Pulitzer Prize winner to kick off Randolph’s first M.F.A. residency

Gregory Pardlo

Randolph’s new M.F.A. in creative writing program will celebrate the beginning of its inaugural residency this summer with a Pulitzer Prize winning author. Gregory Pardlo will meet with M.F.A. students this summer.

Pardlo’s poetry collection, Digest, won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. He has also been selected for fellowships with the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. His first collection, Totem, was selected by Brenda Hillman for the APR/Honickman Prize in 2007. He is the poetry editor for the Virginia Quarterly Review and also now serves on the advisory board for Randolph’s M.F.A. in creative writing program.

“When we first talked to Gregory Pardlo about our new program, he was excited and enthused about how we were connecting our vision for the new program with our rich literary history,” said Gary Dop, English professor and director of Randolph’s M.F.A. in creative writing program. “When he joined our M.F.A. advisory board, he pushed us toward several of the writers we have added to our teaching faculty.”

At one time, Pardlo himself taught classes at Randolph as part of the College’s Emerging Writers program. He is currently working on a new memoir in essays called Air Traffic.

“Greg knows our college and this community from when he was an emerging writer here years back, and he’s excited to return,” Dop said. “When we were considering launching this program, we knew that he would be an ideal writer for our first MFA Residency Keynote.”

For more information about Randolph’s M.F.A. in creative writing program, please visit http://mfa.randolphcollege.edu/.