Paisley Rekdal

Paisley Rekdal is the author of five books of nonfiction and eight collections of poetry, including Animal Eye (2012), Imaginary Vessels (2016), Nightingale (2019), West: A Translation, longlisted for the 2023 National Book Award in Poetry, and, Heritance (2026). Her work has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Fellowship, a Fulbright Fellowship, a Civitella Ranieri Residency, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, Pushcart Prizes (2009, 2013), Narrative’s Poetry Prize, the AWP Creative Nonfiction Prize, and various state arts council awards. She is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Utah, where she teaches in the Creative Writing Program and directs the American West Center. Between 2017-2022, she served as Utah’s Poet Laureate, receiving a 2019 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship. She currently serves as poetry editor for High Country News, and as co-chair of PEN America’s Utah Chapter.