the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA) enabled Diaz to spend time in January at the residential artist community of Mount San Angelo estate in Virginia.

“I cannot overstate how grateful I am to have this time at VCCA. During my stay, I will have the opportunity to experiment with a poetry project that will require my full attention. I look forward to seeing what surprises this work will yield,” Diaz told the VCCA. 

Diaz has authored two poetry books, The Lessons (winner of the Gerald Cable Book Award in 2011) and My Favorite Tyrants (winner of the Brittingham Prize in Poetry in 2014). During her residency at Mount San Angelo, Diaz will focus on revising poems for a third book, Septimania . 

Diaz’s work has appeared in numerous publications, including American Poetry Review , Poetry Magazine and New England Review . She is the co-host of the Poetry for All podcast and co-editor of The Little Magazine in Contemporary America .

Supported by VCCA, the Richard S. and Julia Louise Reynolds Poetry Fellowship is a residency open to poets. Previous Reynolds Poetry Fellows include poets Amanda Galvan Huynh, John Poch and Patricia Spears Jones. Since 1971, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts has provided uninterrupted time and space for artists to produce works of literature, visual art and music. 

By Julia Perez