Office: Keezell 209
Fall 2024 Office Hours: T/Th 3:45-5:00pm, & by appt.
Phone: (540) 568-6130

Website: http://www.gregwrenn.com

Areas of Specialization
Poetry; Poetry Writing; Creative Nonfiction; Environmental Writing; Memoir; LGBT Literature

Education

• Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Poetry (Non-Degree Study), Stanford University
• M.F.A., Writing (Poetry), Washington University in St. Louis
• B.A., English and American Literature and Language, Harvard University, Magna Cum Laude with Highest Honors in Field

Bio

A former Stegner Fellow and Jones Lecturer at Stanford University, Greg Wrenn is the author of the ayahuasca eco-memoir Mothership: A Memoir of Wonder and Crisis, an evidence-based account of his turning to coral reefs and psychedelic plants to heal from childhood trauma, and Centaur (U of Wisconsin Press 2013), which National Book Award-winning poet Terrance Hayes awarded the Brittingham Prize. 

​Greg's work has appeared or is forthcoming in HuffPost, The New Republic, Al Jazeera, The Rumpus, LitHub, Writer's Digest, Kenyon Review, New England Review, The Iowa Review, and elsewhere. He has received awards and fellowships from the James Merrill House, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Vermont Studio Center, the Poetry Society of America, the Hermitage Artist Retreat, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Spiro Arts Center. On his Mothership book tour, he has spoken to audiences around the world about his work, including at Yale School of Medicine, the University of Utah School of Medicine, and the University of Virginia School of Nursing. Greg has also been on numerous podcasts, including Levi Chambers's PRIDE, and was interviewed by Emmy Award-winning journalist Elizabeth Vargas on NewsNation​.
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As an associate English professor at James Madison University, he teaches creative nonfiction, poetry, and environmental literature, and directs the JMU Creative Writing Minor. He also teaches in the low-residency MFA Program at Bennington Writing Seminars and in the Memoir Certificate Program at Stanford Continuing Studies. He was educated at Harvard University and Washington University in St. Louis.

Books

• Mothership: A Memior of Wonder and Crisis (Regalo Press, 2024)
• Centaur (University of Wisconsin Press, 2013)
• Off the Fire Road (Green Tower Press, 2009)
• Homesick (Poetry collection submitted to publishers)

• Artist Residency, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Amherst, Virginia, 2021
• Writer-in-Residence, James Merrill House, Stonington, CT, 2021
• Six-Week Residency Award, Hermitage Artist Retreat, Englewood, Florida, 2019-2020
• Drew Darrow Memorial Poet, Stadler Center Writers Series, Bucknell University, 2015
• Visiting Writer, Emerging Poets Festival, Franklin & Marshall College, 2014
• Debut Poets Roundup, Poets & Writers, January/February 2014
• Axton Visiting Writer, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, 2013
• The Writer Magazine/Emily Dickinson Award, Poetry Society of America, 2013
• Margaret Bridgman Scholar at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, 2012
• Lyric Poetry Award, Poetry Society of America, 2012
• Brittingham Prize for Poetry, University of Wisconsin Press, 2012
• Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Poetry, Stanford University, 2010-2012
• Full Fellowship and Artist-in-Residence, Spiro Arts, 2010
• Artist’s Grant and Residency, Vermont Studio Center, 2009
• Full Scholarships, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, 2007-2009
• Third-Year Writing Fellowship for Poetry, Washington University in St. Louis, 2008