EDUCATION:

• Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (Poetry), Jan. 2006, Graduate Certificate in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Aug. 2005, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
• Masters of Arts in English and Creative Writing, Dec. 2002, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 
• Bachelor of Arts in English, minor in Communication Arts (Magna Cum Laude, Honors), May 2001, St Francis College, Brooklyn Heights, NY

EXPERIENCE & AREA OF EXPTERTISE: 

Lauren K. Alleyne (she/her) serves as Executive Director of the Furious Flower Poetry Center and a Professor of English. She is author of two collections Honeyfish (2019), Difficult Fruit (2014), two chapbooks Dawn in the Kaatskills and (Un)Becoming Gretel, and co-editor of Furious Flower: Seeding the Future of African American Poetry. Her work has been widely published in journals and anthologies internationally, including venues such as The Atlantic, The New York Times, and Ms., among several others. 

HONORS AND AWARDS: 

• US Artist Award nomination in 2023.  
• NAACP Image Award nomination for Oustanding Poetry in 2020.
• Green Rose Prize from New Issues Press in 2017.
• Shortlisted for the BOCAS Prize for Caribbean Literature and the Library of Virginia prize for poetry in 2020.
• Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia in 2022.
• JMU Agency Star Award in 2022. 

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:

“How could I have known I would need to remember your laughter,” Poets.org poem-a-day, Jul. 2022  

“Divination,” Best American Poets, Scribner Sept. 2021 

“Poetry After the Verdict,” and “Elegy” Revisiting the Elegy in the Black Lives Matter Era, Routledge, Feb. 2020  

“Manager’s Tips for Working at the San Francisco Restaurant and Bar,” The New York Times Magazine, Mar. 2019 

Honeyfish, Peepal Tree Press, Leeds, UK. 2019. 

“Martin Luther King Jr Mourns Trayvon Martin,” The Atlantic, 2018