Richard Blanco, 2015
Blanco is a historic presidential inaugural poet, public speaker, teacher and memoirist, he continues to travel the world. The youngest, first Latino, immigrant, and gay person to be the inaugural poet, Blanco read “One Today,” an original poem he wrote for the occasion, at Obama’s inauguration ceremony on January 21, 2013.
Natasha Tretheway, 2016
Trethewey was born in Gulfport, Mississippi. The recipient of a Mississippi Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, Trethewey was named the 2008 Georgia Woman of the Year. She has served as Poet Laureate of Mississippi (2012-2016) and as the 19th US Poet Laureate (2012-2014). Other honors include the 2016 Academy of American Poets Fellowship.
Pam Houston, 2017
Houston teaches in the Low Rez MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts, is Professor of English at UC Davis, and is co-founder and creative director of the literary nonprofit Writing By Writers.
Joyce Carol Oates, 2018
Oates was born in Lockport, New York. One of the most prolific American writers of the 20th century, Oates is the author of over 70 books.
Angie Thomas, 2019
Angie Thomas was born, raised, and still lives in Jackson, Mississippi. A former teen rapper, she holds a BFA in creative writing from Belhaven University.
Kiese Laymon, 2021
Kiese Laymon is a Black southern writer from Jackson, Mississippi. He is the founder of “The Catherine Coleman Literary Arts and Justice Initiative,” a program that aims at getting Mississippi kids and their parents more comfortable reading, writing, revising and sharing.
Maurice Carlos Ruffin, 2022
Maurice Carlos Ruffin is the author of “The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You,” which was published in 2021 and was a New York Times Editor’s Choice. Ruffin is a professor of Creative Writing at Louisiana State University, and the 2020-2021 John and Renee Grisham “Writer-in-Residence” at the University of Mississippi.
Andrew Aydin, 2023
Andrew is creator and co-author of the graphic memoir series, MARCH, the first comics work to ever win the National Book Award. In 2019, Andrew joined with Kelly Sue Deconnick, Matt Fraction, Valentine DeLandro, and Vaughn Shinall to found Good Trouble Productions (GTP) to produce innovative nonfiction graphic novel and multimedia projects.
Casey Parks, 2024
CASEY PARKS attended Millsaps College and is now a Washington Post reporter who covers gender and family issues. She spent a decade at The Oregonian, where she wrote about race and LGBTQ+ issues and was a finalist for the Livingston Award. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Oxford American, ESPN, USA Today, and The Nation. Her memoir, “Diary of a Misfit,” was named one of the best books of 2022 and won the 2023 Oregon Book Award.
McMullan Writers Workshops 